Hello friend! My name is Austin, and I’m a rising senior from Hanszen College studying Bioengineering with a Medical Humanities minor. Through my courses, I have had the opportunity to go through the engineering design process, collaborate with teammates from various backgrounds, and learn the technical skills to create a product. During my time at Rice, I have put together an optical immunoassay, pulse oximeter, and more notably a training model for oral cancer screenings in collaboration with MD Anderson Cancer Center. When I’m not on the 6th floor of Fondren Library watching The 100 (instead of studying) or Texas Children’s Hospital (conducting translational research), I’m probably in the kitchen! I love to try new recipes and, just recently, started a a new series that I call “One Week, One Dish,” where I pick one entree suggested by friends and make it in my kitchen! In addition to taking you along my “foodie” journey (pics will be included!), I also hope to give you an insider’s view on my take of the internship.
On the first day of our internship, our team assignments were announced. I, along with my teammates Chiku, Lauren, and Ruth, were placed on two projects around the theme of ‘Distancing Devices.’ When I first heard this, I was full of excitement. As someone who was born and raised in the Bay Area, I had already heard the saddening stories of family and friends who were significantly affected by Covid-19, whether it was being laid off or, in the unfortunate case, contracting the virus itself. I was frustrated that all I could do for them was listen to their troubles and hope for the pandemic to be over. But, with this internship, I was given a chance to leverage my unique engineering background (3D Printing, Fusion360, Electrical Engineering, and Engineering Design) to serve the interests of public health and frontline care provided in hospitals.
Project 1 – Intubation Box (aka aerosol box)
Context – The first iteration of the intubation box was designed by Dr. Hsein Yung Lai, a Taiwan anesthesiologist, and used during endotracheal intubation and throughout surgery. The importance of this, however, is that it allows the provider to freely move their arms while remaining protected from the patient’s airway, where viral particles are released into the surrounding air. Typically, if we’re talking about an ideal setting (rich with resources), a powered air-purifying respirator would be used; but with the current shortage of supplies, our team, Rice360, and the clinicians in Malawi believe that intubation boxes may be the next best solution that can provide our frontline physicians with a degree of protection.
When our team first saw this video of an intubation being performed on a model, we started to ask a few questions – How many intubations would be performed in a typical day? By what % does the intubation box reduce infection? What features should we prioritize in our design?
It soon became apparent that ergonomics and safety should be considered with this prototype. The image, as representative as it is, shows a physician hunched over to perform an intubation, through holes that may not be the exact fit to his arms (causing some leakage). Don’t take me the wrong way, I’m not saying that intubation box is outright bad, but actually quite the opposite. I think the current design is a phenomenal first step to better protecting our frontline, and we can only continue to improve and expand on it from here! Just imagine how sore his back would be at the end of a long day after maybe 30 similar procedures. Our team has some ideas to address these existing limitations, but you’ll just have to wait until my next blog post to find out what they are!
I would love to hear some of the projects that you (the reader) are working on and what you think can be improved. Please reach out to me at ah53@rice.edu!
Project 2 – Contactless Temperature Monitor
Context – As the pandemic continues, there’s an increasing need for public health measures to not only track and limit spread of the virus, but also identify the infected from the healthy. One of these measures includes temperature checkpoints, where individuals may be evaluated for a fever (a common symptom of Covid-19). But, this is not a perfect solution; there could be asymptomatic carriers and even confounding factors such fever-reducing medication that dodge detection. However, it is STILL a step towards prevention. Contactless temperature monitors eliminate physical contact and reduce the risk of infection (that’s great!) BUT can be expensive and in limited supply.
The first concern that was brought to our team’s attention was the limited amount of electrical hardware that were available in Malawi. Ordering components was an incredibly frustrating and long process – by the time a standard part of contactless temperature monitors was ordered, the business would either be out of stock OR the component would arrive 2-3 weeks later. This was a huge challenge that I was not accustomed to, having lived in the U.S. with Amazon Prime’s 2-day shipping or a short drive to Fry’s Electronics. The limited access to resources didn’t also just affect our timeline, but it also affected the effectiveness of our prototype. The current version needed some tweaking to the IR sensor (needs to be sensitive enough to acquire a signal!) and processing it (amplifying the signal so that it is detectable by a processor and filtered so only the valuable information is read!). It’s going to be difficult process, but I’m confident that my team will make strides in coming up with a solution. Stayed tuned to find out what we think of next!
Personal Comments – After 5 long days of working hard and becoming oriented to our projects, it was finally nice to talk about normal topics like our interests, viewpoints, and community (over a shared meal on Zoom!). Chikumbutso, apparently, had a green thumb (a hidden talent for gardening) while Ruth had a way with dance moves. Yet, all of us were very invested in a contested debate of what was better: dog or cats? During this time, we talked about many things, but the ones that I remember the most are about how Covid-19 had affected us and our community… and also how politics/government significantly determined public response. I was also surprised to hear that given the current Black Lives Matter movement and COVID-19 measures, “nearly everyone [in other countries] follows the news on the U.S.” since I had only ever seen U.S. news on TV. It made me wonder if the U.S., in a way, is too centered on itself? Food for thought.
Signing off,
Austin