Armin Hinterwirth: Making stuff

Building things

Building things is fun. Unfortunately, I don't have nearly enough time to play around in the students' machine shop of the Physics Department here at UW. I'd be milling my personal coffee mug out of Delrin right now...

Below is a sampling of stuff I have recently designed and built.

MothBones^® (Fall 2009)

Modular system of interlocking pieces for holding stuff. Printed on the Daniel Lab's uPrint 3D Printer to fit a multitude of holding tasks. Standard 1/4-20 screws can be used to fasten together individual pieces. Contact me if you need STL files for printing components yourself...

Click here to hide/show details on MothBones^® holder system

Concept rendering of the MothBones^® system, done in SolidWorks. Fasteners and nuts not shown

MothBones^® assembly to hold an IR-LED illuminator on my experimental setup.

MothBones^® component 2A example: hexagonal inset allows for press-fitting 1/4-20 nut into part.

MothBones^® 80/20 attachment slider to connect to a 10-series 80/20 profile.

Wind tunnel (Summer/Fall 2009)

Design and construction of a wind tunnel for the Daniel Lab.

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Concept drawing of the wind tunnel, done in Google SketchUp

Downstream end of the assembled wind tunnel

Google SketchUp schematic of the laser trigger system. If the beams are interrupted, cameras and other devices are triggered. The trigger system is based on an Arduino microcontroller.

2 laser beams form a trap. If both beams are interrupted simultaneously, various events are triggered automatically (e.g. cameras)

The sensor unit for the laser trigger system, holding a lens and a light sensor, was printed on a Dimension uPrint 3D printer.

Manduca sexta pupae made of chocolate (Fall 2009)

Using food-grade silicone, I created a few 3D molds, which I then used to make tasty chocolate treats for halloween. The photos below show the steps involved in the process.

Click here to show/hide details about how to make a 3D chocolate mold.

Bend sensor (Winter 2008)

When exploring sensors for reading out behavioral (i.e. motor) output from an animal, I came across bend sensors that can be incorporated into clothing (http://www.talk2myshirt.com/blog/archives/724) By using thin copper foil, velostat, and epoxy, I was able to shrink the dimensions of the sensor to about 15 mm length. Unfortunatly, I needed something even smaller, and something more compliant. But here's the basic idea: