High School Student Develops Chemical-detecting Robot
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Image: Anna Kornfeld Simpson with her robot.
Wow! You made THAT with Legos®!" exclaimed the children who crowded around my robot on Public Day at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in May 2009. On display was my mobile, autonomous robot that will search a room--and if it moves over a chemical spill, it will detect and respond to the chemical.
This technology has applications in industry, security, counterterrorism, environmental sensing and maybe even Mars exploration. By removing people from the potential danger of searching for and detecting chemicals in hazardous situations, an array of inexpensive robots could help preserve safety and save lives.
The sensor I designed uses relatively simple electrical parts: a light-emitting diode (LED), photodiode, operational amplifier (op-amp) and resistors in combination with a porous silicon chip that temporarily changes color in the presence of a volatile organic compound. A fan sucks up saturated vapor into the sensor chamber holding the chip, and the LED bounces light with a different intensity off the chip and into the photodiode.
The voltage from the photodiode is then amplified and sent to the microcomputer of the robot as the sensor signal. After creating the sensor circuit and adding the fan, I ran some tests to determine if the signal change caused by the targeted chemical was big enough to be easily seen by the robot. The change exceeded my expectations and was clearly large enough to detect the chemical, even in very small quantities and concentrations.
Wow! You made THAT with Legos®!" exclaimed the children who crowded around my robot on Public Day at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in May 2009. On display was my mobile, autonomous robot that will search a room--and if it moves over a chemical spill, it will detect and respond to the chemical.
This technology has applications in industry, security, counterterrorism, environmental sensing and maybe even Mars exploration. By removing people from the potential danger of searching for and detecting chemicals in hazardous situations, an array of inexpensive robots could help preserve safety and save lives.
The sensor I designed uses relatively simple electrical parts: a light-emitting diode (LED), photodiode, operational amplifier (op-amp) and resistors in combination with a porous silicon chip that temporarily changes color in the presence of a volatile organic compound. A fan sucks up saturated vapor into the sensor chamber holding the chip, and the LED bounces light with a different intensity off the chip and into the photodiode.
The voltage from the photodiode is then amplified and sent to the microcomputer of the robot as the sensor signal. After creating the sensor circuit and adding the fan, I ran some tests to determine if the signal change caused by the targeted chemical was big enough to be easily seen by the robot. The change exceeded my expectations and was clearly large enough to detect the chemical, even in very small quantities and concentrations.
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blood77
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That is amazing, it is so simple, but really creative. Just goes to show that you can do anything with legos. I would be expecting endorsement deals from them by the end of the month :P
- 2 years ago
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blood77
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KSirys
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That's great for this girl, but let the government get involved and watch that lego robot become a billion dollar sticker price. The government will find a way, some way, to say the price of that machine will cost in the millions to make just one.
How much is that toilet in outer space? 4 Million? 10 Million?
- 2 years ago
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KSirys
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blood77
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KSirys:
Sad and true.
- 2 years ago
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blood77
