Week 7

During Week Seven lab, the group purchased the required materials but encountered significant setbacks because the 3D printed mold of the condom accidentally broke. Consequently, the group sought to reevaluate their project development process. Dan Nguyen suggested that the group instead create an alginate sheet (an example shown here (YT: Tough Gel)) representing the material comprising the alginate condom (Figure 1 portrays a form of this material developed by Harvard researchers who created a hybrid hydrogel material). The group would thus create the sheet during a three hour period with help from Peter Li in Dr. Hao Cheng's lab.

Figure 1: A "tough, self-healing, and biocompatible" hydrogel that can stretch "21 times its original length" (Nature, Strengthening Alginate/Polyacrylamide Hydrogels Using Various Multivalent Cations")