‘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.
