Personalized Scuba Mask

Inspiration

Current Scuba masks are made from one uniform mold in factories. This is inconvenient for divers with varying facial features to find the right mask. Divers frequently need to resort to poor quality junior masks with smaller glass lenses due to narrow facial contour. Smaller lenses restrict field of vision and prevent the diver from fully experiencing underwater sceneries. Divers with wide faces have no choice but settle with one sized masks available on the market and have unpleasant pressure marks after each dive. The one size fit all product increases chances of leakage under water, which can be daunting for beginner divers; since the only way to clear water is to forcefully exhale through nose to purge the water. For experienced divers who stay underwater for longer time can experience discomfort from the mismatched silicon skirts that create higher pressure on certain parts of their faces.

What it does

We strive to create a system which manufacture customizable scuba masks for everyone (divers/snorkelers). We aim to enhance the user experience of snorkeling and diving by improving upon the existing one size fits all design via innovative manufacturing process.

How we built it

While the idea remains at a conceptual stage now, we have planned out the procedure of manufacture:

1. The customer’s facial contour is scanned via an apparatus that rotates around the subject under a certain angular velocity
2. The raw data can either be stored in form of a video or series of pictures.
3. The raw data undergoes image analysis in Matlab and transformed into matrices with 0s and 1s, with 1s representing the contour border of the face. The total number of matrices will correspond to the number of pictures sampled.
4. The matrices will then undergo further processing which will place each individual matrix at an angle to the initial reference plane which the camera began sampling. The result is a 3D matrix structure which contain the points of the surface of the face.
5. The matrix will be sent into a CAD software which will then connect the points into a plane. The whole plane will then be extruded by a small amount and this will be exported as STL file.
6. The STL file will be sent to 3D printing where either the silicone mold can be printed directly or a plastic mold will first be printed then a layer of silicon press fitted onto the mold to yield the mask skirt that is customized to the customer.

Challenges we ran into

1. Final product price must be approximately $200, based on current scuba mask market.
2. 3D scan protocol is hard to develop at a low cost, since this technology is still relatively new. The speed of scanning and processing is limited, hence prolonging the production time of the customized masks.
3. Due to the limited ability of 3D printers to print high quality, soft silicones, a mold must be made prior of silicone pressing. This increases the complexity of the procedures, requiring higher budget and more trained personnel.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Successfully identified a feasible solution to the existing problem and designed a tentative manufacturing process for the solution.

What we learned

We learnt that there is still more to be done to test and improve our design process.

What's next for Personalized Scuba Mask

We are looking for affordable 3D facial imaging tools and recruit a small number of interested diver customers to participate in a prototyping process.