Mimi is a happy, peppy pup and the theme we chose was equally fun and playful. For the basics of the main design elements, we used pre-made vector files of a simple house from clker and anthromorphized flowers from freepik.  There are innumerable free vectors available online, and a large advantage of vector art is that they can be imported into Adobe Illustrator to save a great deal of time in the design stage. 

That being said, there was still a great deal of legwork to be done to modify the vector art into Mimi’s design (don’t worry, we won’t go into the nitty gritty in this post). In addition to tweaking the vector art, we also added other details including Mimi’s name to customize the design. After finalizing the design, we prepared the Illustrator file for the laser cutter. The instructions for the laser cutter – engrave, line, cut, etc. – are communicated via color. In this image, for example, cyan commands “vector cut”; navy blue commands “vector line”; and black, royal blue, and red command variable depths of “engrave.”

Next, we were off to Boston Makers, the non-profit makerspace in Jamaica Plains where we volunteer! Its laser cutter, 3D printers, and more are open to the community – let us know if you’re interested in dropping by! We imported our Adobe Illustrator file into Corel DRAW, which is the program the laser cutter utilizes to translate color (as above) to command. We selected 1/4” birch plywood for Mimi’s door. Here are a couple of 30-second videos of the laser cutter at work:

After cutting and engraving, we sanded the door to remove smoke stains from the laser cutting process. To prepare it for the outdoors, we sprayed it with two coats of Thompson’s WaterSeal Waterproofing Wood Protector. While at Boston Makers, we devised a way to mount Mimi’s door onto the balcony. Our solution was to design and 3D-print two C-hooks that would clamp the door to the bottom horizontal rung of the balcony. Here is a clip of the LulzBot as it is 3D-printing our C-hooks:

Back at home, we cut a Mimi-sized peephole from the wind barrier panel and slid the top of the house under the barrier’s fastener. The bottom of the house is held in place with the 3D-printed C-hooks. Here’s the final construction!

Mimi loves her new doggie door! She is again able to enjoy her view of the city below and to get a nice whiff of fresh air at her leisure! Click on the gallery images below to see some snapshots of her enjoying the balcony. By the way, we loved her door so much that we laser-cut a second copy to paint and display indoors. A picture of that is included in the gallery too!

Until next time,
Kathy May and Silas

Click here to read the paper! Kathy May first drew the illustrations in pencil and colored pencil (first image below), then scanned them and cleaned them up in Photoshop (2nd, 3rd, and 4th images below):

[See image gallery at www.kathymayandsilas.com] If you or your colleagues are in need of medical illustrations, I am volunteering Kathy May for opportunities! Click here to see some of Kathy May’s other medical illustration and artwork. 

Until next time,
Silas

This year, we were thrilled to explore Maker Faire with Jon, Lily, and Jen! We chatted with creative minds of all ages and sizes and types. We learned about the latest machines, gadgets, and doodads. We heard about projects that others are pursuing and picked up ideas and tips for our own. We even made some things right then and there during the faire. Most of all, we had lots of fun!

This is the first year we’ve participated in one of the most popular Maker Faire activities: learning to solder. Donned with Google safety glasses, we soldered a battery holder, pin, and LED to a printed circuit board in the shape of the Makey Robot. So easy and fun!

In the Maker Shed, we saw a vast array of innovative projects. One of our favorites was the circuits-in-a-bottle project by Kimio Kosaka. Incredibly, all the parts are soldered together inside the bottle. Unfortunately, this picture does not do this creative project justice! We were too busy marveling and asking questions. See more details on Kimio’s DIY video!

Maker projects spanned from fun at-home endeavors to commercial ventures. For example, we loved the MATRIX Creator, which is basically a Raspberry Pi add-on pre-built with a number of sensors and microcontrollers, powered by a proprietary (secret algorithm) operating system. Its capabilities are endless and clearly largely unexplored! Watch our video below to see one potential functionality: Face detection, tracking, and interpretation (also featured: our silly facial expressions :-P).

