Briefing: The DaVinci Surgical System is a state of the art machine helping surgery to happen with only a few incisions. The hand movement of the doctor is translated into smaller more precise movements from the surgical instruments that are attached. The surgeon must understand the tissue tensile strength for each operation. The idea behind robotic surgery is to be minimally invasive, which allows for faster healing time for the patient. Many common sports injuries, such as torn ACL and meniscus, are now done in this way, which speeds up healing time.
Your mission, should you choose to accept, will be to create a robot that will be able to insert an object into the proper tissue layer without causing further damage to the area.
Constraints: Students will be given a two-inch by quarter inch nail. Each group will be given a plastic container that will have a balloon filled with dye, and this balloon will be submerged into gelatin (jello). Students will have three chances to insert the nail into the tissue (jello) causing as little damage to the jello while going as deep as they can without puncturing the balloon. (See Figures 3 – 5)
Figure 3.
Figure 4.
Figure 5.
Materials:
Jello or gelatin
Balloon
Food coloring or any contrasting liquid to fill balloon with
Nails
Transparent container
Point System:
Design Report = 100 points
Completed Robot Construction = 50 points
Move from starting point to base of container = 10 points
Engage nail with jello = 10 points
Insert nail past checkpoint 1 = 10 points
Insert nail past checkpoint 2 = 10 points
Insert nail past checkpoint 3 = 10 points
Pop Balloon = -15
Groups will have a tolerance of one half of an inch for the insertion point on the surface area of the jello. 1 point will be deducted for each 1/8 of an inch of more "damage" that is made to the surface of the jello.
Every second the group goes over the two-minute time limit: -1 for each second over
Bonus:
Surgery requires detailed instructions and explanations from all involved. The surgeons and the people in the operating room assisting need to keep open, detailed, and positive communication throughout the procedure. After each group completes this task, we will do it blind. This cannot count against your group. The student who is controlling the remote will be blind folded. One of the other group members will give verbal instructions and commands to insert the nail into the surface of the jello. If the group can successfully insert the nail into the jello with out popping the balloon, the group will receive 10 bonus points.
Instructor tips:
Any container can be used for this project. The container must be large enough to hold the balloon in it. For this project, a four and a half cup measuring container was used. This allowed a five-inch balloon to be inflated to approximately four inches and filled with a liquid. It is extremely hard to fill the balloon with liquid, without a small amount of air getting in, which will case it to rise a little out of the jello, as seen in Figure 3. It is nice to use a container that has a measurement mark, so all groups will be able to practice inserting the nail into the jello and the containers can consistently be filled at the same measurement. For this project, the container was filled at the four-cup mark. Any size or shape nail, or other object, can be used to insert into the jello with out popping the balloon. Depending on the container and balloon size, it can be the instructors discretion where the target area will be for groups to insert the nail. For this example, the nail was inserted around the perimeter of the balloon. (See figure 4) Part of the fun and learning experience will be the trial and error with each group's design and robot. When students practice, they will try their best to insert the nail as close and deep as possible to the instructor's target area. The closer they try to place the nail to the target area, the risk of the group puncturing the balloon will go up. If the balloon is filled with a different contrasting liquid than the jello, it will be very visible if the balloon is punctured. Most of the time if the balloon is punctured, it will pop and the group will know they went too far. (See Figure 5)
