This weeks assignment was to design mechanics. As the network is orienting towards bioengineering as well, we thought it would be a good idea to design a machine that a exsiting lab could build on their own to help them move on to biology as well.

While liquids can be handled manually easily enough, over time a lab that is really looking into biology needs hardware to automate processes. so we designed the mechanic for a liquid handler.

In our group assignment I designed the attachment for the tray, so it can be made to rotate, also I handled the 3d printing of the pump and the attachment. For the cardboard stages I handled good deal of the laser cutting of the final pieces, and assembled one of the linear stages. I do have to thank Ivan and Nataliya for some of the photos im using.

Usually when cutting things with laser, a black line of 0.02mm is enough for it to see it as a line to be cut. The thing is that with this frame we needed to make folds, to do that we needed to use color coding. The essential idea is, that we use different colours in the image, and then define those colours for the laser cutting driver, to define them as different ways of cutting. In this case blue lines are to be cut through and red lines are to be cut only partially to make the line along which we can fold the box.

After everything was cut out, then it was time to assemble the linear stages. Ivan and Nataliya handled most of the assembly of the mechanics while I was printing out the parts we needed for the machine.

At this stage I also designed and printed out a plug, to connect the rotating stage to a motor so it can actually rotate. Also we needed the peristaltic pump, so I chose one from the thingiverse and printed it out.