Another fantastic week comes to an end! This week of the internship has been beneficial in further broadening my group’s understanding of the problem we are trying to address by introducing us to different assessment strategies. The first tool was introduced to us by workshop leader Wayne Decker, from the Flametree Initiative. He discussed the importance of identifying innovative methods that are appropriate to the productive use of energy (PUE). During this workshop, our team was tasked with finding realistic ways in which mutual success could be yielded from the need for PUE and the need for production and distribution of our prototype. This seemingly broad and challenging task brought to light some important considerations as we move forwards with our prototypes including (i) utilizing the local supply chain, (ii) methods of ‘marketing’ the device, (iii) challenges resulting from transportation and languages, and (iv) the finding of suppliers and partners. There were three main findings from this analysis for our Walk-Through. First, the set-up and maintenance of the structure should tie in economic opportunities for people within the communities. Secondly, the materials used to build the structure should ideally be sustainable materials sourced locally in Malawi. Lastly, consideration of energy availability within these contexts. In this regard, we should consider the utilization of our prototype beyond the clinical settings, particularly with regards to how the energy requirements would change in that regard. For example, most Malawi devices use two power sources, solar and back-up battery, so that they can still be used during power outages. As a result of these varying power needs, our prototype needs to be capable of sourcing energy across various location types.

 

The second assessment strategy, problem definition, and needs finding was introduced by Dr. Bond, Professor Mafuta, and Professor Kumcheza. I was somewhat familiar with this strategy from my Global Health design class last spring, and having found it very helpful at that time, was excited to learn more. When faced with a broad problem statement, it can be challenging to determine which path to take to solve it. However, when the problem is well-defined, solutions start to take shape, and it’s easier to consider what needs the device has to address. There are three main components of a need: (i) the core problem, (ii) the population affected, and (iii) the design outcome. Once you have defined what these are for your overall problem, you have, in theory, what you need to appropriately solve the issue at hand. However, due to the restrictions resulting from the current global pandemic, some of the techniques for defining these needs are not entirely possible; thus, making other components all that more important. For example, observation is not possible, but background research is all the more so. With good background research, you can aim to ask the questions that you would typically answer during observation. We were read in on the importance of gaining a broad perspective of the issue at hand. For example, a patient may have a different point of view of a problem from a surgeon who might have a different perspective from that of a nurse. Therefore, to truly solve the issue at hand, you need to consider the viewpoints of all those involved. Additionally, it is essential to phrase a question in many different ways to ensure that all the necessary information has been obtained, as the method of framing questions affects the answer received.

 

To end out the week, our awesome TAs hosted another team bonding activity. This time, it was a scavenger hunt. Each team (based on technologies) was placed into a breakout room to solve the riddles sent in the group chat. The first team to send a picture of the object with a caption labeling what the object was, received the points. For example, one riddle was: “I make marks wherever I go, I shrink as your ideas grow!” to which the answer was a pencil. This activity was a lot of fun as it worked on strengthening our team problem-solving skills while also getting to know each other better. The rest of my family may have given me some strange looks as I sped around the house searching for the objects, but I had a great time!

 

Looking forward to the week ahead when we will start doing our Stakeholder interviews. I’m especially excited about this, as it will allow us to gain crucial viewpoints from our devices’ different stakeholders and users and help us define our problem even better.

 

Signing off,

Kaitlyn

We spent the week preparing for stakeholder interviews, which has filled me with anticipation — I’m excited to delve into not only technical but also interpersonal and communication skills and really make some of our ideas manifest in real life. Hannah and Aubrey led a workshop on Monday about presentation and writing tips, which forced me to reflect on my own communication style and its strengths and weaknesses. In all honesty, I expected the workshop to cover information I already knew, because I’ve gotten lots of advice on how to properly present from experiences in high school and college. But my communication skills have evolved over time, so it’s nice to get a mental check-in about how I can be better. As an example, while I know in theory that topic sentences should be extremely informative, I realized that I still have a tendency to make these sentences vague without realizing. 

