Week six has been interesting!!!
Our Adafruit 8 x 8 matrix display finally arrived earlier this week. We soldered the LCD.We studied the Adafruit programming and transformed it into an Adafruit Arduino working code. So after having a working code for both the photoresistor + warning circuit and the display circuit we had to do a few different tests.
above is the picture of the LED partograph display matrix we worked on.It is so cuute!!
On Monday we Cut different sizes of fiber optic for tests (to see if different lengths of the fiber optic affect the device readings).We could not actually do the tests and recording of the displacement against the light level graphs because of some conditions like light from the outside affected the readings since the box was not enclosed enough.
As you can see the pictures above.We worked on our 3d printed different boxes at every point. We had to change and improve them in order to come up with boxes best for testing and possibly the final prototype boxes.After having good boxes for testing we tested two different diameters of the fiber optics (1.5mm against 3mm),also tested the two different lengths (4 inch against 6 inch)and plotted graphs of the light levels against displacement and observed the response of each of them.Also tested the belt to see if it won’t affect the accuracy of our device and it did not.Came up with two more graphs of the displacement against light levels in order to have an idea of the optoco’s response with a few iterations.
We also had a meeting with our client Dr Carns and her friend Dr Suneet .We showed Dr Suneet our device and asked him a few questions concerning contractions. He offered to help us see a woman in labor with contractions so that we can understand the whole scenario.On Thursday we visited a hospital with the help of our client and Dr Suneet.We observed a woman in labor and felt the contractions by placing our hands on her belly and realized that the contractions are not visible by just looking at a woman in labor.The contractions do not cause any muscle extension, but the belly becomes hard/stiff upon a contraction and softer during relaxation.Therefore the concept our prototype uses is not feasible for the device after all.
Therefore we spent time documenting our project (Arduino code and circuit schematics), working on our presentations and we came up with a final prototype for our incomplete project for it can be used for another purpose later on or can be altered in some way to work as a tocodynamometer.
above are pictures of the final prototypes
Today we had a secret workshop.Mikaela and Helen managed to keep it secret.screen printed our T-shirts .It was exiting!!!
May God be praised for everything we have been through throughout the project.Thanks to all for your support and encouragement.
#GoTeamToco #
#muchlove#