Yesterday a professor beckoned me over and asked me if I wanted to drill into a pig's bones and give it a dental implant. Who wouldn't? Fun! I got to learn all about proper drilling technique, including that being too slow/timid can lead to literally burning the bone and causing lots of smoke.

This led to a discussion on the drill bit being used for the actual procedure. It turns out that they were invented by a dentist in my home state of Michigan, who discovered, rather serendipitously, that running a drillbit backwards in a pilot hole widens the bone by compacting it, rather than simply carving the material away. This leads to preservation of healthy bone and a better implant.

Cylindrical objects like drillbits are the perfect target for 3D imaging, so I figured I'd give it a try. It was only when I was in bed last night, having done one such scan, when I realized that, hey! I'm a biomedical engineering student, and this is the first first honest-to-goodness BME application I've used my scanner for!

So today I elected to do a relatively good job and put it all together in a video. Here it is after 10-12 hours! Enjoy?