One of the professors at the Poly, a man named Rodwell, has pitched us a couple of design projects to work on during our time here. Both are projects that have been attempted by Rice design teams, so it feels a little awkward to work on them again. At the same time, if we can come up with an alternative solution we will be able to compare the two and maybe take ideas from both. Also, we have the advantage (and disadvantage) of working with only the materials that can be found here: our solution will be able to be produced locally, but we don’t have as many supplies.

 

Rodwell has worked off of the Rice-designed Bili-lights to create a newer prototype. His perspective is that he has benefited from the information that someone else has compiled, and maybe his work will be able to benefit the next team of Rice engineers who try to improve on the project. Everyone’s goal is to improve the way healthcare is provided, so we might as well work together. For more on Bililights, check out this article (http://news.rice.edu/2009/04/30/bioengineering-sophomore-tweaks-bili-lights-to-cure-babies-of-jaundice/)

 

The first project he gave us is to design a stand for his version of the Bili-lights. The current stand is like a table with a hole in it that rests inside a baby’s crib. His idea was to design an adjustable over-hanging stand so that the lights could be used in a larger variety of settings and crib types. Our challenge is to make our first prototype out of wood, not metal. And there’s no McMaster-Carr.

 

The second project is a timer and shut-off valve for the patient IVs. In the nurseries where we work, the staff cannot be constantly monitoring the IVs to make sure they are not “flooding” the patient. The idea of this design is to allow the user to set a timer, after which, a solenoid valve will automatically close the IV line. We’ve been having to do a lot of research on timer circuits to catch up for our limited Electrical Engineering, but we’ve made progress.