Completed Product

Although I did not meet my goal of completing my product before May 1st, it felt great finishing it a few days early. I finally completed my product on May 8th, and I took pictures of it at the doctor's office on May 9th. The last steps of completing my product included the following: making a model hearing aid, creating my pamphlet, and finishing the inner ear. The hearing aid was by far the easiest component of my product. The model was of an in-the ear hearing aid, which is placed outside of the ear. I used a piece of clay to create it by molding it and making it an exact fit for my outer ear model. The pamphlet was not difficult, but I had a hard time picking out the most important information to include in it. After I baked the models, I made some last changes to my pamphlet, and I was done!

The pictures above show my completed product on display at the Carolina ENT Specialists office. The pamphlet and models are available for patients, as well as doctors to refer to when needed. (If you notice a funny orange shape inside of the outer ear, it's the in-the-ear hearing aid.)

Inner ear

I was getting closer to the end of my project in this picture as I molded and painted a portion of the inner ear. I used different colors so that the different parts of the ear would stand out. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly how I could make it. I originally wanted the model to stand up, but I found that it was much easier to make it so that it laid flat. After finishing the inner ear, I baked it in my oven so that it would harden at 275 degrees for about twenty minutes.

Painting

In this picture, my mentor, Shari, and I were painting the outer ear model. This was towards the end of the first third of my product's completion.

In this picture, I was molding a model of the outer ear at Pottery Place Studios across from Concord Mills Mall. Starting out the model was fairly difficult, but once I kept working at it, it all started to come together.

Getting There...

I'm still striving towards my goal of being completely through with the product portion of my project before May 1st. I have been working on my pamphlet about hearing loss, as well as molding the inner ear for my model. Molding the ear is still challenging, but whenever my mentor and I get frustrated with working with clay, we just change gears and work on the pamphlet. I did not know that creating the pamphlet would be so time consuming. Before I actually began working on it, I thought that it would take an hour or two at the most to complete. However, it has taken up a lot of time, as well as constructing the inner ear. I must admit that I am afraid of the outcome of my inner ear model... hopefully, it will be evident that although I am not artistically- gifted, I still gave 110% effort when it came to creating it. So much of my effort and time has been put into the project.

The easy part is through!!!

My research paper is about hearing loss in the elderly population and the positive outcomes of using hearing aids, undergoing corrective surgery, and participating in communication therapy, also known as aural rehabilitation. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to create an anatomical model of an ear and the different parts to it that help it to function properly. Before I actually began creating the model, I anticipated slight problems along the way, but I did not foresee the great conundrums I have faced so far. My mentor, Shari, and I began creating my product at a make- your- own pottery studio in Concord. We created an enlarged model of the outer ear out of modeling clay, and it is now complete! While shaping the outer ear, we thought that it was difficult, but when we started to attempt to create the inner ear, we were stumped. I want my model to be intricate and neat, not effortlessly thrown together. My mentor and I have agreed that we are two of the most non-artistic people ever, and creating a model of the inner ear is definitely a great challenge for the both of us. On the brighter side of things, atleast one-third of my product is complete (the outer ear). After completing the inner ear, I will create a tri-fold pamphlet that will provide information revolving around the issue of hearing loss in senior citizens. My goal is to have finished constructing the inner ear by May 1st... we only have a few more weeks until the entire project is over!!!!!