Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

So there's a school science fair coming up, and a friend and I have tried to come up with an original idea that we are both interested in. We decided to do something based on an artificial pancreas and diabetes after seeing an experiment idea...the problem is we don't really know what to do exactly...

You see, at first we wanted to show the delivery of insulin to the pancreas using a model. Then we decided to try to come up with something useful that hasn't been done before, like maybe improving upon the insulin delivery system...But we don't really know where to start, and we don't have all that many ressources available since we're in high school.

Does anybody have any ideas for an original project idea that we could try that hasn't been done before? Or a way to improve upon something? We're looking for something along the lines of the pancreas and/or diabetes. ^__^

Thanks!

HI

Welcome to Science Buddies! I think you are referring to this artificial pancreas project from this website:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p040.shtml

This is an interesting and challenging project and you would learn a lot by doing it, but if you want to win at the science fair, you definitely should look for an original project.

The best way to develop an original project is to do a literature search on your subject and find out what everyone else has done before you. This will provide ideas for a completely original project.

To help you get started, here is a link to an overview article from the American Diabetes Association on the artificial pancreas. This article includes 125 literature citations that you can check out for more details. You won’t be able to access all of the articles, but look for the ones where you can see the introduction and materials and methods sections.

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/60/11/2672

Let me know what you find out and what potential ideas you have. It will be necessary to adapt the experiment to the resources that you have available, but this is definitely an excellent subject that is worthwhile investigating.

Goo luck!

Donna Hardy

Hi,

Here is a news article on automated insulin pumps, which reports potential for hacking these devices. This might be a good topic for an original science fair project.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-johns ... SKCN12411L

Donna

For additional information about current DIY research and opensource innovation for closed and hybrid loop pumps, please see: https://openaps.org/

There are many people using openAPS as a way of setting up their own artificial pancreas projects.

I am providing this link as a flip-side to the current news report that Donna linked so that you can do additional research about what it really means to be able to communicate with a pump in this way.

In the world of Type 1 Diabetes, openAPS is a very well-know project. There are several others you can research as well that are offshoots of this. Many of these also use Nightscout as a way to provide browser-based visualization of data from a continuous glucose monitor. For those with an openAPS setup (or other "loop"), Nightscout can also be used to visualize pump information.

If you end up looking at other diabetes-related projects, this landing page at Science Buddies can give you some ideas.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/diabetes

Amy
Science Buddies

HI,

Amy has given you some excellent resources to help identify a unique project idea. Thank-you Amy!

Please do review the materials and let us know if you have more questions.

Donna