• Question: Have you ever created an object which save peoples lives . Even if you just helped in designing or creating it.

    Asked by Patryk to Shruti, Mark, Faranak, Douglas, Charlene, Alistair on 5 Mar 2019. This question was also asked by Holly😃😎😘.
    • Photo: Charlene Chung

      Charlene Chung answered on 5 Mar 2019:


      Some of the sewers that I design and the mechanics that are within them, like apparatus to control the amount of flow going into and through a system, types of screens to filter and trap the waste, ultimately help saves lives, as everything is calculated to the correct size, flows and mechanisms are set at specific timing and everything is built accordingly to the best standard, so that flooding of sewage doesn’t occur unexpected which would cause a nasty situation in and around homes and streets.

      By being involved in the above and following procedures, I make sure that after the sewage goes to a sewage treatment plant to get treated, that it is treated to the best quality and is safe to be released to designated area and doesn’t end up polluting the environment.

      So I help save lives by making sure all the nasty things we thinking about when we think about sewage is taken care of and does block up and make any reappearances!

    • Photo: Mark Bentley

      Mark Bentley answered on 5 Mar 2019:


      When I was a tool maker some of the tool molds we made were for medical parts, one from memory was the tube they put down your through to keep your air way open…..

      Also some of the kit I make now is for Parkinson disease research

    • Photo: Faranak Bahrami

      Faranak Bahrami answered on 6 Mar 2019:


      when I was an undergraduate student for our group project we had to come up with an affordable artificial hand for those have lost theirs. Although that was not manufactured for others to use it, it felt good to know that we might be helping the research in that area, and hopefully one day all the people who have lost their limbs can have access to very affordable prosthetics.

      Also in my Master degree, I was working on a cough-flow meter, which people cough into it in order to find out the capacity of their lungs. it’s very important for people whose lungs have some sort of problem, however, they are not very very accurate but they are cheap. so for my project, I designed a cough-flow meter that could accurately measure the capacity of the lungs and it was still very affordable. thankfully that device now is close to production I think, with a few changes that were made after me by another student. 🙂 so that feels amazing.

    • Photo: Shruti Turner

      Shruti Turner answered on 6 Mar 2019:


      There are 2 projects I’ve worked on that could save people’s lives.
      During my Masters I worked on a project to improve the quality of medical scans. When you get injured and have a scan at the hospital, you’ll be asked to lie as still as you can. Some movements can’t be stopped though, like your heart. You wouldn’t want to stop that for a scan! But that movement means that the image from the scan is blurred which can mean it’s difficult for doctors to be able to see exactly what the problems are in your body. I worked on removing the blurry parts of the image and recreating what’s there so the doctors can get a clear image. This saves lives because it means that doctors can get a better idea of any problems and treat them before they become fatal.
      Right now, I work on a technology to improve the fit of artificial limbs. When they don’t fit properly, there is often skin breakdown and due to the heat and moisture in the artificial limb this can lead to infection that can be fatal. By improving fit, we are preventing the skin breakdown that leads to infection.

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