A student project for AHSE1500: Foundations of Business and Entrepreneurship (taught in Spring 2006) featuring an Olin College themed tradable card game. It consists of cards of students, professors, locations, and events.
This record contains the Final Report for the project and scanned images of all the cards in the game.
We show that the dynamics of large fractal colloid aggregates are well described by a combination of translational and rotational diffusion and internal elastic fluctuations, allowing both the aggregate size and internal elasticity to be determined by dynamic light scattering. The comparison of results obtained in microgravity and on Earth demonstrates that cluster growth is limited by gravity-induced restructuring. In the absence of gravity, thermal fluctuations ultimately inhibit fractal growth and set the fundamental limitation to the lowest volume fraction which will gel.
Colloidal silica gels are shown to stiffen with time, as demonstrated by both dynamic light scattering and bulk rheological measurements. Their elastic moduli increase as a power law with time, independent of particle volume fraction; however, static light scattering indicates that there are no large-scale structural changes. We propose that increases in local elasticity arising from bonding between neighboring colloidal particles can account for the strengthening of the network, while preserving network structure.
Thanks to the SAG grants I have received, self-directed research has become a primary focus of my undergraduate education. This semester I participated in two SAG funded research projects: Amoebots, a project that aimed to develop a novel toroidal drive system and Mechanics of Origami Structures, where we attempted to design a glider using origami techniques. Each project taught me a significant lessons that will be invaluable as I continue performing research.
Our independent research for the semester looked at applying the principles of origami structures and
mechanisms design to creating a self deploying glider. This investigation is a continuation of a summer research project done by Olin students in the summer of 2017.
Colloidal silica gels are shown to stiffen with time, as demonstrated by both dynamic light scattering and bulk rheological measurements. Their elastic moduli increase as a power law with time, independent of particle volume fraction; however, static light scattering indicates that there are no large-scale structural changes. We propose that increases in local elasticity arising from bonding between neighboring colloidal particles can account for the strengthening of the network, while preserving network structure.
We show that the dynamics of large fractal colloid aggregates are well described by a combination of translational and rotational diffusion and internal elastic fluctuations, allowing both the aggregate size and internal elasticity to be determined by dynamic light scattering. The comparison of results obtained in microgravity and on Earth demonstrates that cluster growth is limited by gravity-induced restructuring. In the absence of gravity, thermal fluctuations ultimately inhibit fractal growth and set the fundamental limitation to the lowest volume fraction which will gel.
The Olin Raytheon/WHOI SCOPE team is assisting WHOI in the buoy design effort by writing software tools for managing the energy budget of a deployed buoy. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) scientists are constructing buoys for the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), an NSF funded program that will construct a network of buoys for monitoring physical, chemical, geological, and biological variables in the ocean and on the sea floor. The buoys in development for the OOI by WHOI will be expected to operate for 25 years with annual maintenance. Power for an array of reprogrammable sensors will be dependent on a combination of solar and wind power generation and an on-board fuel cell replenished during the annual maintenance.