Create a tool to help Silvia picking up her dog's poop!

About Silvia

Silvia has dedicated her private and professional life to animals. In a horseriding accident last year, Silvia acquired a spinal cord injury resulting in quadriplegia. She recently moved into her first own apartment after the accident and is finding new ways to manage her daily life. At the health hackathon 2024, she would like to find one more.

Challenge

Silvia uses a wheelchair and has a hand paresis, which makes it hard to pick up things from the floor. Every weekend, Silvia takes care of a dog that likes to mind dogs' business. Silvia wants a device that helps her pick up her dog's poo.

Solution

The challenge wasn’t just to design a device for picking up Silvia’s dog’s poop—it also needed to be easy to prepare before using it, lightweight to carry, and simple to dispose of waste. We created “The Kraken” by hacking a commercial dog poop scooper and attaching it to the end of an arm extension. To make it easier for Silvia to use, we also redesigned the grip’s closing mechanism so it requires little to no force to operate.

A week after the hackathon we received a message from Silvia saying: ‘Die Kraken funktioniert!’