Week 9

This week we focused on finishing up our whole project. We completed the powerpoint presentation and began organizing how we would present our design in week ten. We also corrected our final design report based on suggestions from our lab advisors.

Week 8

We calculated the volume of our ear model, which came out to be 19 cu cm. Real ears aren't made of ABS plastic, but rather other materials. We can use the density of these other materials to find the mass of our ear should it be printed using these other materials instead of ABS plastic.

We can then compare this mass to the mass of a real ear to see what materials would produce an ear closest in mass/density to the real thing.

An artificial ear would need to be attached using surgical procedures, which can come with risks of infection and rejection. Choosing the right materials is crucial in reducing these risks.



We also began designing the powerpoint we will use for the presentation.

Week 7

Sending the ear out for printing required some modifications in which the model had to be smoothed numerous times. Also, since Maya cannot export .stl files (which are needed in order to 3D print) the model had to be exported using the program Rhinoceros 3D.

 

Our artificial ear design was printed using the 3D printer. Our design was successfully printed without any malfunctions, so we do not have to reprint it. The material used to print the ear was ABS plastic. The ear is lightweight and durable.

Week 6

This week, we finished constructing the 3D model of the ear on the Maya software. The file has been converted to a ".stl" format and sent to the 3D printer at Drexel University. Now the focus is on making sure the dimensions of the ear are appropriate for picking up sounds. To ensure that the ear will be able to work in real life, we are looking into a formula relating sound pressure and volume of the outer ear. Hopefully, this will be done by next week.

On a side note, we are preparing our rough draft of the final report, which is due next week.

Week 5

Modification of the ear design continued. This week more of the ear has a three dimensional shape, with a more realistic look. The only part of the ear that needs a little more refinement is external auditory meatus, antitragus and tragus area. Once this is fixed, we shall have a model ready to be sent to the 3D printer.

Front View

Transparent Front View

Transparent Left Front View

Week 4

Front view (prior to this week)

 This week we continued to modify the design of the ear using Maya. We focused on extruding the outline we started last week, to have a more 3-dimensional shape, and then modifying the polygon mesh to line up with the reference pictures. Specifically, the helix and lobule, labelled in the figure below, were made to look more realistic, with a more 3-D look to it. We now have a fairly accurate outline/outer form of the ear, but the inner folds and ear canal are still very preliminary and do not match with the references.

Anatomy of the Outer Ear

Front view

Side view (back of head)

Week 3

Designing the ear began in earnest. Studied tutorials for Maya and found reference photographs for the ear – we are doing a person's left ear, although due to the "mirror" function that Maya has, the right ear can also be made once the left ear is complete. The reference photographs were aligned with the front and right planes and matched to each other. The model began as a rectangular prism that was then smoothed and cut to create a flattened semi-ovoid and then the vertices were individually moved to correspond to outline of the ear.

Week 2

This week we began brainstorming ideas on how to begin our design of the artificial ear. We were originally going to create the ear design using Creo Parametric software; however, after researching other software options, we decided to use Maya software instead. Based on the time we are given to actually create the ear, Maya seemed like the wiser decision because it is more time efficient than Creo. If we used Creo, we would have to draw out the design and use various tools in the software to create the design; whereas, if we used Maya, we would be able to create the general shape of the design using an actual picture of a real human ear. This way our artificial design would be a more accurate representation of what a real human ear looks like.

After we decided to switch to Maya, we began thinking of how to actually start the design and what exactly we want our ear design to look like. We looked up pictures online of various human ears to decide how we wanted to model our artificial ear. We also looked up pictures of other artificial ears to get an idea of what ours will hopefully look like at the completion of this project. Since we have never used Maya before, we looked up tutorials on how the software works and how we can use it to create our artificial ear design.

Week 1

Engineering 103: Freshman Design Project

In this class we are given 10 weeks to devise and implement a project of our choice. The projects in our section center on applications of biomedical engineering: assistive robots, health-monitoring mobile apps, and 3D printed body parts.

We formed our group and chose our project: creating an artificial ear. Although the ear is a static structure and does not have any mobile parts, it has a complex form and will be challenging to model.

Most of this class was spent discussing what would be needed to actually complete this project, and setting up this blog which will serve as a lab journal of sorts.

Outside of class, we worked on the project proposal, which will serve as an outline for our project in the upcoming weeks.