Week 4: The Table

Ok that's pretty cool.

But do you want to know something that isn't cool. Tables.

After designing, redesigning, buying, redesigning, re-buying, redesigning, etc., the 80/20 parts for my table finally arrived. And for a heap of metal frames, nuts, and bolts, it was quite an enriching experience.

Like any other task so far in my internship, constructing the table was deceptively simple. Just had to attach the T-slotted frames to a series of rectangular nuts hanging from brackets and gussets. But the nuts didn't listen to me. I tried to arrange them all into a nice line, and nuts being nuts, they went nuts. What began as a simple building task ended as an epic (and profanity-filled) wrestling match as I attempted to re-align all the nuts while shoving them into the slots.

The result: a rather unimposing aluminum structure which did exactly what you'd expect a table to do. It held up the parts of the experiment, as planned. Wait, not quite as planned.

You see, the experiment changed last minute (without my knowledge) after I had built the table. The moving parts got moved from their originally planned positions. Now unable to hold the experiment for which it was originally designed, my table now had two options. The first (not cost-effective) was to be completely dismantled and thrown into the "spare parts" cabinet. The second (more reasonable) was to be frankensteined into a monstrosity of a table as we attempted to repurpose it.

At the end of it all, it wasn't even my table anymore. My table was gone.

Exhibit C: if God were a Flying Spaghetti Monster, Satan would be a solenoid

Week 3: S is for Satan. Or solenoid. Wait they're the same

I think this is pretty self-explanatory...

Exploding robot. Woo. Moving on.

You are probably expecting this to connect to the rest of the post in some profound way. And sure it does. Not. Or maybe. Just wait for the rest of what I'm about to say.

Though the nature of my project is "strictly confidential," I am allowed to disclose that it involves magnets. Special types of magnets, called electromagnets (Exhibit C). Now the materials for making one of these highly specialized (and dangerous) devices include an overwhelmingly large expanse of insulated wire (oh, maybe several hundred feet), a cylindrical object, and nerves of freaking steel.

And believe me, this device is highly dangerous. It is known to the state of California (just like any other consumer item) to be an immense choking hazard due to the wire and to evoke suicidal tendencies in persons who attempt to construct them. 

How to construct such a diabolical device? Simple. Wrap the wire around the cylinder into the shape of a solenoid. A mind-numbing number of times. To gain perspective, unroll a megaroll of 1-ply toilet paper, or an entire spool of thread, and then attempt to re-wrap.

Your hands begin to shake. Your eyes begin to shut. Your head begins to explode.

In the world of laboratory work, solenoid-wrapping is classified as "work that needs to be done, but nobody wants to do." Luckily, a race of laboratory workers called "interns" exists. Oh wait, that's me.

So here I am, permanently traumatized by my solenoid-wrapping experience.

Week 2: Strictly Confidential Number 32

Again, here's the robot gif of the week...

Oreo surgery

If we have any hope of bringing micro-robots into medicine, they've really just got to be able to do surgery. And to do surgery you need knives. So here's a good question: can robots be trusted with knives. Well just take a gander a few inches upwards.

But seriously, robots (as of now) do exactly what you tell them to do. So if we have a robot with a knife, or as is more likely for nano-robotics, an army of tiny robotic knives, it will do exactly what we want. We can trust these robots only as much as the humans controlling them. There ain't no terminator coming any time soon.

But onto business.

Turns out that magnet project was kind of confidential. Whoops. Hush hush.

Also there really is nothing to see or hear this week. It was kind of a lazy week. Just finished up the orders for the table (which was still redesigned multiple times over the course of the week) and almost slept through the lab safety training class.

Seriously, I was stuffed in a classroom with 30 other sleepy students (who obviously didn't want to be there) learning about lab safety from the cheesiest freaking video (filled with low-budget acting) and a professor (who also obviously didn't want to be there).

It's funny because just a few weeks prior, I had taken an online course on laboratory waste management. The course included a slideshow with a professor's voice, which was unsurprisingly patronizing in tone. But the one aspect of the ordeal that just shot right of the screen was the way he said "waste." It was simply insipid, like Barney Rubble smoking pot. The "was" part was drawled, with the longest "a" imaginable. And the "te" part was heavily accented, like he was making machine gun noises.

And if you hadn't guessed already, the professor said the word "waste" in almost every sentence, sometimes even multiple times in each. The funny part is how I had later declared this to be the most boring course I will ever take. Haha, psyche.

Turns out, boredom truly is contagious. It just takes 2 hours steeping in the disinterest of 31 individuals to become #32.

Week 1: Summary of events

First, your robot gif of the week.


Me... every morning



















So week 1 of my ASU BIRTH Lab internship has been quite swell. Large portions of the mornings were spent farting around on my computer and phone, waiting for my professor and graduate student amigos to show up for the day. But I can't blame them... mornings suck (as illustrated by soccer bot).

Anyways.

My first major project seems to be quite a far stretch from robots (and hence, much less related to micro-robots, or anything medical at that). I was tasked with building a highly complex structure, the exquisite form that modern engineers refer to as a table. Out of 80/20's, which by the way are "Erector sets for adults."

Hey building an aluminum table out of 80/20's isn't any simple business. There's plenty of measuring, designing, measuring, counting, remeasuring, ordering, remeasuring, reordering, you get the idea. Even over the course of one day, exactly what was expected of my table varied greatly. You could only imagine how much that design changed over the course of the week.

The basic purpose of said table, however, did remain constant. Our goal is to get a plate of salt water to swirl as we spin a magnet with a high-speed motor really close to the surface. Turns out high speed motors produce tons of vibrations. So when we mounted both to the table, the water got turbulent. Kind of hard to see any swirling if the surface is vibrating.

That's where the table comes in. With a separate table mounted on the ground, the vibrations produced by the motor will now be transmitted to the ground, instead of the table where the water sits. So with all the parts ordered, all I have to do is wait, and then build.

And I end with a very well-known cliche: it isn't the destination so much as it is the journey. And that is very true when trying to get to ASU in the morning. My fellow blogger Daniel and I have decided to carpool every morning of our internships. The first two days were spent braving the major freeways of the valley in rush hour traffic. After almost getting rear ended (multiple times), getting cut in front of, getting flipped off by a disabled man, and being chronically late, we have made the conclusion that rush hour is a no go for us fledgeling travellers. Even if I gain nothing else from these several weeks of internship, I'll be content knowing that I survived average Phoenix rush hour traffic.

Fun fact: ASU shuttles are the way to go. They're even double-deckers!

Full disclosure...

Now in all honesty until a few hours ago, I had forgotten about the existence of this entire site with my name on it. So if you will bear with me, I will give successive brief accounts (within the next few hours) regarding the past (relatively uneventful) two weeks.

But as narrating such uneventfulness is quite tiring/hungering, there will be multiple nap and snack breaks between each post. That way it will look like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing and posting at the end of each week, rather than saving up two week's worth of non-activity.

Alright fine, these last two weeks have been pretty eventful. I'm just a terrible slacker. Just let me sleep right now please.

Exhibit B: micro-robotic pill-pushers