Link to week 3

Use this space to update everyone on your progress heading into the final week. Is something going particularly well? Is there something you would like help or advice on? Share anything and everything you would like to about your project!

  • @pancake@lemmy.ml
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    71 year ago

    I managed to convince one of my university professors to present my in-progress medical ultrasound machine as a formal work for my degree. I’ve designed a third prototype and done some of the coding.

    • Chris RemingtonM
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      51 year ago

      Could we hear more about this? This is fascinating to me. I studied health information systems in college and my wife is a registered nurse.

      • @pancake@lemmy.ml
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        61 year ago

        Well, it occurred to me that I could try to make an ultrasound machine for the lowest possible cost and present it at the end of my medical degree as an investigative work. So far I’ve managed to get an unfocused ultrasound signal by means of a cheap piezo element, using an Arduino board and some electronic components. Right now I’m trying to replace this setup with a custom PCB, ESP32 MCU and wire up an FPGA module to eventually synthesize a phased array signal and get an actual image. The idea is that the device will be quite small and one will be able to simply connect it to a laptop, start the client software (which I’m writing in Rust) and work with it.

        • @gyrfalcon@beehaw.orgOP
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          41 year ago

          Love this! I am interested in how getting Rust code approved for medical devices will go. I know there is a lot of regulation in that field so I imagine it is slow to change.

  • @gyrfalcon@beehaw.orgOP
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    41 year ago

    My apologies for falling off the face of the earth for last week’s update. I started a new job that week, and ended up on travel for most of this week for work, so progress has not been what I had hoped. Realistically, I don’t think I am going to be able to finish everything before Monday, but I might be able to get something respectable before the actual showcase thread next Saturday. Anyway, what I did accomplish:

    • Made cuts on the main body of the shield and the handle. The shields outer and inner curves are definitely not perfect, and I somehow managed to cut the handle too long? But I think it won’t be too noticeable in the finished product, and a too long piece can always be cut down.
    • I made one attempt at attaching the linen facing, but went about it all wrong. I tried to spread glue over the full surface and lay it down all in one go, which I had some misgivings about but thought would work. When I went to add more glue on top of the linen to complete my composite, it bubbled horribly.
    • I made a second attempt at attaching the linen, this time gluing down one section at a time, pulling the fabric taught as I laid it down on the glue, using an old library card to push out bubbles, and waiting about 60 seconds before moving on. This worked quite well, and I was able to add more glue for the top surface without issue.
    • I trimmed the excess linen. I started with scissors for this, but because of the glue in the fabric, a box cutter ended up being the more appropriate tool.
    • I applied my primer to the whole surface of the shield to make sure my paint sticks nicely.
    • I applied a coat of green to approximately half of the shield. I think this will need at least one more coat to get everything reasonably even.

    Pictures of my progress so far here.

    I am also participating in a parallel Make Something Month on Tildes