In this video, Atul starts off with an interesting explanation of how a skyscraper is built. In the old days of construction, a master builder was the central control with thorough knowledge about each detail of the building and responsibility for coordinating every operation.  Modern buildings have gotten so complex that it becomes impractical for a single person to attain that amount of knowledge.  Instead, today buildings are built by a team of skilled craftsmen; involved in up to 16 trades.  The project manager would rarely know much about any of the trades involved.  Atul asked the question, how is it that a group of specialists with a manager who isn’t an expert in any of these fields can build a complex structure and meet a very strict safe code.  It’s interesting to find out that the secret lies in two checklists, which are essential in the success of the construction business.  One checklist details every task that needs to be done in the short term for scheduling and coordination.  Another checklist involves the necessary parties required to communicate when problems arise.  Problems arise in construction just like in any other fields and the problems are always unexpected, otherwise, they wouldn’t be problems to start with.  The second checklist doesn’t try to make cookie-cutter solutions, but simply makes sure that the appropriate parties are involved when problems arise.  As a result, dynamic group decisions can be obtained for each problem based on inputs from all shareholders.

Atul further goes on to talk about the “Miracle on the Hudson” an emergency landing made by US Airways Flight 1549 last January.  He argued that the real miracle in this case was the entire crew acted as one and followed procedures (another word for checklists) in this situation.  Sure, luck was on their side, but by following procedures and going through the checklists designed for such situations, the crew ensured the best survival chances.

Atul finally went on to discuss his experience of implementing a checklist in the OR at 8 different hospitals around the world.  The result is significant.  By following a simple 19-step list, some steps being as simple as introducing surgeons and nurses, teams who followed the checklist was able to reduce complications by 30% overall.

Come to think about it, it made intuitive sense.  A checklist enforces the user to be regimented and diligent about the process and thus, has the effect of minimizing human errors when these regiments are implemented.  Another example that I can think of where a checklist is vital is during space shuttle launches.  I’m sure everyone has heard those familiar announcements such as “T minus 10: heater control exit; T minus 9: pressurize first tank; … T minus 0: blastoff”.  What NASA does is follow a monster checklist to ensure that every aspect of a shuttle launch has been checked.  If the rocket scientists think checklist is worth using, Atul might be onto something here.

The video is a bit long (74 minutes), but I’d recommend it since it provides food for thought.  Have you read the Checklist Manifesto?  Do you agree with Atul?  What other scenarios do you recognize that benefit from using a checklist?

Our staff of cross-disciplinary engineers, an industrial designer, admin support, and interns all work together to create remarkable solutions every day. We usually have 5-10 projects going on simultaneously, so it’s tough to stay current on everything that’s going on outside of my own projects. Just recently, I was getting the 10-second tour of a prototype when I started asking about a robotic end-effector densely packed with numerous individual pneumatic actuators and complex linkages.

“Oh, that? Yeah, we had to make almost all of those parts ourselves – just the pneumatic cylinders and screws are stock. Assembled, the density of the tips is probably twice anything we could find off the shelf.”

Seth Godin writes about having one or two Linchpins that can make a company. These are the indispensible go-to people that are creative, willing to be unconventional, and passionate about their work. They make their work personal and are not satisfied until it’s done right. I don’t know anyone at Key Tech that doesn’t act this way.
Most of our work is highly confidential, so remarkable work rarely gets remarked upon outside of these walls. But, internally, annual reviews often include feedback from peers and project managers that looks like this:

“I’ve worked with him on the ************* project and it has been awesome. He has been handling the many headaches of designing, re-designing, and re-re-designing the critical [custom hardware] for the various systems. Additionally, it has been a pleasure working with him the whole way. He is always in good spirits, does his work in a very timely fashion, and still finds time to host things like ASME meetings. Very impressive. No criticisms what-so-ever.”

So, thanks. You rock! It’s pretty cool to work with all of you.

Frank Regan has just made the long trek to Jinja, Uganda with The Giving Circle to help bring needed resources to a Wanyange village orphanage, the Koi Koi House. Since March of this year, the nonprofit has been working to build a permanent home for orphans afflicted with AIDS. So far, the group has purchased land and already helped dig a well. Among other things, Frank will be working to bring electricity to the village by designing and building a small windmill. We’re following their progress on their blog.

This is a very worthy cause. Of course, back at the office, that gives us two weeks to setup a few practical jokes.

Good luck, Frank.

Are you a tinkerer? Even among engineers, I find that very few of us are willing to delve into the guts of a device with complexity outside our comfort range. I think kids have the advantage of not fearing whether they will be able to fix it later. They don’t think about how much it cost or whether it should be taken apart, and they’re confident an adult can provide a safety net. But, 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.

Online video isn’t just for watching other people’s attempts at stardom. There are a host of instructional videos put together by generous people willing to share, learn from their mistakes, or just help you recover from what could be a $1,000 mistake. A quick search of YouTube or iFixIt can provide step-by-step examples of how to take apart a MacBook, replace a cell-phone screen, or repair a chainsaw carburetor.

As a tinkerer, perhaps you want to just build something yourself instead of buying it from a store. You can learn how to build a great HDTV Antenna from coat hangers or an automated Nerf Sentry Gun to protect the office.

Enjoy! (and let me know how you made out)

Disclaimer: Umm, it’s the internet, so you can’t always believe what you see, even in a video. Use your head.

