Projects - 2022
Columbia University
01
Transcranial HIFU Simulation for Glioblastoma Ablation
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HIFU or high intensity focused ultrasound is an attractive alternative to surgery when it comes to ablating tumors or carcinogenic tissue. However, it has two major difficulties: skull overheating which leads to lesions and skin burns, as well as defocusing of the ultrasound beam due to skull irregularities.
The aim of this study was to determine whether it is possible, using simulations in Matlab, to optimize a single element focused ultrasound transducer to successfully ablate glioblastoma tissue without subjecting the skull to temperatures that would cause deleterious thermal effects by altering properties such as its aperture, frequency, and pressure amplitude.
Additionally, the study investigated what accounts for the randomized formation of lesions or burns of the scalp.
Following many simulations ran in Matlab using functions obtained from k-Wave, it was determined that utilizing a large aperture, 0.4MHz, and 0.4MPa would allow for successful ablation of a glioblastoma transcranially; the irregularity of the skull is the main culprit behind negative thermal effects.
02
Food Printing
The aim of this project was to write a program in Python which can be easily edited to generate G-code of a spirograph, twisted pyramid, etc. that can then be printed out of food. This code was perfected to print out a multilayer twisting spirograph where the first few layers where chocolate frosting and the top few were vanilla frosting mixed with protein powder. Technically, changing properties such as the extrusion rate makes this program functional with other materials such as cream cheese.
In the end, a spirograph out of two types of frosting was successfully printed. The rheological properties had to be taken into consideration as the two types of frosting had slightly different compositions. Thus one had protein powder added in, in a 3:1 ratio to stiffen the end product.
03
Laser Cut Box
The aim of this project was to write a program in Matlab which generates an SVG file that can be imported into the laser-cutter software and be used to cut acrylic sheets that can be bolted together into a box.
The program allows for a wide range of user inputs such as the dimensions of the acrylic sheet being used, dimensions of the box, material thickness, user-specified text engraved on specific sides of the box, and user determined fractal engraving.
Additionally the software produced error messages if the user inputted something wrong or if the desired dimensions of the box did not fit the size of the acrylic sheet being used.
04
Topology Optimization
This project relies on digital manufacturing to create topologically optimized designs of a desk and chair with the aid of Altair Inspire.
The desk was maximized for stiffness with a mass target of 30% of the total design space volume. It had constraints put in such as material, size, supports, symmetry, and pressure.
The chair was maximized for stiffness with a mass target of 25% of total design space volume. In addition to the aforementioned constraints of material, size, supports, symmetry, and pressure the chair additionally had a minimum frequency constraint as well as multiple force constraints that were applied.
05
Programmable Embroidery
The aim of this project was to write a program in Python which generates an embroidery JEF file that can be read by an embroidery machine. The aim of this is to make it so that the software can be easily edited to manufacture various designs at different sizes and colors.
The code that was developed to generate the flowers seen below, has user editable parameters that change the leaf directionality as well as type of flower that can be embroidered.
06
Lampshade Lattice
The aim of this project was to write a program that will generate geometry procedurally using OpenSCAD. The geometry that was chosen was a lattice cube inside of a nested bowl which sits atop a light to create a lampshade.
The program allows for the complexity of the lattice cube to be easily changed, i.e. the amount of cubes, amount of lattice, and directionality of the cubes. The bowl was created from a random nesting algorithm.
