Personal Surgical

Personalized surgical implants and tools for patients and physicians

Page Contents

1. Problem Statement

Problem Statement

Though 3-D printing is currently in use in the medical industry, there is a seeming disconnect between the high-tech, high-resolution imaging capatilities of medicine and the possiblity of extremely personalized creation of surgical implants and other medical devices. The aim of this project is to create a vaid interface and hardware by which 3-D printing can be applied for everything from cartilagenous implants to tooth caps to sterile surgical tools.

Learning and Pregnancy

Harnessing the power of pregnancy to improve brain function

Page Contents

1. Problem Statement
2. References

Problem Statement

During and for some time after pregnancy women experience a significant increase in the rate of synapse formation, increasing their learning capacity, much like is experienced in early years of life. The purpose of this project is to determine the biological conditions that cause this state and artificially reproduce them in non-pregnant and/or non-female humans.

References

• Danielle L. Wilson, Maree Barnes, Lenore Ellett, Michael Permezel, Martin Jackson & Simon F. Crowe (2011): Compromised verbal episodic memory with intact visual and procedural memory during pregnancy, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 33:6, 680-691
• Sanchez, D. J., & Reber, P. J. (2011, December 26). Operating Characteristics of the Implicit Learning System Supporting Serial Interception Sequence Learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026347
• Akhavan, M. M., Emami-Abarghoie, M., Safari, M., Sadighi-Moghaddam, B., Vafaei, A. A., Bandegi, A. R., Rashidy-Pour, A. (2008). Serotonergic and Noradrenergic Lesions Supress the Enhancing Effect of Maternal Exercise During Pregnancy on Learning and Memory in Rat Pups, Neuroscience, 151, 1173-1183
• Chen, G., Wang, H., Yang, Q., Tao, F., Wang, C.,Xu, D. (2011).Acceleration of age-related learning and memory decline in middle-aged CD-1 mice due to maternal exposure to lipopolysaccharide during late pregnancy. Behavioural Brain Research. 218, 267-279
• Maeng, L. Y., Shors, T. J. (2012). Once a Mother, Always a Mother: Maternal Experience Protects Females From the Negative Effects of Stress on Learning. Behavioral Neuroscience. 126:1, 137-141
• Lee, H., Kim, H., Lee, j., Kim, Y., Yang, H., Chang, H., Lee, T., Shin, M., Lee, M., Shin, M., Park, S., Baek, S., Kim, C. (2006). Maternal swimming during pregnancy enhances short-term memory and neurogenesis in the hyppocampus of rat pups. Brain & Development: Official Journal of Japanese Society of Child Neurology. 28, 147-154
• Kim, H., Lee, S., Kim, S., Yoo, J., Kim, C. (2007). The influence of maternal treadmill running during pregnancy on short-term memory and hippocampal cell survival in rat pups. International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience. 25, 243-249

Facebox

Makeup for the Digital Age

Page Contents

1. Problem Statement
2. Goals
3. Constraints
4. Eye Makeup
5. Foundation, Blush and Concealer
6. Lip Color
7. Fantasy Makeup

Problem Statement

In many industrialized countries women are encouraged and expected to wear makeup on a daily basis. The acts of cleaning off and reapplying makeup can be very costly in terms of time. The aim of this project is to create a functioning makeup application system that requires only minutes to seconds to complete a full-face makeover. Spin-offs include a facial cleanser system and skin treatment device (such as anti-aging/moisturizer or medical treatment for surgical/burn recovery).

Goals

Though not all absolute constraints, this project will be benefited by the achievement of the following goals:

• non-toxic
• small enough to be carried in a purse
• quicker is better
• templates and design creation available
• easily mixable colors
• standard "color cartidges" for load-and-go ease

Constraints

It is clear that putting on the standard, western woman's makeup is a multi-stage process. Unfortunately, each stage has a significantly different level of detail and resolution on the face. For this reason, the Facebox project has been split.

Aspect	Resolution	Colors	Coverage
Concealer and Foundation	low resolution	1-2 colors	varying coverage translucent to opaque
Eye makeup	high resolution	multi-colored	opaque with blending
Lip Color	medium resolution	1-3 colors	opaque
Fantasy makeup	high resolution	multi-colored	varying coverage

The first sub-project under development is the eye makeup project. This portion was chosen because, though the eyes are a relatively small part of the face, they take up a disproportionately large amount of makeup application time.

There are also many methods of makeup application. All have benefits and draw-backs. Traditionally, directly applied creams and powders are used. More recently, airbrush makeup has become an option for the average person. Also on the market are transfer paper-like makeup appliques.

For this project we will focus on airbrush. The reasons for this are numerous: airbrush already has well-tested and accepted machinery by which it is used, has many available and easily mixed colors, provides a singularly uniform application, and is safe for use around the eyes, nose and mouth.

Eye Makeup

Foundation, Blush and Concealer

Lip Color

Fantasy Makeup

Middling

a way to find what's between A and B

The Idea

Have you ever tried to find out which places are good to meet your friends? It can be hard to figure out what's right in the middle of the two (or three or four...) of you. This miniproject is a simple interface by which you can calculate the midpoint of two locations and get search results for the places clustered around there. Never again drive across town when you can find cool stuff just half-way across town!

The interface

If you would like to view this in full-page format, please visit here.

Expanding Displays

Freeing visual displays from the constraints of laptop size

Page Contents

1. Problem Statement
2. References

Problem Statement

The modern mode of computing is going in two directions: physically smaller and faster while visually larger and stunning. The aim of this project is to create a screen/display that can fit into the physical constraints of a laptop while being expandable to the size of a standard desktop display or larger.

References