Teach Engineering: Designing Medical Devices for the Ear

Learners are introduced to biomedical engineering and the engineering design process through a short lecture and an activity in which they design their own medical devices for retrieving foreign bodies from the ear canal. They learn about ear anatomy and ear infections, which are treated with antibiotics and the insertion of ear tubes to drain fluid from the middle ear. Medical devices for this procedure are limited. So biomedical engineers must think creatively to develop new solutions for inserting these ear tubes. Students will design prototype medical devices to solve another ear problem commonly experienced by children: the lodging of a foreign body (such as a pebble, bead or popcorn kernel) in the ear canal. The activity concludes by teams sharing and verbally analyzing their devices.