Bioshock Plasmid

This was project was a result of a Calculus assignment in my senior year of high school. We were required to prove the theory behind Riemann Sums using physical slices of foam. To do this, we cut out a bunch of slices of known diameters (determined by a function) to create a shape, then calculate the area of that shape using calculus, and compare the two volumes.

My partner (Steven Gloyd) and I decided to take the project a step further than most other groups. We used a combination of foam and plexiglass, then cut the center out of the plexiglass to insert illumination (LEDs controlled by a Microcontroller, programmed in Assembly, mounted on a custom-manufactured PCB), to create a real-life representation of a Bioshock Plasmid (from the videogame Bioshock). We used a lathe to achieve precision that other groups were not able to achieve with X-ACTO knives.

Project Website. This website dynamically preformed all of the calculations required. I wrote the 1200 line php script that generates that page because I wanted to become more adept with php and 3D modeling, and it is also designed to be printed out so that we could just print out our poster (go efficiency!).