20 time final post

1. My 20 time project all in all went really well. At the beginning i can honestly say that it was hard for me to find a topic that I would be passionate about. However, i feel like chose something that I love and something that I will pursue later on in my life. In my project I learned a lot about prosthetics and how they work. I learned about the different types of prosthetics and how 3d printing has been implemented to further revolutionize them. I also learned how to use a 3d printer. Through multiple trials and much error i can now finally print parts easily with the 3d printer i have. I learned a lot from this project. I feel like the prosthetic hands I made turned out really well and I am incredibly proud.

I feel like my Ted talk went alright. I am not all that great at presenting. I also procrastinated a lot in the preparation for my ted talk. However, i did convey my message across to the audience. I feel like if i did practice much more my ted talk would have turned out much better.

20 time reflection

I chose to do my project on something related to what I want to study more of when I go to college. I chose to do my project related to prosthetic devices because it is such a useful technology with many new advances appearing. New methods of creating prosthetic devices have arose making them so much more accessible and cheaper to produce. One new method is to use 3d printing. I chose to 3d print my own prosthetic hand to see just how pervasive this new technology makes prosthetics. Currently prosthetics can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and not many people can afford them. 3d printing allows the possibility to build durable devices with the same function at around a couple hundred  dollars. During this project I challenged myself to first design and build my own prosthetic hand. I used 3d modelling to create the parts and connected motors to a remote control to control the hand. During this I was focused on honing the skills I know I will need more of in college. After I finished this I then 3d printed a design from enable who uploads dozens of 3d printed prosthetic hands design for people to be able to print for free to see just how widespread this technology has become. During my printing of the hand I had at least 10 unsuccessful prints. I am a little bit new at using this technology so it took me around 2 weeks to finally get the hang of it. I learned a lot through this project about the different types of proshetics such as myolelectric prosthetics and mechanical prosthetics. I also learned all about the different projects already going on revolving around this similar field, and how an element of uniqueness and style becomes added in the prosthetic as a result of the 3d printing. If i had a chance to do it again I would probably have spent a little bit more time outside of class researching and developing my models. Some parts are still a little disfunctional and coming this close to the presentation date makes it more stressful to fix the problems I have. Next I will begin to pursue this path in college, hopefully developing more advanced 3d printed prosthetics that will.


Outline

First I will talk about why I am interested in this topic, and what problems currently affect society revolving around prosthetics. Then I will talk about the current prosthetics available. I then will talk about the process of 3d printing and how it can revolutionize the current thinking of prosthetics. Finally I will end by saying how 3d printing and this new technology can incorporate the ideas of many in prosthetics and ultimately many other aspects of medicine like never before.

Reflex Lab

1. In this lab we looked at the many different reflexes. This includes the physical observation of how our bodies react to certain stimuli, as well as figuring out the different receptors and processes going on during a reflex. A reflex is an almost instantaneous response to a stimuli. The impulse only travels to the spinal cord and back to the muscle instead of going all the way to the brain as it takes less time.

2. 

1. The photopupillary reflex is one that is designed to protect our eyes. It will result in our pupils dilating or constricting in response to a change of light in the environment. This did occur when we tested the reflex by shining a flashlight in the participants eye. The pupils constricted almost instantly. 
2. The knee jerk reflex may be one designed to fend off danger in our early evolutionary development. What will happen is the leg will kick forward when the knee is bumped. When we tried this on the participant we saw that this actually happened. 
3. The blink reflex is also designed to protect our eyes from physical danger. Our eyes will blink if something is thrown at us. When we experimented this we saw that the participants eyes almost always blinked even though they knew they were safe. 
4. The plantar reflex may be one designed to protect our feet from any danger. The feet curl up and tense if there is pressure on the sole of ones feet. 
5. Finally the reaction time part tested our reaction time to certain stimuli. Here we see the time it takes for the brain to process what happens and react, with and without distraction. When we did the reaction time experiment we saw that texting drastically increased the time it takes for reaction. In my data there was almost a .05 increase in reaction time from .19 seconds to .24 seconds. 

Here you can see me carrying out the reaction time experiment 

Sheep Brain Dissection

During this dissection we looked at the brain of a sheep. We first looked at the outer structures and identified the anterior and posterior sides of the brain. We then labeled the major structures such as the cerebrum, cerebellum, and brain stem. We then cut the brain in half lengthwise to observe the internal parts. Finally we did another perpendicular cut of the brain to identify the grey and white matter of the brain.

Cerebellum	Coordinates voluntary muscle activity/function
Cerebrum	This part of the brain is associated with more complex brain function such as thought and action
Brain Stem	Associated with many involuntary actions of the body, primarily relating to respiratory and cardiac activity

Thalamus	Responsible for organizing sensory information
Optic nerve	Transfers visual information from the retina to the brain
Medulla Oblongata	Responsible for activity of heart and lungs
Pons	Is a bridge between various parts of the brain such as cerebellum and cerebrum
Midbrain	Associated with hearing, vision, motor control, sleep/wake, arousal, and temperature regulation
Corpus Callosum	Connects and relays sensory and motor information between both hemispheres of the brain
Hypothalamus	Links the nervous system to the endocrine system, regulates hormones in body

Sheep Eye Dissection

Videos from the Dissection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibsrqtx2FD0: Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apVGaDMAId8&feature=youtu.be: Part 2



The eye allows us to see. Light rays reflect off an object and pass through the cornea of our eye, the clear outer covering. The rays pass through the pupil, which is a hole regulated in size by the iris. They then pass through the lens which bends the light onto the back of the eye on the retina. The lens is controlled by the ciliary muscle. These rays are then interpreted by the optic nerve and signals are sent to the brain to tell us what the object looks like.

Continuing the build

I have been continuing to 3d print the parts. I have decided to use an arduino chip to control the hand, I have been learning how to code and use this device in my digital electronics class. The design that I have settled on is the K1 hand by enable. What I will do is make the hand after I have 3d printed the parts then go a step furter and motorize the hand so it can open and close at my command. The system will use a system of pulleys and cables to function. Currently I have printed half of the parts and am still working on the others. However, I have faced some difficulties printing the parts as I am about to run out of the printer feeder material, and a couple of the parts I have tried to print have failed so I will need to reprint them.

Clay Brain

We made a model of the brain made out of clay. We used different colors of clay to represent different parts of the brain, and labeled them as well. We had to look at different models from the internet to get an accurate representation.