Author: ac185

Thanks for an unforgettable summer! [Andy]

Posted on by ac185

Hello everyone, and thanks for reading my final blog post!

I’m back in Florida now with my family, and I’ve had time to reflect on the summer. I’d like to start this reflection post by attempting to show my gratitude to everyone who made this summer so special for me.

A sincere thanks to everyone who made this possible

Firstly, I want to thank my companions from Rice, Shreya and Melissa. Together we experienced countless restaurants, thrilling bajaji rides, all three of our birthdays, breathtaking landscapes and wildlife, laundry expeditions, poorly-written cinema, and much more that I’ll never forget.

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Next, I want to thank the design studio coordinator at DIT, Joel. Joel is one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever met, and he shows so much care for each one of his students. Cleria, the design studio lab assistant, was also a constant positive presence that always helped us with whatever we needed.
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(left) Shreya, Joel and I (right) Cleria and I
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Also, I wanted to shout out a couple of DIT students: Albert was a huge help with hands-on electrical prototyping, especially since I was doing most of it for the first time. Another student, Alu, was a godsend with his experience in circuit design and Arduino programming, saving me hours of work on multiple occasions.

Additionally, I wanted to thank the people at Rice who made this happen, especially Dr. Kiara Lee and Michelle Nodskov, for their coordination, preparation, and oversight. Beyond them, we met some really cool Rice connections who live in Tanzania: Haruka invited us to a really lovely dinner at her house and Christine showed us some addictingly good restaurants and gave some great travel advice.

Finally, I wanted to express my most sincere gratitude to the donor who supported my unforgettable summer, Judy Koehl. The generosity to fund a formative experience like this is inspiring, and I hope to one day have the opportunity to do the same for another generation of students!

View of Dar es Salaam from a window at the DIT Design Studio
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Final Project Updates

The transport incubator, which we recently dubbed “NeoGo”, was the major focus of our time in Tanzania. It is meant to address the high rates of neonatal mortality in Tanzania by creating a stable, warm environment to lower hypothermia risks. After many hours of programming, circuit fabrication, and troubleshooting, as well as tests of over thirty different heating configurations, we created an incubator that can create and maintain an increase of about 7 degrees Celsius above ambient temperature in 20 minutes. It has a screen that displays data from multiple temperature sensors and a button that allows for temperature setting. A few weeks ago, we submitted a Tanzania patent application for this device and are awaiting edits/approval in the next few weeks!

The other host project was the modification of the syringe housing of an automated syringe pump. This device is meant to push a syringe to supply certain amounts of liquid for controlled dispensing of medications to patients. Through iterations of 3D-printed prototypes, we upgraded the housing to fit many different syringe sizes, when before it could only fit one.

(left) Old design has ridges that can only fit the shown syringe. (right) Overlapping circular cross-section design allows for many different syringe sizes to fit.

While the two Rice projects we brought with us didn’t result in significant physical modifications, each still progressed in their own way this summer. The first Rice project was the tourniquet training mannequin, which is meant to lower the cost of expensive bleeding control training devices currently on the market. Although we didn’t have time to further improve the physical design, we had the chance to get actionable feedback from doctors such as adding a built-in pressure sensor to quantitatively assess tourniquet tightness and designing our mannequin to accommodate improvised tourniquets.

Getting project feedback from specialists at MUHAS (Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences)

The other Rice project was the gastroschisis bag, a simple treatment for a birth defect where the baby is born with intestines outside the body. The goal with the Rice360 version of this treatment is to manufacture it locally and reach even the most rural hospitals in Tanzania. Rice360’s 2024 summer interns are currently working on local patent approval so that manufacturing of this life-saving device can be undertaken.

The gastroschisis bag

My Reflection

I really grew through this summer thanks to this program! I’m proud that I kept my Duolingo streak going, and while I’m nowhere near fluent in Swahili, I could have a few short conversations by the end of my time there! Basically everyone I met was so willing to smile, repeat, and teach me a word or two. I also managed to run over a hundred treadmill miles to keep me in shape for Hanszen’s 2026 Beer Bike sweep!

