Espaitec, the science and technology park of the Universitat Jaume I, will continue to promote initiatives such as Kimibox through the cooperation agreement with the Generalitat Valenciana.

Espaitec, the Science and Technology Park of the Universitat Jaume I, will continue to promote co-creative projects at the UJI.>LAB, through the cooperation agreement with the Regional Ministry of Universal Health and Public Health for the design and implementation of Kimibox in the Paediatric Oncology Unit of the Castelló General University Hospital.

Espaitec, the Science and Technology Park of the Universitat Jaume I, will continue to promote projects such as Kimibox at the UJI.>LAB, the Espaitec LivingLab, with the support of the Paediatric Oncology Unit of the General University Hospital of Castelló, through the cooperation agreement with the Generalitat Valenciana, through the Department of Universal Health and Public Health. The Kimibox initiative is based on the manufacture of boxes to hold medication for chemotherapy processes, decorated with different elements, in a process of co-creation between the students of the degree in Industrial Design and Product Development Engineering of the UJI and a team of professionals from the Paediatric Oncology Unit of the HGUC.

The Kimibox project was initiated because of the need to give encouragement and strength to children and adolescents throughout the cancer treatment process, together with their families and closest environment, during the process of the disease, providing them with extra help and motivation from an emotional perspective. In circumstances such as these, not only is medical-health care sufficient, from the point of view of oncological treatment, but psychological and social support actions are also necessary for patients and families in order to offer them strength, support and help during the course of the disease.

The UJI.>LAB Challenge Kimibox

The main objective of the Kimibox project was to design and 3D print, with the help of Espaitec’s rapid prototyping laboratory, FabLab, a set of boxes that will hold chemotherapy doses, so that the treatment bags will be hidden behind them and, through their designs, humanise the medication process. The chemotherapy boxes were decorated with different elements such as stickers, blackboards and cartoon figures.

The Kimibox initiative was developed within the UJI.>LAB Challenge initiative, focused on the resolution of societal challenges by the university community, with the participation of students of the degree in Industrial Design Engineering and Product Development of the Universitat Jaume I, who, in a co-creative process together with health professionals from the Paediatric Oncology Unit of the General University Hospital of Castelló, proposed possible solutions and designs to the challenge of the humanisation of paediatric oncological treatment. The session was carried out using the Innovation Camp methodology, based on a hybridisation adapted from various known methodologies that promote the development of open, collaborative and multidisciplinary innovation processes in which people explore, experiment, prototype, validate with real users, discover and, above all, learn. In other words, a LivingLab in its pure essence. The students worked in several groups and using graphic support to define the problem and propose the best solution.

Validation of the UJI.>LAB Challenge Kimibox designs

The undergraduate students of Industrial Design and Product Development Engineering of the Universitat Jaume I delivered the prototypes designed to the Paediatric Oncology Unit of the HGUC for validation. The manufacture of the Kimibox boxes was carried out in Espaitec’s prototyping laboratory, FabLab, which was at the disposal of the participating students during the manufacturing period. Specifically, the Kimibox boxes were manufactured using 3D printers and computers with the Cura software installed.

The main objective was to validate the functionality in a real healthcare environment. To do so, they evaluated aspects such as the emotional impact of the Kimibox designs on children or adolescents during treatment; the assembly and mounting system; the storage system; the suitability of Kimibox in the cleaning and/or sterilisation process; the durability together with the suitability to the healthcare environment (corners, sharp areas, etc.) that may compromise the treatment administration bag.

UJI.>LAB, the LivingLab of Espaitec

The UJI.>LAB is an environment that Espaitec makes available to students, faculty and research groups at the Universitat Jaume I to boost the generation of innovative ideas, linked to the challenge-solution paradigm, with a multidisciplinary strategy, that is, under a 360º prism. To this end, it incorporates a set of mechanisms that will allow the proposals of the university community to materialise, such as the FabLab, a laboratory for prototyping initiatives that result in a tangible product. To achieve this, it has the most advanced technology in 3D printers, resin printers, laser cutters, cutting plotters, precision CNC and CNC for large formats.

UJI.>LAB has been made possible thanks to funding from the Valencian Agency for Innovation (AVI) from 2020 to the present.