Hello and welcome back to my blog! It’s been a while since I last posted, but today’s blog is quite bittersweet because it’s our last week in Tanzania. These last 2 months have gone by so fast, and I have learned so much. 

In terms of work, we’ve been wrapping up our projects. We finished up our incubator earlier this week, and I’m really proud of it. There were definitely ups and downs, but in the end, we were able to take a box and turn it into a warm box. 

This past week was a lot of iterating, drilling, sewing, and writing. I designed a lot of 3D printed pieces for our new display and for our sensors to be housed in. It was annoying sometimes when the pieces didn’t fit by just a couple of millimeters, but the end result was definitely worth it. I drilled to put together the physical box, attaching the structural layer and lid. My biggest adventure, though, was the sewing. This was my first time using an actual sewing machine, and there was a bit of a learning curve, but I think I’ve got the hang of it now. I had to sew the cover for the mattress and the cover that we’re using for the walls of the incubator. They’re both made out of the same material that can be easily disinfected. The writing came with the documentation we’ve been doing. Now that we’re wrapping up, we want to make sure that our project can be improved so it’s important to describe everything in detail. We’ve also been working on a patent for the incubator which involves quite a bit of writing. Pictured below are the various layers of our finished (!!) incubator. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also wrapped up the syringe project, getting the full thing 3D printed. Even though most of the project was finished before we got here, I’m happy we were able to contribute, and it’s so cool to see it work with all the different syringe sizes. 

Aside from those 2 projects, I worked on my personal project. I decided to do something related to sepsis prevention. Sepsis-related deaths are a leading cause of death in hospitals, and they can be prevented by simple things like washing your hands. After doing some literature reviews, I realised that a big part of why healthcare providers don’t wash their hands as frequently as they should is due to the lack of reminders or just being (understandably) busy, so they forget. So, I came up with a 2 part project to tackle it. The first part is a poster that I translated into Swahili with the help of my fellow interns at DIT, which informs healthcare providers on the prevention and detection of sepsis. The second part is a watch that reminds and tracks hand washes. Just press the button on the side to record a hand wash, and it sends out reminders every 25 minutes to wash your hands. 

Outside of work, as always, it’s been super fun. The safari was absolutely amazing and so gorgeous. I got to see my favorite animal ever (giraffes), and they are so insane to see. During the weeks we’ve been going to our favorite restaurants here (which I am really going to miss). One new restaurant that we tried was the Akemi Revolving Restaurant. It was on the 21st floor and had the coolest views of Dar. Last weekend we went to another island near Dar, Mbudya. It was so pretty and relaxing, with clear water and sparkling sand. I’m going to miss the beaches here; Surfside and Galveston really don’t compare. We also finally went to Kariakoo, East Africa’s biggest market which is right outside of our hotel. It definitely gave East Africa’s biggest market – it was super busy and hectic, but you could probably find everything under the sun there. We even had the chance to go to a dinner hosted by a Rice alum who lives in Dar. It was super fun and there was another alum from the class of 1965 who was there which was wild. 

Hadi wakati mwingine,
Shreya ♡