Out of all the faults we encountered from different devices, we as a team decided to work on the suction pump. This was so because they have a few of them and they happen to be some of the most important machine being used in the hospital which are prone to damage.

Problem: The fluids being pumped can sometimes overflow into the pump when the bottles are full hence damaging the motors windings. This can happen if the Nurse giving treatment is not monitoring the process of sucking.

Solution: We spent most of the times in the library this week researching on possible ways to come up with a low cost overflow control mechanism. The research took some days because we specifically choose a control mechanism that lies outside of the suction bottle. The suction machine can be used to suck different fluids from human body of which it would not be hygiene to be placing a sensor inside the filling bottle.

So the best solution we came up with is to use infrared sensor. We plan to start designing it the upcoming week and do some testing.

We choose this project to solve the problem at queen’s hospital. They have few analog dosing meters at hand right now. Besides this, they usually have calibration drifting which sometimes can be hard to read and give false readings.

We had two prototypes of phototherapy dosing meters, one from Rice university team and another which had been developed by senior polytechnic students. So we had to choose one and improve on it because they all had drawbacks. We choose the poly device after having a thorough analysis of the two devices.

Problems with the Poly design

1. The first drawback with the poly design was that it was not using a blue light filter, hence giving false readings as it was prone to ambient light.
2. The relationship which was used in the arduino program was not correct

Objective

So basically our main focus was to develop a low cost phototherapy dosing meter that suffers no calibration drifting, more accurate and portable. This partly involved changing the circuitry because we used a solar cell instead of an LDR that was used by the poly students. We used the Arduino Uno as a microprocessor and we coded it in C language.

Operation: The sensor will be covered by a blue light filter thereby measuring only the blue light from the Bili lights. Then it will pass a current through the circuit dropping a voltage across a resistor. This voltage then fed to a low pass filter, allowing less than 4 kHz to pass through. From there on, the output is fed into the arduino for processing. The arduino outputs the result on then LCD.

                       

 

I had some personal expectations about the program just everyone would. First expectation was the program would be all work at all time, bearing in mind that the period was too short. Besides that, I was looking forward to doing projects which probably Rice had already selected for us to do. It was mind blowing to see none of these come true. I really like the approach we had because it was an open discussion.

So basically, the first week involved setting plans, choosing the projects we wanted to do and most importantly getting to know each other. Rice University sent three students Emily, Sarah and Catherine. These guys are really nice and friendly. Sometimes work can get too routine because of the environment, but I must say with these guys work is so much fan. They so eager to learning Chichewa and my personal secondary plan is making them half Malawians before they return home. The first weeks will always be memorable.

I was really excited after having heard that I was selected to be a part of the Malawians-Rice interns this summer, mostly because the projects would involve designing and developing electronic devices in the biomedical engineering sector. I am Telecommunications engineering major but I like learning new things and I saw this as an opportunity to greatness.

Much Thanks to global health for bringing such a great opportunity in my life. I bet this summer is going to be the best ever, and I am really looking forward to the designs.