It’s the 4th week! We finally have design projects settled. I am on a team with Theresa, Vincent, and Harvey. We spent the last week trying to figure out project proposals for oxygen concentrators. In the end, we have decided to devote the rest of our summer to filters, sieve beds, and an educational campaign.

Filters are a big focus. In the hospitals, we found that a lot of concentrators would have the first filter missing or it would be replaced with a random piece of foam. Preventative maintenance is key for keeping a concentrator in working condition, so when there is no filter or an ineffective one, the concentrator will fill with dirt and create problems with other parts of the device. Thus, we want to create a low cost filter made out of local material that can be used when a filter is missing. We really think this is a great need. At Mulanje, one of the doctors I talked to really stressed the need for local filters. Also, when random pieces of foam are used as filters, they have not been tested and no one actually knows how good they are. As a result, we will be doing a lot of testing to ensure we find a filter that is close to the current one.

In order to start the brainstorming process we spent all of Monday doing a lot of research on what the current filter is made of. We then made a shopping list of brainstormed materials that could work and decided to go shopping on Tuesday.

Tuesday was very successful! Harvey and Vincent really took the lead with figuring out where to go shopping. They decided to go to Limbe town because there are a ton of hardware stores within walking distance of each other and it’s super close to Blantyre. Once we arrived in Limbe, we started to just walk into a bunch of different hardware stores.

I was hesitant at first and really did not expect to find all the materials we were looking for. I was definitely wrong! We found a lot of foam, sponges, car filters, and various other material we thought could potential work as a new filter. The entire experience was amazing! I loved being able to just walk into stores and find the material that we wanted. This is not the first time that we have wondered around town looking for something specific and ended up finding it. Malawi just seems to be the perfect place for wandering minds.

I cannot wait to test all the material we collected! We spent all of Wednesday morning really going through the design process figuring out design criteria and protocols for testing. It was nice learning how Harvey and Vincent go through the design process and sharing what Theresa and I know about it.