Going into this summer, I hoped to improve my hands-on skills with electronics. I feel extremely lucky that I got the chance to do that through the NeoGo project, getting thrown into the deep end with everything from circuit board design to C++ programming. Additionally, with all the agency we were given to tackle our projects, I really improved my project management and communication skills. This experience really has made me a stronger engineer and team member, preparing me well for senior design.

In Tanzania, I experienced a new culture, learned a bit of a new language, and saw things I’ll never forget: from stunning beaches, to exotic animals, to breathtaking landscapes. Every day I felt like I was working towards something impactful, and I got to do it in such a welcoming, positive, hands-on environment at DIT. I’ll always look back on this summer with gratitude as a formative foundation for me as an engineer, a teammate, and a citizen of the world.

Signing off for the last time 🫡
Andy, Hanszen 2026

~

Setbacks and Success [Andy]

Posted on by ac185

Astute followers of my blog know that I am fashionably late to this upload, which is especially eggregious considering I told you to “mark your calendars” for July 25th last time. I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to all my adoring fans. You all really deserve better. I am here now, though, and ready to deliver premium content!

Technical Updates

As you may have guessed from the title of the blog, the road to success on our main project has been a bit of a bumpy one! One of the saddest bumps was when I broke what we later realized was our only OLED display with the specifications we needed for our incubator readout. This forced us to switch out to an LCD display we had available, scramble for a new display/button housing, improvise different wiring, and revise code.

I should not have pushed with all my might to attach this display to the 3D printed housing. The more you know.

Although it was a frustrating setback at first, my destruction of the old screen actually led to several improvements in our device! The larger replacement screen makes the user interface more intuitive, and another look at the code led to several ease-of-use improvements that made for a more robust device, like an initial welcome screen and improved button delay for better responsiveness. Another improvement that comes with the replacement screen is a reduced computational load on our microcontroller. The new screen has its own processor specifically for controlling the display, freeing up our Arduino for intensive tasks like calculating the baby’s pulse rate or potentially blood oxygen levels.

The new LCD replacement screen saved our lives! It’s also harder for me to break (so far, at least)

Besides the screen mishap, there have been many small snafus that temporarily derailed us. Many, many components have needed resoldering or changes to the wiring due to loose connections. Parts like the 12 V voltage regulator and the power LED have needed replacement.  One of the MOSFETs, which control the amount of power that goes to our heaters and fans, was especially curious. Sometimes it wouldn’t work, but then when I pushed on it just the right way with some random non-conductive object that was laying around, it would work again! We chalked it up to shoddy soldering (my specialty), but managed to fix it with some hot glue. Hot glue is like the duct tape of circuit boards.

By addressing and repairing these issues, we have shored up many of the most vulnerable parts of our incubator. With that out of the way, we could refocus on the primary function of our incubator: creating a warm environment for a baby. To date, we have now run 31 tests of different configurations of structural pieces, the mattress, and fans, and we have learned a lot about what doesn’t work. And a little bit about what actually does, too!

Shreya and I doing our best to provide positive reinforcement to our incubator in order to increase its heating performance.

There were many testing setups, but one of the most important things that we learned was that active movement of air is very, very important. My initial thought was the passive movement of air, as long as there was enough space to move, would result in hot air rising from below to warm the baby’s compartment. As it turns out, our design doesn’t work well at all when we only rely on this passive effect. Fan placement is absolutely critical to circulate the air in a controlled manner.

This setup shows the basic slit design we settled on to connect the heating compartment below to the baby compartment up top. 

 

One of the most important developments we made in our testing was to have a fan pointing directly up through our slit, actively blowing hot air into the upper compartment.

As a result of the incremental changes and improvements we’ve implemented, we’ve reached a 7 degree Celsius increase in 20 minutes, from a starting temperature of 31.4 C to a final temperature of 38.7 C. There is still work to be done, certainly, especially with testing at lower starting temperatures, but we’ve proven that our setup can sufficiently produce the heat needed to keep a baby safe!

This is what our incubator looks like right now. Handles are conspicuously misisng, but will be added once the 3D printers you see in the background can be convinced to work.

