Our co-op Makership program was just featured at the National Science Foundation (NSF) website in an article discussing NSF’s involvement with the “Maker” movement. During 2012-2013, in a collaboration with Dr. Thomas Tretter in the College of Education and Human Development, we had 9 University of Louisville undergraduate engineering students carry out their semester-long …
Category Archives: Lab News
Paper published: beams on flexible supports
Here is our analysis of bistable beams on flexible supports, written up. The take-home message is that when the support is flat, the beam has two states, up or down. But when you bend the support too far, the beam is only stable in one of the positions. Connect up a readout system to these …
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Nanoparticles are boring…
Nanoparticles are boring SQUARE HOLES in our silicon wafers! The gold nanoplates from the O’Toole group enhance the etch rate in our usual silicon-etching process. Mysterious square pores appear when nanoparticles are present on the silicon. Others have made conical nanopores in a different etch chemistry and with different gold nanoparticles, and used them as …
Inflatable actuator with two stable states
Here is the latest iteration of the macro bistable actuator. We inflated two air pockets to make this 3-D printed plastic beam contort into an S-shape; this shape is an important step on the way to “snap-through” of our small and large bistable beams. The work continues Fidel Tewolde’s earlier project and makes good use …
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Bistable inclined beam in slow motion
Here is a spring steel beam snapping from one stable shape to another in our bending tester as it goes past the critical angle. The beam is about 5 cm long and vibrates at 240 Hz. Thanks to Roger Bradshaw and Bill Hnat for the slow-motion video.