By means of the UJI.>LAB project, Espaitec is undertaking the Kimibox initiative to produce small boxes for storing the medication applied during chemotherapy processes. Boxes are decorated with various elements and designed by UJI Industrial Design students supported by healthcare professionals
The Kimibox project emerged from the need to encourage and give strength to boys, girls and adolescents throughout cancer treatment, and to the people in their families and those close to them during this illness, by providing them with help and further motivation from an emotional perspective. In these situations, not only is medico-healthcare attention from the cancer treatment viewpoint necessary, but so are socio-psychological support actions for patients and their relations to give them strength, support and help while they are ill.
The main objective of Kimibox is to design and print in 3D, with the help of Espaitec’s rapid prototyped laboratory FabLab, a series of small boxes for storing chemotherapy doses so that treatment bags are hidden behind them and their designs humanise the medication process. These chemotherapy boxes are decorated with various elements; for example, stickers, blackboards, cartoon figures, among others, and they are offered to children’s cancer departments at the hospitals in the Castellón Province.
It is highlighted that the Kimibox project is based on the original «Chemobox» project first seen in Brazil in 2013. It was exported to Spain in 2018 where, over social networks, an appeal was made to Makers to voluntarily manufacture by 3D printers small boxes for storing chemotherapy doses for boys and girls on cancer treatment.
UJI.>LAB Kimibox Challenge
The Kimibox project has been undertaken as the UJI.>LAB Challenge with the participation of Universitat Jaume I students of the Degree of Industrial Design who, by a cocreative process along with healthcare professionals, have proposed possible solutions and designs for the challenge of humanising children’s cancer treatment.
This initiative has been undertaken by applying the methodology called Innovation Camp, which is based on hybridising methodologies, known as Design Thinking, Human-Centred and Design Sprint, by combining all these characteristics to develop an open, collaborative and multidisciplinary innovation process in which to explore, experiment, prototype, discover and, above all, learn.
The intention of these methodologies has been to speed up the design process by defining the objectives, thinking up and outlining possible solutions, deciding on an idea to carry it out, creating a prototype, and it being tested and validated by real users (Design Sprint). All this has been done by dealing with integrally solving problems (Design Thinking) and seeking to establish empathic links with affected people (Human-Centred); that is, a LivingLab in its pure essence.
The production of small Kimiboxes was performed at the Espaitec FabLab installations by the students who participated in the manufacturing process, specifically by means of 3D printers and PCs with the Cura software.
Setting up the UJI.>LAB project has been possible thanks to financing from the Valencian Insitute of Business Competitiveness (IVACE) in its first phase in 2019 and the Valencian Innovation Agency (AVI) in its later phases from 2020 to the present-day.
