Engineer’s Three-Dimensional One-Piece Wedding Ring
Professor Yang has a unique wedding ring and it is a one-piece ornate looking ring that has been fashioned by electric discharge machining from one single piece in three dimensions. There are a number of these machines that are used by the jewellery designing trade to fashion jewellery using what is called mechatronics. Where this is becoming very popular is in surgery and robotics has become so advanced that surgical procedures are getting to be very precise and even scar-free.
Dr. Yang leads a team at the Hamlyn Centre in Imperial College, London. Here, there are prototypers that can produce 3-D components with great speed. Like the professor says, a scan can be done of a head and the model printed out at once. Surgeons are trained here to do pinhole surgery with simulated components and this is where robotics is used a lot to ensure minimally invasive techniques for patients. All it takes are tiny incisions through which cameras and instruments are inserted and then manipulated to cut and scrape.
Right now, the Centre is working on what they call the i-Snake which is a robot snake that can be introduced into the body and controlled remotely by the surgeon. It propels itself right up to the place that it is targeted to go to. The device is compact and can be controlled precisely and it means that there is a greatly reduced risk of injuring any organs that are close to the area that needs surgical intervention.