Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Flip n'Grip Wallet

When my cheap minimal wallet failed, I got together with a friend of mine (Dan Loveridge) and designed a fun, minimal, RFID-blocking wallet that was super high quality and nearly indestructible. We worked on the project for about a year and launched it on Kickstarter. Unfortunately for us, we ran into problems getting the manufacturing costs down. At the same time, tons of other wallets were going up and saturating the market. We launched anyway and aimed really high, but in the end, it was too pricey for  most people. However, we did get tons of positive feedback and we're working on a version 2.0 to maintain the quality, but cut the manufacturing costs way down.





























Microfluidic DNA Extractor

My masters thesis in mechanical engineering was to redesign a microfluidics DNA extractor chip. A system had been previously developed and built with a PDMS chip. The chip was expensive ($40) and time consuming to make (3-4 hours each) , so my job was to design a chip to be used with the same system, but significantly cut costs and manufacturing time.





The original system: cluttered, difficult to use and prone to malfunctions.





After using the previous machine a few times, I decided to redesign and rebuild the machine as well. I used a central manifold to eliminate hundreds of hoses and connectors.




 The machine was also designed to be easy to use and fix when necessary.




 As part of the chip redesign, I CNC machined a manifold block that simplified the chip by moving some of the features permanently on to the machine. 





 This is the new machine with the manifold block and an adjustable clamping lid.




The new $.40 chip inside the new machine.

Monday, March 18, 2013

UltraArm Robot (Senior Design Project 2010-2011)

Mechanical engineering senior design project UltraARM. This was a year-long project to design a robotic system that would assist ultrasound technicians in their daily tasks to help prevent musculoskeletal injuries. We were able to successfully build a proof-of-concept working prototype.




 First prototype: made from Sintra, bolts and rubber bands.




Second prototype on a backpack frame with 7 degrees of freedom. 




Third prototype where we changed from a wearable robot, to a mounted one. This simplified the design significantly while still performing all the necessary functions. 




Fourth prototype with positional feedback potentiometers and linkage for constant angle position end effector.




 The Big Check from winning first place in the Tech Titans competition. The winnings funded the remainder of our project nicely.




 End effector with 3 axis force sensor. Designed and made from force sensitive resistors for $21. A commercial sensor generally costs about $5000.




UltraARM displayed on design day. 




Final poster presentation of our year-long engineering project.