Hello and welcome back to my blog! These last 2 weeks have been nothing short of spectacular, both with the internship and exploring Tanzania.

The first few days of week 1, we did an insane amount of skill building, learning, and practicing things like SolidWorks, PCB making, laser cutting, and Arduino. My favorite was PCB (Printed Circuit Board) making, especially because of the unique way that they make it at DIT.

We first started by making the schematic in the software Proteus. After that, the schematic is printed on glossy printer paper, and then an iron (YES, AN IRON) is used to transfer the schematic to a copper sheet. Then it’s time to make the (literally magic) solution by mixing 1 cup of vinegar, 3 splashes of hydrogen peroxide, and 2 tablespoons of salt. Put the copper sheet in the solution and wait for a couple of hours to dissolve the unwanted copper. Then, after a bit of sanding, the PCB is ready!

After the skill building, we got to work on our projects, with our main focus these last 2 weeks being the incubator. We have made great progress on the incubator, having been able to figure out the heating system and code an Arduino to control all the sensors and heaters. Soon we’ll be able to put it all together for our first prototype!

Figuring out the heating system took a lot of trial and error. In total we tried 6 different heating elements, but found that they either did not effectively heat the entire area, did not dissipate heat properly, or had high power demands which is not ideal for a country like Tanzania. After some research into how refrigerators and heaters work, we tried putting 3D printer heating filaments into a copper pipe. We chose 3D printer heating filaments since they reach very high temperatures quickly and have a low power requirement. However they are very small, so they only heat a small surface area. Our hope was that by putting them in the copper pipe, the pipe would heat up very quickly and dissipate heat to its surroundings. After some trial and error with how to put the filaments into the pipe we finally got an arrangement that quickly warmed up our entire incubator.

For the Arduino in the project we are currently having it power 3 sensors, 1 heating filament, 1 OLED display, a rotary encoder to change and set the temperature, and an alarm. The first sensor is for the

baby’s temperature which will be in direct contact with the baby’s skin. The second is a non-contact temperature and humidity sensor for the incubator. The third is on the heating filament to check what temperature it is at. Our display screen shows the values of the different sensors and also has options to set the incubator temperature. The alarm goes off when the baby temperature leaves the set values and signify when the incubator is done “pre-heating”.

In between this work we grab lunch at a place super close to campus every day, and I found my new favorite food there. It’s called Wali Na Maharage,

basically just beans and rice but the rice tastes so good here. I’ve eaten it pretty much every day and the best part is it only costs $1!

After getting back from DIT, we try to explore Dar by taking a Bajaji (the Tanzanian version of a tuktuk/auto) to a new restaurant every night. Last weekend we even went to an island about 30 minutes away by boat – Bongoyo. It was so gorgeous and it was the perfect place to just relax on the beach for a couple of hours.

These last 2 weeks have been so amazing, I can’t wait to see what these coming weeks have in store for us! Thank you for reading and see you next time.

Hadi wakati mwingine,
Shreya ♡