At the suggestion of the design studio coordinator, Joel, we’re writing a local Tanzania patent for our device! This gives us the possibility to outsource manufacturing while maintaining the intellectual property. Likely, Shreya and I will finish drafting and submit it tomorrow.

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Switching gears a little, I wanted to talk about a quick project I’m doing at DIT. I noticed that there were some missing floor signs in the 12 floor building where the design studio is, so I decided to replace. The following images chart the steps I took to design and fabricate these signs.

Fallen 6th Floor sign. This actually came in really handy because I took it to use as a reference for designing the replacements!

AutoCAD to create .DXF files for the laser cutter.

Laser cutting with Cleria, the expert!

Finished cut.

Peeled off the cut parts of the material covering.

Lots and lots of white spray paint!

Peeled off the rest of the covering for the finished sign!

Then, for what I thought would be the easy part: installation. Joel and I put up a couple of these signs with an epoxy glue that we were certain would stick, only to hear a discouraging crash of a fallen sign after only a few minutes! Tomorrow, we’ll give it another shot with copious amounts of double-sided tape.

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Beyond those two projects, I’ve also been working with the Tourniquet Trainer, specifically with its blood pumping mechanism. It works with a simple hand siphon pump, but for some reason, the pump is hardly pumping water at all. In an attempt to improve the pump’s power, I made a one-way valve with materials I found around the design studio.

First iteration of my one-way valve. Fluid can’t pass easily from the top down because the ball gets in the way, but from the bottom up, the ball is stopped by the nail and there’s plenty of room for flow.

The biggest flaw in my first iteration was the ball, which was actually a glob of hot glue that I crudely tried to roll into a sphere. Luckily Joel took pity on me the next day and gifted me a ball from a ball bearing that just happened to be the perfect size! I installed it into my valve, which made it work considerably better.  Sadly, though, the pump is still hardly showing signs of life. It may be defective.

This is much rounder than a hot glue glob.

In the last couple days we have in Tanzania, I hope to tie up some loose ends: finishing the patent, installing the floor signs, and making some useful documentation for the next set of Tanzania interns! I can’t believe how fast the time went, and while I feel that our projects are far from finished, I’m proud of the progress we were able to make and how much I learned along the way.

Miscellaneous Updates

Samaki Makange. Definitely the biggest fish I’ve eaten in one sitting!

The three of us wading to shore after our Mbudya Island trip.

Celebrating my 21st birthday with a brownie on a sizzling platter.

Crazy find at the Kariakoo Market, which is essentially an entire neighboorhood of street shops selling anything you can imagine. Who new I’d find what appears to be the Rice logo on the streets of Dar es Salaam?

Gorgeous view from the revolving Akemi Restaurant. I splurged for the 60,000 Tsh buffet (about $25), but I ate so so much that I think I made it worth it!

I’m clearly perplexed by what the Grand Restaurant called “Chicken Espetada”. We thought a more informative name was “Vertical Chicken”.

PCB + Safari [Andy]

Posted on by ac185

‘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. 

Albert, Melissa, Shreya, and I on the stairs after a day of design.

 

Technical Updates

The travel incubator has continued to be our primary focus in the past couple weeks. As a refresher, this project is to make a device that can transport babies within and between hospitals while maintaining an optimal temperature for the baby. Hypothermia is a major contributor to infant deaths, and we hope to help prevent it with our device.

The first major development since the last time I posted has been the printed circuit board (PCB). It was a long and not-very-straightforward process to get it done, but it was also super fun! A special shout-out to Albert, who helped immensely with every step. Below is the process that we undertook to translate our board design from a computer file to a working PCB:

 

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.

Step 5 (difficult): Drill holes for the pins to allow for the connections of all the different components that will be attached. Luckily, Albert was there to ace the precise drilling required. My depth perception ranges from atrocious to non-existent, so this would have been an impossible task on my own.
Step 6 (satisfying): With steel wool, scrape off all the ink to reveal the shiny copper below!
Step 7: Lots and lots of soldering to attach all our sensors, displays and controls!
The components have steadily migrated their way onto the PCB. Sometimes, though, they temporarily migrate their way back off as we troubleshoot, rewire, and ask the board nicely to please, please work this time. The rotary encoder (button that allows for both pushing and turning controls) was especially prone to this.
The green dude in the middle there is the mastermind of this whole operation: an Arduino Mega. It controls all the components. We designed our PCB specifically to be able to plug him in directly.

