Clearing a Path to the Heart
Following the steps of the engineering design process and acting as biomedical engineers, student teams use everyday materials to design and develop devices and approaches to unclog blood vessels. Through this open-ended design project, they learn about the circulatory system, biomedical engineering, and conditions that lead to heart attacks and strokes.
Unblocking an artery with a balloon catheter and stent.Copyright National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; National Institutes of Health http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/angioplasty/risks.html https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/stents/placed.html
Engineers of all types—biomedical, mechanical, chemical, electrical, materials, computer—work together with medical professionals to apply basic biological and medical science to solving real-world problems. Devices such as catheters, balloon catheters and stents help people avoid or live beyond life-threatening heart attacks and strokes.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Describe what happens when a blood vessel is blocked.
- Describe how bioengineering techniques can be used to "open up" a blocked blood vessel.
- Apply the engineering design process to create solutions to a problem.