Welcome Week is over! It was a whirlwind of a week, but I think the students really enjoyed it and learned a lot along the way. I think the best part of the week, and one I hope they can continue in future Welcome Weeks, was how we incorporated a team design challenge throughout the week as a way for the students to learn about the engineering design process. Their challenge was to build a phototherapy light stand for the BabyLights that are currently used at QECH to treat jaundice in babies. This project was really cool because not only did it affect people literally a 10 minute walk down the street from the Poly students, but the BabyLights themselves were actually designed and built by faculty at the Poly. It was a great chance for the students to see a demonstrated need in their immediate community and to see how their skills and the skills they will acquire can be put to use.

Based on some final day surveys we took, it seems like most everyone’s favorite lecture was Introducing Design Criteria. The students all seemed to have a very intuitive grasp on design criteria sort of as rules that you set for your design. We (all of the Poly and Rice interns) walked around and helped the various teams develop their ideas further with quantifiable, testable measures of success, but most of the concepts for the design criteria came directly from the new students. Here’s a picture of one of the teams that did an especially good job:

Another cool thing about the challenge we chose and the Poly’s location is that we got to take the new students on a tour of QECH. They saw PAM, Chatinka nursery, Pediatrics, and Orthopedics. It was a chance for them to see medical devices in use at the hospital and to begin thinking about the way engineers and health care workers interact. But it was also a chance for them to see the ways they could make a big impact. One of the students told me he expected to see one, or maybe two broken machines at PAM. He was shocked to see the dozens upon dozens of machines in desperate need of repair and was beginning to see how he could build a career upon it.

On the last day of Welcome Week, all of the teams got a chance to make a short presentation about their projects. By this point they had all prototyped a low fidelity stand, and so each of the teams was able to present on the problem, their design criteria, decision making process, final solution, and any rough iteration or testing they performed as well. It was a really great way to wrap up the week; I was especially impressed by all the questions the students asked each other at the end of the presentations and how well the teams responded.

Sarah, Emily and I are optimistic and hopeful about the possibility of this kind of orientation week continuing for many years to come, but as for this year I think we can confidently say we met our four goals of introducing the students to the Polytechnic, building a network of peers, understanding the skills necessary to be a BME and exploring some of the career options of a BME.

For our final project at the Polytechnic this summer, Sarah, Emily and I have been helping to plan an orientation week for the incoming biomedical engineering (BME) students. It’s been really exciting for multiple reasons, 1) it’s the first year the Poly is offering BME 2) it’s the first time the Poly has attempted to put on a student run, all day every day orientation for new students 3) Sarah, Emily and I have been planning all summer and the week / 42 new BME students are finally here!

This past weekend we made our final arrangements for the week, including large daily schedules we posted on the wall to keep all the students on time and informed, and a welcome message on the dry erase board.   

When Monday morning finally rolled around, we were all giddy with excitement. The first event of the week was a faculty welcome to all the new students (not just BMEs) in the outdoor amphitheater.  The energy in the group was tangible. And after spending 9 weeks on a virtually empty campus, it was shocking and awesome to see so many new students everywhere.

Then, the engineering students broke off from the rest of their class and went to receive a talk from some of the engineering faculty specifically. I’m not the world’s best estimator, but there must have been around 500 engineering students all together, which is pretty incredible considering that Francis leaned over and told me his class only had about 100! After a few minutes, we were allowed to snag just the BME students for a bit before they had to go to their next event. Sarah, Emily, Charles, Francis, Andrew, Christina, Nehuwa, Eckharie, James, Florence, (the seven Poly interns who were a HUGE help in running the orientation week and serving as mentors and friends for the new students) and I all got to introduce ourselves and the BME students likewise introduced themselves. After brief introductions, we had to release the students to do more administrative type tasks, but luckily we got more time with them later in the afternoon.

As their first day at university, we felt it was important for them to get to do something fun and low stress but that would help them meet their classmates for the next 5 years at the same time. We played a couple of different games and ice breakers, but my favorite was the Human Map of Malawi. We all went outside and the students had to arrange themselves spatially according to where they are from in Malawi and based on cardinal directions and checkpoints they determine as a group. It’s a fun exercise in group communication, team building, friend-making, and overall just a cool way to visualize what a diverse and exciting incoming class they are in.

