Blog Post 10: Rube Goldberg and a Reflection

Hello!

I squeezed, squeezed in this final prototype right before the deadline, which is tomorrow! It’s quite similar to its predecessor (“Hot Glue and Hope”). I’ve preserved the essential concept while improving the execution: The spring that once enabled the magnet’s vertical motion has been replaced with a 3D print that looks like a piston to allow for smoother motion with less resistance. The polymer clay bead has been replaced with an arc-shaped piece that looks like a Hot Wheels track to allow for more durable use.

These two improvements have not only made the final product appear neater but also have allowed me to stack more magnets in my mechanism, meaning that this prototype should be more effective at removing ferrofluid.

Here’s what it looks like right now:

What do you think?

Well, once again, it was put to the test. While the previous version required 28 runs to remove most of the ferrofluid, this version required just 19. Furthermore, the brush mechanism of this version is more accurate, so even the ferrofluid congealed on the bottom of the container has been scraped off and removed from the solution. Compare these two images:

Prototype 3.0 after 28 runs:

Prototype 3.1 after 19 runs:

I have yet to test this version with microplastics and a lab microscope, but I hope to finish that before the Symposium. I suppose I’ll be working on this until the very end, accelerating to through the finish line.

Speaking of which, is there a “finish line”? I’ve been scraping away at this project for ten weeks now, and I have to say that I’m not completely satisfied. There’s just so much I wish I had more time and access to resources for.

1.    I wish I could have had the opportunity to visit a proper lab where I could compare my water samples before, after, and throughout my prototype’s cleaning process under a strong light microscope or with a spectrophotometer. These two tools could have helped me quantize the efficacy of my prototypes with hard data and optimize the number of runs that should be done.

2.    I hope that in a future prototype I can streamline the entire microplastic cleaning process using a single machine, from pumping in contaminated water into the machine, to mixing in the ferrofluid, to draining the cleansed water. Right now, my prototype can only do a fraction of this process by itself.

3.    Finally, if I want to make a significant difference in the amount of microplastics in our bodies of water today, I must expand my scale. There’s no way anything can happen if this prototype has a capacity of 20mL and must run for an hour each time.

I’ve tried my best with this project given my current skill set and the 10 weeks I was allotted, but I don’t think it’s enough. I will be studying Mechanical Engineering and probably taking on an additional major/minor in Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University next Fall. I still don’t know if that will be enough.

Yet…although hard work doesn’t guarantee success, success can never come before hard work.

So I must try.

On that slightly depressing note I’m sorry to leave you with…this might be my last blog for Senior Project! I hope you can make the upcoming symposium and check out all the projects my peers and I have been working on!

Bye for now.

Chloe Zhang