Lecture 2 Designer Biomaterials

Last week, Dr. Anita Shukla of Brown University came in to speak to us about drug delivery engineering. She spoke about its importance for many things including pain relievers hemostatic dressings. She spoke to us about her different obstacles as well as her impressive outcomes including insight into drug-resistant bacteria. This lecture, although mostly biology based, was very insightful in how to go about creating a project, testing it,  seeing what works, and making note of any problems that you run into. Even though they are on two different places on the science spectrum, the scientific method will remain the same.

lecture 1

Last week we were invited to a lecture that was intended to pull students who may be interested in engineering. The woman giving the lecture spoke about how she had started off as a math major, but she realized her true passion lay with building, and so she looked into engineering as a career option. This brief talk was very insightful because not only did she give us a brief overview of an interesting project that she was working on, but she also showed us that we do not have to major in engineering if we ever decide to become engineers (although it would be useful).
I enjoyed this lecture and cannot wait for the next one!

Stove

Over the last two weeks, we have been working on building stoves that would benefit people in third world countries in an easy, affordable, and most importantly, reliable way. We started out designing our stoves on paper individually. After we did this, we got into teams and began picking and choosing features that we liked in each idea so that we could piece together a design.

When we were finished with our design, we expected the stove to look something like this. We wanted a door that was easy to open and shut, a fuel storage area that was low, concentrated, and adjustable, and a chimney to help with healthier airflow.

As we began to build the model out of cardboard, we began to realize that we did not need things such as the legs of the oven and that instead, it could just sit on the ground. The cardboard model ended up looking like this.

As shown in the picture, there are racks that can be pulled from and pushed into the stove. These racks hold the fuel that when lit, would heat the stove top above it. Once we finished the paper sketch and the cardboard model of the stove, we were ready to move onto making our final stove with metal.





We were ultimately very happy with our final product. When we tested it out using charcoal as fuel on the rack with the middle intensity, the water temperature raised by 29 degrees Celcius.
The heat increase went like this
 Time   Temp (degrees C)
2:07       24
2:19      36
2:29      40
2:39     44.5
2:46     46.6
3:08     53

While we were happy with our results, we were not completely satisfied.  We would have liked it to heat the water a little bit more in addition to make minor design changes such as move the chimney so that it is facing more upward or fix the ability for the stove to be manipulated more easily. We hope to work on this in the future.

Power in Everyday Objects

*See work in notes

For this assignment, we were asked to estimate the amount of power that everyday items use. These were the numbers I came up with:

Power required for:
Light: 2-8 watts based off of previous knowledge
Tv: 100-300 watts, assuming that it takes up the same amount of power as a computer does.
Computer: 100-300 watts according to the computer adapter
Car: 20,000 watts
Motorcycle:10,000 watts
Fridge: 700 watts
Oven: 700 watts
Radio: 15 watts




** Assignment completed on Sept 29, 2013. Publishing date does not indicate date of completion.

Personal Energy Consumption

Over the course of the last three days, I have been instructed to track my energy consumption. This can be interpreted however I choose to do so. This is how I split it up.

Day One:
Lights: ~20 watts. I never turned a light on this day, but I shared lights with others (in buildings such as the science center and the campus center)
Computer:~400 watts. I used my computer at high efficiency for approximately two hours.
Food:~400 watts. Collectively I assumed that the time spent cooking the food that I ate and cleaning the dishes that I ate from took about 400 watts of power.

Overall for day one: 820 watts

Day Two:
Lights: ~100 watts. Combined with personal use and classroom use, I used many lights this day.
Computer:~ 400 watts.
Food:~ 400 watts.

Overall for day two: 900 watts

Day Three:
Lights:~100 watts
Computer:~100 watts
Food:~300 watts
Because I had a heavy work day in my text books, I did not end up using much external energy.

Overall for day three: 500 watts

Water Challenge

Over the past week, we were asked to participate in a water challenge. The rules of the challenge were quite simple: don't use water from your home (or living area eg. dorms) for one week. Unfortunately due to a busy schedule and the inconvenience of not being able to both shower and sleep, I did not physically participate in this challenge for more than 24 hours. However, attempting to participate in this challenge really made me think about the water that I use on a daily basis. Very quickly I noticed how much water I was actually using every day, and it was a lot more than I thought. Each day I showered which lasted about 3-6 minutes. I also brushed my teeth 2-3 times a day, washed my hands 4-7 times a day, and used the toilet 2-3 times a day. It was incredible how quickly all of these things added up. I think that this exercise is great for raising awareness about water conservation because it is easier to understand how much water you are using on a daily basis if you are actually tracking your use.

Water Backpack

"Write a blog post discussing your perception of this technology, how it was developed, and its pros and cons.  If you had $10,000 to spend on addressing water issues in developing countries, would you apply it toward this technology?  Why or why not?"

The WaterWear backpack is a backpack designed to make the transporting of water an easier task than it currently is. It is made of lightweight polypropylene and it has adjustable straps and can be stood up when filling with water. Additionally there is a protected spout on the bag to make for clean water usage. The positives are that this bag is easy to carry, convenient, and it keeps water clean for drinking use. This bag is also easily transported, making for cheap transportation costs and more effective distribution. However a serious negative is how little water the bag contains. It carries a little more than a fourth of the water that its counterpart does (20 liters while the Hipporoller carries 75.7 liters) 

I believe this could be a great technology, but not for places that are too far away from water sources because the trip to and from the water would seem almost futile.