After all the fun icebreakers, we closed out the day with two talks. One was called, “What is engineering? What is Biomedical Engineering? What does a Biomedical Engineer Do?” and the other, “Introduction to the Week.” (Our titling lacks pizzazz, but the content of the talks was great, I promise.) The “What is Engineering?…” talk gave the students a broad overview of engineering and a BME’s place in engineering while also fostering a discussion about their own perceptions of engineering and engineers coming into the Poly. In “Introduction to the Week” we gave the students a brief overview of what we’d be doing the whole week and why as a way to prepare them and excite them for the upcoming activities and lectures.

This past week, two of my professors from Rice (Dr. Saterbak and Dr. Wettergreen) came to Blantyre to teach a weeklong Engineering Design workshop for the faculty at the Polytechnic. In this workshop, they focused in on the seven step engineering design process, which includes:

1) Clarify team assignment
2) Understand problem and context
3) Define design criteria
4) Develop solution options
5) Evaluate solutions
6) Prototype solution (iterative)
7) Test solution (iterative)

In addition to this design process, they also spent time on scoping problems, low-fidelity prototyping and how to incorporate design into existing coursework. I had a lot of fun helping them out with all of the stages of the workshop, but by far my two favorite components were the low fidelity prototyping day Dr. Wettergreen led, and the scoping missions into the community.

The low fidelity prototyping session was very informative and also very fun! Dr. Wettergreen laid out all of the prototyping supplies (most of which were acquired in Blantyre and which could be as simple as a handful of toothpicks or a stack of newspapers) around the room in an inviting, slightly messy fashion to encourage the faculty to really explore all of the available materials. Interspersed on the tables were several games, activities and challenges that promoted creative thinking, hand eye coordination, rapid prototyping and kinesthetic learning. It was really fun to watch the progression of the faculty: at first they were all quite hesitant, but by the end everyone was loud, involved and making quite the mess! For Sarah, Emily and me the session was especially helpful because we plan to execute something like it for the new biomedical engineering student orientation we are helping to plan.

 

For the scoping missions, Dr. Saterbak led a team to the orthopedic department at QECH, Dr. Wettergreen led a team to the Carlsberg brewing factory, another team went to an energy company, and I tagged along with a team that went to Lafarge cement grinding plant. From what I saw on my visit and what I heard from Dr. Saterbak, Dr. Wettergreen and some of the Poly faculty, all of the scoping locations were very receptive to a burgeoning collaboration between the Poly students in design courses and the community. They were enthusiastic about Poly students pursuing projects that could help their respective businesses and continued visits from Poly faculty/students and communication between the respective institutions. It was really cool for me to witness such excitement and positive energy at the very beginning stages of what looks to be a very long term and fruitful set of relationships for all parties concerned.

For all of our staple food needs – eggs, bread, peanut butter, coffee – we generally do our shopping at a little grocery store called Chipiku that is a quick 10 minute walk across Chipembere Highway from the Polytechnic, but when it’s time to stock up on produce, we get to make a run to the Blantyre Market. I freely admit that the bustling, loud, crowded, smelly (good and bad but mostly good smelly) and sprawling market is one of my favorite things about Blantyre.

From the street, the market doesn’t look like much, just some stalls hugging the road, but once you pass the first layer of very vocal vendors, there is a soccer field-sized parking lot full of people manning their mats mounded with produce. As soon as you enter the lot, a swarm of eager little boys will try and get you to buy their jumbas (plastic grocery bags) and people start calling you over to their stations. It is here that I can personally attest to football-sized avocados, and puts-sugar-to-shame-sweet sweet potatoes. But pro-tip: if you can make it through this section without getting too weighed down in produce, even greater treasures can be found inside.

The covered area of the produce market is a hive-like conglomeration of mixed and matched tables where the vendors tend to diversify their wares a little more. It’s here that you can find a single booth with dozens of different types of spices or an abundance of grain varieties. And if you’re savvy, you can purchase a couple of different items from one vendor to increase your bargaining power. The most exotic purchases I’ve made from here are dried hibiscus leaves for tea, passion fruit, and a fiery hot Malawian strain of chiles.

