Hey there, and welcome back to my blog! If you’re new here or need a quick refresher, you can catch up on all my earlier updates. This summer, I’m diving into two really exciting projects: one’s a smart egg prototype supporting conservation efforts for the Attwater Prairie Chicken, and the other a vertical inspection camera system to monitor microgreens in an indoor hydroponic farm. Both are fast-paced and hands-on, full of new challenges and plenty to learn.

This past week was a mix of technical breakthroughs, design hurdles, and some well-deserved downtime. From soldering tiny components and refining CAD designs to learning how to use the bandsaw and milling machines, it’s been a busy week that pushed me out of my comfort zone in the best ways.

Whether you’re here for the engineering deep dive or the behind-the-scenes moments, I’m excited to share it all with you. So, let’s jump right in!

Before diving into Week 3, let’s quickly recap: last week, our egg team made great progress connecting the substation wirelessly to Firebase using an ESP32, tested various camera setups for the hydroponic farm, built early breadboard circuits, and documented key design reviews. Building on that momentum, this week we tackled new challenges and refined our approaches across both projects.

Egg Project Progress
This week for the Eggcellent Imposters project, we tested our breadboard connection and saw everything worked, so we decided to solder wires directly to the Nicla Sense ME board to mount it on a perfboard. But after damaging two out of our three boards during soldering (harder than it looks!), we pivoted. Instead, we soldered header pins onto a perfboard, added the Nicla, battery, and tiny optimized resistors (my first time seeing resistors that small!). But then we hit a setback: the circuit was too large to fit inside the egg. I forgot to mention that one nicla sense board cost $50

To fix this, we designed a custom PCB using KiCad before translating the design to the Carvera CNC machine at the OEDK for milling. Since none of us had used it before, an OEDK staff member stepped in to help get the machine ready. But the PCB design wasn’t fully ready by the end of the week, as the staff member also needed to get familiar with the machine and figure out the best way to print smoothly on both sides of our board. Meanwhile, we explored using light PolyLite PLA to 3D print a shell that mimics a real Attwater Prairie Chicken egg and planned out the internal compartments for the circuitry.

Early in the week, we also had our design review with Dr. Holmes, where I drafted our documentation and reviewed it with my team before the presentation. We discussed our problem statement, constraints, CAD sketches, prototype expectations, and a detailed timeline breaking down daily tasks for each group member.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camera Inspection Prototype Progress
For the light, camera, action team, we kept pushing our camera prototype further. We advanced the vertical inspection camera prototype by configuring it to auto boot so it starts up automatically when powered on. We also set up live streaming via RTSP, matching Navid’s preference for Trollmaster integration. Remembering Navid’s request for night vision and time-lapse, we brainstormed cameras that were waterproof, programmable, and compact, and finally found one that ticked all the boxes, so we ordered it. Navid shared something that stuck with me:

“Don’t cut costs at the expense of reliability.”
It’s something I’ve kept in mind as we choose components and refine our design.

Later in the week, we had our own design review with Dr. Holmes. As the first team to present that day, we shared our mounting design, client feedback, and next steps. Dr. Holmes advised us to build a wooden mock-up to visualize the camera’s fit inside the hydroponic frame. By Thursday, we fabricated that wooden platform, I even learned to use the JET JBS-14 bandsaw to cut the parts! We spent the rest of the week refining the design, brainstorming improvements, and sourcing food-safe materials, ordering a few motors that are relevant to our project and prepping for a higher-fidelity build.

Just before the weekend, we had an SLA printing class, where we tried printing our first egg model on the Formlabs printer. The first attempt failed (classic prototype life!), so the print rolled into next week. Also we went thrifting on Wednesday at the binz store where I got 14 pounds of clothing items for $31

Cutting out wooden part and mounting it well to our 2nd prototype

Weekend rewind: balancing life and academics
Back home, I’m still juggling final-year projects and coursework. My weekend was spent catching up on assignments, studying, and having quick calls with course mates. And because cooking always helps me reset, I made rice and beans with panla fish stew, a true Nigerian comfort meal, while unwinding with some movies.

