Project Summary | Project Information |
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MS patients can be adversely affected by heat; they fatigue more quickly and their symptoms become more pronounced. There are a variety of body vests and accessories currently available for cooling, but they are not ideal. Most of these products are bulky, short-lived and unfashionable making them unpopular with MS patients. A phase change material with potential for a cooling system design has been identified but needs further investigation and optimization to be used in this context. The goals for this project are to analyze and optimize the phase change material in the body cooling application and to determine the feasibility for use. A testing apparatus will be designed to test different garments and body locations to determine the ideal cooling parameters. The end result will be a functional prototype that has been tested and found to provide the most efficient method of cooling. For additional details of the project description, click on the following link for the Project Readiness Package. |
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Team Members

Body Cooling System Team Engineers. From left: Jared Raphael, Ben Spangler, Mallory Wingate, Alyssa Lorczak, Crystal Mendoza.
Member | Major | Role | Contact |
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Alyssa Lorczak | BME | Chief Testing Engineer | aml1855@rit.edu |
Benjamin Spangler | ME | Lead Engineer | benspangler1992@gmail.com |
Mallory Wingate | BME | Project Manager | mww3472@rit.edu |
Jared Raphael | ISE | Quality Manager | jtr1564@rit.edu |
Crystal Mendoza Paulin | BME | Communications | crystalr.mendoza@gmail.com |
Brad Dunn | ID | Designer | braddunn0@gmail.com |
Lara Cardoso Goulart | ID | Designer | lxc9693@rit.edu |
Kurtis Unruh-Kracke | ID | Designer | kwu9144@g.rit.edu |
John Robinson | Accounting | Business Manager | jrobinson3461@icloud.com |
Table of Contents
MSD I & II | MSD I | MSD II |
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Integrated System Build & Test |
Acknowledgements
The Body Cooling System Team would like to thank the following people for their contributions to the project:- The Upstate NY Chapter of the MS Society
- Al Sigl's Community of Agencies
- Industrial Design Studio 2.0
- Simone Center
- National Science Foundation
- Adam Podolec
- Dr. Charlie Tabb
- Dr. Daniel Phillips
- RIT's Biomedical Engineering Department
- Professor William Brewer
- Dr. Reginald Rogers
- Yolegmma Marquez
- Dr. Stan Rickel
- Austin Zuercher
- Rick LeRoy
- Shari Mazzella