Later that day, our team had a Zoom meeting to discuss our stakeholder maps. We had brainstormed a list of general stakeholders, but we wanted to go into more detail and organize them based on how much each would interact with our design. To do this, we split them into three groups: core, direct, and indirect stakeholders. The core stakeholders are the people who are directly involved in the creation of the device (clinicians, the design studio leaders, the Rice 360 intern teams, etc.). Direct stakeholders were then classified as people who would have an interest in the design, but would not play a huge role in the creation of the device (investors, manufacturers, government organizations, regulatory bodies). Finally, indirect stakeholders were classified as people who would be important in the implementation of the device, but played no role in the design process (suppliers, COVID-19 patients, competitors, etc.). This mapping helped us immensely in visualizing the types of people we would need to talk to in order to ensure that our devices were both useful and could be completed to fruition. 

On Wednesday, we had a workshop on sustainability led by Wayne Decker, the founder of the Flame Tree Initiative, an organization that fosters sustainable social enterprises that combat extreme poverty in East Africa. This was really insightful, and encouraged our team to have a deeper discussion on the power and energy sources we were using for these devices. Although the hospital I had been familiarized with was the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre, I hadn’t truly focused on the majority rural setting of Malawi. The UVC disinfection system that we are working on currently relies on electrical power, and this workshop made us consider the cost of switching to solar — is the increase in price justified to switching to a sustainable energy source? Perhaps there isn’t a “one size fits all” solution — maybe the two separate settings necessitate wholly different systems. 

After intense conversation and deliberation on how to best proceed, our team is now considering a two-system approach — one that is a smaller disinfection box that can be solar powered and can only hold around 10 masks for rural settings, and another that has a larger capacity and is grid or battery powered for urban settings. With this idea, our team documented some a lot of questions that were necessary to ask stakeholders, such as the number of masks they would want cleaned, and how much space in the hospital they could sacrifice for this sort of system. 

Focusing on sustainability with our second prototype, the face shields, we mainly focused our discussion on using locally available resources. Based on this, we are trying to research local suppliers and manufacturers for the shield materials. By using local suppliers and manufacturers without outsourcing, the shields’ price will be significantly lowered. In looking for a replacement for the foam piece of the face shield, narrowing our search to local suppliers will be helpful in finding materials that we are sure are readily available. 

On Friday, we had a presentation from Mr. Dumi Kaliati, which was incredibly inspiring. Dumi founded MicroMek, a startup that works to create drones to transport sterile medicine from the clinic to the laboratory, improving both diagnostics and reliability. He talked about his motivation for the project, and said that he was already developing prototypes and ideas for his company in his second year of undergrad. Here I am, having completed my second year of undergrad, still navigating college and figuring out what I want to do in life. Listening to his presentation, I gained so much respect and admiration for his drive and passion for his designs and his company. I’m grateful for just the opportunity to hear him speak. Dumi also was kind enough to give us feedback on our UVC disinfection device, where he mainly asked us to really hone in on who our target audience was. Based on that, he said that our design would have a more cohesive solution. 

Reflecting on all we had learned earlier in the week, our team came together Friday afternoon to come up with a final list of questions for stakeholders in preparation for our interviews that start tomorrow. I’m so excited to get more feedback from our stakeholders, but I definitely feel a little nervous! Hopefully everything will go well, and by the end of next week we will not only have an idea of what we want the prototypes to look like, but also what the stakeholders would like out of these prototypes. Rice has given me both a theoretical and practical education, but I now need to take these skills and conduct interviews with thought leaders in the field– that requires something that’s harder to teach: confidence. 

I wouldn’t be able to complete this blog without mentioning Team PPE’s win at the team scavenger hunt on Saturday! The TAs organized this really, really fun virtual scavenger hunt for the interns, and each team was playing against each other. The TAs gave each intern team a riddle for a common household item, and the teams would have to solve the riddle, take a selfie with the answer to the riddle, and then send it to the intern group chat. Let me be clear: Team PPE was determined. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of running around the house (shoutout to Andrew, Team PPE’s star runner), a lot of anxiety spikes, but a lot of fun! We were told we are going to get a “virtual prize” of some sort, but we are still waiting for an announcement of what the prize is. 

Looking forward to next week, with a little nervousness but a lot of excitement. I can’t wait to dive into this project more in detail in this next half of the internship! 

