By the end of the fall semester, they had designed and built three new machines which will be used by future students pursuing a new concentration of biomedical engineering courses. The course, Engineering of Biological Systems, was taught by Rosemary Seymour, assistant professor in BioSystems Science and Engineering. Every one of them changed their designs as they went along. This is part of a broader university effort to give students opportunities to do active design work earlier in their educational programs. The students' biggest challenges were isolating the biceps from other muscles and making their devices compatible with the department's new Instron testing equipment.
Isolation is important since other muscles come into play as the arm and shoulder move.
To protect the Instron device, the students had to transform a large force into a small one. The department's Instron is designed to measure small forces such as what it takes to rupture the skin of fresh blueberries. The maximum capacity is 50 pounds, and biceps muscles are capable of generating forces over that limit. In addition to working with Seymour, students received professional guidance from Angela Green, an occupational therapist at the Brewer Rehabilitation and Living Center, and Robert Lehnhard, associate professor of kinesiology in the College of Education and Human Development. In December, students described their devices before their peers in class and then demonstrated them in practice in the BioResource Engineering lab.