The Scale

We chose an Acculab 210.4 scale because it was accurate enough (.0001 gram resolution, which is about a tenth of a microliter for room temperature water) and because it has a serial interface that we can call from Visual Basic to easily collect data and put into a spreadsheet. The data stream is limited to about 8Hz, but it was fast enough for our purposes.

Scales with more resolution often come with damping mechanisms to keep them stable. Although the glass cover keeps the air movement down, this one didn’t have a means to damp vibrations, so we needed to isolate the scale ourselves. We used a small table with some rubber feet as the foundation. Then we used one of those heavy engineering textbooks we have so many of on some thick foam and put the scale on top. Considerate use of flexible beams, soft materials, and masses meant the scale was rock-steady without any software averaging required.

The Fluid Connection

To get the fluid onto the scale, we attached tubing with a luer-lock fitting to a long needle inserted into the scale cover through a hole in the top plate and held in place with a thumb-screw. By using a needle instead of just inserting the tubing into the container, we eliminated any contact with the container or scale. we found that any such contact threw the scale out of whack, especially when the fluid flowed through the tubing with momentum.

The question came up as to whether the needle should be above the water-level or below it. If the needle is below the water-level, surface tension on the needle can reduce the weight of the water. However, if the needle is above the water-level, a drop can form at the tip instead of depositing the small volume onto the scale. We needed fine-resolution flow-rate data, so we opted to ignore the surface tension, which we found to be below the resolution of the scale.

Evaporation of the Water

Over the duration of a test, water will evaporate. The rate is dependent upon temperature, relative humidity, and the surface area of the container. Many suggest adding mineral oil to the water to create a barrier layer to supposedly eliminate evaporation of the water. Data showed that the oil layer did reduce the rate of evaporation (from 0.13 g/hr to 0.08 g/hr), although the oil ruined the plastic connections of the tubing by making them brittle and causing them to leak and break. Instead, we drilled a 1/4” hole into the cap of the container for the needle to fit through, which dropped the rate of evaporation by two orders of magnitude. We collected data for various configurations of the water, oil, and lid and plotted them below. So, without using any oil, we were able to drop the rate of evaporation from 0.127 g/hr to 0.002 g/hr.

Volume and Flow Rate

So, how does a measure of weight relate to volume and flow-rate? Well, the density of water is pretty well defined based on temperature (and weight / density = volume). Accounting for the error of this density value, as well as errors in the scale resolution and time resolution provided excellent measurement results by which to evaluate the devices.

The concept of “personalized medicine” is based on the targeting of specific factors that make one individual more receptive to a therapy than another. Pharmaceuticals can alleviate symptoms and cure disease. However, many drugs  only help fewer than half of the people who take them, and many come with the small chance of side-effects – everything from diarrhea or drowsiness  to death. The idea of personalized medicine is that patient populations can be tested to verify before prescription that a drug will be effective for them and that side effects will be minimal.  Tests may be based on a genomic marker or a biological cell structure.

Key Tech has been designing and developing diagnostic devices, both point-of-care and high throughput, for over 10 years now.  In recent years, we’ve been conceiving and developing new drug delivery devices as well and we are witnessing the growing market for patient-friendly medicine delivery and the companion diagnostics that qualify a patient population for targeted drugs.  We’re looking forward to watching this approach to medicine develop and mature.

“The students really did an amazing job of taking very simple, low-cost materials and creating a device their research shows correlates nicely with hematocrit levels in the blood,” said Maria Oden, professor in the practice of engineering education and director of Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK). She was the team’s co-adviser with Richards-Kortum. “Many of the patients seen in developing world clinics are anemic, and it’s a severe health problem. Being able to diagnose it with no power, with a device that’s extremely lightweight, is very valuable,” she said.

Not exactly a replacement for the Ultracrit, but an innovative solution considering the manual actuation and low device cost. Nicely done.

The article on the Sally Centrifuge. The radio broadcast (mp3).

When progress slows or I’ve hit a roadblock, it can be frustrating. Maybe I overlooked something critical or my assumptions were wrong. Maybe my prototype is based on a component that just ran out of stock. Whatever the case, when I need some fresh ideas, it’s time for a distraction.

Ideas rarely occur to me when I’m straining to think of them. Instead, they pop into my head when I’m doing something else. I might be driving my car, taking a walk, or reading my kids a story. It’s not always an “Ah, HAH!” moment, but it’s often worth remembering.

But, I’m supposed to be working. I need an idea now! I can’t think of anything! THINK HARDER!

Relax. I can’t force an epiphany. Can I encourage it? When I get stuck on something, one of the best ways for me to get unstuck is to change my environment. I “unplug” – walk away from the computer and iPhone. I get some ice-cream from the market or walk to Federal Hill Park and listen to the leaves blow in the wind. In the quiet, my mind, usually struggling to keep up with my Inbox, Voicemail, and cell phone, starts to race with ideas. I’m flooded with new possibilities.

But, wait. Isn’t that the exact opposite of “making progress” or “working”? Perfect.

“Turn Down the Volume:  What design options do you have when production won’t top a thousand pieces a year? Plenty, if you know the ropes”  Click Here to Read the Article

Mechanical Engineering Magazine. Reprinted with permission. Copyright ASME 2010

Read more about the symbiosis of modeling and prototyping (PDF) for designing microscale parts in an article I wrote that was published in MICROmanufacturing Magazine this month, page 33 (Jan/Feb 2010, Volume 3, Issue 1).