Week 3 was long, busy, and full of new lessons, but every challenge made it worthwhile.
Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to check out my earlier posts if you haven’t yet!

Stay tuned for next week’s update, where we’re hoping to finally mill our custom PCB, test our camera mount, and see if that next egg print succeeds!
See you soon!

Eniola 🙂

Hey there, and welcome back to my blog! If you’re new here or need a quick refresher, you can catch up on everything so far in my earlier posts. I’m currently working on two exciting projects this summer: one, a smart egg prototype that supports conservation efforts at the Houston Zoo, and the other, a vertical inspection camera system designed to monitor microgreens in an indoor hydroponic farm. Both are hands-on, fast-moving, and full of learning curves, just the way I like it.

This past week brought a little bit of everything: deeper technical progress, new design challenges, some much-needed rest (hello public holiday!), and even a weekend filled with cooking, culture, and community. From fine-tuning sensors and building circuits, to sharing meals with fellow interns and wandering through living history, it’s been a week that stretched me in the best ways.

So whether you’re here for engineering, the everyday moments, or the little surprises along the way — I’m excited to take you through it all. Let’s get into it!

Egg Project Progress
As a quick refresher, our egg prototype is being developed to support conservation efforts for endangered birds, like the Attwater’s prairie chicken. The idea is to track key environmental factors such as light, temperature, and humidity during incubation. That data will be sent wirelessly to a nearby substation, helping conservationists better understand how to manage eggs outside of natural habitats. This week, the egg team focused on getting our substation,  the device that collects data from the egg to connect smoothly to both Wi-Fi and Firebase using an ESP32 board. Like many hardware adventures, it didn’t go perfectly at first, so we spent a good amount of time troubleshooting and brainstorming alternatives (spoiler: Raspberry Pi is looking like a promising option).

We also printed a scaled-up version of the egg using a cream filament, tested how components would fit inside, and started building the breadboard version of our circuit. One of my key contributions was optimizing the photoresistor, and helping lay out the egg’s internal circuitry. On Wednesday, we measured the communication range between the egg and the substation and created both a hand-drawn circuit sketch and a digital schematic using KiCad. To wrap things up, I helped write our design review documentation, reflecting on the progress, lessons learned, and what’s next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inspection Camera Prototype
Our first prototype was pretty basic but invaluable, we used aluminum extrusion for the frame, a belt system to move the camera up and down, a retractable power cord, and an old bulky camera mounted on some cardboard. This setup helped us understand how the belt-drive mechanism would work in practice and made us think hard about how to securely fasten the vertical frame to the ceiling. But it quickly became clear the prototype had some limitations. For one, the camera could only pan about 180 degrees, while we needed it to cover at least 270 degrees to capture the full growing area. Also, the bulky camera and the whole prototype were just too large to fit neatly in the space we have.

So, in our second prototype, we kept the aluminum extrusion and belt but swapped out the bulky camera for a much smaller Raspberry Pi camera (though we’re still considering other options). We found some mounting parts online to attach the camera to the cart and to secure the extrusion to both the ceiling and floor of the indoor farm space. We 3D printed these parts and tested their fit, and so far, everything snaps in place nicely.

Because this system needs to work smoothly with the existing Trolmaster software, we programmed the stepper motor that moves the camera up and down, as well as a servo motor that rotates the entire extrusion 360 degrees for full panning. Right now, these motors respond to joystick controls, but once we get access to the Trolmaster firmware, we’ll replace those signals with commands from the software itself — making the whole process automatic. Helena and I also began drafting the design review for this project, documenting both the technical work and the thought process behind our design decisions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fusion Class & 3D Design Lessons
Wednesday also came with a creative twist, we had a 3D design class using Fusion 360, where I tried my hand at designing a 3D model from scratch. I created “Umbra,” a vase concept that plays with curves and light, designed to capture the soft shadows that wrap around its surface. It’s not the most perfect model, but it was a great exercise in digital sketching and form exploration. I’m excited to iterate on it and get better with each design.
Outside the class, I also 3D printed a laptop stand and a phone holder to support my devices, a small but satisfying personal project. Unfortunately, the print didn’t quite hold up; the way I sliced it affected its strength, and it started collapsing soon after. Lesson learned, and next time, I’ll be more mindful of how print orientation and infill affect durability.

