[20 July 2018]

So much has happened this last week. It seems getting the laser cutter working triggered everything else to happen all at once!

First of all, I’ve made a lot of progress tuning the cutter and learning how to use it properly. The alignment procedure had to be repeated, but all the previous work made it go very smoothly. The cutter software, however, has been a point of much frustration! As if technical manuals weren’t obscure enough, this one is written in often unintelligible English. Well, careful experimenting with the hints provided in the manual have been working so far. The problem now, is figuring out how to balance laser power and speed, to produce a cut which can burn through a thin layer of paper, without damaging a plastic layer underneath. I’ve most of the cuts down pretty well, but the laser is determined to melt little pin-holes at all the design corners!

At the end of last week, Gloria, one of the Malawian interns working with Franklin, invited everyone over to her house for dinner! We have all really taken to the food here in general, but the chance to be a part of cooking it at someone’s home was really exciting. There were many other Malawians there, and it turned into a nice party with all of us telling stories and listening to great music together.

Alyssa and Jessie also arrived this last week, and brought lots of supplies the Polytechnic had ordered in a giant camping backpack! I wish I’d caught a photo of Francis when we went through everything – he looked like it was Christmas Day.

Over the weekend, we hiked Chombe peak at Mt. Mulanje, which can only be adequately described with photographs. Well, close, anyhow. This is such a beautiful country! It also happened to be the same weekend of the porter’s races, during which the local porters compete in a footrace from the bottom to the top of the mountain. There was a gigantic party crowded around the finish line, big speakers were blasting music, competing with people in front of colorful stalls, yelling at everyone to try this or buy that. We weaved through the packed crowd with our backpacks, following our mountain guide up past the finish line, where we saw one of the racers coming down this last foothill barefoot. Some of these porters ran barefoot! I still can’t believe it. Others still, if I understand correctly, complete the race with big packs or loads on their heads, but I didn’t see any of them. It’s incredible to think about though, that they can do in hours what we were about to do in two whole days – amazing what people can condition themselves to accomplish.

The rest of the week has been filled with attempts to cut these paper-layered plastic sheets properly. It won’t make for much of a good story, all these experiments. I am reminded now of those many days spent in the laboratory back at Rice, making the original versions. Every failed attempt (there were many) had to be met with an open mind so we could glean information from it, building little successes out of them in the form of understanding, until one day it worked. It will be so rewarding to have figured this out, and to make that first batch of good cards which could one day be used down the street at the hospital.

[10 July 2018]

After over a week of racking my brains to beat this laser cutter problem, we have our answer. By this time I’d practically memorized that maintenance manual, and had been communicating back and forth with a technician who was traveling through Thailand, by email. Email here meant walking back and forth between the Poly and Queens to mooch a connection off the CPAP office. Trying to have conversations like this made me think on how hard it must have been to get anything done before phones and telegraphs. Can you imagine waiting weeks for an answer by paper? Phone lines are amazing. I guess back before all that, you just had to resign yourself to waiting, or just figuring it out on your own.

Anyway, after all these messages back and forth, the technician and I had come to a dismal conclusion. Either the laser tube was bad – which was highly unlikely, because it had been checked before being shipped from the factory – or the power supply had failed, despite indications that it functioning just fine. Both answers were uncertain, and both meant ordering another part and probably waiting an eternity for its arrival. There was a strong chance I’d be back in the USA before anything new would come, and without a working laser cutter, no Bilispec card parts. Without these parts, no way to train the Poly in making the cards, and without those cards, no point in training Queens how to verify their function with Bilirubin standards. It seemed all of my goals were now utterly blocked, so I’d already set to figuring out where else I could lend my help instead.

Once Andrew and Francis returned from out of town, I gave them the news. Francis sent one last email to the technicians, mentioning that we probably need to order a new power supply now.

Their reply: “but what about the power supply we sent you?”

Francis ran up to the package room at the Poly and asked whether there had been a second crate for us. Sure enough, it was there. It had been upstairs the whole time! We knew both a power supply and tube had been requested in the first place, but when we’d checked for packages, we’d asked for a package. We only received one, and accepted that. There’s a lesson about assumptions in there. Also, why on Earth the clerk didn’t mention a second crate at the time? I don’t know. But there it was.

Fast forward: we’re all ecstatic, the connectors have been re-soldered, the tube is in place. We power up the machine, directing the tube at a piece of crepe paper taped before the first mirror. The laser fired. Fire. The little paper burst into a flame! Blowing that out quickly and waving off the smoke, I thought to myself I’d probably need to pick out a different test material, but the important thing was the laser cutter was now working.

What a relief!

Rock climbing again tonight. Looking forward to blowing off some steam.

