• Question: What's your favourite thing you made or repaired?

    Asked by dancer10 to Aislinn, Fiona, Nathan, Padraic, Sinead on 30 Jan 2015. This question was also asked by Renehan, scienceisamazing, Luke Mcgrath, Deco.
    • Photo: Sinead Quirke

      Sinead Quirke answered on 30 Jan 2015:

      What I make in work are decisions and reports but I’m very proud of the welding projects I did in college – wouldnever get a job as a welder but I was very proud ……

    • Photo: Padraic Morrissey

      Padraic Morrissey answered on 31 Jan 2015:

      Hi Dancer10! The favourite thing I’ve made was a tiny chip that I designed during my PhD that had over 10 lasers packed into it. It took me months to design everything and I was really worried when I did my first tests on it. Luckily everything on it worked though!

    • Photo: Nathan Quinlan

      Nathan Quinlan answered on 1 Feb 2015:

      I was part of a team that designed and made a giant working model of an artificial heart valve. Your heart valves keep blood moving in the right direction through your heart. Some people have disease that affects one of their valves, and they need an artificial replacement. By studying how an artificial valve works, we can design better ones in future.

      A real valve is 2 or 3 cm wide (about the size of a bottle top) but out model is as big as a plate. Because it’s so big, it’s easier to find our what’s happening inside it, and we can see everything in greater detail. There’s a lot of support equipment around it that we made or set up as well – cameras, lasers, a pump, electronics. It has given us some beautiful pictures of how blood moves in a heart valve. It’s given us a lot of annoyance and puzzles too!

    • Photo: Fiona Edwards Murphy

      Fiona Edwards Murphy answered on 2 Feb 2015:

      Hi,

      My favorite thing was a bunch of dancing spider robots I made for a project in college. It was part of a bigger project making smart toys for children, they listened for music around them and danced to the beat!

    • Photo: Aislinn Coghlan

      Aislinn Coghlan answered on 9 Feb 2015:

      I design a hydraulic fracturing plant for my final year design project. I spent a lot of time on it, it was my baby!

      When I did all the calculations and the simulation software gave the same results as my hand calculations I was really excited. I felt like Dr. Frankenstein. It’s alive!

Comments