-Bhavya 🙂 

It’s our second week into Rice360’s Internship Program, and I’m feeling good about the lessons that I have learned so far. A huge take-away for me this week was the importance of understanding context in our proposed solutions.

One of the many challenges that my team encountered with the contactless temperature monitor was detecting a signal (temperature being converted into an electrical signal). As someone who has lived in the Silicon Valley filled with tech giants and relied (almost embarrassingly too much) on Amazon Prime’s 2-day shipping, I thought we could do some background research on the sensors in current models and easily select/purchase one with similar specifications. However, upon further discussion with my Malawian teammates, I realized that shipping these components to Malawi could be delayed 2-3 weeks, and on top of that, the manufacturer’s inventory may run out before mass production can be achieved. As we talked more about the resources available in Malawi, I learned that many electrical components are often sourced outside of the country, causing very limited access for IR sensors during this period of high demand. In the face of this challenge, I began asking a few questions: What product(s) does the country predominant produce? What are some common challenges in Malawi when designing technologies? And, how can I be better informed of their context without falling prey to the dangers of a one-sided story? But, at the end of the day, what surprises me is just how drastically different life can be when specific resources are not available. It’s led to some ingenuity and unconventional thinking in our discussions, and I look forward to hearing what could come next.

Another powerful lesson from this week was a strategy to provide constrictive feedback using “I like… I wish…” (from Dr. Wettergreen’s workshop). During this workshop on Zoom, we presented our prototypes and current ideas for improvement before receiving some additional suggestions from our peers. The feedback usually followed: “I like that your hand-sanitizing station dispenses sanitizer without requiring contact, but I wish there was some way to know when it was empty.” I think by keeping the “I wish” part broad, the receiver can approach an identified issue with an open mind. I also appreciate how “I like… I wish” starts with a positive affirmation, as it can be hard to accept a fault/critique on something that you’ve worked so hard on. Thank you for this lesson!

Who is our user? How are they using this device? Why would the device be helpful to them?

I would say that this week has largely centered around these questions. We’ve really dug into the “nitty-gritty” so to speak as we assess just what can be done to create a prototype that is approachable and feasible for use. It has also been a week where we connected back to why we focus innovation at Rice 360 in the places that we partner with.

To define and scope out what these devices mean for our end user, we engaged in a lot of reflection as a team. We first started by evaluating what stage of our design we were at. Within this, we had to hone in on what the critical components of these devices were. We also had to determine the critical functions we intended for these devices to perform. Dr. Wettergreen from the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen was a very insightful guide to us through this process. In this engagement with our devices, we came to realize how far we could take these designs through the duration of this internship. We also came to understand the limitations that certain aspects of our design would be constrained by. Just to put it in context of our prototypes, for our decontamination unit, there is a lot of room for a structural re-imagining and a need to really create a structure that people don’t need to stop or go out of their way to use. For our hand sanitizer dispenser, we have a goal to cut down the power demand required to operate the unit while sourcing appropriate materials might require some innovation.

 

After this evaluation, we spent the next few days really working on the context of the problems we are attempting to address. The core issue that both of these devices are intending to face is how to provide easily accessible sanitation to mitigate COVID-19. The ultimate goal is to create devices that can be scaled up for use throughout Malawi. Framing our design goals helped to put us in a mindset to brainstorm the possible avenues through which we could take our design. If you can tell by the array of orange cards, there are plenty of different concepts we could incorporate in our decontamination unit from the operating system to the actual structure. In fact, this image only captures my ideas. My teammates have their own sets too. By examining all of these potentials with each other, we’ll definitely be contemplating which pieces are optimal to our users, collect feedback on how each piece can work in tandem, and evaluate which components to bring together as we get closer to a finalized design.

 

As important as it is to flush out operational components for these devices, we have to remember the broader reasons for why we are even working on them in the first place. Coincidentally, this week ended with Juneteenth, a valuable day to reflect on the disparities and inequities that are both systemic and systematic. The existence of these disparities are what brought me to Rice 360 in the first place. Although Juneteenth is an American holiday, the core values of what we honor apply just as much to the mission we are on. We focus on decreasing the health disparities that people should not have to face. There are so many gaps to people’s “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” and health is just one of the outcomes of these disparities.  Nobody should be denied the desire to good health, but there is so much that needs to be done both locally and globally to achieve this. Rice 360’s tireless focus on the technological gaps in health is a testament to just how far we have to go.

