Hello fellow Biomechanicists,
Thank you all for your reply. From the number of people who replied, it
seems as if many of us are trying new ways to collect kinematic data using
this reflective material from 3M.
All in all, we have tried painting the antennae using the reflective
material from JDL. However, the reflectiveness is not as high as we had
expected. We are currently using a half-mirror setup and have purchased a
beamsplitter (50 Reflectance/50 Transmittance). We will be working over
the next 2 weeks using this new beamsplitter in the hopes that the paint we
bought will do the job.
Also, we will be measuring the weight of the antennae with the tape on it
or with paint on it to determine if adding such material will affect the
cockroach's moment of inertia. Furthermore, we are collaborating on new
software that will be able to digitize all the video images. Using the
reflective tape, we hope that we will be able to create enough contrast so
that the computer can pick up the feature points on the organism of interest.
I am very thankful for the following people who have graciously spent their
time in replying back with suggestions...
Chuck Bell - Duke Biology
Catherine G Ambrose - Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Texas - Houston
Jeremy Houser - JSC NASA
Larry Fennigkoh - Milwaukee School of Engineering
Ruth Mayagoitia-Hill - Staffordshire University
Jeremy Bauer - Oregon State University
Michael Pierrynowski - McMaster
Glenn N. Williams - University of Delaware
Brian Moyer - University of Pittsburgh
Chris Poletto - NINDS NIH
Cheryl A. Pattin - Triodyne, Inc.
Mark Musolino - UPMC Health System
Micheal Feltner - Pepperdine
These are the responses I received over the past week.
1. Use the reflective paint and apply it to the antennae from JDL Industries.
2. Sandwich the antennae using squares or circles
3. Spray paint the antennae using the reflective material
4. Glue reflective powder on the antennae.
5. Use epoxy to stick the tape onto the antennae using tweezers and
magnification
6. Try bird-banding style, as on bird legs, by attaching a strip of
Scotchlite to itself. This may not be rigid enough for your purposes, but
that depends on antenna morphology, i.e., hourglass regions, and your
skill. Another area to consider is directly on a joint, but that may change
the bending or torsional stiffness of the antennae, also a problem if you
are hoping to avoid changing the fluid-solid coupling of the moving organ.
7. Use existing hairs as register pins: make the strip like a bird band,
but leave one or more holes for hairs or spinous processes to pass through,
locking it longitudinally in place.
8. Have you tried stripping the adhesive off the Scotchlite and using
cyanoacrylates directly? (Are the roaches actively grooming the markers off?)
9. Sew a small punched piece of Scotchlite into the soft chitin at a joint
(but see caveat in #1 above).
10. Drill into the harder chitin (rotary drill, micro-abrasive, heat,
chemical, ultrasound, laser) to fix a pin to which to attach the marker.
11. Forget the Scotchlite --- use the glass beads themselves. Obtain them
from the film or order them as raw materials. Glue the retroreflective
beads directly onto (or embed them into) the surface of the antennae.
12. Can you clear and stain a portion of the antennae surface without
destroying the underlying nerves, etc.? Then one might surgically implant
the beads just under the surface. Perhaps this can instead be done without
the prep under the joint membrane, or at one of the locations of the
sensory papillae, in the pocket. That one assumes that you do not mind
affecting the feedback loop of those living strain gauges.
13. Use Paint: deposit (evaporate, sputter coat, spray, brush, dip, dab,
etc.) a reflective surface onto the antenna.
14. Depending on the morphological variation between individuals, one could
first make a *mold* of the desired region of the organ (left and right
pair), make cast *positive, 3D copies* of the antennae from those, then use
the 3D copies as forms on which to build a tiny conformal "saddles" to hold
one or more retroreflective beads. Then either use those saddles directly
to glue onto the antennae at the proper location, or make an overmold on
the saddles on the 3D positive copies, which will permit you to make as
many "bead saddles" as you wish. I would use the finest retroreflective
power as either a filler in or a surface coat on cast 5-minute epoxy
saddles. If used as a surface coat, one could fill the tiny saddle volume
with glass or phenolic microballoons to lighten the saddle. All of this
stuff is available at good hobby shops.
If anyone has further questions or comments, please e-mail me. I would
like to keep this dialogue open in the hopes that our discussion will lead
to a better way to capture kinematic data.
Sincerely,
Randy Wei
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Randy L. Wei Associate Editor -
Biological and Biomedical Sciences
University of California, Berkeley Journal of Young Investigators
(www.jyi.org)
2400 Durant Ave. BC-341
Berkeley, CA 94720
cell: (510) 384 - 2009 Homepage:
www.undergradresearch.com/rwei
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