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.

Right now, all the components are securely attached to the PCB, and the main remaining design goals involve the physical layout of the various sensors and control components in the actual incubator box. Luckily, Shreya has been spearheading this side of the project, designing and re-designing critical pieces like the control/display module, as shown below.

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. 

I won’t pretend that our sensor was in constant lock-step with my fitness watch, but some basic testing showed that it got pretty close! (Although not pictured, the sensor was secured to a finger on my left hand with Shreya’s hair tie).

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.

The slit design low-fidelity prototype (yellow and black thing on the right page of the notebook) was constructed with failed 3D printed parts and masking tape to approximate a slit that can accommodate all syringes, big or small.
We have also developed other designs, like the cone section design (left two images) that stops the end of a syringe of a wide range of sizes. We also developed a stacked cylindrical openings design that I’m dubbing the “snowman” (right two images). It allows each syringe to rest and be stabilized and level.
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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.

In this picture, I’m holding a 3D-printed arithmetic training device. Educational products are the specialty of Swahili DMakers.
Miscellaneous Updates
The 8-floor ascent has never felt easier! The elevators have been working well the past few weeks (:
In a wondrous feat of engineering, I cannibalized a water bottle to create the funnel pictured here. In spite of that, I manage to spill water from the big jug almost every morning. Clearly, the design is not completely idiot-proof.
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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!

Serengeti lions seem to alternate between naps and disapproving stares.

This elephant showed up to say hi at our campsite on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater.

Buffalo and his bird friends.

We were really lucky and got to see a cheetah on the move!

Gazelle, portrayed by Shakira in the critically renowned film, Zootopia. (We didn’t hear this one sing, though. It might be camera-shy?)

Of all the safari animals, these ones are the most outrageous. Who gave them permission to elongate to such extreme proportions?

Warthogs are much cuter than I expected!

These fellas have been skipping Leg Day their entire lives and it shows. Yikes.

Maasai village with a stunning backdrop.

 

International engineering collaboration: a Canadian in our safari tour group and I constructed a Tent Home Theater System with a phone, a travel pillow, and two borrowed hair ties. We then stuffed seven people in one tent and suffered through the first 20 minutes of Grown Ups 2, before choosing unidentified animal sounds to put us to sleep over Adam Sandler’s comedic genius.

Speaking of movies, Shreya, Melissa, and I have had several long and uninspired conversations about what movie to watch for movie night. We need your help! If you’re brave enough, please leave a comment with recommendations of a movie to watch! If you prefer to lurk (as I would), or are reading this from the future, then that’s okay too! I’m just glad you’re reading (:

Two more weeks of engineering and adventure, and two more blog posts to satisfy the cravings of my cult following! 

Until the next one (July 25th, mark your calendars!)

Andy

Visting Hospitals and Zanzibar [Andy]

Posted on by ac185

Mambo!

(That means “hi/how are you?”. The standard reply is “poa”, which means “cool”.)

Thanks for sticking around for the third edition of my blog! A lot has happened here in the past couple weeks, so let me fill you in!

Technical Updates

With the travel incubator, we’ve continued to do heater testing with a bunch of different setups. The main thing we’ve focused on is the physical layout of the fan, material layers, and lid. We’ve learned that airflow control is extremely important for heating, and also that even within a small volume, temperatures can vary significantly depending on whether you’re close to the top or near the middle of the incubator, because hot air rises. During our testing we managed to fry one of the heating elements we were using (Figure 1). We also did some preliminary testing on thermal insulation (Figure 2) for whether it would improve the heating efficiency of our system, and it worked to make our heating coils noticeably hotter.

Figure 1: We now know that our heating elements should not glow. This is a sign that mistakes have been made. 

Figure 2: Lining the incubator box with insulatingmaterial to trap more heat.

