Work continued from last week, boot camp got intense, Team Hippo (Christina, Manuel, Bruno and I) worked tirelessly and on schedule. Boot camp project completed!
An interesting week it was.! Many thanks to Dr. Wettergreen, Dr. Hunter and Jeremy for the mentor-ship, the hope and big heart they instilled in me. We iterated two medium fidelity prototypes for the Okapi enrichment device. the device worked really well. It met the criteria – passed the weight test, on average we managed to set it up with 353 seconds and clean it within 205 seconds. The device was tested to engage Okapi for 30 minutes in every 5 minutes (Okapi is actually attracted back to to the device within 5 minutes), which is of course a great achievement considering that Houston Zoo wanted a device that engages Okapi the most – Okapi should come back to the device as much as possible. The device incorporates a vibrator that vibrates whenever Okapi touches the device, this vibration gives Okapi an amazing touch at the same time scratches its tongue. In addition, the device keeps moving forward and forth along a rail when Okapi attempts taking food from it. These features with the attractive appearance the devices have make Okapi “wanna go again and have that feel one more time”. Team Hippo researched as much as it could to meet the very goals specified by the client, Houston Zoo. Houston Zoo has a variety of other enrichment devices for Okapi and this device makes itself stand out of the rest for the increased engagement time it offers which the Zoo desired to have.
Bruno holding our finished medium fidelity prototype
The vibrator
Before the two medium fidelity prototypes, each one of us made a low fidelity proof of concept prototype. It was amazing to discover how each individual expressed the same idea in different ways. This was a great experience one will always wish to explore. The OEDK, is great place to be! Engineering designing, the iterative process is a superb endeavour to experience.
The Bajaj challenge was yet another exiting moment. The Bajaj (called Tricycle in Malawi) was prototyped in pairs. Elizabeth (Liz) and I prototyped a low fidelity Bajaj that sailed on an overhead string from upstairs all the way down to the ground, it sailed within 4.3 second (approximately 2m/s).
Needs Finding Workshop was super good! We had had a presentation by Dr. Ghosn, the exercises we had exposed me to a real situation where as a design engineer I put myself in a problem so that I can have a feel of the best solution out of the problem. If i cannot find a problem, I have no problem to solve. Getting into the shoes of the three disability situations was one real approach to understanding the problem context. If this be the approach to
I experiencing the wheel chair
Arthrogrypotic Yebo
Blind Yebo
Later in the week Team OxyCal (Manuel, Charity Carlos and I) is born. My first real experience in designing bio-devices, the long awaited desire! The Team is working on an oxygen calibrator, a device that will be used in low resource areas to analyse the amount of oxygen output from an oxygen concentrator to patients ( usually those under surgery and require additional oxygen supply or neonates). The project was initially started by another team ( Nishant, Peter and Petson) and they are, this summer our esteemed clients.
Stay tuned for my weekly updates! Team OxyCal is cooking the best of a low cost oxygen calibrator right in the very state of the art kitchen, the OEDK, follow it up!!