 

 

 

 

Rest and Cooking Break
Thursday and Friday were public holidays, and to be honest, I was grateful for the break. I had pretty uncomfortable menstrual cramps on Thursday, so I gave myself permission to rest, stay cozy, and take a full day off. Friday was a complete shift in energy, grocery shopping, cooking, and a whole lot of joy. I teamed up with other international interns and our amazing student hosts, Dohoon, Tasia, and Helena, for a cooking session. I mixed and baked brownies from scratch, cooked some beef using good ol’ Nigerian seasoning (Knorr, of course), and helped Tasia fry up fries.The final menu? Chipsi Mayai (a Tanzanian-style fries-and-egg dish), sautéed veggies, cookies, strawberry smoothies, and plenty of laughter in between. It felt like a warm blend of cultures coming together in one happy kitchen.

On Saturday, I visited the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, which was hosting a family-friendly lawn festival behind the building. There were living history reenactments of the United States Colored Troops, hands-on games, and thoughtful exhibits that brought Black history to life. I left feeling inspired and proud. After that, I made a quick stop at Ross Dress for Less, where I scored a 12-pack of socks for just $9.99, a small win, but a satisfying one! Later that evening, my team and I met up at the OEDK to continue troubleshooting our second camera prototype. While we’re getting closer to something reliable, the session revealed a few more constraints we’ll need to tackle next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking Ahead
This week was the perfect balance of building and breathing. We moved both projects forward, tackled new challenges, and still made time to rest, cook, connect, and explore. I’m learning that engineering isn’t just about solving problems , it’s also about finding joy in the journey and building community along the way.

Next week promises more testing, prototyping, and refining — and I can’t wait to see where it takes us.

Thanks for reading and as always, stay tuned.

Eniola 🙂

 

 

*Content warning: My project deals with pediatric sexual assault. Please exercise self-care while reading.

When I was younger, I would often take care to only step inside the little boxes whenever I walked on tiled floors or floors with square patterns. This sometimes meant that I would restrict my stride just to stay inside the boxes.

When I took my first step into the OEDK on day one of this internship, it didn’t just feel like I was stepping on a line…it felt like I was stepping off the floor itself, into some sort of gap where I didn’t belong. I was apprehensive and nervous. Would I be the only non-engineer in an engineering design internship? Would I drag teammates down because I didn’t have much of a technical background? Should I have restricted my stride?

These past six weeks utterly transformed my perspective. Our internship cohort brought such an incredibly vast array of interests, skills, backgrounds, and life experiences, and I strongly believe that our diversity is in part what enabled us to accomplish as much as we did this summer. Team PIPER was no exception – Elise, Shannon, Alex, and I are such drastically different people, but we were brought together by our shared investment in our project (to the point that we’re now basically a family). I learned so much from each of them, whether it be technical skills or a stories about themselves as people.

Last week’s final showcase was one of the most empowering experiences of this whole internship. I had gotten so used to listening to teams give small updates on their progress during our daily morning stand-up meetings that I had failed to realize the extent of what we had really done, and the impact of what we had done. Team PIPER had left our first client meeting at the beginning of the internship overwhelmed – how were we supposed to start a project completely from scratch, and produce a functional pediatric pelvic model in a little over a month? Seeing everyone’s presentations at the final showcase, I realized that the real beauty of the engineering design process, and of engineering solutions to health issues, is those small incremental steps of progress. It’s not about whether your steps are perfect, or placed comfortably. Instead, it’s about the little daily updates, the little suggestions you get along the way from your teammates, your colleagues, your clients, the little tweaks and iterations on tiny components of your design. It’s the stepping stones that eventually bridge the gap you’re trying to address. And this realization allowed me to understand that progress isn’t defined by producing a perfect solution – it’s defined by whether you laid the next stepping stone, or made the existing path a little more even, a little smoother.

