‘Sup?

I’ve said this so many times to Albert, one of the DIT students, that now he’s started saying it back.

I can’t believe we’ve already made it to my fourth post! A lot has happened, from too many PCB printing attempts, to forcing the capricious, stubborn rotary encoder to do its job, to an elephant randomly showing up to our safari campsite. 

Step 1: With a laserjet printer, print the PCB design onto gloss paper

Step 2: For about 5 minutes, iron the design onto the copper

Step 3: Let it cool, and peel off the paper. The PCB design should now be transferred onto the copper. If you manage this in less than 5 attempts, then you did much better than us!

Step 4 (very satisfying): Make a concoction of salt, vinegar, and hydrogen peroxide to dissolve all exposed copper. Notice the yellow color of the glass epoxy exposed by the reaction that took off all the copper.

This picture here shows the testing of one of the most important components of the circuit: the voltage regulator. This makes sure that our Arduino only gets 12 V, which is its recommended limit, while our heaters can still receive 18 V from the same source. Without this regulation, the Arduino might cough up some smoke and never turn on again, embarrassing and discouraging myself and several other engineers.

The three holes here are for control of the device, a status light to alert clinicians about different conditions, and a reset button that will allow for a reset of the system if anything goes wrong. 

On the software side, one of the most difficult challenges has been wrangling the heart rate/blood oxygen sensor to actually output useful data without completely crashing our Arduino. The processing involved with blood oxygen measurement is especially intensive, so for now, we’ve prioritized a stable heart rate sensor and left out blood oxygen. One possible solution we’re considering is to use a separate Arduino to handle only that sensor so that nothing gets overloaded. 

This shows the input power plug, the power switch, and an indicator LED to show that the device is powered on. 

Although it feels like this box is constantly a week from being finished, it’s getting close enough to taste it (not that any component of the finished product would be particularly tasty). This is especially due to all the work Shreya has been doing on the physical side, assembling the box and designing housing components. 

The direct next steps are to plug everything in and do heater testing with the finished product. Additionally, there is still more iteration to be done on the control panel, as well as some final touches like handles, and other necessary human factors features. 

I’m sure I sound like a broken record going on and on about this travel incubator, but let me assure you that there are other projects in the works, as well! One of these projects is designing an adaptable syringe housing for an automated syringe pump so that it can work with the full range of syringe sizes that might be needed. The picture below shows some ideation and a rough prototype that I made to secure the back part of the syringe and allow it to be pushed by the machine.

As for the gastroschisis bag, there are more bureaucratic challenges than physical ones, but I’ll be sure to fill y’all in about the patent drafting process as we begin it next week!

Another notable event in the past couple weeks was Saba Saba Day, an international trade fair. Saba means seven in Swahili, so the event takes place in the weeks surrounding July 7th. DIT, our host university, had several exhibitions that we got to see, including a natural gas powered car, leather processing sample products, and some exciting startups led by current and former DIT. I bought a 3D printed phone holder from a 3D printer company called Swahili DMakers and a bar of sea moss soap from another company started by a DIT student called Hadhaha.

Last weekend, we had the unforgettable experience of a safari in the Tarangire, Ngorongoro, and Serengeti National Parks. It was hard to choose what pictures to show, but I’m sure Shreya and Melissa’s blogs will fill in the gaps, especially the hippos and zebras!

Baboons live in giant troops. If you zoom in, you can see a baby riding a mom like a horse!