Portable Centrifuge for Separating Cells
In rural areas where there are no hospitals nearby, accessing a centrifuge can difficult. This project creates a small centrifuge in a coffee tin that can be used to separate cells and is portable.
Engineer
Ronak P
Area of Interest
Computer Science
School
Saratoga High School
Grade
Incoming Senior
Final Milestone
The centrifuge is now complete. At the top of the motor, I installed a motor mount that holds both of the paper clips on either side of the centrifuge. These paperclips are glued onto the motor mount along wit being bent into a shape that allows it to be held up using gravity, and have 2 paper clips braided together in order to strengthen the wire. At the end of the paperclip, there are pipettes that contain the substance that is to be separated. My Bill of Materials can be found here.
First Milestone
Currently, the project consists of a tin coffee box with a motor mounted in the middle. The motor rests on a piece of wood, and the piece of wood is attached to the tin coffee box. The motor is wired to a simple motor controller, and the program sends power from the motor controller to the motor in order to move the motor at its max speed. The motor then decelerates and comes to a stop after 5 seconds.
MintyBoost
My starter project was MintyBoost, which takes the power from two AA batteries to charge a device using a USB port. On the main chip, there are several capacitors, resistors, and other parts which convert the power from the battery to output on the USB. This project required lots of soldering in order to install all of the parts, which was difficult for me, considering that this was my first time working with solder.