1/1/2007: Here's what has happened since our last update!

• We presented at the Space 2006 conference in San Jose, CA in September, and
• We used the money won from the McLucas Award to seed a new award for future bioengineering senior design teams! Click here to find out more!)
• Pictures from the second semester and onward are also up!

6/24/2006: Wow, over two months with no updates! Here's what has happened since then:

• We completed all work on Cerberus, including completion of the control unit and refinement of our second-generation prototype, Cerberus;
• we competed in the Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium;
• we presented our project to the Rice Bioengineering External Advisory Committee;
• we competed in our second TSGC Design Challenge Showcase;
• we graduated from Rice University;
• we competed at the RASC-AL Forum in Cape Canaveral, Florida;
• and we are gearing up for the Space 2006 conference in San Jose, CA!

Thanks for keeping up with our updates!

4/4/2006: HPN is progressing well. We are finishing up our Final Report Draft for our senior design course and we are preparing for presenting our device to the BioHouston orthopedics showcase. We are continuing with developing better DC motor speed control and we are nearing final processing of our rapid prototyping parts.

3/28/2006: The project is proceeding well. We are continuing with our evaluation of the first generation prototype. We completed a second round of testing (producing more data points). We are also continuing with the fabrication of the second generation prototype. Our senior design course is nearing its end, and we are competing a number of things that are not required by TSGC but will nonetheless be important additions to our project.

3/21/2006: HPN celebrated spring break from Sunday, March 12th to Saturday, March 18th. In fact, three members of HPN traveled together to California for vacation. Enjoyment was had by all.

The project progressed despite our non-scholastic amusements. The second generation prototype is currently being fabricated by a rapid prototyping machine. FEA was rerun using more realistic movements, and power testing was run to establish a relationship we can use to monitor fracture healing. In summary, we have gained a better understanding of how our first generation prototype functions and have begun work on the second generation.

3/7/2006: This week saw work begin on the second generation prototype, which should be lighter, safer, more refined, and easily produced using a parts printer. Testing work on the first generation prototype continued as well.

2/28/2006: The week was a success for HPN. Our business plan was very well received and we arranged to present our device to a consortium biomed/orthopedics companies in April. Completing Level I and Option Area II reports took up the majority of our time during the second half of last calendar week. We have also reached the phase of our senior design class were we have uninterrupted time to work on our prototypes. We will use this time to complete the testing of our first generation prototype. We hope to begin construction of a second generation prototype sometime in the near future.

2/21/2006: We finished several assignments for our senior design class. These assignments include the Team Cycle 4 report and the business plan. In our mentor meetings we also decided on ways to improve our testing/evaluation methods. Work was also begun on the Level I report.

2/14/2006: We've been very busy this week! HPN has conducted finite element analysis and voltage testing of the prototype. We presented a poster on the prototype and testing results at the HSEMB conference on Feb. 9, 2006. We also submitted an abstract to the RASC-AL competition based on this design project. HPN is currently developing a business plan and presentation centered on the device.

2/7/2006: We're now able to control the prototype at an appropriate speed, and we've begun force analysis of the prototype using both finite element analysis and strain gages. We are currently preparing for the HSEMB conference on Thursday, February 9th.

1/31/2006: We've gotten the prototype to work smoothly and at an appropriate speed! We are also continuing to prepare for testing of the prototype.

1/24/2006: HPN prepared BASE level for submission to TSGC. We've also made initial steps in the testing process to test our device, and optimization of Prototype I (Peter: I like to call it "Fluffy") was started with the testing of different motors.

1/17/2006: We're back from the break! We have begun to organize plans for testing the current prototype and for building a new prototype out of plastic. HPN has also been accepted to present a poster at the 23rd Annual Houston Conference on Biomedical Engineering Research on February 9, 2006.

11/29/2005: HPN recuperated over the Thanksgiving break and is currently finishing up the senior design report. We visited NASA this week.

11/22/2005: We presented our prototype and final presentation at the TSGC Showcase this past weekend and also completed our provisional patent application. We are currently wrapping up our activities for the semester.

11/15/2005: HPN finished all bonus areas last week, including the website, field experience, outreach, photo essay, and documentary. We have received the materials for our prototype and are currently in the process of machining. We talked to the Office of Technology Transfer this week about invention disclosure and may file a patent on our design.

11/8/2005: A lot of time was spent this week completing the option areas. The HPN Outreach Day on Nov. 6 held at the Children's Museum was very successful, and pictures and a copy of our pamphlet can be found on our outreach page on this website. We finished buying most of the materials for our prototype, and we will begin building it next week.

11/1/2005: The final design of the prototype was decided upon this week, and HPN spent many hours creating 3-D CAD models of the device. We started looking at potential materials and will place orders by the end of next week. We have reserved a hotel room and registered for the TSGC showcase.

10/25/2005: We've successfully completed all the documents and other aspects required for our senior design class and presented on Monday to the other students in senior design. We met with Dr. Liebschner to discuss our current design plans and are beginning the selection of components and parts for ordering so that we can begin to build a prototype.

10/18/2005: Much progress has been made in the last week. After finishing Level II, we now have a clear idea of our design and are ready to proceed into the prototype creation process. We have some documents and a presentation to wrap up for our senior design class, and we also will start on ordering materials and so forth. Option III (the website) is currently running and we hope to update it with more information.

10/17/2005: Welcome! The HPN website has just been launched. Feel free to browse some (not all) of the pages to your heart's content.

10/11/2005: The project is progressing well. We have met with Dr. Skoracki and are wrapping up our Pugh charts for the Level II report. Much work remains to be done but we have made significant progress in the last week and hope to make the big push to complete Level II.

10/4/2005: The project is still somewhat behind schedule this week due to the hurricane; our push to complete Level I work this past week, as well as our Team Cycle I report for our BIOE 451 design class, has left us somewhat discouraged as Level II reports are due in less than two weeks. However, we are doing our best to catch up and we should be able to make significant progress over the next few days, especially with Rice's fall recess on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

9/27/2005: The project is behind schedule this week due to Hurricane Rita and several of our team members evacuating of Houston. Because we were apart, the planned brainstorming sessions were delayed - our entire team was not back at Rice until Monday, 9.26.05. However, a lot of individual research was accomplished over the past week. Now that we are all back and safe at Rice, we are working even harder to get back to speed to our desired project status.

9/20/2005: The project is continuing as planned. The design notebook was received this week and provided helpful information on Space Travel and design challenge logistics. We continued doing research and literature reviews this week. We will brainstorm design ideas tomorrow.

9/13/2005: Our project is off to a strong start. We are still in preliminary stages, but everything is on target according to our project timeline.