Week 1

Dr. Delson,

Per your request, we've detailed the progress made from our sponsor meeting yesterday with Dr. Strain.  We've published it to our site **HERE** and attached it below.

Just as you said during our progress report, we all agreed that there will be more resources put towards researching different methods of lifting the cells; namely the "piezoelectric", "vacuum", and "magnetic" methods outlined in the risk reduction report.  An apparatus (manual stage; linear slide) will be designed to rapidly test all three of these prototypes and weight the pros and cons of each.

Tentative milestones are outlined below:

1. Create testing station  (High Priority)

• • Camera / Camera mount

  • Camera has been provided by Matt but he reccommended we purchase a USB C-mount camera.

  • Need dummy beads/ arrays / titers

  • z axis 

  • Manual Linear Stage

    • •  mount for stage, mount/clamp for picking tool. 

  • Automatic Linear Stage

    • • Stepper motor( Steve Roberts)

      • Motor controller/ driver

2. Test

• • Vacuum

    • piezo pipet, and pipet tips

    • electronic components neccessary for piezo pipet 

    • Sterilization?

  • Capillary

    • tubes

    • sponsor has low confidence

  • Paramagnetic beads

    • needs beads and magnet

    • test between ferromagnetic vs. electromagnetic

  • Hydrophilic

    • PDMS + PEG tip

We spoke with Dr.Strain regarding our goals for week 2, and he provided three different cell sized beads (dummy cells), 

a linear slider, 10x lens and camera (BNC connection), piezoelectric pipette tips and advice on approaching the tests. He provided some suggestions for suppliers.

With our goals/milestones written out we are planning on splitting the tasks into building the manual stage and 

collecting the different method tools. We will have our testing station set up by next week and can begin testing methods late in the week.  We will first test the piezo pipettes, then capillary tubes (if the proper size tube can be purchased <30microns), paramagnetic, and then hydrophilic.

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Overview of Status of Analysis, Design, Fabrication, Tests, etc.

• • Individual component analysis

    • Clark: Z axis

      • Making designs and checking cost of different design solutions.

    • Fernando: Sanitizing

    • Jonathan: Pick-and-Place

      • Collect pipet manufacture information from Matt during Thursday meeting.

      • Decide what type of pipet to use in design.

    • Laith: Cameras

    • Greg: XY stage

      • Going to use the stage on Thursday when we meet with Matt Strain.

Accomplishments from Previous Week

• • Decided on major components

    • Going with pipettes for the pick and place mechanism.

Goals for Next Week (list names after each item). Use specific and measurable objectives.

• • Know all of the parts that we want going into our design (group)

  • Figure out how we are going to implement all of the components and come up with a complete design solution (group)

  • Finalize on pick and place mechanism.  Where we are going to get pipettes. (Jonathan)

Sponsor Comments from Last Meeting and Actions Taken to Address these Comments

• • Talked about risk reduction presentation, have since completed that presentation.

Instructor Comments from Last Meeting and Actions Taken to Address these Comments

• • Liked that we wanted to test the accuracy of XY stage, going to begin doing that on Thursday.

Risks and Areas of Concern

• • How much access can we have to lab supplies from Matt? (will ask him Thursday)

  • Sanitation: Don't know if the method will actually work. How are we going to test the sanitation method?

  • Z axis: Need to figure out the motor to use.

  • Level of precision is daunting.

  • Tips for the pipette.

Resources or Information Required but not Available

• • We don't have access to HIV cells.  

Schedule

• • Upcoming Milestones

    • Design, component placement and how it will work.

    • Camera method for Z direction. (How we will view where the pick-and-place mechanism is on the Z axis)

    • How to use XY Stage.

Budget (list amount spent and amount remaining)

• • NONE

Progress on Report and Webpage

• • Everyone can now edit the webpage.