This week, we spent most of our time prototyping for our anteater enrichment devices. After using several screening matrices and a scoring matrix, our team selected a clear, three compartment fence tube as the final design. We had a lot of fun trying to bring our design to life. We immediately began prototyping with a water bottle, some straws, tape, plastic mesh and cardboard. The water bottle would hold the food, the straws were the three paths to each of the three compartments, the cardboard separated the food from the opening of the bottle, and the plastic mesh served as a divider for the three different food compartments. Waheed had a little too much fun and made a model anteater as well. We then had the idea to use PVC pipe for our medium fidelity prototype. However, this prototype would not allow the public to see the anteaters tongue. So, for our final prototype we found clear poly-carbonate tubing that was exactly what we were looking for. We used flexible tubing for the three pathways to the food. Using the laser cutter we were able to make the dividers as well as the caps holding the tubing out of acrylic. When we had all of the materials that we needed, we made a mess with glue in order to put it all together. After only TWO days, all of the teams had higher fidelity prototypes that were ready to be presented. I was very impressed with everyone’s creative anteater devices. Just like that, our time working on the anteater project came to an end and so did engineering bootcamp. We hope to come back to these projects later in the program so that we can actually test them with the anteaters.

The day after presentations, we were assigned to our major project groups. Waheed, Mary and I will be working on the cervical cancer project. I am very excited to be on this team to create a color changing model cervix that will be used to train nurses to detect cervical cancer. We have just begun our research on the topic, but we already have many ideas! I know we will have a good time trying to find a creative way to make the cervical cancer training model. I hope that whatever we end up creating will help many people.