To cap this on a fun note, my team got together for a moment over the weekend to play a game. It was a lot of fun and we shared a bunch of laughs, my favorite way to get to know people. I learned that Chisomo has an insatiable love for Doritos, Kaitlyn has a crazy-good memory, Sana can rap a good beat (she still has to demonstrate it), Aubrey has been working on music production, Mwayi can sew like nobody’s business, and Brenald is a motivational speaker. I had an amazing time hanging out with them and cannot wait for more of these get togethers in the future.

–Krystal

As I write my blog for week two, I realize that I feel very different from how I felt at this same time last week. Last week everything was new. The project was new, the team was new, the virtual internship experience was new, everything was new. This week I feel more like a pro. In the past seven days, my teammates and I have dug so much deeper into our project, we have gotten to know each other on a more personal level, and we have figured out how to do virtual meeting that work best for us.

I learned so much this week. While I feel like I understood our project last week, the workshops from the last seven days have helped us to analyze the knitty-gritty aspects of an engineering design project. With this information, I have been able to look more closely at all of the pieces that must come together in order to create a successful product. There were aspects that I hadn’t even considered until the workshop highlighted its importance in the process.

The week started with a workshop by Dr. Wettergreen from the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen at Rice. We gave him a brief presentation on our project which highlighted the current prototype, the areas for improvement, our current ideas and solutions, and our design criteria. He gave us quality feedback on both the presentation and on our prototype. During his workshop he highlighted ways to change the framing of your project so that it becomes more manageable and of higher quality for the end user. He also gave us the tools to brainstorm more effectively and to give quality constructive feedback while respecting the effort that another person has put into a project, presentation, etc. Arguably the most important thing that we learned from Dr. Wettergreen was the prototype evaluation. Using this tool, we were able to assess exactly where we were in the design process for each specific aspect of our design. This allowed us to highlight the places where we were confident and moving forward nicely as well as the areas that we were struggling and could use some guidance. The prototype evaluation really set the tone for the rest of the week, as we now knew where we stood in the design process.

“Let’s disinfect masks so that they can be reused” doesn’t initially sound like a very challenging concept. We learned quickly that even when problems do not sound very complicated or difficult, there is a lot that goes into solving the problem. To me, our project quickly went from “not too challenging” to “where in the world do I start.” On Tuesday, we had a workshop with Mr. Repisky of Torc Robotics which went a long way to helping me mentally break down the project. I had never done problem decomposition before, so Mr. Repisky’s workshop taught me quite a lot. We learned how to break down problem or project into manageable chunks that could then be solved. At first, I had trouble seeing how this applied to our project, and our first try at problem decomposition wasn’t the best:

After some consultation with our TAs, watching a YouTube video, and some serious editing, we were able to grasp the idea behind problem decomposition and created a more useful and complete version:

This way we could start thinking about each of the independent functions that go into our design. Instead of thinking about entire solutions, we were able to start brainstorming for specific functions. This allowed me to think outside of the mental box that I had previously been in and really opened up our brainstorming (more on that later).

On Wednesday, Dr. Volz lead a workshop on online presentations and on listening. I really got a lot out of the listening portion of the presentation. Not only could active listening improve my team’s ability to connect with and understand stakeholders, but active listening could also help me to become a better teammate (both on my internship team and on my XC/track team), a better student, and a better leader. Through active listening, I am going to able to connect with my teammates on a much deeper and more personal level.

Thursday focused on Health Disparities and on Brainstorming. There is rarely a discussion on health disparities that isn’t extremely eye-opening for me. To see how the access to healthcare is so skewed both here in the US and abroad is a reminder of the why we are passionate about global health. The brainstorming session was great for our team because we were able to use the problem functions that we had defined earlier in the week as separate boxes in which to brainstorm. This kept us from having one ideal prototype in mind that would constrict our creativity. We came up with many ideas, including quite a few new concepts that we hadn’t discussed before. This helped us to further think about the specific parts of our prototype and the work that needed to be done on each part in order for a prototype to match our ideal solution.

