Summer 2020 Internship at Formulatrix
After Freshman year I returned to the R&D department at Formulatrix, this time to research low cost flow measurement systems for the company’s new Liquid Handler, the FLO I8. This project took me through a wide variety of engineering topics including: Acyrlic micromachining, C for Arduino, microfluidics, basic PCB design, electrical component selection, international collaboration, and test equipment design.
The general principle of the flow sensor is identical to that of a resistive ammeter, create a restriction and measure the energy (pressure in this case) drop across it to find the flow rate.