1. Name of the school: Greendale Secondary School
Address: 51 Edgedale plains, Singapore 828866
School Leader: Mr Mark Minjoot
Story title: Ipulley is for Life
Tel: 63158616 Email: greendale_ss@moe.edu.sg
Mentor Teacher: Mr Norman Loh
Student Information:
1) Name: Krystelle Seow Gek See
Age: 14 Grade: Secondary 2
2) Name: Shanice Ng Yi Xuan
Age: 14 Grade: Secondary 2
3) Name: Gan Wei Leong
Age: 14 Grade: Secondary 2
4) Name: Sim Pei Yi
Age: 14 Grade: Secondary 2
5) Name: Choo Jia Yik
Age: 14 Grade: Secondary 2
6)

2. 
2nd Week of August
We are attempting to improve the Ideas include:
lifestyle of the population of the
elderly age group, who are likely to Creating a video presentation to
experience various health related spread the awareness of the
problems. These problems could problems faced by the elderly.
further affect them in ways such as Creating an equipment to facilitate a
their emotional and mental well- convenient exercise workout.
being.
Design Need
Dementia, Parkinson’s disease, Osteoporosis and Stroke are just some illnesses that
have been known to plague the lives of the elderly. These problems arise due to
several factors affecting their lives, such as the fear of losing independence, being
unable to take care of their daily basic needs, losing of friends and family to old age
and the agony of loneliness in their daily lives. This constant worrying and stress can
lead to depression and other mental conditions, which then give rise to other
illnesses.

3. In recent years, the severity of issues affecting the elderly has been magnified at a
societal level. With greater awareness of elderly issues and a rapidly greying
population, there is an increased number of day care centres for the elderly. The role
of the day care centres, as its name suggests, is to provide physical care for the
elderly in the absence of its caregivers. That aside, these day care centres also seek to
fill the emotional void in the elderly as they are given the opportunity to socialize
with fellow elderly people. In recognition of the importance of physical exercise in
the lives of the elderly, estates in Singapore are designed with to fit exercise corners
and some are even equipped with specially-designed exercise for the elderly to
perform simple movements such as swinging their limbs and lifting of weights.
Design Situation
In our recent visit to the St Luke Elder Home, our team of 5 members witnessed first-
hand how the elderly spend their teatime interacting, exercising and resting. There
was a physiotherapy room equipped with machines to train their psychomotor skills.
Some of them were engaged in board games, coloring sessions, threading of needles
to stimulate their brain function.
We noticed that the there is this particular exercise which requires the elderly to pull
two handles in a vertical motion training their arm coordination. However there were
only 2 sets of these systems, because it was bolt to the wall, and there were not
enough wall space to accommodate more systems. Probably because it was bolt to
the wall, the management has to make sure that there was a demand for more
machines before they bolt another. This results in a lot of inconvenience for the
elderly, as they are unable to exercise in any other direction, and location of their
choice.

4. Design Solution
Our solution to this problem of inconvenience is to design a system that allows
more flexibility in the set up. In another words, our design should be mobile but
at the same time safe for the elderly to exercise with. By researching on the
products currently available, we were equipped with knowledge to design our
own exercising machine. After much discussion, alterations and rejections, we
finally decided on a design and have it fabricated. At the end of the day, we
decided to name it ipulley.
Amidst our packed term schedule, we managed to arrange a trip down to the
home to test our finished product. We were simply thrilled at the opportunity of
having our target users try out our product!
We were simply delighted upon receiving the smiles and kind encouraging words
from the warm and friendly elderly. However, we could not lengthen our stay long
enough for everyone of the residents of the home to try out our ipulley.
From the suggestions we received after the testing, we work on improving our
machine, and work towards improving the lives of the elderly, as our team
strongly believes that Exercise is for LIFE!
A few constraints that we encountered may have impeded the effectiveness of
this study, and as a result our impacted group consists of 15 elderly. Firstly, not
every elderly in the home were allowed to try our product due to certain
regulations established by the day care centre. Secondly, pupils were not able to
conduct interviews with the elderly well due to language barriers. Lastly, the
photo-taking policies in the home meant that we could not submit more pictures
to lend evidence to our conceptualization. Nevertheless, it was an enriching
learning journey for the pupils involved in the project.