This week we started implementing our project. Configured the Wi-Fi chip so that it should connect to the internet and also started designing the website’s interface. The design requirements of our system are; should allow clinical staff to continuously monitor equipment, allow manufactures and researchers to download data relevant to their field weekly, the website should be simple and easy to understand. To ensure that data should be accessed only by the required people, a password will be needed to log in. System  efficiency is required in a way that clinical staff can monitor a number of patients on the website at the same time, manufactures will also obtain maintenance information from the equipment easily. Portability is also another important factor that we are looking at, information can be accessed either using a mobile phone or a laptop.

                                                                  configuration of WiFi chip onto arduino board

“20 percent of your time as a design engineer is to be spent on documentation” well I never knew how important documentation is but thanks to the Rice 360 technical team. On Tuesday we had a presentation on coding and data documentation. This presentation included best coding practices, coding documentation and good data documentation practices

On Thursday there was Breakfast Club. This is a platform for the non-technical Rice 360 staff to have an insight on the projects which are done by the technical team so that they are all kept on the same page. It happens once every month.

Midterm presentations were on Friday, we presented what we had done so far to our supervisors and Dr Veronica. some suggestions were made on how best we can implement our project; one of the suggestions was to include real time monitoring for the clinical staff which will allow the information to be updated even when they are already logged in.

Japanese party!! Yes, this was last week’s highlight. We had Japanese food (dumplings and tofu), kung Fu tea, chopstick challenge and many other games. It was really a good way of saying goodbye to week 3

At the Japanese party

 

 

 

The first days during this week we spent most of our time doing the frontend programming of the website. Doreen did most of the programming and I supported her. On Tuesday we got the Wi-Fi chip, then we did some wiring, soldering and played around with it to see it were communicating with the internet. On Friday we presented the progress of our project to our supervisors in presence was also Dr Leautaud.

 

On Wednesday we were lucky to attend the weekly meeting done by the Tech team, where two major issues were addressed: Coding Best Practices and Documentation by Dr Megan and Best Practice for Data Management by Betsy. Lesson learnt “best documentation is not needing documentation” in other ways the code should be self-explanatory by simply using meaningful variables names and being consistent with the naming style.

 

Out of work we had lots of fun activities, on Friday evening we together with Grant, Sarah, Jack and Jessie went to a Japanese party, we had an opportunity to a look at some of amazing art done by the Japanese, tested their food and danced to their songs. On Saturday we had dinner and watched a movie with the Rice interns who came to Malawi.

 

The third week started with going to church on Sunday, Jessica one of the fellows we’ve been working with at Rice 360 had invited us to her church, The city of refuge. The pastor delivered a wonderful sermon on stewardship and how to manage the different relationships God’s entrusted to us with, with that in mind I was ready to face the week.

Getting to work was great, we proceeded researching more on the cyclonic separation method of filtration, then we came up with a project specification that helped us in the process of brainstorming some of the possible designs that could well fit on an oxygen concentrator. Moving on from there we further did some calculation to determine the best cyclone separator sizes that would provide the best efficiencies with minimal pressure drop. We also took some time to design one of the viable designs using a design software called SOLIDWORKS.  On Friday we had a mid-term presentation in which Dr Leautaud and our project supervisors were the audience. After the presentation we received a very positive insight through the comments and questions that came from the audience.

Friday night marked a work pressure relief moment for us as went out with some fellows Jack, Sarah and Jessica together with Grant to a Japanese festival where we saw and learn about the Japanese culture from the exhibits, and we also got to play some of the Japanese games which was fun, we also tried some Japanese food which were being sold on the function. It was such a blissful moment getting to talk with the fellows on different non-work-related issues and dancing to the beautiful music that was blasting on the event.

Life in Houston is getting better and sweeter as the days go by. We’re meeting a lot of people outside work from of various nationalities who are nice enough to tell us more about the city. The weather has now changed from hot-humid to a cold weather which is very good for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time seems to run faster in Houston together with the city’s pacey lifestyle which appears to be the norm of the city. Before I knew it, the unpopular Monday had resurfaced. We started off to work boarding a metro bus which has become our dearest escort to work, arriving at work to a new 9^th flow work place of Rice 360 was exciting as it marked a new era for both us and the staff. We were given a new work spaces in a big room in which we are able to work and consult our supervisors as we are sharing the room with them and also with fellows who are working on some other projects.  The second week had begun and we researched further on the project. Our supervisors had proposed that we dig deep into researching about the cyclonic separation system which is a viable filtration system that might work on an oxygen concentrator. After doing much research together with Bwanali we agreed to the stick with the proposed solution as it seem to be more efficient in removing dust and cost effective than the other options that we also had explored. We met with the project supervisors later in the week and presented to them the project plan that we came up with . The project supervisors, Grant Belton and Jack Wang, thoroughly scrutinizes our proposed plan and gave us a better insight on the best approach with which to tackle the project.