Friday was all about the stakeholder. I don’t think I had realized how important stakeholders are in the engineering design process until Dr. Gobin gave this workshop. There were so many aspects of stakeholder relations that I had never considered. Not only is the product/design going to affect many people, but many people/organizations/regulations/etc. are going to affect the product/design. I also learned quite a bit about prioritizing stakeholders which helped us to create a stakeholder map. This way we are able to see how much of an effect each stakeholder is going to have on the project and how much we need to emphasize designing a product that caters to that stakeholder’s needs.

Throughout this week, my team got 100x closer. After each team meeting, we would chat for up to an hour or two. We got to know each other a lot more closely in this past week. We talked about everything from the school systems in the US and Malawi to our favorite music artists. We played a team bonding game on Saturday which tested how well we knew our teammates and for the most part we were spot on! It is such a joy to be working on these projects with these teammates and I honestly enjoy each and every team meeting, work session, and friendly chat that we have. I can’t believe that the first 1/3 of the internship is already over. That being said, I’m excited for the next month! I can’t wait to see what it holds.

 

-Andrew 🙂

Hello! Muli Bwanji!

As I reflect over this past week, I realize just how quickly the internship has been flying by. I have been learning SO much about my team, our devices and the context of our problem space, and the design process through the ongoing workshops, team meetings, and research. Of course, all of this has been made possible through the support of my teammates, the wonderful TA’s and mentors, and the entire Rice 360 team.

On Monday, we had a visit from Dr. Wettergreen, where we presented our devices and project status and received very insightful feedback. Dr. Wettergreen also gave us a few toolkits to strengthen our design and feedback process. Something I found very valuable was the idea of “Focus on Function First”. To expand on this further, the goal of our device is not to solve the problem, but to gain momentum to continue working on the prototype using readily available material. Framing our design process in this way made it seem so much more digestible and conducive to the iterative process given the somewhat limited scope that we have. We also did an exercise called “I like”/ “I wish”, where we were divided into breakout rooms and provided constructive feedback by highlighting both the positive aspects of the device, as well as aspects of the device that can be further worked on. I really enjoyed how we were able to interact with people from other teams and work on their device—it was really great to be able to learn more about their projects and hear about their perspectives. I think that beyond design, “I like”/”I wish” has so much applicability to general life—this is definitely something I would encourage everyone to try in giving feedback.

Later in the week, we had a workshop led by Phil Repisky that focused on problem decomposition, which is basically breaking down the components of our devices and its problem space into its essential components. We also learned about stakeholder communication from Dr. Tracy Volz, especially the principle of active listening. I really enjoyed the “Listening Assessment” we completed, as it pointed out a lot of areas that I can improve on in communication. Listening is so fundamental to any teamwork and collaboration we complete in global health, so it was an invaluable learning opportunity.

Thursday’s workshop was definitely my favorite of the week. The first half focused on the intersections of our work in global health with the Black Lives Matter movement, and specifically on health disparities that often afflict Black people worldwide. This is an area I am super passionate about and it was especially enlightening to hear the perspectives of the Malawian members of our community in discussing global health disparities. I feel like I learned so much and was really able to contextualize how important the work that we do is. I would encourage everyone to check out this website and explore the various disparities that may exist in their communities. The second half of our workshop on Thursday was focused on brainstorming. I really enjoyed this exercise—we kind of had the space to independently explore our own ideas but were really able to come together as a group and strengthen each other’s ideas. It really highlighted how valuable everyone’s perspective and contribution is to the team!

After the brainstorming session and the various workshops and research conducted over the week, there are a few focus areas for each of our devices:

Walk-through decontamination unit: From some of the feedback we have received, we think it is really important to consider the ease of use of our device, as it may not be necessarily be very intuitive to stand in a tunnel for 10 seconds as a disinfectant sprays out. Instead, we are considering various shapes of design for the tunnel, as well as different conceptions for the length/width of the tunnel, and other measures such as implementing a noise/visual sign to alert users of when they are decontaminated. We are also looking into the best chemicals to use for the disinfectant—among others, we are considering Sodium Hypochlorite and Hydrogen Peroxide.

