Hie Y’all, sorry am posting my first week blog in my third week. But hgave fun reading 🙂

Alexander DC Mtambo is a year 23 year old young man who just graduated with an Honors Degree in Electronics and Computer Engineering at the University of Malawi, The Polytechnic in March 2019.

He is an entrepreneur and a passionate leader and has recently co-founded a Tech company “ACE Engineering Group” ( www.ace-mw.com ) which is into software development and infrastructural designs . In 2017 Alexander was shortlisted among the top 25 Malawi government youth stakeholders in youth employment which gave him an opportunity to be trained by the Chinese government’s ministry of commerce in global youth entrepreneurship in Fujian province in China.

As a fourth year student Alexander was approached to work with African Union Southern Africa Regional office under the leadership of Dr Auguste Ngomo as the first chairperson of African Union Youth Club (AUYC) towards the implementation of Africa’s 50 year plan known as Agenda 2063. During his two year term, Alexander worked with other delegates from 13 African countries to ensure that the youth actively participate continental development.

Upon finishing my undergraduate studies at the University of Malawi, I have seen the biomedical engineering field to be a virgin land which needs 100% concentration both at national and continental level. In Malawi people are dying untimely to conditions that would have been cured if there were enough resources. As someone who cares about the well being of human being, I am interested in taking part in alleviating health problems especially among neonates and women. This area is so personal to me as i once lost a young brother due to pneumonia and i know that he would have been alive if certain things were set inorder at the hospitals in Malawi. this is one of the main reasons i applied for the internship at RICE; so i can gain skills which if implemented can save lives. I do not want to be a spectator as far as health issues are concerned, I WANT TO BE INVOLVED.

As my topic leads, my coming to RICE is a life changing one because research has proven that RICE university is the best place to study not just in the United States but in the world at large. Intend to make my country proud.

I have been at RICE for about four days now but its been an amazing experience.Dr Veronica Leautaud and Georgia Jenkins have made our trip both before coming until now very easy. Dr Leautaud is friendly and very hospitable, she literally is our mother here. Our day to day professor Dr Deirdre Hunter  is amazing, she has a very unique skill of communicating stuff. She literally makes everything so easy to understand the very first time she says it. Our TA’s Grant Anderson and Adulfo Amador are quite spectacular, they are young people but they are very professional, I like how they are able control time per activity, i am really learning a lot from them. My fellow interns from the states are very caring and friendly, they have been very helpful at every point For our Zoo project, my teammates have been Dylan Rivera and Alexus Arizola; the guys are wonderful, i wouldn’t mind mind having them as project partners for our next project 🙂

By the time ENGI210 is coming to an end, I would love to have become a master in Solid-works. I love that software.

In terms of fun, Houston Zoo is my favorite as of now, but i know there is so much I am yet to experience.

 

 

 

Hi guys,

Up to now i call the my team (iwound) the winning team(jealousy???).So far we actually accomplished many tasks and i can see actually great way of success on our shared goals ahead.We Did great brainstorming of ideas and screening through the day,Documentation of our data,take group photo and share various information with our Rice team from Brazil that we are collaborating with.Very soon we will starting building the previous team prototype and test it to see clearly the point of modification and how to accommodate our thoughts through it.

 

All and all i had one of the greatest time and experience through everything that have being going around the OEDK and the country at large.

“Best Iwound Team”

Hello everyone, its almost the end of the third week of SEED. Before i talk about what happened this week let me tell you we finished off last week.

Friday, 21 June

On Friday, firstly we had the morning meeting where we got some feedback from the other groups about other areas of research we can touch before moving on to the come up with the design criteria. Some of the areas included anthropometric dimensions of the human body, Wheelchairs, Materials used to make different kinds of harnesses and Muscular disorders and the muscles affected by these disorders. We decided to divide the research and conquer. I focused more on the anthropometric dimensions and muscular dystrophy. We then went on to sit in an interview with our client. This interview was very helpful because it helped us understand the main problem of the project. The main task was to design a zip line harness that will provide support to children with muscular disorders at the same time allowing a wide range of arm and upper body movement so that they can take part in the rope course at Camp For All. After the interview, we compiled all the answers and identified the areas that needed more research and dug deeper. In the afternoon we had a fab shop about 3D printing and how to use the cloud based 3D printing software.

In the evening we went alexus’ birthday party!

Monday 24 June

On Monday, we presented our design context review to the other groups, grant, adulfor and Dr Hunter. They gave us some really helpful feedback on how we should focus more on the problem than the solution at this stage of the design process. We were also told to look into the sewing techniques used when making different types of harnesses. I might learn how to sew by the end of this project. From the presentation of the DCR, the rest of the day was all about research. Making sure we leave no stone unturned. We looked into other camps similar to Camp For All and the devices they use on the ziplines. We also looked at the standards set by the ADA and ACCT on ziplines.