But even better than any thing you can buy at the market, I really love the – for lack of a better phrase – people watching. I love the snapshot into daily life and Malawian culture that it provides. For example, one striking aspect of market culture is how cooperative the vendors are with one another. From an outsider’s perspective, it seems like vendors do not begrudge each other in the slightest when one makes a significant sale over another. They even go out of their way to locate items for other vendors. This level of camaraderie is remarkable to me.

The sights, the smells, the sounds, and the people all make the Blantyre market a truly unforgettable experience, and one I plan to frequent as often as I can while I’m here.

I tried to take a sneaky video outside where they sell fish. The sights and sounds are captured pretty well, but the overwhelming smell of fresh fish is something I won’t need a video to remember!

The suction pump project I’ve mentioned in previous blogs is beginning to really pick up some steam. (Our working title for the device is the “S.O.S.” or “Stop Our Suction.”) Here’s a little about our device, our progress so far, and the next steps for our team.

Device Overview

The main components of the S.O.S. circuit are a transformer that turns the 230 volts from the wall into 9 volts, a 5 volt voltage regulator, a relay to turn off the suction pump, and of course, the IR sensors. Everything but the IR sensors are housed inside a black plastic box that includes a plug on the outside for the suction pump machine to plug into. The sensors will interface with the collection bottles by way of a velcro strap. (We’ve made the strap so that it can accommodate both the largest and smallest collection jars we’ve seen at QECH.) See the graphic below for the sequence of events after the suction pump machine is plugged into the S.O.S. and the switch is turned on:

Progress so Far / Future Steps

The circuit is pretty much complete (we are waiting on one jack that our professors from the US are bringing with them this weekend,) and the velcro strap is done as well. Now we need to build small casings to slide onto the strap that can house the sensors. The casings will need to be able to move around on the strap so that the nurse can properly align them to the jar in use. Once this is complete, we will need to do more extensive testing of the device and complete our final report.

In Other News…

…Friday was Christina’s birthday! To celebrate, Sarah, Emily and I made her an apple pie and brought it to work for everyone to share. Not to toot my own horn, but I think the pie was quite the hit!

Last Friday Tanya and I went on a second visit to Jacaranda School to teach an engineering workshop to Form 1 through Form 3 students. It was only two hours, but I think the students learned a lot and had a lot of fun in the process.

In the beginning of the workshop, all the students wrote down their definition of engineering/what it means to be an engineer, and then as a group we went through some of their definitions and talked about the best qualities from each one. Then, we finished off with my most basic definition of an engineer, “Engineers work on teams and use math and science to build things that help people.”

From there we talked about some of the main branches of engineering – mechanical, electrical, civil, and biomedical – and the different kinds of things specialized engineers do. I think the students were really interested to see that engineering isn’t only working on cars, and that engineers of different disciplines often work together to solve problems. After that portion, Tanya and I talked about 3 qualities that make good engineers: creativity, team work and problem solving. We did some fun group activities that tied into each of the qualities, as well, and I think the group favorite was by far the Human Knot game. In Human Knot, all the participants stand in a circle and grab two other people’s hands. (They can’t be the hands of the person right beside you, and you can’t grab both hands of a single person.) The challenge is then to “untangle the knot” that was formed without letting go of anybody’s hands.It is an exercise in team work and problem solving, to be sure, and it was great fun to watch the group dynamics evolve as the game went on and the knots became tricker.

Finally, we talked with all of the students a little bit about scoping and problem identification along with design objectives and criteria. It was a bit of a crash course into the beginning stages of the engineering design process, but important nonetheless and I think the distinction between understanding problems and coming up with solutions was an especially good lesson for them to learn.

All in all, it was a fun and informative visit. The students really seemed to enjoy learning, and I know Tanya and I had a great time teaching.

At the request of our professors and several doctors at QECH, we have recently begun work on another project – a chitenje warming box for use in the Maternity ward. Common practice at QECH has mothers bring two personal chitenjes with them to the hospital to wrap their new born babies in right after delivery. Then, the mothers would ideally hold the bilayer baby bundle close to their chest to share some of their own body warmth. However, for varied reasons, sometimes this procedure is not followed completely or still does not provide enough warmth for the babies, and the problem of hypothermia persists. We hope that by building a box where chitenjes can be stored and warmed before a baby is delivered, hypothermia can be reduced with the very first hug the baby receives.

