In hopes to explore the Biomedical Engineering field, I decided to contact local hospitals for possible ideas for projects that they thought would be helpful to their jobs that were new and unique. I ended up working with Olathe Medical Center's Biomedical Engineering Department to make a laser alignment tool for their current Transmyocardial Revascularization LASER. They were needing a tool that would allow them to align the laser in the center of each mirror with perfect accuracy. The current system that they had in place to align the laser in the center of the mirrors took them about 8 hours to complete. In hopes to minimize this time but still have the same precision, I designed a laser alignment tool to center the laser perfectly on the first mirror.

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Before beginning work on the actual project, I spent about a week researching different types of medical lasers. I learned about how the lasers work, how they were used, and what areas they were used in specifically. After finding out that I would be working with a CO2 laser, I spent some extra time looking into how CO2 lasers functioned and how to manipulate and work with them. The specific laser that I made this project for was a Transmyocardial Revascularization LASER. The laser is used to burn small holes in the walls of the patient's heart to allow blood to flow into and then revive the oxygen deprived heart tissue in heart attack patients. This allows the tissue to stay living and function after having a heart attack. 

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The laser at Olathe Medical Center has about ten mirrors that the laser bounces off of before reaching the intended location. This is because CO2 lasers cannot pass through glass, but they rather have to be bounced off of mirrors to change their direction. If there is an error in the alignment of the laser and it is not perfectly centered on the first mirror or any other mirror after each reflection amplifies the error. Because the laser is used for such precise surgeries, there needs to be the least amount of error as possible to avoid further complications or difficulties in surgery and recovery. 
 

The tool that they were looking for me to design was for their machine was one that would help them minimize the time to align the laser but would still allow the same level of accuracy as aligning by hand. The design needed to include a movable cross hair, a viewing area to be able to see the laser, an area to place a mirror, and be able to screw into the existing base where the mirror was to go after alignment. The tool was to be 3D printed and to be able to be made entirely at school. It did not needed to be made with medical grade materials since the alignment is all done outside of the surgery area.