MICROFLUIDICS IN ENGINEERING, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION

We are integrating microfluidics laboratory experiments and projects into the Engineering Technology curriculum and high school science classes with the support of a Type 1 NSF TUES program. Microfluidics provides miniaturized fluidic networks for processing and analyzing liquids in the nanoliter to milliliter range. Microfluidics 'lab on a chip" technology offers many opportunities for teaching students CAD/CAM, rapid prototyping and microfabrication, fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer, instrumentation and control, optics, sensors, robotics, automation, machine vision and image processing, and nanotechnology. The following activities, laboratory experiments and projects are described here: 1) the design, rapid prototyping, and characterization of microfluidic chips, 2) robotic manipulation and machine vision of ferrofluids in microfluidic channels, 3) the development a PID microcontroller polymerase chain reaction (PCR) system for medical diagnostics, and 4) microfluidic chips with multicolor LEDs to observe phototaxis (light-directed movement) of algae under a low-power microscope.