My internship at 3SD is complete. I’m not sure that I can even express how valuable my experience this summer was. I can only hope that my posts have given you an idea of what these 8 weeks have been like. I’ve gotten a view into the product engineering industry that I could have never gotten from my courses thus far (not to knock the value of classes; they give an equally valuable, but different perspective). Not only was I able to be an active member of the team here in designing and revising for the Pumani unit, I was also able to witness and work with the manufacturing end of development with Pride. I also even got to do some design work on my own, beginning all the way from research to prototyping. Though my work 3SD’s own projects is confidential, I can vouch that learning/being involved with those projects was just as exciting and very educational.

I remember coming into this program, not exactly knowing what to expect. This was the pilot year of sending a student to w0rk with 3SD for the BTB program, so I did not have any alumni for reference. I entered with high hopes: being able to work in a product engineering setting would be the perfect way to utilize my design and engineering education. I’ve left with an experience that far exceeded anything I could have hoped for prior to arriving in California. Within the first couple days, I found myself thrown into the work. Honestly, this was a little terrifying at first. Trial by fire, learning by doing. I’m sure there were many things that I had done early on that should not have been nearly as tedious as I made them. This was made especially apparent when retrofitting the 3 units recently sent from Rice: what used to take me hours and hours was done in just a couple. However, without going through the discovery and trial-and-error process on my own, I wouldn’t have learned nearly as much. I’ve left with knowledge of quality procedures, improved CAD and physical modeling ability, understanding of PDMworks, and a lot of experience operating and debugging test fixtures, LabView, and rapid prototyping machines. I doubt that is a truly comprehensive list, since many of the experiences/skills I gained are not as easy to put into words. The best I can do to describe it is: “learning how to learn”.

I’m so thankful to Robert and the entire 3SD team, along with the directors of the BTB program for providing this opportunity. I can only hope that my work this summer was able to contribute to the efforts of the Rice360 program in a way that is just as meaningful as that of my colleagues currently stationed abroad. I’ve read their blogs, and they are all doing some truly extraordinary things. I hope we have all been able to provide positive impact in the vast field of global health, because really, that’s the ultimate goal.

Last week was my final week working at Third Stone Design. I really cannot believe it’s already over. It feels like I was just learning about the bCPAP a few days ago… What’s even more unbelievable is the amount of work I was able to be involved in and the invaluable experiences I gained from just 8 weeks.

Perhaps the most defining feat of my summer experience was the completion of manufacturing for the 50 Pumani units. It’s a little strange to admit, but it was actually slightly emotional to finally ship out those last 18 units this Thursday. I’ve grown to really appreciate the thought and brilliance of this device, and I’m so sure that its success will continue to grow. I wish I could have also spent some time in Malawi to really see these in action! I’ve never felt the sense of accomplishment that I felt that day; I’m so lucky to be involved in a project that is producing a tangible rather than theoretical impact right this moment.

On a related note, I finalized my attachment design and had these clips prototyped at another location! We received the pieces on Friday, and Robert will be bringing my designed clips with him to Malawi next week to receive some feedback from the physicians and practitioners there. In addition to the obvious excitement, I’m also a little anxious! Though I’m quite happy with the work, I also feel that, like any design, it has room for improvement. Since I have not gotten to witness the bCPAP implementation in the field, I’m a little nervous that there are many considerations that perhaps my design had left out! I tried to take into account all the factors I could think of: safety, cleanliness, ease of manufacturing, ease of use (ie. not pushing toward the baby) and so on. That being said, I can’t wait to hear the feedback and really hope that there is some potential for development and growth.

Sorry for the slow in updates! Recently I’ve been working with the new intern, Graham, on a few projects at 3SD. Most importantly, I’ve been catching him up to speed on all the procedures for maintaining and working with the Pumani units. We received the 3 units back from Rice on Monday, and this was a great time for me to give him an idea of how the unit functions. We opened them up, and I introduced him to the slightly strenuous process of removing and rearranging tubing! These units needed to be updated to the most recent revision, so we had quite a bit of work to do. This included rerouting tubing, updating handles, and installing the exhausts. Graham is great with the shop tools, so he caught on quickly how to put the units together.

After showing him the components, we moved onto testing. I ran Graham through the pressure testing first, both in practice as well as in theory. I showed him a bit of the LabView coding behind the fixture, and we proceeded to test the 3 units we recently retrofitted. Since Pride had shipped the next 18 units down to us, I decided to pull a couple of those units and run some testing on them as well in order to confirm consistency between our results and Pride’s. I had Graham run a few for practice, while I finished them up, confirming that they all passed well within the acceptable thresholds. The oxygen testing that I had mentioned earlier last month was a little more tedious. Working with the oxygen concentrator and detector proved to be significantly less straightforward, and Graham and I took a little more time familiarizing him with the different tests that were necessary. All of these procedures are documented, so I felt confident that he would be able to carry them out after I’ve left. On a side note, I began to think about developing a LabView test fixture to conduct the oxygen testing as well. This would definitely streamline the entire process.