We tried our hand at single-pin lock picking. The instructions are much more easily explained than executed. Of our group, only Lily was successful! Here she is “supervising” Silas and Jon sweating away, hard at work.

Years ago, at our first Maker Faire, we saw our first 3D printer. In a shockingly short amount of time, after decades of utility in industrial fabrication, these have now become mainstream. The MakerBot Replicator and even Formlabs Forms are old news and companies are now striving to distinguish themselves. Nowadays, you can 3D print plastics, metals, clay, rubber, even chocolates. We saw many examples of great efforts: printers which used plastic waste instead of filament or resin, others which printed and mixed different colored plastic, etc. We were most impressed by the ONO, the first-ever smartphone 3D printer which raised over $1 million on Kickstarter in just 5 days! A tray filled with DLP resin sits over the smartphone. This resin hardens with exposure to normal visible light. An app displays patterns on the screen to harden the resin while a moving platform pulls the hardened resin up so that the next layer can be printed. It should be available in the U.S. soon!

Check out this Knitting Printer, an awesome invention brought to us by  Asbjørn Rørvik and Fredrik Fjellså from Norway! We were entranced by the process. So far it looks like its functionality is limited to making tubes – socks, scarves, and Dachshund sweaters… but who can have enough of those?! By the way, the component parts of these automated knitting machine were 3D printed, too!

Here are some other pictures of our highlights during the day!
1. Jon listening to knitting. Teresa Lamb wears a  harness and arm-piece which translates the movements of knitting into sound.
2. Lily jamming out on a ukelele programmed with Arduino.
3. Kathy May operating Shaper Origin, the world’s first handheld CNC machine. It’s totally portable and self-guiding!
4. Silas examining water bears AKA tardigrades (indestructible micro-animals that can survive in outer space) under the microscope.

Check out our gallery for more Maker Faire pictures that we couldn’t fit into the body of this post!

Until next time,
Kathy May and Silas

1. Dillon AB, Myung JS, Tran KM, Tseng J, Wald KJ. A Modified Iris Suture Technique for In-the-bag Intraocular Lens Dislocation. Submitted for publication.
2. Tran KM. By any other name: eponyms in the modern medical language. Clinical Correlations. 2016 May 4.
3. Kazmi SM, Pemmaraju N, Patel KP, Cohen PR, Daver N, Tran KM, Ravandi F, Duvic M, Garcia-Manero G, Pierce S, Nazha A, Borthakur G, Kantarjian H, Cortes J. Characteristics of Sweet Syndrome in Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Clinical Lymphoma, Myeloma & Leukemia. 2015 Jun; 15(6): 358-63. Cited in PubMed; PMID: 25630528.
4. Smith KM, Maragnoli ME, Phull PM, Tran KM, Choubey L, Vaccarino FM. Fgfr1 inactivation in the mouse telencephalon results in impaired maturation of interneurons expressing parvalbumin. PLOS ONE. 2014 Aug; 9(8): e103696. Cited in PubMed; PMID: 25116473.
5. Komitova M, Dionysios X, Salmaso N, Tran KM, Brand T, Schwartz ML, Ment L, Vaccarino FM. Hypoxia-Induced Developmental Delays of Inhibitory Interneurons are Reversed by Environmental Enrichment in the Postnatal Mouse Forebrain. Journal of Neuroscience. 2013 Aug; 33 (33): 13375-87. Cited in PubMed; PMID: 23946395.
6. Smith KM, Maragnoli ME, Phull PM, Tran KM, Vaccarino FM. Fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (Fgfr1) participates in postnatal interneuron development. International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience. 2010 Nov; 28(8): 698.
7. Tran KM, Broder M, Luft S, Schwartz ML, Smith KM, Vaccarino FM. Environmental Enrichment Contributes to Neurodevelopmental Recovery After Hypoxia. Yale Review of Undergraduate Research in Psychology. 2010 Mar; 1(1): 102-115
8. Smith KM, Maragnoli ME, Fagel DM, Phull PM, Tran KM, Vaccarino FM. Postnatal maturation of cortical parvalbumin inhibitory neurons is impaired in FGF receptor mutant mice. International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience. 2008 Dec; 26(8): 870.