Hands-free sanitation station: We are primarily looking at ways to cut down on the power use in the device, perhaps by removing the Arduino nano or potentially by being able to power off some parts of the device when they are not in use. We are also working on ways to really highlight the hands-free nature of the device, whether that is via a sign or some other method we have yet to think of.

 

We ended the week off with a worship led by Dr. Gobin on stakeholders and systems. We learned about the various levels and kinds of stakeholders that are involved in producing global health technologies. Our team’s stakeholder map ended up being so much larger and more intricate than I could have imagined starting off. It really put into scope how many people are invested in the success of this project and how many lives this has the potential of affecting. Friday was also Juneteenth, a holiday that marks the emancipation of slaves in Texas. After our workshop, I was able to attend a few of the lectures from the Juneteenth series being hosted by Rice. It was so interesting to learn more about the history of this holiday, especially in light of the Black Lives Matter discussion we just had.

Over the weekend, we had a bit of team bonding. I had so much fun learning some more about my teammates. We played a game where we guessed everyone’s responses to various questions—from our favorite colors, animals, movies, snacks, and other ~extremely~ important thing. It was so nice to be able to learn a bit more about my teammates. I was even able to learn how to say “Hi” in Chichiwe, “Muli Bwanji”—I was told I sound like a native (although I think my teammates may have just been flattering me 😊).

Over this past week, I have learned a tremendous amount about our devices, their problem space,  various tools to use in the design process, communication, stakeholders, and so much more. I have to say, my favorite part of the week has been getting to know my teammates better and really starting to come together. I am so excited to build on the progress we have made this week and continue learning and growing together throughout the rest of the internship!

Signing Off,

Sana

 

This week of the internship has extremely helpful in expanding our understanding of the issue we are trying to address. Previously, I, along with many others, had been looking at the prototypes we had been tasked with, the Walk-Through Decontamination Unit and Hand Washing Station, as a very 2D issue. (See images of both of our prototypes below) We were to evaluate the prototype with one mission in mind: to make sure it fits the design requirements mentioned by the design studios. However, as this week progressed, we were introduced to the ideas of Problem Decomposition and Stakeholder considerations.

First off, each problem was made of a multitude of moving parts, and each part needs to be considered before finding an appropriate solution. It is important to consider all the critical desired functions of the device and determine whether the current prototype has done a reasonable job of addressing them. I found this approach of thinking to be extremely interesting and helpful, as it allowed me to consider each function of the device independently and determine if that function was being performed adequately. The purpose of evaluating a prototype isn’t just about considering the prototype as a whole, and whether or not it gets the job done, it is considering each part and function of the prototype and considering if, given the design constraints, each part is doing what you want it to do.

My group’s stakeholder map was much larger than I had originally imagined. When one first thinks of stakeholders, they usually think of the end-users of the device. However, this isn’t the full picture. Stakeholders can range from manufacturers, policymakers, investors, and suppliers in addition to the end-users. This understanding of our devices’ stakeholders will be beneficial when we move onto stakeholder interviews in the coming weeks.

As someone who is passionate about Global Health, I found the workshop of health disparities to be quite interesting. Many people within the States think the existence of such disparities is a far-off thought common in other areas of the world. However, as shown by the Opportunity Atlas, this thought is untrue. Throughout the workshop, we got the opportunity to look at the statistics of our own hometowns, and it was shocking how much the statistics could change from even one side of the street from the other. A significant part of this apparent disparity chasm was socioeconomic factors (race, gender, and income). I had, in part, been aware of the prevalence of these disparities, but how widely the statistics varied from neighborhood to neighborhood surprised me.

Week two ended with a fun get together with the rest of my team. Earlier in the week, our TAs’ had sent out a survey, asking us questions about our favorite animals, what superpower we would want, and beyond. Going into this meeting, I was excited, but a little bit nervous about having to guess who had put what. My group has gotten to know each other pretty well over the past few weeks, but the topic of superpowers hadn’t come up in our previous conversations. In case you’re wondering, I would like the superpower of being able to understand and speak any language. I feel like this superpower could be very useful during travel and allow me to understand other cultures better. Despite this worry, my team had a great time, and we actually did pretty well at guessing who had put what, and it opened all kinds of other conversations. I’m really looking forward to getting to know them all a lot better over these next few weeks.

