Eye Injury Demo

The goal of the eye injury demo is to show clearly the impact of airborne debris on eyes. Particulates that contact the surface of an eye is one of the most common and most costly injuries in construciton. This group is using an armature and porcine (pig) eyes to demonstrate the cause and impact of injuries. They will also demonstrate how proper eye protection influences contact.

The armature with eyes drawn and ready for drilling.

Eye drilled carefully with a Dremel.

An internal view of the eye socket.

The armature with proper eye protection.

Pinch Point Demo

Recently the pinch point demo group made the first see-through hand with visible internal bones/blood structure. The product was quite interesting. The purpose of the clear hand is to show visible damage to the internal components of a hand, which occur when an extremity is caught between two moving or rotating objects.

The internal components of the hand prior to casting the second half.

The complete hand. As you can see, the bones are black to show clearly. The bones in the second hand will be smaller and white.

The hand in the light to show the internal components. The acrylic wrist is still clear.

Soil Collapse Demo

The soil collapse demo team has made some excellent progress making a scaled version of a soil column. Their goal is to demonstrate the impacts of soil collapse on breathing and to simulate the actual lateral loads caused by collapsed soil. The team has built a soil box with pressure sensors, a bulb and tube design so that worker can feel the pressure that would be exerted on lungs, and a mechanism to simulate increased loads. Its pretty cool.

Zach and Cristina figuring out the pressure tubing, which will simulate lungs.

The pressure sensors in the box

Mar showing the removable slide to show the internal components in the box.

Nice work, team!

Making the first foot

Today our team constructed the first foot in the Live Demos series. The foot only includes flesh and an ankle bone at this time and cannot be created in bulk. However, the quality is very high. We expect to use feet like these for pinch point and falling object demonstrations. we can also show the purpose of steel-toed boots and their limitations. The "falling objects" team (Eric, Carl, and Zach) mentored by Justin Harter of Bechtel took on this effort.

Eric with his foot in the alginate! His foot will now be immortalized.

Eric looking funny with a block of alignate on his foot. Zach and Carl preparing to free him.

The team pouring dragon skin into the mold.

The final product. The only small defect was a bubble on the big toe that caused a small divot.

Kudos to the team! This looks pretty good.

A new logo!

One of our research students, Spencer Lacy, worked with a colleague (Sophia) and put together this new logo for the team. Check it out! Thanks, Spencer and Sophia!

Production Video!

After a whole lot of hand making, videography, story boarding, and video editing we mad the first production-level live demo video. Soon I will be posting the storyboards and elements that went into this video.

Although its not perfect, we are pretty happy with the outcome.

The video is hosted on Vimeo because of its size and HD qualities. 

http://vimeo.com/80761732

All the details on the slow motion capture

This week we were able to make serious progress with the high speed camera and our drop column demos. Below are some photos from our day in the laboratory and some video products from the shots. We are one step away from having a production level video. Kudos to Sid and Spencer for some great work.

Prepping a hand for the drop column

These were our conditions on the day of the shoot. We had to open the bay door because we needed the natural light for the high-speed camera.

Using the new drop column from an elevated work platform in the University of Colorado Structures Laboratory.

Spencer draining the tested hand. Take a close look at the labeling of that trash can :)

This is the aftermath of a drop...sometimes difficult to explain but very effective in achieving our goals. This is what an unattended hand would look like after being struck by a concrete chisel from a 10-foot drop.

This is the resulting video from a high-speed drop. We are very pleased. You are seeing the hand hit on the radial artery. The blood bladder has the same internal pressure as your arteries (approximately 2 psi). Pretty dramatic and very realistic.