Academic Abstracts & Posters

1. Tran KM, Winer A, Liu J, Taff J. Tuberculosis in single lymph node presenting as flank pain. Poster session presented at: Society of General Internal Medicine 38th Annual Meeting; 2015 Apr 22-25. Toronto, ON, CAN.
2. Tran KM, Winer A, Liu J, Taff J. Tuberculosis in single lymph node presenting as flank pain. Poster session presented at: New York University School of Medicine Department of Medicine 14th Annual Research Day; 2015 Jun 11. New York, NY.
3. Tran KM, Wang SL, Kontari I, Asimellis G, Kannellopoulos AJ. Evaluation of femtosecond laser-assisted combined Descemet’s stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK) and astigmatic keratotomy (AK) surgery. Poster session presented at: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Annual Meeting; 2013 May 5-9. Seattle, WA.
   • Tran KM, Wang SL, Kontari I, Asimellis G, Kanellopoulos AJ. Evaluation of femtosecond laser-assisted combined Descemet’s stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK) and astigmatic keratotomy (AK) surgery. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. 2013 Jun; 54(15): 3122.
4. Kazmi SM, Kantarjian H, Tran KM, Cortes J, Ravandi F, Borthakur G, Jabbour E, Faderl S, Garcia-Manero G, Kadia T, Daver N, Pierce S, Nazha A, Cardama AQ, Pemmaraju N. Cytogenetic and molecular characterization of Sweet’s syndrome in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Poster session presented at: 54th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition; 2012 Dec 8-11. Atlanta, GA.
   • Kazmi SM, Kantarjian H, Tran KM, et al. Cytogenetic and molecular characterization of Sweet’s syndrome in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Blood. 2012 Nov; 120(21): 2587.
5. Pemmaraju N, Kantarjian H, Tran KM, Kazmi SM, Kadia T, Borthakur G, Verstovsek S, O’Brien S, Garcia-Manero G, Estrov Z, Faderl S, Ravandi F, Pierce S, Cortes J, Quintas-Cardama A. Cytogenetic and molecular characterization of extramedullary disease in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Poster session presented at: 54th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition; 2012 Dec 8-11. Atlanta, GA.
   • Pemmaraju N, Kantarjian H, Tran KM, et al. Cytogenetic and molecular characterization of extramedullary disease in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Blood. 2012 Nov; 120(21): 2592.
6. Tran KM, Kantarjian H, Cortes J, Kazmi SM, Quintas-Cardama A, Estrov Z, Ohanian M, Kadia T, Borthakur G, Ravandi F, Faderl S, Pierce S, Pemmaraju N. Cytogenetic and molecular characterization of genitourinary extramedullary disease in acute myeloid leukemia. Blood. 2012 Nov; 120(21): 4326.
7. Tran KM, Wang SL, Kannellopoulos AJ. Contralateral eye long-term follow-up of prophylactic high-fluence collagen cross-linking combined with Lasik for high myopia. Poster session presented at: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Annual Meeting; 2012 May 6-9. Fort Lauderdale, FL. [View poster]
   • Tran KM, Wang SL, Kanellopoulos AJ. Contralateral eye long-term follow-up of prophylactic high-fluence collagen cross-linking combined with Lasik for high myopia. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. 2012 Mar; 53(14): 6817.
8. Smith KM, Maragnoli ME, Phull PM, Tran KM, Fagel DM, Vaccarino FM. Fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (Fgfr1) in postnatal interneuron development. Poster presented at: Society for Neuroscience 38th Annual Meeting. 2008 Nov 15-19. Washington, D.C.