Tuesday, 25 June

On Tuesday, we finished up the intensive research we had been doing and went on to develop the constraints and the objectives of the project. When choosing the objectives we focused more on the problems our client addressed and the short falls of the previous designs. Safety ended up as the only constraint. After that we came up with the design criteria. It took us some time but we managed to complete the design criteria. We reached out to Grant and Adulfor for help when we were coming up with the design criteria. In the afternoon, the order that we made on the petzl rescue triangle had finally came in. This is the device that is currently  used at the camp. We decided to set it up and test it in terms of support, comfortability and range of motion.

The petzl rescue triangle used at Camp For All.

We then had a solid works fab shop so that we become familiar with the software for 3D designs and drawings.

Wednesday, 26 June

On Wednesday, we began the day by making some improvements to the design criteria. We decided to define the range of motion in terms of anatomical terms such abduction and adduction instead of just using degrees. Then we rated the importance of the design criteria against each other using the Pairwise Comparison Chart. Support and comfortability was rated as the most important then followed by Range of motion. After that, we decomposed the project into a number design blocks and made the gantt chart. In the afternoon, another order we made arrived. This was an adjustable stadium chair. We dismantled it to and focused on the adjustment mechanics used in this chair. We finished off the day looking at ratchet hinges and one way gears.

Adjustable Stadium Chair

ooh we also took a team Photo.

Team Zipline4All!!!

 

Thursday, 27 June

Today we started the day with brainstorming different ideas. So many ideas came up. It took us the whole morning to finish off the whole brainstorming process. We had SEED lunch at 12. This where all the SEED interns, TA’s come together and have lunch in the design kitchen and talk about different project they are working on. It is really interesting to see the progress the other teams are making. After that we had a few more brainstorming sessions and added some hitchhiking into it. We then developed the a morph chart to come with different designs. The designs ended up being similar in one way or another, as the saying goes “great minds think alike”. We then decided to have another brainstorming session on ideas besides the ones that already exist. We finished off the day with .an interview with our client from Camp For All.

Tomorrow we start Pugh screening and scoring .

Its getting more excited heere at the OEDK. I am learning more technical skills and soft skills everyday. I appreciate our TAs grant and Aldofor for giving us a Fab shop on solidworks. I had partial knowledge and  experience in using the software but after the fabshop i became much better. I also had a great time in knowing a software from one of my teammates from Tanzania, Novath. The software is called Proteus and it is a very good tool primarily for electronic design automation. So far we were able to redesign the circuit that was used by the previous without having to wait for the parts that we have to arrive.

I personally have been very deep into perfecting my skills on arduino coding which is the area that my team will mostly look up to me for. I have learnt a lot I just have to do more practice and watch more tutorials. On Tuesday we had our interviews with the team we are working in parallel with on the project. Among many things discussed it was noted that before our next weekly meeting we should have some code ready in controlling the pressure that will be released from the pump.I look forward to making that happen.

Our team has made so much progress; we are done with most of the research, we made presentations on our design context review to the group, we brainstormed, screened and came up with a Ghant chart. Tommorow we should be able to score and start working on our midsummer presentation on Tuesday.

Today has been awesome, having to meet The Huffs for the first time. They are an inspiring couple, I was amazed by their ability to pay attention to detail. They even made a suggestion on alternative cheap way to make our project to work. It was a great time having them around.

Below is the group picture we took today for our binder 🙂

Its another great week at the OEDK. It has been another exciting week working with the Zipline 4 All team. As we are working towards building the suitable harness we have learnt, researched and worked on different aspects towards this goal. The daily morning meetings we have had in the past week with other group members has helped to shape our project. We have been able to get feedback on the solution options or methods from our collegues, teaching assistants and supervisor hence a better direction.

TEAM ZIP LINE 4 ALL

Last week, was more focused on the research which we wrapped up on Monday. We divided the need to know among the four group members and made sure each topic was covered. We made a long document containing our research (Design Context Review). On Tuesday, we presented the DCR in form of a mind map as it was too much information. We got feedback which was very constructive and we used it to correct the mistakes in our DCR.

We then had a 3-D printing workshop which was exciting and very educative. We signed up to 3-D printing cloud where we can 3-D print from any computer, so cool. We also had a solid works workshop where we had a chance to make a 3-D drawing using the Solid works 2018 application.

Our orders finally arrived and we couldn’t wait to test them.

  The Rescue triangle currently being used at Camp For All

Stadium Chair with Adjustable back

these were our orders to help us understand what they use and its weaknesses. The Stadium chair was ordered to understand the adjustable mechanism which would be a pointer to a better solution.

After looking at these, we went forward to more research and defining the design criteria. All the objectives and constraints that defines the scope of our solution.

We then used a tool called the Pairwise Comparison Chart to priotize the objectives. After the PCC we decomposed our project into different design blocks. This was done to understand all the parts that we need and how much work we actually have.

