I can’t believe this internship is already almost over! We still have so much work to do, but I think we can finish strong!

Last week, we filtered the signal from our pressure sensor which makes the noise from cell phones and other electronic devices much more manageable. We also took a field trip to Electronic Parts Outlet and bought a few more types of sensors to use instead of the pulse sensor. We found a couple sound detectors and a force sensor, and played around with them for a day. We didn’t ignore the pulse sensor, though, and after running a few more pulse sensor tests, we realized that with some filtration, it could work great. If we can’t get that to work, though, at least we still have three other options that we’re all familiar with!

This week is going to be really busy–we need to get the pulse sensor working well enough that it can consistently give a systolic blood pressure reading that’s at least somewhat accurate. From there, we need to find an algorithm to convert that systolic pressure into mean arterial. Finally, we’re going to consolidate the monitor into a smaller box so that it’s a bit more conveniently sized.