Tony He Undergraduate, Class of 2006 Dept. of Mechanical Engineering Columbia University E-mail: th2062 (at) columbia.edu

Current Projects:

• A system for Minimally Invasive Surgery of the Throat and Upper Airways.

My work mostly involves using PTC's Pro/Engineer Wildfire 2.0 to model certain components used in Prof. Simaan's projects. Having a Pro/E model of these components allows us to run simulations and perform analyses that would have proved difficult or time consuming to accomplish by any other means.


In some situations, it is necessary to create a Pro/E model that closely approximates the dimensions of an existing object (in this case, a laryngoscope). This model was used to determine the minimum spacing required to place up to 3 distal dexterity units (DDUs) through the laryngoscope.

In other situations, a Pro/E model is created from scratch, and then exported to the Stratasys FDM for rapid prototyping. In this case, I created a housing for 6 motors and flexible couplings to be connected to linear actuators. The models created by the FDM are made of durable ABS plastic and can often be directly used in the earlier stages of our projects.

More complex designs, such as this slot-guided gripper to be placed on the end of the DDU on the scale of just 5 mm wide require technical drawings to be created in Pro/E and sent to our machinists.

In addition to working with Pro/E, I am also responsible for placing orders for lab supplies and maintaining the lab in good working condition.