Hi all! My name is Rachel Dang, currently a rising sophomore at Martel College double majoring in Biosciences and Economics, with a minor in Global Health Technologies. I received the opportunity to be part of the Rice 360 Internship this summer, working with the SEED internship teams at the OEDK.

 

First week passed by in the blink of an eye. Yet, I have learned so much. 

 

We had orientation and the project fair. I remember being super excited and also somewhat stressed about having to commit to just one out of the seven extremely interesting projects. I have been notoriously indecisive, so that was the first hurdle I had to jump over. After serious consideration, I went with the NEST360 Charging and Sanitisation Station for Low-Resourced Hospitals project. NEST360 was founded with the goal to save babies’ lives, and I highly recommend you all to read more about their wonderful work here (https://nest360.org/impact-report/)! Interestingly enough, I was initially scared of this project due to its many unfamiliar elements. However, the mentor of the project, Ms. Jackie Foss, with her contagious enthusiasm and passion for the project, had convinced me to take on new challenges this summer. 

 

And so, team NESTation was formed (I am the proud mother of this name). Since our team will be the first team to ever take on this project of creating a charging and sanitising station suitable for low-resourced hospitals to efficiently accommodate limiting spaces, we have been so excited and overflowing with ideas. Despite this excitement, wanting to jump into bringing our ideas to life, we know to keep ourselves grounded in first truly understanding the problem via needs finding, the important foundation of the engineering process. 

                                                         

 

Another highlight of the week was definitely the hand tools workshop. I used to be scared of these really loud machines, but now I can tackle them even in a dress! And we got to apply these skills to make cute houses for cute Houston bats! 

                                       

In all, the first week has been an amazing experience, and I am looking forward to having you all to join me on my journey this summer!