Joanna Brunker*
CRUK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge
Jo is a postdoctoral research fellow with a PhD in designing devices to measure blood flow, and extensive school outreach experience. She also contributes her knowledge of device design and biological monitoring.
Tom Else
Department of Physics, University of Cambridge
Tom is a third-year physics undergraduate with an interest in outreach and circuit building. He contributes his teaching and electronics knowledge to the school sessions.
Catherine Fitzpatrick
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
Cat is a postdoctoral research associate currently working with Raspberry Pi programming for medical optics, and with previous experience in medical technology consulting. She therefore contributes her skills in programming, device development, and assessment of medical market needs.
Marcel Gehrung
CRUK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge
Marcel is a German Masters student studying for six months in Cambridge. He has a background in programming, machine learning, and cell biology, so helps with programming and analysing the biological data.
Josie Hughes
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
Josie is a PhD student in robotics, and has extensive experience in teaching electronics and programming to students. She contributes her expertise on both these fronts to help drive the sessions in schools.
James Joseph
Department of Physics, University of Cambridge
James built optical imaging systems during his PhD, and is characterising imaging system stability for his postdoctoral research. He therefore contributes to the design and engineering of the monitoring systems and reliability testing.
Calum Williams Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
Calum’s post-doc follows his PhD in optical engineering, in which he fabricated and characterised various optical devices. He contributes to programming and optical sensing.
https://www.seeedstudio.com/ARDX-The-starter-kit-for-Arduino-p-1153.html (kit) https://cdn.instructables.com/ORIG/F3J/MTJN/FVW22MXN/F3JMTJNFVW22MXN.pdf (guide booklet that comes with each kit) http://www.seeedstudio.com/document/pdf/ARDX-02-WO-EG-SEEE-WEB.pdf
https://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/en/pulse-sensor.html https://pulsesensor.com/pages/code-and-guide
https://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/en/particle-sensor-breakout-max30105.html https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/max30105-particle-and-pulse-ox-sensor-hookup-guide?_ga=1.97228895.1597862514.1479216075
https://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/en/myoware-muscle-sensor-development-kit.html https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/myoware-muscle-sensor-kit?_ga=2.39886562.1973069348.1503480036-1575493297.1484668914
https://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/en/ad8232-single-lead-heart-rate-monitor.html https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/ad8232-heart-rate-monitor-hookup-guide
https://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/en/emg-detector.html http://wiki.seeed.cc/Grove-EMG_Detector/
The project involved purchasing 8 Arduino kits, and several medical sensors as described above and in Handout 3. The iLAB team worked to assemble these sensors and test their functionality. We then scheduled nine after-school sessions in County Upper School, Bury St. Edmunds. A total of 24 students worked in groups of 3 or 4 to design and test their own medical sensor over the course of the nine weeks (see timetable in Handout 1). The students also had half an hour allocated every Monday lunchtime to continue with their circuits independently.
An extra week was scheduled for the presentation day, which took place on 30th November. On this day, each group presented their sensor and the results of their testing. Each student was given a certificate to recognise their participation in the course, and each of the five participants in the two winning teams took away an Arduino starter kit (Figure 1). The two overall winners also received a 3D printed trophy (Figure 2).
Figure 1: Winners at the presentation day with their certificates and prizes.
Figure 2: Trophy for the winning team (see .stl file in the code folder).
In addition to the course at Bury St. Edmunds, one session was organised in the CRUK Cambridge Institute, where a researcher, Dr Dario Bressan, showcased his virtual reality tumour system.
The course was a huge success, as evidenced by the feedback from Nicky Hughes below. However, there is certainly room for improvement in future courses:
- The school provided each group with a laptop to work on Arduino coding
- Students very attentive
- Students picked up concepts quickly, and already had some coding experience
- Very good having several teachers (3-4) to give 1-2-1 attention to individual students
- The timing generally worked well (20 mins introduction, 30-40 mins circuit building)
- The teachers gave us access to Google classroom, which was an excellent platform from which to set assignments and answer questions
- The computer science teacher pushed out the code to all the computer screens so the students could copy out by hand: forced them to take care with copying the code exactly
- Students took initiative to design a PowerPoint presentation and a web page for the final presentation day
- Coding in Arduino could have been introduced in more detail so that the students could write more elaborate scripts
- We could have made more use of the Google classroom, for example to set specific challenges for the Monday lunchtime sessions when we were not present at the school
- Warn the students that connecting a thermistor the wrong way round can result in burnt fingers!
- Bring a Mac to VGA adapter (for one session we were in a different classroom and there was no HDMI connection)
- Back up the presentation to a USB stick
- Remember that the students don’t have Internet access on their laptops
- Check the code beforehand (there was a mistake in the pulse rate calculation)
- The technical details in the talk by Dario were quite advanced: but this was good in that it gave an opportunity for discussion afterwards
- For some sessions, more teachers to give the students one-on-one help
- Think of back up projects for students whose circuits were not working
Verbal feedback after trip to Cambridge
Nicky Hughes, Computer Science teacher at County Upper School, Bury St. Edmunds, reported that the trip to Cambridge made a significant impression on many of the students. One student in particular expressed a strong determination to come to Cambridge and work in a medical technology field, based on the experience of seeing the virtual reality tumour system.
Written feedback
Nicky Hughes (see also our blog):
"A huge thanks to the iLab team for the course on Medical Imaging Technology. This has been an amazing opportunity for the students and staff to gain hands-on experience of using medical sensing devices. The trip to CRUK was inspirational and provided a whole new dimension to our understanding of medical technology.
All the teaching team from Cambridge University have been outstanding and provided our students with excellent STEM role models. We are particularly pleased that we had a high up take by our female students who really engaged with this use of technology.
The inter disciplinary nature of the course made the course fast paced and exciting to the students. This had really opened the eyes of the students to the range of possible future careers and courses in STEM subjects.
We cannot thank the iLAB team enough! Can we arrange another course soon please?"