Faculty of Design
Industrial Design
Kai Principe Rapa
PAPPY - Personal Aid for Parkinson's Progression & Yield
Industrial Design
2026
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Fusion 360, PLA, PETG, EcoFlex 20, Brass(Gold), Aluminum(Silver), Copper(Rose Gold)
PAPPY, Personal Aid for Parkinson’s Progression & Yield, is a wearable health interface that translates complex symptom data into clear, contextualized insight, turning daily fluctuation into something visible, understandable, and actionable. It is a connected support system designed to bridge the gap between lived experience and clinical understanding. PAPPY learns from the user’s movement patterns, tremor intensity, medication timing, and environmental context, and uses this information to build a continuous picture of how symptoms evolve throughout the day. Built to support rather than overwhelm, the system operates quietly in the background, detecting shifts in condition, identifying patterns over time, and surfacing only the most relevant insights when they matter most. Through a combination of sensor-based tracking, contextual data layering, and a simplified mobile interface, PAPPY becomes a daily companion in managing Parkinson’s, offering reassurance, awareness, and clarity without requiring constant input. Designed to feel supportive rather than clinical, PAPPY doesn’t ask users to interpret their data, it interprets it for them.Insight:Current approaches to Parkinson’s monitoring rely heavily on snapshots in time, such as clinical visits or self-reported symptoms, which often fail to capture the full variability of the condition. While wearable devices exist, many focus on isolated metrics without considering the role of context, such as sleep, stress, or medication timing, in shaping symptom expression. As a result, users, caregivers, and clinicians are left with fragmented information that is difficult to interpret and act on.Idea:PAPPY unifies continuous tracking with contextual awareness into a single, cohesive system. By combining movement and tremor data with factors like fatigue, stress, sleep, and medication cycles, the system builds a more complete understanding of the user’s condition. This information is translated into daily insights, long-term patterns, and clinically relevant summaries, allowing users to better understand their own experiences while also supporting clearer communication with caregivers and healthcare professionals.Impact:PAPPY shifts health tracking from passive data collection to meaningful interpretation. It transforms symptom monitoring into a more informed, supportive experience, where users are not just recording what happens, but understanding why it happens. By making invisible patterns visible, the system empowers individuals living with Parkinson’s to feel more in control of their condition, while enabling more informed and productive clinical conversations. It is not just a tracking tool, but a system that supports awareness, confidence, and long-term care.
“Parkinson’s doesn’t follow a fixed pattern. Symptoms shift throughout the day, influenced by medication, fatigue, stress, and environment, often in ways that are difficult to track, recall, or explain. Because of this, much of the experience becomes invisible, reduced to brief clinical snapshots or imperfect memory. Even with existing tools, users are often left interpreting fragmented data on their own, trying to make sense of what their body is doing and why.As we continue to develop health technologies, there is an opportunity to move beyond simply collecting data, and instead create systems that support understanding. What if tracking didn’t feel clinical or overwhelming? What if it felt supportive, intuitive, and embedded seamlessly into everyday life? What if the patterns shaping someone’s condition could become visible, not just to doctors, but to the individual experiencing them?How might we design a system that translates complex, fluctuating symptoms into clear, meaningful insight, creating a more intuitive connection between the body, daily context, and long-term health?”
Celebrate the work of OCAD U’s class of 2025/2026!