[05 July 2018]

Settling down now in the Polytechnic, I have been introduced to my first challenge: the laser cutter is currently a very heavy, very expensive desk. I’ll need to get it working again, before I can make the parts we need for the Bilispec cards here. I’ve been told the laser tube has gone bad.

Truth be told, I’d never even opened the back of a laser cutter before, much less learned anything about fixing one. But I’ve got a manual, and some bright friends. We’ll just have to take it one step and a time and figure it out. We had been waiting on the laser tube to arrive for a long time; for a long while all we knew was that “it’s in Malawi.” Quite different from two-day shipping and bar-coded tracking numbers which update a tracker you can see on the web. Back home I would have had UPS on the phone and hunting around in whatever warehouse it was last scanned into, but here, we just had to wait and see. Well it arrived late last week, but of course something wouldn’t be right, or this would all be too easy! The tube appears to be a smaller diameter, and the connectors are all wrong, but we’ve been assured by the manufacturer that this is the right replacement. We’re just going to have to improvise.

After fashioning some rings to hold the tube in place, the rest of the machine still needed prepping. The water for the cooling system needed to be replaced, and tracking down distilled water was not as easy as you might expect. I’m so used to getting it at the grocery store, that I completely trusted those 5L bottles that say “distilled” on them, but they actually had more dissolved solids than some of the other drinking water! Well, we drained and flushed all of that out, and eventually found some real distilled water at a laboratory supply outlet.  Once that, the exhaust, and the compressed air systems were all up, it was time to fire the up the laser!

Powered on, the machine whirred to life, and… nada.

The laser doesn’t fire.

I’ve got a list of ideas… but it’s going to a be a fun week of troubleshooting!

On another note, last night all the Rice interns went rock climbing! Apparently the local mountaineering club put together a rock wall behind St. Andrew’s Secondary School, and every Tuesday evening they get together and climb! We were able to rent all the gear we needed and join for just a thousand kwacha, or roughly a buck and a half. It felt so good to get up there and puzzle out these routes. I really missed this sport! The physical challenge has always been fun for me, but that puzzle is the best part, I think. The steps to take are obvious – they’re color-coded even – but how you take them is everything, and there is no solution manual, no easy way out. When you’re up there, you have to feel out what your body is capable of, and after falling off the wall a dozen times, the answer can come to you in a moment of inspiration or experiment, and suddenly make everything click into place. Out on a real rock face, the top has its own reward of a beautiful view, but it’s definitely having body and mind challenged together, and having beaten that puzzle, that makes it so addicting.

27 June 2018

The weekend is over, and the safaris were unforgettable. Malawi is a beautiful country, and it’s wildlife and landscapes are both enchanting and inspiring. Of course my family was excited to hear about all the elephants and hippos, but I’m sure it’s nothing new for the Malawi blog! I would definitely recommend a visit to Majete, for anyone who finds themselves in the area, though.

My first couple of days at the Polytechnic Institute have been full of new and exciting things. First of all, I met the Poly students who have been working together with our Rice 360 team in the design studio. Day 1, everyone was already scheduled to make hospital visits outside of Blantyre, so I joined the Mathermal and Suction Device teams and we all hopped into a minibus together, bound for two district hospitals: on the first day, Zomba, and the next, Thyolo.

This was an eye-opening experience, which cannot be fully conveyed in a few small paragraphs. We really do take so much for granted, back home. Can you imagine sitting on a hospital bed in the Texas Medical Center, and being told that your temperature hasn’t been measured because the thermometer is broken, or needed in another ward? This is only a tiny example of the challenges doctors, nurses, and patients face here. Much of the way things are done seem hopelessly guided by well-worn twin ruts of under-staffing and lack of supply. These are forces which we may know of but whose consequences are nonetheless difficult to anticipate. From a problem-solving design perspective, I feel like so many of their challenges are just assumed not to exist.

This trip broke that perspective bubble for me. In these two visits to the district hospitals, we were given priceless first-hand exposure to their daily reality. The generous nurses and staff took time to discuss things at length with us, giving us insight into how things are done here, and what sort of environment, expectations, habits, and needs we were designing our devices for. The more we heard them speak, the more my belief in extensive needs-finding and local input grew. This sort of discussion was absolutely critical to good design! How many of my previous assumptions would have led me to miss what would be here a fatal design flaw? My time here was spent critically thinking about suction pumps and thermometers with the other teams, but I felt my perspective broadening in a way that will likely influence all of my future work.

I can’t wait to see more, and to learn more. This is definitely a mental change I was seeking. It’s one thing to hear about other people’s situations, and quite another to see them and talk to them directly about it. I am very thankful for this – for having the chance to open my mind this way.

It’s time to go back to the studio and get to work. Looking forward to lending a hand.