Assistive Technology product innovation through undergraduate projects

The final year or capstone individual project undertaken by students in Electrical and Information Engineering programmes is the opportunity students have to demonstrate their ability to integrate all their academic learning and use it appropriately to undertake a significant engineering project in a professional manner. The project not only allows them to demonstrate their proficiency in technical skills but also in a range of generic skills whilst offering potential bonus benefits. This paper proposes that projects that focus on Assistive Technology (AT) solutions to real disability related issues make both excellent project topics from a technical and generic skills perspective but also serve to raise the general awareness of problems individuals with a disability face in their general living and working lives. Such projects also, potentially lead to innovative new commercial product ideas. This paper starts with an introduction to the supply side academic objectives of the student first employment transition in the form of programme learning outcomes and graduate attributes and then describes three AT projects undertaken by students in SALEIE Project partner institutions. It shows that these projects are effective in all the above stated respects and that they provide an excellent topic for student projects. A signpost to a freely available source of disability related project ideas is given at the end of the paper

PREPARATION OF POLYURETHANE MICROSPHERES BY ELECTROSPRAY TECHNIQUE

In this paper some polyurethane membranes were prepare by electrospraying process to obtain biocompatible materials. The polyurethanes utilized in this study were synthesized from hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI), polytetramethylene ether glycol (PTMEG) and butanediol (BD) filled with different proportion of hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC), by polyaddition in dimethylformamide (DMF) as solvent. Molar ratio of Polyether: Diisocyanate: Glycol of 1:4:3, provide a concentration of urethane groups about of 3x10 -3 mole/g. These polyurethane membranes were made by electrospraying technique from a solution of 20% w/w, at 25 kV voltages and a distance between needle and ground collector about of 15 cm. The structure of polymers was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis. The morphology of electrospun membranes were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were used for thermal characterization. Contact angles measurements in connection with the study for biological behaviour was performed

Dislocation structures, interfacing, and magnetism in the L10-MnGa on η ⊥-Mn3N2 bilayer

© 2019 Author(s). Ferromagnetic L10-MnGa was grown by molecular beam epitaxy under ultrahigh vacuum conditions to a 73±5nm thickness atop of 50±5nm thick molecular beam epitaxy grown antiferromagnetic η⊥-Mn3N2 on an MgO(001) substrate. The MnGa grew along the c-axis with an out-of-plane spacing of c=3.71±0.01Å and a relaxed in-plane spacing of a=4.00±0.05Å measured with x-ray diffraction and reflection high-energy electron diffraction, respectively. Williamson-Hall analysis revealed 67±17nm tall columnar grains with a residual strain of 2.40±0.26(×10-3). A radial distribution plot of screw dislocations observed in scanning tunneling microscopy images showed an in-plane coherence length of 15±5nm. Reflection high-energy electron diffraction analysis of the in-plane lattice spacing during growth reveals a critical thickness of 1.05±0.65nm for the MnGa, after which the MnGa film relaxes by incorporating dislocations of both edge and screw type. Vibrating sample magnetometry was employed to obtain the magnetic properties of the bilayer system. It is found that the dislocation density plays a significant role in influencing the measured moment per unit cell, where a large dislocation density lowers the moment per unit cell significantly due to chemical layer disordering