Biomedical Engineering
A BME Design Story
Fall 2007

Chris Wegener, BME undergraduate student:

The Project

It's our senior design project.
It's a project that we work on for three semesters.
We're actually working for a doctor in the Department of Medical Physics,
and he does some research on different imaging techniques for respiratory tract.
What we're working on right now is creating 
a hyperpolarized helium and oxygen ventilator.

The Team

We have four members working on our team:
We have a team leader.
We have a communications person who talks to our advisor and talks to our client.
We have a person who is our BWIG, that's the biomedical web implementaton group.
so he keeps our website up to date.
The last person is our biomedical student advisory group member,
and so he goes and gives input to the department about, you know,
what we're doing, and if we're having problems doing something.
So those are our four members.

The Work

And we just, you know, try and get this thing together --
try and do everything from concept to 
actually building it, going into the machine shop and
drilling holes and making the parts fit,
to, you know, delivering the prototype to our client,
as well as going through and testing.

The Advisor

My advisor is Dr. Willis Tompkins.
He's a professor in the biomedical engineering department.
We meet with him every week.
He's just had so much experience, you know, being an advisor,
and he's done so much work himself,
that, you know, it really helps to have someone like that around.
If you're stuck, to kind of, you know, hint at a few things for you.
So he allows you to discover it on your own.

The Result

When you actually put forth the effort of, you know, building it yourself, 
and, you know, putting your own blood, sweat, and tears into that project,
you get a huge sense of pride: 
"I made that," you know.
"I designed that with these three other people, and we put it together, and it works."

Copyright 2007 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. All rights reserved.
Created 07-Sep-2007. Last modified 25-Sep-2007.