As a service company, our staff is our most important asset. Without them, we’d just have a bunch of lonely computers sitting around hoping to one day become self-aware. As such, we work hard to find great people, and we’ve found some of the greatest.
Along with other members of The Giving Circle, Frank is now in Uganda to help bring needed resources to an orphanage. Among other things, he’ll be designing and building a small windmill. Of course, that gives us two weeks to setup a few practical jokes for him.
Are you a tinkerer? For those of us that are concerned about how best to crack open a $1,000 MacBook with a critical soda problem yet have the compelling desire to take it apart anyway, there is help.
As part of the V&V test procedure, we designed a gravimetric means to characterize the volumetric and flow-rate accuracy of a couple of precision injection instruments. With this setup, we’re able to achieve measurement resolution of just 0.1 milligram and reduced the error due to water evaporation to 40 times better than using a mineral oil emulsion.
We attended the BIO 2010 conference to learn more about the confluence of the pharmaceutical and medical device industries in the growing field of personalized medicine. Based on the crowds at the conference and the encouraging stance of the FDA, there is a movement to bring us instrument geeks into the pharmaceutical business.
On the radio I heard about a device that several students at Rice created to help diagnose anemia in the developing world. The device acts as a centrifuge to separate the blood into red blood cells and plasma in just 10 minutes and without the use of electricity.
Making progress feels good, but when progress slows or I’ve hit a roadblock, it can be frustrating. When I need some fresh ideas, it’s time for a distraction.
Low volume manufacturing is fairly common for complex medical devices, which may call for production of 10 to 1,000 units. Are you targeting a niche market or, for now, a clinical trial? Read about some of the benefits and challenges of designing for low volume manufacturing in Eric Schneider’s article in the April issue of [...]
Prototypes are essential to testing system performance. However, due to the current technological constraints of creating microscale prototypes, compromises in the characteristics of the prototype usually must be made, which can lead to unforeseen, expensive problems on the production line. Fortunately, basic, fundamental models of significant aspects of the system (first-principles modeling) can be “calibrated” through the use of focused CFD models and empirical data. The result is improved models that allow the designer to bridge the knowledge gap between paper and production.
Key Tech’s own Brian Murphy has been known to combine his love of food with his love of tech, bringing in meat cured in his basement and creating new shades of hummus. Recently, though, he earned a mention in the Baltimore City Paper by helping his friend build the tools to create apple cider at home.