Our design is based on a modified design of a previous Rice senior design project that is currently in use at QECH – the Hot Cot. The Hot Cot is a warming box for babies that is made of wood and uses several incandescent light bulbs as a heat source. The beauty of the Hot Cot is that it can be 100% locally sourced and built, is relatively inexpensive, and poses little to no risk of overheating. Our Chitenje Warmer will operate on the same heating principles, but has a modified silhouette to maximize chitenje capacity while minimizing the risk of cross-contamination.

We are very excited for the potential of this project and hope to have a working and tested model that we can give to QECH before we head back to Texas. It’s a hefty goal, but we’ve already finished construction on the first generation prototype this week and just today we’ve received the supplies necessary to begin testing the device.

This internship has been full of little daily epiphanies. Sometimes they’ll hit me on our morning walks, during our long talks at dinner or when we come up against a challenge at work. I had an epiphany recently when we were brainstorming ideas for some kind of casing or way for our suction pump shut off device to interface with the actual suction pump machine. Charles and I were sketching out and talking about different ideas. Mine were usually rough geometric depictions of a device from indeterminate materials, while Charles’ included very specific materials and methods of assembly. His first question after I described one of my ideas to him was usually, “But what would it be made out of?”

It hit me that in the US, I was taught to brainstorm and approach projects with the unarticulated but nonetheless present assumption that available resources were not an issue. I think the idea is to promote unbridled creativity and to leave the realities of procurement, assembly and cost for a later stage in the design process, (but with the knowledge that barring prohibitively expensive components almost any tool or material is often just an Amazon order away.) Here, the feasibility of the idea from a procurement/cost/assembly of materials perspective is an ever-present consideration, and often the first determinant used in whether or not to pursue an idea.

At first I was very frustrated by this reality in relation to the design process. It seemed that by necessity, a resource-blind phase of the design process where innovative ideas are born in the US was being skipped over entirely in Malawi. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the scarcity of resources wasn’t something to be ignored; it was something to be embraced. If we fully accept and understand the resources at hand, then they become just another set of design criteria. And well-quantified design criteria don’t hinder design, they foster better, more relevant, more effective design.

To clarify, “locally sourced materials” and “sustainable practices” are buzz words I’ve heard a lot at Rice when talking about global health products. I guess I’d always just looked at them as things that were barriers to good designs rather than as gateways to better designs. It was a little epiphany, to be sure, and one that seems blatantly obvious to me now, but since I started thinking about resources as a design criteria, it has transformed the way I look at engineering in Malawi. Now I see that it’s only through fully embracing challenges rather than ignoring them that we are lead to sustainable and meaningful solutions.

Last Thursday I had the great honor to visit Jacaranda School for Orphans . The other interns and I were invited to come and speak to the students about the various BTB technologies we had brought/made and what we are doing in Blantyre this summer. When the visit was first pitched to us, I’ll be honest and admit I wasn’t too fond of the idea. It would require us taking a morning off of work to go talk to a bunch of rowdy kids who probably wouldn’t understand or care about what we had to say. I freely and happily admit my preconceptions couldn’t have been more wrong.

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Almost immediately after disembarking the taxi, we were graciously greeted by the school director and two bubbly students – Alinafe and Jarrod – who would serve as our tour guides. The dynamic duo walked us all around the campus’s pristinely manicured gardens and brightly painted buildings. We walked into several classrooms, and without fail, were greeted with a standing ovation and a dozen or more smiling faces.   

After our tour of the facilities – including classrooms, a library, a clinic, a computer lab, a small barn, and an arts and crafts garage – we were taken to a large room where all of the students had been assembled. There was a buzz of excitement in the air.

We were treated to two performances from the school’s student a cappella groups. The boys gave a spirited rendition of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” and the girls a beautiful song called “Malaika.” Then the director of the school called up two students to talk about projects the students had been working on. The first boy proudly presented cubes of tightly packed used water bottles that were lashed together with recycled plastic. He demonstrated using them as chairs, tables, foot rests, and when he lined them up, a bed. The next student showed off one of the solar lights he had made using old tin cans and plastic peanut butter jars. The beauty of this project is that the students made enough solar lamps so that every child who attends Jacaranda can take one home with them to study at night. (Considering it gets dark here around 5:30 p.m. and electricity is not always reliable or available, the solar lamps are a real game-changer for these students.)

