Mark Plano Clark

Projects Related to Physics Education

Human Eye Model

The Physics Department has a grant to develop a curriculum in which physics topics are motivated by a need to make relevant connections to human body functioning and human activities.  In order to bring humanized optics into our introductory curriculum we need to develop a human eye model that can simulate the functioning of a human eye and its defects. The desired functions are:

1. Accomodation
2. Myopia
3. Hyperopia
4. Astigmatism
5. External corrections to the 2, 3, and 4
6. Effect of PRK (or LASIK) surgery

Successful completion of this project will include a detailed shop drawing from which the model can be produced, a working model and accessories, and a manual describing the operation of the model, including a discussion of physics related to human vision.

Human Larynx Model

This project will build on work done over several years with a goal of developing more human-like sounds in our human larynx model. Currently the vowel sounds are not producible and manipulating the parts of the present model is difficult. This project will involve the design of a new vibratory mechanism (corresponding to human vocal folds) and a new vocal cavity that is readily adjustable and can better produce the vowel sounds. Successful completion of the project will require the development of a working model, audio files of the model output and real human vocal sounds, fast Fourier transforms of sounds produced, a guide for the use of the new materials.

Closed Fluid Flow System

As a part of the department's NSF grant, we are developing equipment for the introductory laboratory to provide hands-on experiences with fluid flow. A crude prototype has been constructed and tested but a better working model is needed. Currently we are using a 4" PVC pipe for the storage tank with a ball valve to allow fluids to flow out of the bottom of the tank. Experiments can be performed on: pressure as a function of depth, flow rate as a function of tube diameter, flow rate as a function of tube length, and flow rate as a function of head pressure.

This is a work in progress that attempts to model the human circulatory system. Pressure measurements in the current model are crude and need to be made more robust. The present closed-loop system is very noisy and this noise precludes reasonable pressure measurements. Successful completion of this project will require the design and implementation of a new mounting system for the force transducers to measure pressure (or the implementation of new pressure sensors), the determination of operating parameter ranges, possible flow rate measurements in coincidence with pressure measurements, and an operation manual for the successful device(s)

CCD camera development

Bob Drake ('00) began this project 3 years ago and produced a working camera (the CCD Cookbook camera by Richard Berry) using the Texas Instruments TC245 CCD chip. This camera is connected to a PC via the parallel printer port and has fairly bulky electronics. The goal of this project is to replace the parallel port interface with an autonomous microcontroller to control the camera (image acquisition, digitizing, and storage) within the camera itself. A new interface (Firewire, USB2, IR, or ethernet) would then allow the images to be downloaded to a PC or a PDA for further processing and/or analysis. User control of the camera would be via a PC, PDA, or the handheld control unit under development by Brett Barwick for the robotic telescope control project.

Listed below are some extensions to this original work.

Improved Interface Electronics

Replace the now separate preamplifier and interface with a single small profile box attached to the camera head. A microcontroller will be incorporated into the design which will locally control the acquisition, digitizing and storage of images. It will also handle all interface functions (Firewire, USB2, IR, or ethernet) to an external display device. The use of a digital signal processor (DSP) will be explored as well as integrated analog interface devices designed to connect directly to a CCD.

Telescope Control Software

Develop software on the PC/PDA side that will communicate with the CCD camera and the robotic telescope controller. This software will allow the user of a planetarium software package such as Distant Suns to direct the telescope to point at a particular object and then acquire a CCD image of any duration of that object.