I’m so proud of team PIPER’s progress – though our prototype has some clear room for improvement, we still managed to develop a model that accomplishes many aspects of simulating a pediatric pelvic exam. Our model rotates properly between different positions, enables the interchange of labia and hymens, and facilitates realistic practice with labial traction and hymen observation. Here’s some images of the model we displayed at the showcase!

I’m intentionally choosing not to call our prototype, at the end of the internship, our “final” prototype. Why? Because we haven’t fully bridged the gap in pediatric sexual assault examination training. We may have laid enough stepping stones to get to the other side, but there’s still some gaps between steps, some rough edges, that can be worked on, like improving hymenal movement during rotation from supine to prone, or working more to standardize our molding and pigmentation process.

So what exactly are the next stepping stones to lay down? After our final presentation on Thursday, we found out that we may be able to get Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for user testing of our model in time for a training event led by Ms. Harris (our client) in New York in early August. This is such exciting news – if we get IRB approval, we could publish our work in a journal! After a team meeting with Dr. Taylor and our client, we decided that we’d go ahead and start the process. While this is a short timeline and not guaranteed, we are hopeful that we will be able to publish data from user testing at some point in the near-ish future.

As far as next steps for the model itself, we will be sending our model to Ms. Harris soon so that she can at the very least get some informal feedback at her training. We also prepared documentation for project transfer, so that the PIPER project is prepared to be handed off to a future team. Elise, Shannon, Alex, and I are all interested in continuing to stay involved with this project, so instead of the end of this internship being a “goodbye,” it’s more of a “see you soon,” as Dr. Taylor phrased it on Friday. I’m incredibly grateful to have received so much support from Rice 360, the OEDK, and everyone else who made it possible for us to work on and contribute to such an important and impactful project. It still hasn’t sunk in for me that we started this project from scratch in June, and now have a functional pediatric pelvic model to send to New York for user testing.

Overall, I’m so honored to have met, worked with, and learned from the amazing people in this internship, many of whom I can now say are really good friends of mine. And as for team PIPER, we have an incredibly close bond and I really treasure the memories we made together (and all the inside jokes and even our very own PIPER Spotify playlist) these past six weeks. I learned so much from my experiences this summer, and I can’t wait to see all the amazing things that my fellow interns will do in the future.

 

 

One of my biggest takeaways from the summer is that when you’re a global health engineer, or a health innovator, or just anyone who is trying to develop a novel solution to something, your job isn’t to find a bridge for the gap – it’s to make the bridge, stone by stone. As I take this lesson with me, I will look for ways to step outside of those little squares of comfort. Most importantly, I will know that building a bridge of stepping stones isn’t just one person’s job – addressing community issues is a community effort.

I’ve appreciated the opportunity to document and reflect on my experiences in this blog. Thanks to everyone for reading my posts throughout this summer, and I will see you soon!

-Shivani

Content warning: My project deals with pediatric sexual abuse. Please take care of yourself and feel free to forgo reading any parts of this blog.

 

Our final Monday of the internship was crunch time. We had our project showcase on Tuesday, so we had to pull together our final model and perfect our project pitch. After laser cutting our last acrylic base, we were able to finalize rotation pegs that fit perfectly in the model. We also successfully incorporated pigmentation to represent varied skin tones and glued our final labia and hymen sets to the caps. By the end of the day Monday, our model was complete and ready to present at the showcase on Tuesday. 

Our final PIPER prototype that we presented at showcase and will send to our client for user testing in August!

Tuesday was a big day, as we were able to share our work with a broader audience. After traveling the long (and hot) journey to the BRC, we enjoyed a yummy lunch of Local Foods. Then it was go time- project pitch and showcase. The event went smoothly! It was wonderful to share our work in a large auditorium without masks- just like the old days! We received lots of praise and numerous valuable suggestions for future iterations on PIPER. All in all, it was a wonderful afternoon of sharing our team’s work with the larger community and supporting the work of our colleagues.

Team PIPER prepared to present our project pitch at the showcase!

