R&D Biomedical Engineer Internship at Myant

R&D Biomedical Engineer Intern (Jan. 2022- Apr. 2022)

My main responsibilities and objectives as an R&D Biomedical Engineering Intern at Myant involved conducting research, collecting, analyzing and processing data, as well as writing technical reports and standard operating procedures (SOP). I also contributed to the R&D team by designing and developing jigs used for mechanical and electrical testing, in addition to mechanical integration of components with smart textiles and troubleshooting issues with the devices that arose during testing.

My Role

R&D Biomedical Engineer Intern During my time at Myant, I mainly worked on the Pressure Sensing project, which encompassed two sub-projects that I was privileged to be a part of: pressure sensing shoes and single cell testing. These projects use knitted smart textiles to relay information about pressure in the form of shoes, set cover and mat. Pressure can be an integral factor for rehabilitation training when assessing gait, balance, posture as well as monitoring sleep and pressure injuries. These smart textiles can provide visual and numerical feedback to physicians allowing for more tailored and effective therapy/care to patients for better quality of life.

Work Conducted

• Conducted research, collected, processed and analyzed pressure sensing signal data from Compression Machine.
• Wrote technical reports and standard operating procedures (SOP).
• Designed and prototyped jigs/devices aimed to accelerate and regulate testing processes.
• Performed mechanical and electrical integration of hardware components with textiles.
• Integrated hardware components with smart textiles and conducted mechanical and electrical testing assessing functionality and troubleshooting issues that arose.

Skills Developed

Technical

• Soldering
• Designing jigs through Onshape
• Heat staking
• Operating the Compression Jig Machine and calibrating the load cell
• Completion of signal processing through Matlab
• Electrical testing with an oscilloscope and power source

Non-technical

• Thorough understanding of pressure sensors and capacitors
• Research/Technical report writing
• Present findings from testing to internal stakeholders

Learnings

While completing my internship at Myant, I was able to work on testing the functionality of the new iteration of the pressure sensing shoes, conduct research into test methods for full body support surfaces, as well as conduct testing and research of single cell capacitive cells with different dielectric materials. The results of these tests and resarch conducted will help the organization identify testing procedures, materials, and costs for future experiments, help identify ways to improve product functionality and flush out any issues that might arise during testing, saving time and money in the future.

The work completed during my internship has made a positive impact on me as a student as I was able to learn invaluable hands-on skills and be exposed to new experiences and machinery. These experiences have made me realize my interest in mechanical and electrical engineering, and allowed me to reflect upon the course of my career path. As a result of this new found interest, I have decided to take more mechanical and electrical courses in my master’s program to gain more knowledge in these fields.

The end result of the work completed during my internship will in the long run help the Myant team provide society with high quality assistive devices for more tailored and effective therapy/care to patients for better quality of life.