That being said, if I were given $10,000 to spend on addressing the water needs in developing countries, this technology would not be the first thing I would go to. While the product seems safe and reliable, it also appears to be not as effective as some of its counterparts. I would work on making sure that the larger containers were sanitized, and thus there would be larger amounts of clean water.  I feel that there are more efficient ways to go about this problem, although the WaterWear backpack seems like a viable option for a more developed country in a crisis.

Water Reading Response.

Although I have lived in a very privileged town my whole life, it was unsurprising to me that so many deaths are caused by water impurities annually. Although I am surrounded by water on all sides, I am still unable to drink the water that is near where I live, as it is ocean water. However I am lucky enough to have an outside source of water available nearby so it is not a problem most of the time.
However what was surprising to me was the toll that the lack of water takes outside of health issues. Sure, the idea of serious issues such as death or diarrhea had crossed my mind, but I hadn't truly previously thought about the repercussions it would have on things such as  school attendance and working days. It was nearly baffling to read that achieving the millennium goals for water by the year 2015 would save approximately 2 million lives over the next decade. It was also moving to  read about water being a basic human right. It is actually disappointing to even think that somebody would have to propose water as a human right as such a thing should be common sense. However, soon after reading the price tag on such a task, it became clear why this task is practically unachievable. Water is a basic human right, and is is my belief that any measures that need to be taken to allow each individual this right must be taken.

Gravity Light

In this assignment, we were asked to estimate the weight that is required to power the GravityLight.

Previous knowledge:
The LED lights that we used in class were 3.2v 20mA
Gravity= 9.8 m/s2

Because it was mentioned in the article that the bag used to weigh the light down is typically filled with rocks and sand, I used my previous knowledge of how heavy those would be. I then looked at the bag as depicted in the pictures on the article and assessed that it was about 10x5x4 in3. I then assumed that in that bag one could fit approximately 15 to 20 rocks. Assuming that each rock weighs .25 lbs, the bag would come out to weigh approximately 5 lbs.

This product absolutely seems viable. It is low risk because it does not cause many safety hazards and it is cheap and sustainable. Most importantly, it works. I can see this product being used in years to come although a good improvement would be to make the LED last longer.

Latern Project

For this project, we were asked to make a functional lantern that is aesthetically pleasing, creative, and maximizes light. Each student was given one  battery and one LED light.
Immediately after getting this assignment, I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted my lantern to look like. I wanted my lantern to be adjustable to move the light to where it was needed. To achieve this, I gave leeway by adding extra paperclips as wires. To make it adjustable on a manual level, I attached the light fixture to a pencil and put it in two holes that I carved into foam for support. To turn the light on and off, tie the strings that are attached to the pennies. This will make them touch and allow the electricity to flow. To turn light off, simply loosen strings. This was a great project to start out with because we were able to quickly adapt to the "limited" amount of materials that we're allowed to use to build with. Below are some sketches of my light and the actual product itself.

 This was the initial sketch, which ended up not being too different from the final sketch of the lantern. The equation reads as follows:
V=IR
9V-3.2V=(20mA)R
5.8V=(20mA)R
5.8V=(.20A)R
5.8V/.02A=290 ohms
resistor=290 ohms
resistor actually used-270 ohms

 This is a clearer sketch of the final product once I had a more clear vision of what I wanted my lantern to look like and how I was going to build it.

Poor People's Energy Outlook

Coming from a well-to-do town, it is difficult to imagine what it would be like to struggle with seemingly everyday "necessities" such as lighting or plumbing. As I sit here and type into my high-speed computer with faster than light wireless internet connection, someone else is struggling to collect wood for lighting. As I get up to adjust the level of light in my room, someone else is mourning the loss of a child due to a smoke related cooking incident. For most of us, these are our every day lives. For those with more difficulties and less resources than others, they need to make their situation as efficient and safe as possible. For these reasons, it was nice to see an article with such an emphasis on the need of energy in certain parts of the world. It's true that energy makes up an incredibly portion of our lives, but when questioning how to help poorer countries and communities, it is necessary to note that many will likely have little to no access to electricity (as nearly 1.5 billion people lacked in a 2009 survey).

One surprising aspect of this article is how quickly the use of cellular technology has spread throughout third world and impoverished countries countries. Because of their increasing affordability, phone usage throughout places in Latin America, South and East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and more has sky-rocketed. By using these amenities, these places are more likely to become more efficient in business and more likely to achieve their Millennium Development Goals.

safety box

Disposal tends to be a recurring  issue throughout society. Whether it's trying to dispose of something sustainably with compost or recycling, or trying to reduce the dangers of throwing out hazardous materials, it is often a difficult field to tackle. That is why for our first task in Making a Difference Through Engineering, we split into teams to devise a container that could safely hold the sharps we use in class until it is time to dispose of them while only using simple materials such as foam and cardboard. The plan that my group initially thought of was to  allow a box to suspend upon foam blocks while inside of another box. This way, if the sharps do poke through the already thick box, there will be air space and yet another box for extra safety measures. Instead, however, we took a more simple approach. All edges of the box are sealed and the only opening is a small slit big enough to fit sharps through. It will also have a cover for the slit for added precautions. The team that wins, in the end, will get the pride of being able to use their box to contain the sharps used in class for the entire year

 

The final, beautiful product.

Introduction

My name is Alexandra Kaye. I am a first year student with an undeclared major. Although I have not yet declared a major, I do have a clear vision of the type of impact I'd like to make on the world. For years I have briefly touched upon ideas that would potentially help people who could not help themselves. However, these ideas would quickly fade as I simply knew how to coin them, and not how to implement them. I am taking the class "Making a Difference Through Engineering" because I am excited to expand not only the ability I have to help others, but also expand my creativity and knowledge relating to how to make things work with simple tools. I am excited to begin this class and am looking forward to a productive semester.