-
Team SWAGE: Elizabeth Nee, Angela Heppner, Briar Duffy, Jeffrey Phillips
I have a question! What does SWAGE mean?
Skip navigation (Access Key: S).
In order to prevent accidental needle "sticks" from a suturing device to a surgeon or staff member, a disarming or retracting sterilized suture needle must be developed that allows a reversible action when passing into and through the underlying subcutaneous tissue, dermis, epidermis, or other organ tissues in the body. The device must encompass all features of sharpness, stiffness, maneuverability, and size/shape variance as a conventional needle with the added safety of needle retraction. The goal is to permanently eliminate the risk of needle puncture and infection to the operator during procedures.
We're working on reducing the scale of our prototypes. Earlier in the semester, we entered our design in the Schoofs Prize for Creativity and the Tong Prototype Prize. We placed fourth in the Schoofs Prize.
See pictures of our prototyping process.
Visit our archives from Fall 2001.
Team SWAGE has been in the news quite a bit lately. Take some time to look at some of these articles:
all reports in PDF format, unless otherwise noted
|
Week
|
Date
|
Activities
|
|---|---|---|
|
1
|
25 January
|
Project planning, timeline, research balloon materials
|
|
2
|
1 February
|
Prototype for Schoof's, stereoscope needle
|
|
3
|
8 February 11 February |
Schoof's poster, Schoof's competition
|
|
4
|
15 February
|
Paper outline luncheon, stereoscope needle
|
|
5
|
22 February
|
Work on paper/design
|
|
6
|
1 March
|
Work on design/presentation
|
|
7
|
8 March
|
Work on design/presentation
|
|
8
|
15 March
|
Work on presentations
|
|
9
|
22 March
|
Midsemester presentation
|
|
10
|
29 March
|
SPRING BREAK
|
|
11
|
5 April
|
Finish paper
|
|
12
|
12 April
|
Plan outreach
|
|
13
|
19 April
|
Plan or conduct outreach
|
|
14
|
26 April
|
Outreach
|
|
15
|
3 May
|
Prepare poster
|
|
16
|
10 May
|
Final poster presentation; hand in final report and
notebooks
|
|
17
|
13-17 May
|
Final meeting with advisor
|
Unless indicated otherwise, all documents in PDF format.
Contact the entire group.
Contact individual team members (and see what they looked like 5 semesters ago).
 |
 |
|
Briar Duffy, Communications |
Angela Heppner, Team Leader |
 |
 |
|
Elizabeth Nee, BWIG (Currently on co-op with Boston Scientific Scimed) |
Jeffrey Phillips, BSAC |
Contact our client, Dr. Victor Haughton.
Contact our advisor, Mitch Tyler.
Questions? Problems? Fan mail? Send it to our webmistress.
Basically, "swage" is a fancy term for the eye of the needle. It is the point where the suture thread is attached to the needle. We thought it sounded cool yet mysterious, so we have adopted it as our team name. Alternatively, it could stand for "Students Who Are Great Engineers," but that would be bragging.
