Summary
Travel incubator, food, and an island excursion.
Technical Updates
We really hit the ground running in the first weeks of our internship! We started with orientations and refreshers on some foundational prototyping skills: 3D design in SolidWorks, 3D printing, laser cutting, printed circuit board design and fabrication, and soldering.
Figure 1: I think I might need to work on my posture.
    Then, we moved on to our host projects. One project that we’re taking on here is an automated syringe pump, a device that’s meant to inject liquid medication in precise quantities over time. Although there is a functioning prototype, our goal is to expand its use to be able to accommodate more than just one size of syringe. Our focus for this project next week will be to acquire all the syringe types we need so that we can begin physical design iterations.
     The second host project, the one with which we’ve spent the majority of our time with so far, is a travel incubator. The purpose of this device is to transport babies within and between hospitals while preventing hypothermia. So far, we’ve focused on the heating method and the sensing and control systems that go along with it. This has involved plenty of jumper cables, bread boarding, and silly mistakes that probably could have been avoided if I didn’t have the memory of a baby goldfish. I’m very glad Shreya just took a class about Arduinos in Italy a few weeks ago as I would have been significantly more helpless alone.
Figure 2: Arduino interface for controlling the travel incubator. The top panel is the code editor and the bottom is the temperature sensor outputs.
    Right now, we have an Arduino setup that reads data from three different temperature sensors and displays these temperatures on an OLED screen. The screen is controlled by a knob that can turn and be pressed down for different inputs. The configuration also allows for the control of a 12V or 24V power source for the heating components. Finally, there is a buzzer and a light that can be used for status notifications and alarms.
    Today, we began controlled testing of the heating capabilities of our current design. The testing apparatus is shown in Figure 3:
Figure 3: (left) The current prototype testing setup. Four different sensors collected temperature data for 20 minutes of heating for each trial. (right) heating elements from 3D printers are attached to the coil, and air circulation is provided by a fan.
    The results of the testing so far are imperfect, but promising! We have been able to get our incubator up to a temperature of around 34 degrees Celsius, with the heating coil reaching a temperature of 51 degrees Celsius, after about 20 minutes of heating. By controlling the airflow better and potentially adding more heating elements, we will be able to achieve higher temperatures in less time. The progress on this project has been really exciting, and we’re pretty close to having a working prototype!
Miscellaneous Updates
    Last weekend, Melissa, Shreya, and I took a trip to the uninhabited Bongoyo Island a 30 minute boat ride off the coast of Dar es Salaam. We had a great time relaxing on the beach and I felt lucky to spot hermit crabs and some cool fish.
Figure 4: (left) View from Bongoyo (right) shell with legs
    We’ve explored a lot of interesting cuisine in our time here, as well, including Italian, Indian, Mediterranean, Mexican, and of course local Tanzanian dishes. Each night means a new restaurant to look forward to eating at! When the dishes are especially aesthetic, I have to make sure the camera eats first (Figure 5).📸😋
Figure 5: (left) Enchilada at Amigos, a Mexican restaurant
(right) Schwarma at Levant, a Lebanese place
    We’ve made ourselves quite busy here, but luckily I still had time to display a very important message on the OLED screen we’re using for the travel incubator:
Figure 6: Social Media Advertisement
Thanks for following along with my journey!
Until next time,
Andy
P.S.: We saw these cats at lunch one day and I thought they were cute.
Figure 7: paka wawili (two cats)