After dividing our work into design blocks we were able to make a Gantt chart that allocates hours and team members to a specific task and mark the due dates that we need to make a presentation. This is to show and help us to make sure we are on track and not waste time on single steps.

Today, we had a great time meeting The Huffs, such lovely people. With their comments so educative i could listen all day to such wisdom. It is also a day we started brainstorming the possible solutions to our project. it has been a long process, so many ideas from four people and to reduce them wasn’t so easy. More ideas came as you heard some peoples ideas. It was so many good things.

It is great what you can achieve if you don’t set limits to yourself.

It has been a great week and its only getting better, Till next week

Chisomo

This week’s been a trip.

But before i start talking about what happened this week let me talk about the brainstorming process we went through last week. We mainly used the hitch hiking method until we exhausted all ideas. One of our wild cards was to place leopard in the red river hogs stall so that it gets scared and it runs from the leopard thereby making it more physically active. Seems like an effective solution but not so feasible. On Friday we did the screening and scoring processes to identify the best project out all the ideas we came up with during the brainstorming process. We decided to go with the “digging PVC” as the best idea.

Now to talk about what went down this week. Week 2 of boot camp. The whole week we mainly focused on the prototyping phase of the design process. Firstly we were taught how to use some tolls in the oedk for prototyping. We were taught about the different adhesives used, the knives, hand drilling machines, filers, electrical jig saw and many more.

That’s me right there trying to use the jig saw.

Then we started the low fidelity prototyping to bring the “Digging PVC” to life. The idea was to hang a PVC pipe to the wire fence of the red river hogs stall. This PVC pipe would have 5 holes with 3 inch diameter. This is to allow the snout of the hog to fit through the hole. The PVC would be hang at a height of 4 ft so that the hog has to kind of stand on two legs and use its snout to dig the food out of the PVC pipe hence the name “Digging PVC”.

During Prototyping everyone was suppose to create a low fidelity prototype individually. After that,teams had to meet and discuss how to make a medium fidelity prototype. The low fidelity designs were interesting.

My design is on the right and on the left is Nneoma’s design.

From there, we moved on to the medium fidelity prototyping.

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After that we had to test for safety(sharp edges) using the balloon test. Then we went on to test for durability using the drop test.

 

On the left is Eduardo performing the balloon test and on the right is the Digging PVC after passing all 40 drop tests.

On Tuesday, we finished performing all the tests. In the afternoon, we had presentation about our projects in front of all the other rice interns, Dr Hunter, Grant and Adulfor.

Team Bear after the final Presentations. And that marked the end of boot camp!!!!

After that we had a presentation about the main project that we will be working on all summer. I, together with Chisomo. Alexus and Andrew will be working on developing a zipline harness to provide back, head and neck and support for kids with different muscular disorders.

On Wednesday, our team jumped straight into research about the previous designs. We setup the previous design that was made here in the oedk and tried to point the weaknesses.

 

Here is a picture of a me testing the device. We are still doing more research on the previous designs and tomorrow we will develop the design criteria and objectives.

 

 

From last Thursday till today its been an a great week. One thing that i can personally take home from the ending week’s experience is that engineering is more of action than it is of theory. For the days I have been here the word “Engineering” is not a noun, I have learnt that “Engineering” is a verb, it is an action word. It is beyond text and formulas that we memorize in school. It is here at the  OEDK I am learning how to translate all text and digits i have learnt in school into something tangible that can be of benefit to the world. I had an awesome time during the tool workshop, i appreciated every hand tool for use in the OEDK and honestly speaking I wish I had learnt how to work with tools from way back 🙂

 

From understanding the engineering design process my Zoo team and I were able to come up with a bawling ball as a prototype in order to help extend the feeding time of on e of the hogs “Luna” which has recently become obese. The bawling ball has an inner ball inside it to increase the time it takes for the food to come out when Luna is playing with it. Currently Luna takes about 10 minutes to finish her food. According to the tests conducted, the ball should be able to increase Luna’s feeding time to at least 30 minutes. Several other groups also came up with their devices to tackle the problem which were all sent to the Zoo keeper and we are now waiting for feedback.

This week has been amazing because our summer projects just got revealed and am glad to have a project that is in line with my summer goals. It is one of the most involving projects out of the four pitched projects. The too much work required gets me very excited, probably because I know I will learn so much during the process and will be very proud of myself when we have finished it. Electronics aside, it requires a bit of coding and solidworks,  and I love working with those two. I am looking forward to gaining all the skills required so I can be able to implement the same when back in Malawi. The project is about developing a a device that will heal wounds real quick before they turn into something else very serious like ulcers. Below is the image of the overall project. The plan is to study and implement what what others already worked on and then improve it. I so much look forward to that. For now there has been intensive research on it and it is going on very well.