All APGAR, all the time.
This week, Harrison, Hanna, and I continued work on the APGAR scoring project. The most important development occurred on Wednesday after speaking to the interns at QECH. The information we learned from speaking to them seemed to change the entire direction of our project. Rather than the arduino-based device we were originally working on that would help midwives calculate a score quickly and accurately, we needed to design something that would help them record a score quickly and accurately. Furthermore, it needed to facilitate communication of that score between the maternity department and Chatinkha, where the babies are taken after delivery. Though we still had sooooo many questions, we moved on with the design process. We’re still asking questions everyday and working on setting up a meeting with a neonatologist here in Houston so that we can learn more about how the APGAR scoring process should work.
After our new discoveries, Dr. Wettergreen suggested we spend the rest of the day in a nice, secluded corner of the library brainstorming new concepts and solutions. We actually went to a magical part of the library that I had never entered before, full of books on architecture, design, music, and art. We flipped through different books and periodicals for ideas. I learned that Hanna and Harrison are both much better at drawing than I am. All three of us also ended up checking out books to read on our own time. I got a book about the evolution of superhero costume fashions; hopefully I’ll have the time to start reading this weekend.
After brainstorming, screening, and scoring, we settled on two designs to move forward with. Both are simple, low-tech designs. The first is shown below – paper attached to a clothespin that can be used to hold together a baby’s chitenge (the cloth used to wrap the baby after delivery). The midwife would just use her pen to circle a score. The other we will work more on next week – using some kind of markable/indentable (pretty sure neither of those are words) material (like the push buttons on the lid of a soda or coffee cup). We may also tinker around with another idea with knobs and string and locking mechanisms – hopefully, some 3D printing will be involved!
Next week, I am looking forward to getting some more feedback on our design and starting some more prototyping. We are hoping to have some clips ready in time for Dr. Wettergreen to take when he leaves on July 15th for Malawi. The goal is that if we need to make revisions to our design (based on feedback from QECH), we can do so before our internship is done for the summer! I am really interested in the response to our design. Will it actually help the midwives, or will it be just one more thing to add to their plates?
Bye!
Whitney