156B Week 1

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

• • Preliminary experiments on smearing method (Manual) - Completed

    • Wedging

    • Tape smearing

    • Air

  • Individual Component Analysis (Wedging with straw) - On going

  • Current design proposals for smearing mechanisms

    • Wedging (traditional, straw)

    • Tape smearing

    • Air Knife

    • Vibration

    • Spinning

    • Roller

Accomplishments from Previous Week

• • Clarified the project priorities

  • Acquired access to microscope for smearing quality evaluation

  • Risk reduction

    • Evaluated smearing mechanisms based on the preliminary experiments (feasibility, complexity, cost, etc)

    • Identified the volume of blood drop as a key factor to a good smear

    • Proposed methods to avoid stiction in smearing

      • Use tape with less mastic

      • Let the spread slides barely touching the smear slide

    • Safety protocol to handle blood (Annual Laboratory Hazards Training; UC Laboratory Safety Fundamentals)

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

• • Finish Individual Component Analysis on wedging with straw as the spreader

    • Material Selection for the spreader (straw, fishing line, tape, etc) - Yi Cui

    • Clamping Mechanism for the spreader - Ruiqi Wang

    • Moving Mechanism and Actuator - Yuhui Shen

    • Mechanism to change the spreader and dispose - Lumei Xue

    • Connection between smearing and staining - Guanhao Fu

  • Select smearing mechanism to proceed with

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

• • The sponsor provided some horse blood for testing on 12/14 (the blood was collected on 12/12)

    • We kept the blood in the refrigerator and made blood smears by hand, by tape, and by straw on 12/18

    • We gave the slides back to the sponsor on 12/19

  • The sponsor gave us feedback on 12/20

    • The lack of a “feathered edge” suggests that we used too much blood for each slide

    • The tape method had cells more evenly distributed than the straw method, but none of the methods showed red cells with “central pallor”, a sign of good smearing. The reason might be that the blood was too old. The figures below show what  is meant by “central pallor”.

• • • Straw 1000x

Budget (list amount spent and amount remaining)

• • 3 kinds of Tape for testing blood smearing

    • Packing Tape ($1.99)

    • Duct Tape ($2.99)

    • Masking Tape ($6.99)

  • a vial of 7-micron polystyrene bead control material,  ($80.00)

Progress on Report and Webpage

• • Webpage link: https://sites.google.com/a/eng.ucsd.edu/156b-2019-winter-team06/

  • Personal Information of each team member has been uploaded

  • Team management page has been updated with pictures and gantt chart

  • Home page has been updated with pictures, background info and objective.