Non-scientific Writing Publications

1. Tran KM. “Happy Mother’s Day… for daughters and sons who have lost their moms.” MOGUL (onMogul.com). 2016, May 5.
2. Tran KM. “After Match Day: a bittersweet reflection.” KevinMD. (KevinMD.com). 2016, Mar 19.
3. Tran KM. “The Bittersweetness of Medical School Match Day.” MOGUL. (onMogul.com). 2016, Mar 19.
4. Tran KM. “Tâm sự Tết xa quê của người con nơi đất Mỹ.” Báo Mới Newspaper. 2014, Feb 3. [Written in Vietnamese]
5. Tran KM. “Tâm sự Tết xa quê của người con nơi đất Mỹ.” Tiên Phong Magazine. 2014, Feb 3. [Written in Vietnamese]
6. Tran KM. “Habitat Means Hope to My Family.”  His Voice. 2006.
7. Tran KM. “A New Home Brings a New Future.” Houston County Habitat for Humanity Headlines. 2005.

Art & Photographic Publications

1. Tran KM. “Bridges.” Photograph. Agora Magazine. 2013: 6.
2. Tran KM. “Mom.” Graphite. Agora Magazine. 2013: 17.
3. Tran KM. “Celebration of Summer.” Photograph. Agora Magazine. 2013: 34.
4. Tran KM. “To the Market at Dawn, Nam Dinh, Viet Nam.” Photograph. Agora Magazine. 2012: Cover.
5. Tran KM. “Finding New Life in a Forgotten Place.” Photograph. Agora Magazine. 2012: 13.
6. Tran KM. “Cutaway View of Globe.” Graphite. Agora Magazine. 2012: 15.

Art & Photographic Exhibition & Honors

1. Tran KM. “Vertebra.” 2012. Graphite. Art & Anatomy: Drawings. MSB Gallery, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY.
2. Tran KM. “Study in Texture and Color, No. 4.” Third Prize, 11th Biannual NYU School of Medicine Photography Competition.
3. Tran KM. “Finding New Life in a Forgotten Place.” Grand Prize. 10th Annual Biannual NYU School of Medicine Photography Competition.

2D Art: Kathy’s two-dimensional art includes graphite, pen and ink, colored pencil, watercolor pencil, watercolor paint, acrylic, charcoal, and pastel.

3D Art: Kathy has dabbled in clay sculpture.  See some of her experiments here.

3D Origami: Kathy’s mom, Hue,  taught her the art of modular origami. These are some of their creations.

Paper flowers: Kathy’s mom, Hue, also taught her the art of paper flowers, and Kathy has further developed the techniques.

Kathy’s mom, Hue, taught her how to make the paper flowers and 3D origami in the links above. See below for some of Hue’s other crafts. Additionally, come back soon to see albums of the artwork, woodworking, and other projects that Kathy’s brother, Tom-Vinh, has created!

[See image gallery at www.kathymayandsilas.com]

We are Kathy May and Silas, a couple of normal folk temporarily located in Boston. We hand-coded our individual personal websites since our college years, but decided to combine them as www.kathymayandsilas.com in 2008. In 2016, our website underwent a major overhaul to what you see today! In addition to amateur web design, we also share a number of other hobbies and interests, including but not limited to photography, electronics, arts and crafts, exploring, volunteerism, healthcare, and experiencing new things in general! Most of all, we enjoy doing these things together!

Kathy May is currently an internal medicine resident at Massachusetts General Hospital. Silas is a comprehensive ophthalmologist and Instructor at the  Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary. They met 12 years ago at Yale and have been sharing adventures together since… with many more to come!

We invite you to explore the links below to learn about aspects of our lives that we value. Afterwards, please browse our blog to see what we are up to! More updates will be posted frequently. Finally, keep in touch with us by commenting on any page. We would love to hear from you!

Thanks for visiting us,
– Kathy May and Silas

Our Loved Ones:

Kathy May’s Mom
Kathy May’s Brother
Silas’ Brother
Bucci
April
Mimi

Our Organizations:

Habitat for Humanity
ALIVE
AAAYA
Boston Makers

Our Hobbies:

Blog
Arts & Crafts
Photography
Japanese Shore Crabs
Lab Mice

Our Professions:

Silas’ Professional Website (Mass Eye & Ear Infirmary)
Silas’ Publications & Abstracts
Kathy’s Publications & Abstracts