Week 16

01. What will it do?

Krypto Support is a wearable vest for my Scotch Terrier, Krypto, who was diagnosed with Intervertebral Disc Disease (IVDD). The vest embeds an IMU sensor (MPU-6050) that continuously monitors his movement, orientation, and activity levels throughout the day.

The data is processed by a XIAO ESP32 microcontroller and transmitted via Wi-Fi to a web dashboard where I can see real-time alerts when unusual movement patterns are detected — such as a sudden loss of balance, abnormal gait, or a sharp drop in activity.

The dashboard also logs all data over time, so I can export a CSV report and share it with Krypto's veterinarian. Instead of describing symptoms from memory, the vet gets objective, timestamped data showing exactly what happened, when, and how often.

02. Who has done what beforehand?

Several related projects and products informed this design:

• 1 FitBark / PetPace — commercial pet activity trackers that clip to collars. They track general activity but don't focus on neurological conditions like IVDD, and their data is locked into proprietary apps with no CSV export.
• 2 Sports medicine IMU wearables — research projects using body-worn IMUs to detect gait abnormalities in human patients. The threshold-based alert logic is adapted from this field.
• 3 Previous Fab Academy wearable projects — several students have built pet or human wearables, helping me understand how to route electronics inside textile garments and design removable PCB pockets.
• 4 Veterinary telemedicine platforms — inspired the data export and report features, since vets increasingly work with remote monitoring data.

03. What sources will you use?

04. What will you design?

• 1 Fitted vest garment — custom-patterned to Krypto's measurements, with integrated wire channels and an internal electronics pocket.
• 2 Custom PCB — designed in KiCad with the XIAO ESP32 footprint, IMU connector, status LED, button, and LiPo charging circuit.
• 3 3D-printed enclosure — designed in Shapr3D to house the PCB and battery inside the vest pocket, with openings for USB charging and the IMU cable.
• 4 Web dashboard interface — HTML/CSS/JS frontend displaying real-time movement data, alert history, and a CSV export button.
• 5 Firmware — C++ code for the ESP32 that reads the IMU, applies threshold logic, and transmits data over Wi-Fi.

05. What materials and components will be used?

06. Where will they come from?

07. How much will they cost?

08. What parts and systems will be made?

09. What processes will be used?

10. What questions need to be answered?

• ? What IMU sampling rate gives the best balance between data quality and battery life?
• ? What acceleration and gyroscope thresholds reliably distinguish a stumble from normal play?
• ? How long will the LiPo battery last in continuous monitoring vs. periodic sampling?
• ? Can the vest withstand daily wear without displacing the sensor?
• ? What is the effective Wi-Fi range from the vest to the router in a typical home?
• ? How should the data be structured for a vet — raw logs, summary statistics, or flagged events?
• ? Is the enclosure resistant enough for light rain or drool?

11. How will it be evaluated?

• ✓ Functional test — Krypto wears the vest for a full day; the dashboard receives continuous data without disconnections.
• ✓ Alert accuracy — simulate known movement patterns (rest, walk, stumble) and verify the system triggers correct alerts.
• ✓ Comfort test — observe Krypto's behavior while wearing the vest: no scratching, biting, or restricted movement.
• ✓ Battery endurance — measure hours of continuous operation before recharging (target: 8+ hours).
• ✓ Data quality — export a CSV log and verify it contains complete, well-formatted, timestamped readings with no gaps.
• ✓ Vet feedback — share a sample data export with Krypto's veterinarian and ask if the format and metrics are clinically useful.

Task timeline

The remaining weeks are organized so that each subsystem is built, tested individually, and then brought together during the final integration phase.