At this point in the week, I still felt as though the magnitude of what we’ve accomplished hadn’t truly sunk in for me. That moment came Tuesday night. I called home to talk to my family, and inquired about my sister’s recent check-up. She mentioned that her doctor had asked how I was doing, and our mom explained a bit about my work this summer. Dr. DeSalvo had surprisingly already heard of team PIPER and the work we’ve been doing! His friend is a friend of one of the gynecologists we had contacted- what a small world! For me, it was satisfying to hear how our work was being talked about in the medical community. I was able to share this story with my team on Wednesday, and it amazed them as well. 

So what is next for PIPER? We have decided to send our current prototype to Ms. Harris, so she can gather user feedback on the model during a training in early August. After our final presentation on Thursday, Dr. Taylor also informed us of the possibility of getting Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for PIPER user testing. IRB approval would protect any data collected at the training in August for publication. As a team, along with our client and internship leadership team, we have decided to try and pursue IRB approval in the hopes of publishing our work in the future. While we are on a time crunch, we are hopeful that this work can be published in an engineering journal at some point in the future.

As far as further iterations and improvements to the PIPER model go, the project will continue on in some form in the future. Many of my teammates are interested in continuing work on the project. Personally, I have really enjoyed this project and its potential for impact, despite the heavy subject matter. It’s amazing for me to think I contributed to creating the first ever pediatric pelvic model. As a result, I would like to continue working on this project in the coming year(s), and I am currently looking into what that looks like logistically. 

As the internship wrapped up, I found myself getting very sentimental. One of the reasons for this is because of the close bonds I have developed with all the other interns. Through social events, group lunches, and OEDK shenanigans, we have truly become a family. Each and every one of them brings such a unique perspective and talents, and it has been a joy to get to know and learn from them throughout this program. In particular, team PIPER will always hold a special place in my heart. Elise, Shivani, Alex, and I are like siblings at this point- we have countless inside jokes, the sweetest memories, and so much trust and love for one another. I am beyond grateful that this program brought me these wonderful teammates, and more importantly, these wonderful friends. 

Left: Intern selfie walking out of the OEDK on our last day! Right: Team PIPER after our final presentation! So much love for these three 🙂

Personally, this experience has truly been one of the highlights of my year. I have learned so much about engineering, teamwork, communication, and myself. I have uncovered my passion for global health and bioengineering, and I am strongly considering adding the global health technologies minor as a result of this program. In her closing remarks, Dr. Taylor encouraged us to challenge the assumption that “it’s just the way the world is,” and really do something to change the disparities we notice in the world around us. There are so many inequities when it comes to global health, but I now feel empowered to play my part in changing this. I am hopeful that myself and my colleagues will go out into the world and do amazing things, and I am forever grateful for this internship that has equipped us to do so. 

Thank y’all so much for reading my blogs throughout this journey. They have been a wonderful way for me to express myself and document this experience! 

 

See y’all soon,

Shannon 

This week started off with a bang, and it didn’t slow down. Sometimes taking a short break from a project (a nice four-day weekend) can help a team to reset and refocus. Upon arrival in the OEDK on Monday, we immediately started making great progress. Knowing there would only be a little more than a week before our showcase presentations, we also realized how little time we had to make more progress on our design.

More Smoke

On Monday, we met with a previous team member to discuss some problem’s that we had observed with our circuit, and he was a reliable source of troubleshooting ideas. We had just a few things to resolve before we were comfortable putting our circuit all together. While we discussed over Zoom with him, we attempted to turn on our OLED screen to describe any problems we were having, and immediately smoked poured out from below the screen. We frantically unplugged the Arduino from the laptop, and examined our handiwork. Nothing. It seemed like a freak accident, and given that we had already performed a similar cooking operation on a previous screen of ours, we felt… well… discouraged.

We finished our discussion in the conference room, and brought back the corpse of our last remaining OLED screen. Since we had been spending much of the last few weeks perfecting separate pieces of the circuit and making adjustments, we knew that we might be able to put everything together today if it weren’t for the broken screen. Then, we remembered back to our previous screen, looked carefully, and made a realization: if only the two screens had broken in different places, we may yet be able to take them apart and put together a working screen. It was a massive longshot.

