This next week looks like it’s going to be pretty busy. One of the big things we’ll be starting is the design of some supplementary component to add to Queens hospital’s suction pumps, which break often. Suction pumps are used to drain fluids from the patient’s lungs, stomach, and throat. The problem we’re going to be solving occurs because nurses don’t have time to constantly monitor the suction pumps when in use. The pumps drain all waste into a large container, but when the container fills up beyond it’s capacity the fluids will start to enter the tubing that connects to the main device and motor. If the fluids get into the motor, the device breaks.  Our team of electrical, biomedical, and mechanical engineers wants to create something that can be added on to an existing pump, so that either the fluids don’t have access to the motor, an alarm sounds to alert the nurse when the container is full, or both. I’m very excited about this challenge because it’s a unique one; we aren’t designing something completely from scratch, but instead we must lend our design to absolute compatibility with any suction pump found in Queens. We’ve started doing some basic research, and I think by the middle of the week we’ll have enough background on the issue to start thinking of design.

The other project we intend to get a good start on this week is a website that can be used for communication between Rice and Poly design teams. Sarah, Catherine and I were in such awe when we brought the Rice design projects in to show Charles, Christina, Andrew and Francis, and they immediately had great feedback about all the technology. Having a platform for direct contact between students would be valuable for design teams to have other perspectives on their devices. If communication was sustained, it would be personally valuable for each side because they would have a better understanding of what engineering is like across the globe. Francis and Sarah both have a lot of interest in starting this project off, and I have a little bit of background in website design that I hope will be helpful to them. We’ve set some pretty ambitious goals for this week, but I think there is so much enthusiasm and passion for the work that achieving them is well within our power.