The second day of the week marked the highlight for the week as we traveled to The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) together with other international students at Rice University, thanks to Dr Leautaud for securing the tickets for us from the Office of International Students and Scholars. The trip was fantastic as we toured around NASA and got to see space ships and hear about how the teams of engineers, scientists and astronauts partner to make trips to the celestial world a possibility. We were opportuned to see the first space ship to ever land on the moon, the Saturn IV rocket.

 

As the week drew closer to its finish line, on Saturday Grant our project supervisor took us to Maker Faire, a function where there was a lot of exhibits from art to science to engineering. It was a thrill for me to an electric car for the first time and seeing many other unbelievable technologies and art that people are making. As the day fade away we started off to have dinner at a home of one Houston Malawian, Mr Yobe who had invited in the week. It  was a great getting to meet with people from home and eating with them. They shared with us about how their experiences had been  in the city over the years and also encouraged us to always be focused on the project that we are working on as they will eventually help not only us but our country as well. Houston is gradually becoming my Home!!

The long awaited eight weeks internship at Rice University finally began on 29^th of September, as we traveled in a team of 4 students from The Polytechnic which included: Micah Baleya, Doreen Thotho, Bwanali Benesi and Myself. It was a long, tiring but a joyful trip, flying from Malawi to the United States of America and definitely an unforgettable experience for all of us as we left our motherland for the very first time to a faraway land on a definite noble quest. We arrived in Houston on Sunday the afternoon of the 30^th of September and were picked from the Airport by a huge Ghanaian man who welcomed us and drove us to our American home to be. Looking outside through the window of the car everything seemed big in Houston, it felt like I was in on a different planet. Getting to our new beautiful home we were welcomed with a big hug from the ever-joyous Dr Veronica Leautaud, our American Mom, who made us feel safely at home. It was great seeing her again after 3 months. She took us out and bought us some Mexican food, Burrito, which we took  home and ate together with her. It was just great getting to spend our first moment in America with Dr Leautaud, there’s no better person we would’ve rather been with.  As she bid us farewell that night I couldn’t wait to get a good sleep after at least a day of abnormal plane naps.

On Monday morning, the 1^st of October, Dr Leautaud was at our door by 9 o’clock to take us to work. Even though our bodies couldn’t keep up well with the humid-hot weather in Houston and the change in time zones, we were so excited to meet with the amazing team with which we’d be working with for the next two months. Upon arrival at the Bioscience Research Collaborative, BRC, Dr Leautaud introduced us to her colleagues who welcomed us with big smiles and gave us our temporary work space as they were packing up getting ready to move to the 9^th flow of the humongous BRC building. We settled in quite well on the first day, meeting with a lot of people that have become family now. Later in the day we met with our project supervisors, who we had longed to meet with for a long time, they welcomed us and got us started with work. The placed us into two group and gave us a good description for projects that we would to be working on at. I was assigned to design a first stage filter for an Oxygen concentrator together with Bwanali Benesi, a project that would be supervised by Grant Belton and Jack Wang. An Oxygen concentrator is a medical device that is used in oxygen therapy. The first stage filter to be designed and attached to the concentrator would help improve its working span.

Later in the week we went to get our Identification Card for Rice university and also got ourselves registered at the Office of International Students and  Scholars. Our settling in was further perfected when we met with the Rice interns who came to Malawi in June, it was just a joy getting to see them again. They took us around Houston helping us get some groceries. Later in the week they took us out for dinner to a Chinese restaurant then we had ice cream after that. They also took us to Houston’s museum of natural science on Saturday. We had just an amazing time hanging out and eating with them.

‘Eventful’ does not even describe the second week in Houston with the justice it deserves. After completing the move to the ninth floor of the BRC building,  the real work of the project began. We looked at other methods of collecting dust apart from the cyclone separator which was suggested by our supervisors, Yang Jack Wang and Grant Belton. We looked at Active Carbon, High efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration and ionic air purification.  Our team decided to stick with a cyclone separator because they are beneficial, they are not expensive to install or maintain, and they have no moving parts. This keeps maintenance and operating costs low. We also chose to stick with the name ‘Team Cyclone’ which was suggested by Grant the first week. We started researching on ways of making the dust collection system work efficiently with the least amount pressure drop.  We also came up with our project plan which we presented to our supervisors Jack  and Grant  on Thursday. The two also put in there valuable input because they have more experience designing and fabricating bio-engineering equipment.

The highlight of the week came on Tuesday when the Office of International Students and Scholars organised a trip to The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Houston Space Center to marvel at the advanced technologies they have. It was the first time I had ever seen a real rocket in my entire life, definitely a day to always remember. It is far different from seeing it in movies because in the back of your mind you are always thinking it is fictional and scripted, seeing is believing they say, we saw the legendary Saturn IV rocket, the first rocket to land on the moon. We also saw some robots and unmanned robotic vehicles that are designed to be deployed on planet Mars for exploration, things we only saw in movies.