But we did it! The screens themselves were mounted on a small printed circuit board (PCB) with a small ribbon cable. After unplugging one screen and attaching it to the other PCB, we tried turning it on, with no luck. Finally, we tried the other Frankenstein screen (Franken-screen?), crossed our fingers, and watched the screen light up with no issues! Electronics can be tough to work with sometimes, but for Team Petri-FI, anything is possible—even “un-frying” an OLED screen!

The Breadboard

By the afternoon on Monday, we were confident enough in our circuit that we chose to make a new and improved breadboard. While our previous iterations were messy, I had a lot of fun cutting wires to the correct length and making neat patterns on the new breadboard. Piece by piece, we built up the subsystems that we had been working on, and soon, we just needed to upload code to the Arduino and turn it on. For the first time in weeks, we powered on the Arduino and saw the screen light up with a previous team’s (Minicubator’s) user interface. Additionally, the buttons, heating pad, and thermistor appeared to be functioning well, even if there were still a few issues to be resolved. We were immensely excited to reach this checkpoint, because it brought us ever closer to integrating it with our newly-designed incubation chamber.

A Journey on a Bike

With our new progress on the circuit, we took a leap of faith in contacting a faculty member on campus to help us start performing incubation testing by the end of the week. Because of scheduling, and because we wanted to run a 48-hour incubation, we learned that we would need to start on Wednesday evening, in both a commercial incubator as well as our own. We did not have everything ready for a full incubation, and it would be a challenge to get a working setup within just two days, but we took the offer, knowing that it would be fantastic to showcase our results during next week’s presentations.

Once water samples are taken, it is best to start incubation within 24 hours. Therefore, on Tuesday evening, I packed an empty water bottle (and a full one—hydration is important!) and rode my bike out to the Brays Bayou near Rice University’s campus. We knew that this was likely going to be a good source of fecal contamination. I biked a short distance along the bayou, looking for a spot to safely step down to the water. I found a set of stairs, and walked down to collect the disgusting water in my (empty) water bottle. That was a fun little adventure, and certainly one that I did not expect to be having as part of my summer internship! As soon as I made it back to the OEDK with the sample and set it onto our team table, it was like a ticking clock. In twenty-four hours, we would either start our incubation, or we would disappoint ourselves and our faculty mentor.

The Big Day

We worked tirelessly on Wednesday. While I tried to add capability for data logging to a microSD card during our incubation, we were also assembling our new vertical box incubator design. This box would have the heating chamber with foam board insulation below the electronics chamber. We successfully added the insulation to the chamber, and it was ready for incubation, which meant that we would not need to use our previous incubator for our 48-hour test. Throughout the afternoon, we continued to make more progress, but we were still straining to complete the system.

While I was not yet able to get the SD card working completely, we (mostly) trusted Minicubator’s heating algorithm to keep the chamber warm. We stayed late placing the heating pad and thermometer into the heating chamber, and we connected it to the breadboard alongside our new box. By around 7:00 PM, the chamber was ready to go, and we had placed 1 mL of water on each of the Petrifilms. We put the Petrifilms into both our chamber and that of the commercial incubator, and we watched.

There were no major anomalies with the temperature of our incubator on Wednesday evening, and we checked it later that evening to ensure steady operation. Then, we left the OEDK for the night, just praying that our incubator would still be working by the morning. When I arrived in the morning, the temperature was still in range! Like clockwork! The rest of the 48-hour period went by without even a hiccup. By Friday, we were able to pull out the bacteria-filled Petrifilms and examine them with our faculty mentor. On the whole, our incubator performed very similarly to the commercial incubator! We were unable to quantify these results, because our water samples had far too many E. coli colonies, but we were very happy to see promising results after all of our efforts.

Throughout this internship, we’ve generally been able to set our own deadlines. Of course, we knew that at the end of the six weeks, we wanted to have a new product that could successfully perform incubations. This week, however, we set ourselves a Wednesday deadline that pushed us to accomplish much more than we ever expected. In challenging ourselves and working hard at the beginning of the week, we rewarded ourselves with successful incubation results and the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of our weeks’ labor. Next week, we must prepare for showcase presentations, but I’m very excited for the refinements we will be able to make to our incubator in our final week together.

-Kenton Roberts