oxycal has worked on improving the battery attachment of side to side by extending wires from the battery board and having a separate board. this idea worked very work not only in solving problems of shorting but also solving the problems of airflow, by not allowing concentrated oxygen being blown on one side mixing with the ambient air of the reference battery. the team also developed the ideas on how to calibrate the different starting voltages in the batteries. with this the team tested a number of resistors connected in parallel and noted the time it took for the batteries to reach the same potential. the idea of extending the batteries was very successful even though it gave us problems on the casing as pipes for air to flow were to be developed.
this week has been the shortest but very intense. we had to make sure we finish our project and prepare for our final presentation that took place on wednesday.
a lot of testing was done with the oxycal device and when we thought we had reached the end we realised we had to start over some processes and some steps we missed.however this was not demotivating since designing is all about iteration. after troubleshooting and testing the device we set our gain and got our device working with 95% accuracy. finally we got started with our presentation which we presented on wednesday. yesterday we did a lot of clean up which we are going to finish the cleaning today.
in a nut shell, this summer has been a great exposure for me, my life is no longer and will no longer be the same again. it has given me opportunity to explore things outside my box, i met different people, professors who have motivated my life to be better. my potential has been exposed, my strengths and weaknesses have been exposed which makes me so happy because i will work on them. working in teams has also been wonderful. i have learnt a lot of things from the people i have worked with and i am confident enough to say that right now i can work with people of all caliber . another thing which has mold me this summer were the tasks that i was given to complete within specified time limits.
finally i would like to say thank you to our sponsors rice 360, the professors, dr wettergreen, dr hunter and jeremy our TA,for the advice you were giving us, the understanding and support.to all our fellow students, thanks for the fun, alex and kelvin for always being there for us. for those of you who have been reading my blogs i say it was an honour for me, may you continue to rise and shine.
when i get to malawi it is my desire to work and finish this project, and also contribute to the medical industry of my country by coming up with other new designs.
thank you!!!!