After all the Jacaranda student presentations, the 9 of us went up on stage. Just introducing ourselves with what we studied and where we were from garnered applause. (We later found out from the school director that the students’ understanding of engineers was limited to people who work on cars, so it must have been really exciting for them to meet students studying biomedical, electrical and industrial engineering.) Christina took the lead and talked about the work we’d been doing with the phototherapy dosing meter, but ended her speech with a few words of personal advice for the girls in the crowd who are decidedly underrepresented in Malawian higher education. (Christina is one of 3 female electrical engineers in her class year at the Poly. There are no female mechanical engineers her year.)

Then we collectively gave overviews of the other devices we brought: the bCPAP and respiratory rate timer. When we finished, the school director opened the floor to questions, and dozens of students’ arms shot up. Because of the large age rage of the students, the questions varied quite a bit in complexity, (including, “Does the breath machine use electricity?” in reference to the bCPAP to, “Describe the calibration methods you used to increase the robustness of your phototherapy dosing meter,”) but all were equally brazen and hungry for understanding.

Francis closed out our presentation with some apt advice: “If you want to go fast,” he said, “go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.”

One of my favorite moments from the visit was an insightful parallel that Marie – the founder of Jacaranda – drew. She had just returned from a few week visit to Texas, and had witnessed the aftermath of all the recent flooding there. Certainly, Malawi experiences much more extensive and devastating flooding than Texas, but Marie noted that despite so many obvious differences between the two places, Texans and Malawians still experience some of the same problems, and in that way we are united. “In Texas, it flooded, homes were lost, people died. In Malawi, it flooded, homes were lost, people died,” she remarked, “We are the same.”She used this comparison to encourage and inspire her students that they could do anything they set their minds to.

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The joy, hope and excitement at Jacaranda was contagious. At several points during the visit I found myself working very hard to hold back tears because of how inspiring it was. As we were leaving, we talked with the director to see if we could come back and chat some more with the students because we were all equally moved by the experience. Next Friday we’ll be going back to give a mini engineering design workshop for any student that wants to attend. (And after last week’s receptions, I get the feeling there will be quite a few very eager students in attendance.) I can’t wait to go back. In a way, it is unrelated to our internship in Malawi this summer, but at the same time, I think it couldn’t be more relevant. The spirit and mission of Jacaranda are beacons of hope, and I believe it is equipping its students to be the future leaders of a better  and brighter Malawi.

Blantyre is very much the pedestrian’s city. Many times throughout the day there are far more people walking on the streets than cars driving up and down them. With so much emphasis on walking around, I’ve found that the things I carry with me take on greater value. In these past three weeks, I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job of streamlining my backpack inventory. Here are a few of the essentials:

Camera – I’ve been averaging about ten pictures a day. The last ten or so pictures I’ve taken include snapshots from our walks to work, medical equipment from PAM and QECH, my lunch, people we’ve met, and some huge wasps that have been getting into our house the past couple of days.

Notebook and Pen – After just a couple of days, I realized I needed to buy a small notebook to write down all the Chichewa words and phrases I was learning. My Chichewa is still very rudimentary at best, but hey, ndikuphunzira!

Planner – With limited time here this summer and lots of things to do and people to meet, time management is a big challenge. My planner has been very useful in keeping up with all the meetings we schedule and for more long-term planning as we move into starting a few different projects.

Trusty Blue Jean Jacket – I came to Malawi straight from the steamy grip of Houston summer, so I foolishly thought that one blue jean jacket would suffice for the trip. To my surprise, it can actually get quite chilly here, and so my last-minute-luggage-addition has proven to be a daily and invaluable traveling companion.

Wristwatch – As far as I’ve seen, there are not very many clocks in Blantyre, and especially since the sun sets so much earlier than I’m used to in Texas, it’s very easy to lose track of time.

Emily’s Universal Power Strip – This is one I don’t actually carry, (Emily does,) but it has been an absolute lifesaver for our team. It’s a surge protector with a Malawian plug, but six universal outlets. That way, we can plug in all our American devices and any Malawian devices from one outlet and not have to worry about differences in voltages across devices or power surges from the wall.

And finally….

My Water Bottle – All the walking makes me thirsty!