Alyssa

About Me

Hi my name is Alyssa Laughlin. I am currently sixteen years old and will be attending Three Oaks Senior High for my grade twelve year in the fall. Right now I have chosen to take grade twelve academic English, Chemistry, Physics, Pre-Calculus, Calculus, Robotics, grade 11 Computers and a free. Also, I am extremely thankful to be part of the ProGRES program!

My interest and experience with Engineering has been a lifelong topic yet it has only peaked my interest within the last year. Engineering happens to “run in the family” so to speak as my grandfather Eddie Laughlin and my great uncle Norman Arthur Perry were both civil engineers by trade. Although, I'm not interested in civil engineering it's interesting to know that it's a common line of work in my family. Which is most likely why throughout my years, my parents have always nudged me towards the engineering field, that along with my creativity and skills in the field of science. However, because I didn’t know what engineering was I never considered it as an option.

Then sometime last year a friend and I decided to visit an old and wise teacher of mine who helped direct us towards our future careers, leaving us both with a “career map” and “stick of wisdom” if you will. I believe that is the exact moment I knew I wanted to learn more. However, as you know they don’t really teach engineering or introduce you to it in school, so opportunities are limited to know if it’s right for you. Which is exactly why ProGRES is so helpful to me as it taught and continues to teach me what engineering is all about.

My Grandfather, Eddie Laughlin (Left), career map given to me by a former teacher (Right)

ProGRES Week 1 (July 17th-21st): Summary

The first week was a very pleasant and welcoming introduction to engineering, UPEI and the ProGRES Program itself. We began the week by researching biomedical problems and choosing one to find a solution for as well as getting a personal tour of the campus and SSDE Building. Additionally, we were introduced to our mentors projects; James and Tiffany’s project of creating a prime environment for bacteria fermentation to increase the amount of chemical compound production, Haley’s bioplastics made from potato starch and Wyatt’s bioprinter. Aside from our main work we played around with Computer Assisted Design (CAD), I used Zbrush, Maya, Solidworks and OnShape to test out different designs. Throughout the week we pitched our project ideas, while presenting is sometimes nerve wracking for me I found presenting helpful for narrowing my idea. Another thing I enjoyed about this week was that work always was followed by something relaxing such as bocce ball or soccer which was especially relaxing in stressful situations such as when they put Aliesha on your ID instead of Alyssa when you spell out your name.

ProGRES Week 2 (July 24th-28th): Summary

My primary focus of this week was to quickly complete my Onshape 3D print design which was a phone case with an extruded logo from an online cartoon series. After I finished that Monday, I directed all my energy towards finishing and then reviewing my Project Definition Report which took a while to complete but was error free. The rest of the week consisted of what I like to call “relaxed” learning because we learned a lot without having the stress of making something out of the information and rather retaining it based on our interest. For Instance, when we did the windmill project it wasn’t about making the “best” windmill but rather about accomplishing the task by using teamwork and combined effort without regards to the partial language barrier. Additionally, I really enjoyed the trip to Sandy Rae farms because it really opened my eyes and showed me engineering is everywhere, you just have to look closely. Also, it was nice hearing from Danny and Christine about their experience in Engineering and having them to answer any questions we had without any bias.

Link to Project Definition Report (Top Right Corner)

Project Definition Report

ProGRES Week 3 (July 31st-August 4th): Summary

Despite wifi being spotty throughout the week, I managed to get a lot of work done on my projects. The first few days I focused on catching up on my blog work by designing my page, writing up an intro, updating weekly logs, etc. In the middle of the week, we had our first MATLAB class where we learned about the binary systems and how computers work on these systems which was really interesting to learn in light of it being a bit confusing at first. On Thursday, we were lucky enough to take a field trip to Hangar 10 to get a tour of the turbine blades and learn about how they were transported, what they are made of and why they’re there. Also, we got a presentation from WEICAN that covered everything that goes into their business and we also got to see the inside of a wind turbine, which was really cool! Lastly, I picked up some of the parts for my project.

ProGRES Week 4 (August 7th-August 11th): Summary

For the first half or the week my main focus was on completing my second CAD project which I had some problems with. First of all, I had trouble with the dimensions of the pegs and peg holes. Secondly, some of my sketches didn't extrude or didn't fit. However, despite wanting to fix these problems I didn't have time to fix them all because I knew I had to start working on my major project which has hit some bumps thus far regarding the bag design. Also, we were lucky enough to be able to partake in another MATLAB course which was really interesting despite my confusion at times, I really hope we have another opportunity to explore MATLAB next week!

ProGRES Week 5 (August 14th-August 17th): Summary

My First CAD Print

Before coming to the ProGRES program, my experience with computer assisted design consisted of videos of CAD in action and the 3D printing that followed. The main programs I saw in use were Maya and ZBrush, which is why I tried using those programs at first when I learned we were going to 3D print something. However, I soon switched to Onshape and had much better luck with designing.

As for my design itself I decided to make an IPhone 5s phone case with an extruded logo from my favorite online cartoon, "Eddsworld". To make the phone case, I measured the phone case I currently had on my phone. While most elements I could get right, I had trouble with the buttons and the size of the inside of the phone case. Thus, when I tried to fit it on my phone after I printed it, it didn't fit but I didn't matter too much as I still found it really cool!

My Second CAD Print

I wanted to make my second print something far more different and useful from the first. However, due to needing to start my major project time was limited to complete my second CAD project so I wasn't able to put in as much detail as I wanted. Anyways, I decided to create a case for my Nintendo games because I needed a more compact space to store them rather than the shoe box they are in now. Additionally, I also had problems with some of my sketches not extruding and dimensions but a few of my issues with this build were thankfully resolved.

Update: My design will not be printed.

link to my design below:

cad.onshape.com/documents/77d65cce7540fa0d6aff5ee6/w/60a245731d331fb869df7175/e/b3f6a24de17bee2a649de863

My Project

Biomedical engineering is a rapidly growing field of engineering that has numerous applications. Just a few examples include, working with prosthesis or building something more deeply buried in the body or even work at a microscopic level with bacteria to aid a problem. It's easy to say that this is a significant area in engineering and could possible solve all the worlds medical problems someday.

My project focuses on creating a solution to how common Anterior Cruciate Ligament injuries are by creating a heated knee brace. The heated knee brace acts as a "warm-up" for the muscle which lowers the likelihood of an injury occurring due to it becoming more flexible and loose. Also, the heating element which is a sodium acetate solution with a metal activator would be removalable therefore if you didn't need the heat element at a certain time you could just remove it from the brace and continue on.

Our Schedule

Personality Test Results

Originally I did the personality test on myblueprint.com while we were merely discussing the idea of all of us taking a personality test and I got classified as INFJ which stands for introverted, intuiting, feeling and judging. Here's a link to a de

However, when I did it on the the link provided I got ENTP-T, but for introverted and extroverted the percentages were quite close so it could go either way and I could be INTP-T.

Take the test yourself at: https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test