Team:USMA-West Point/Design
USMA-West_Point
Design
Design is the first step in the design-build-test cycle in engineering and synthetic biology. Use this page to describe the process that you used in the design of your parts. You should clearly explain the engineering principles used to design your project.
This page is different to the "Applied Design Award" page. Please see the Applied Design page for more information on how to compete for that award.
What should this page contain?
- Explanation of the engineering principles your team used in your design
- Discussion of the design iterations your team went through
- Experimental plan to test your designs
Inspiration
Bioreactor and Fluidics Design
Following the successes at West Point with Axion's Muse, a new challenge was brought upon to conduct the same tests but in a more economic fashion. We decided to engineer a similar system with the bioreactor as the main focus. The bioreactor is printed from FormLabs Form 2 printer using a non-cytotoxic Dental SG resin. We designed the bioreactor to allow for neurons to be cultured on a mulitelectrode array (MEA), to measure activity. The various ports allow media to flow through the system as well as the injection of the olfactant.
The fluidics component relies on a pressure system to maintain flow of media. Because the entire design is a closed system, pressure changes in one area will transmit to fluid flow, be it air or media. We utilize this property to ensure movement of media from the media reservoir to the waste without waste media cycling back through, instead the air is cycled. We also include the use of syringes and luer locks to facilitate any change in pressure, i.e. adding olfactant, by using them for pressure relief.