Signing off,

Kaitlyn

As I sit at my kitchen table, taking a break from today’s Father’s Day festivities and reflecting on the week, I’m starting to appreciate the virtual nature of the internship. While I would love to be in Malawi right now, there’s part of me that is happy I can share my experiences with my family each day at dinner, and can take a break from work by playing a Father’s Day badminton tournament. My dad asked me a few days ago what this week entailed, and when I thought about that, I realized how much work our team got done this week. 

We started off the week with a workshop on prototyping advice from Dr. Wettergreen, a professor at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen at Rice. His work was really insightful for our group, and made us think more critically about the prototypes we had. By filling out the prototype evaluations, we realized the basic functions that the devices must satisfy, and whether they currently meet them. 

For the UVC sterilization system (arguably the prototype that is currently the most challenging for us to improve), we found that the main concerns lie in testing the effectiveness of the system. While a lot of the basic functions are certainly met in theory, like disinfection while maintaining the proper filtration on the masks, our team felt it was necessary to do more evaluation to show that the system truly works. We threw around a lot of ideas at this point for how to go about proving that the system truly disinfects the masks. Literature currently says that UVC rays kill the COVID-19 virus, but how do we know that this particular system does too?  Additionally, we want to implement a test to show that after disinfection, the mask filters still function properly and filter out the necessary aerosol particles. This seemed like a daunting task, as we felt that a lot of the tools we needed to complete these tests would cost a lot of money, and cost is already a concern with this system. 

As for the face shields, our second prototype, I did think our team had a good grasp on the drawbacks of the current technology — the materials used. The underlying concern with the current foam-based prototype is that it’s not easily disinfected. However, clinicians love these shields because they’re so comfortable. Do we replace the foam, and find a different material? Or do we stick with the foam, but find an innovative way to reuse the materials? We again tried to spew out as many ideas as we could, and the focus of the next day’s workshop was a major help in that: problem decomposition. 

Although I am familiar with the engineering design process, problem decomposition was something I hadn’t been exposed to before. In theory this is quite simple; breaking down a big problem into more tractable smaller pieces and functions.  In practice, though, it was much harder than I thought. We started by defining our inputs (the users) and the outputs (the end goal of the technology). Then, we created a user flowchart, and using that, generated a few main mechanisms that each technology had to satisfy. Based on those mechanisms, the team finally started brainstorming prototype improvements.

Honestly, by now, we had already bounced around so many ideas that a lot of our ideas were incredibly similar. However, my favorite part of brainstorming, always, is hearing the “out there” ideas from team members. It prompts a lot of great thinking, but I also think it makes the process a lot more fun and engaging for all members. Plus, brainstorming lets the creative parts of ourselves go wild, which is always exciting. One highlight from our brainstorming was when we came up with a cheap smell test to prove that the disinfected N95 masks will still filter particles effectively — if a smelly chemical is sprayed near a person wearing an N95 mask and that person cannot smell the chemical, then the mask filters effectively!

As a whole, I learned so much this week, and I truly feel like I have a much better understanding about each of the two technologies. On a more personal note, some of my favorite moments this week come from our team’s daily end-of-meeting hangout sessions. We all turn on our videos, stop screen sharing documents with our research, and just talk about our days. On Friday we all talked for an hour about our favorite musicians, and started sending each other song recommendations (we’re toying with the idea of creating a joint Spotify playlist!) — it was super cool to see the different music from totally different cultures, like local Malawian music, Spanish music, and English music. All this bonding has clearly paid off, as seen when we killed it during the “fun facts” game the TAs set up this Saturday. Favorite colors, hidden talents, spirit animals — it was all covered, and we all (in my opinion) guessed each other’s answers pretty well!

It’s hard to believe the internship is already a third of the way through, but I’m so excited for the coming weeks. My team is awesome, the projects are so timely and interesting, and the workshops are really educational. Mostly, though, I can’t wait for more Team PPE end-of-meeting hangouts. 

-Bhavya 🙂