In the past week I joined Mikaela and Leah on the mechanical breast pump project.

The project was in the prototyping phase so thats what we did for most of the week- work on simple prototype parts for the pump. We worked on few prototypes for the suction part of the mechanism and one of the prototypes could actually pump. At this stage of prototyping we were not expecting any parts to function so it was a pleasant surprise to see one of them actually sucking air!

As part of the process we also worked on prototyping a one way valve- which was slightly more difficult. A one way valve is a remarkably simple component but when you are trying to make one from low cost and readily available materials it becomes a bit tricky. We are still thinking on that one.

Indeed low cost is clearly  a very important aspect of all the projects we are working on this summer.Defining what exactly “low cost”  means to a project is sometimes not so obvious. Especially with this project as we were trying to purchase parts for our prototypes we had to clarify  alot of things. Some of the questions that we had to ask ourselves included:

Will this pump be low cost to an individual person or low cost to a hospital?

how do prices in the USA compare to the prices in Malawi ?

Which parts of the machine do we want to be reusable and which do we want to be fixed and how does that affect our cost?

I say that we were asking ourselves but generally I was the one to come up with answers- being the only Malawian in the group. Some of the questions I could readily answer but others required me to do a lot of thinking. It is surprising how many differences there are between what and how things are purchased here in the United states and back home in Malawi.

Actually, this whole experience has highlighted how many things which we assume are constant across all countries which actually are not, what is reassuring however is that one will notice commonalities to amongst people which usually outnumber the differences.

For example, it was nice to celebrate independence on the fourth of July on Saturday here in the States knowing that Malawians are also enjoying an independence day weekend with ours falling on the Sixth of July on Monday.