…but to give me credit where credit is due, the problem posed to us by our instructor was a lot less interesting, too. As I recall, he had us come up with something you could put on your shoes to prevent slipping on an icy sidewalk. The constraints were the same, though, in terms of cheap household objects etc.
Rice University undergraduates Lila Kerr and Lauren Theis were presented with an assignment in their Introduction to Bioengineering and World Health class. As Theis explains:
“We were essentially told we need to find a way to diagnose anemia without power, without it being very costly and with a portable device.”
In a solution short on cost but long on ingenuity, the duo modified a basic, every day salad spinner into an easy to use and transport centrifuge that successfully separates blood to allow diagnosis of anemia with no electricity. The device costs about $30, can process 30 individual 15 microliter blood samples at a time, and can separate blood into its component red cells and plasma in about 20 minutes.