Beyond physical testing, we improved the software side of the incubator to read data from a heart rate/pulse oximeter sensor, along with expanding the display’s functionality to include control for both fan and heater systems. Our current thicket of wires is shown below (maybe we can consider it a form of modern art?). Luckily for us, we won’t have to look at this chaotic little disaster for much longer. I spent most of today designing a printed circuit board (PCB) to which all the necessary components can be soldered

 

Figure 3: “Saltatory Cacaphony”
                  Andy Corliss, 2025.
                  Jumper cables on various electrical                    components.

 

We also had the chance for a couple hospital visits. Last week, we bajaji’d to Amana Referral Hospital to introduce and get feedback on our projects with teams of doctors. There was lots of interest in the gastroschisis bag, with one doctor asking when she’d be able to use it in a clinical setting. Right now, the project is in the patent and manufacturing stage, so it won’t be too long before the gastroschisis bag is in use!

Several doctors in the pediatric section of the hospital were interested in the travel incubator project, and they brought insights that we haven’t even considered, such as making a single incubator that can fit multiple babies inside. We have been brainstorming around this idea while we continue to pursue the single-baby model. 

The second hospital visit was today, at the Aga Khan Hospital. We met with a neonatologist named Dr. Yaser Abdallah, and he was admittedly skeptical of both the gastroschisis bag project and the travel incubator project. While there is a clear need for gastroschisis bags in Tanzania, he believes that the best way to get these bags is to import them. As for the travel incubator, he believes that the vast majority of babies should be cared for via Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC), in which the baby is held by the mother on her chest for maximal skin-to-skin contact. While it was a little difficult to hear that he didn’t think our projects would make an impact, Dr. Abdallah’s perspective is extremely valuable and we will continue to consider the points he brought up. 

As for the syringe pump, we got a hold of different syringe sizes to test with and have begun iterating different 3D printed designs to be able to adapt to these sizes. As I type this post, one of the DIT Design Studio 3D printers is spending its Friday night hard at work on a dummy device casing that we’ll be using to house our prototype iterations.

Figure 4: (left) 3D printed syringe guide above a standard 60 mL syringe  (right) syringe pump prototype: the top view shows the different protrusions that are meant to house and guide the syringes.

Next week will involve rapid prototyping of different syringe guides for the syringe pump, and fabricating and assembling the PCB for the travel incubator. We’ll also likely have another hospital visit. There’s lots to do, and somehow we’re already halfway through! Time really does fly when you’re having fun 🙂

Miscellaneous Updates

I think it’s critical to share that I spelled out RICE at a beach resort in the Kigamboni district of Dar es Salaam. Photo credit: Shreya (she was very patient, even as I wasted countless attempts flailing into illegible shapes)

Equally important is my success in an eating challenge at the Grand Restaurant in which I won a t-shirt. Photo credit: Melissa

Shreya and I watched the season champion deciding match of the Tanzanian premier league a couple days ago. What a rowdy experience!

Hopefully Shreya and Melissa can provide some better pictures of the monkeys we saw in Jozani Forest, Zanzibar this past weekend. All I have to offer is a selfie of dubious quality.

 

Me (basketball star) dunking on Prison Island tortoise (embarrassingly bad defender) in Zanzibar. Photo credit: Shreya, Hoop credit: Melissa

Melissa said that Zanzibar’s waters look like Taco Bell’s Baja Blast. She’s onto something.

The most surprising thing about Stone Town, Zanzibar, was the copious amounts of stray cats. They were everywhere, even in the lobby of our hostel!

Thanks to everyone who made it this far! Either your attention span is commendable, my writing is extremely engaging, or you’re being forced to read this against your will.

In any case, I’ll post again in two weeks, so be ready!

Until then,

Andy

 

Travel Incubator📈📈📈[Andy]

Posted on by ac185

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)

Greetings from Dar es Salaam! [Andy]

Posted on by ac185

Yesterday, my plane landed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania!

I’m Andy Corliss, a rising senior at Hanszen college studying bioengineering with a minor in global health technologies. I’m really excited for the chance to contribute to global health in a meaningful way through this program. 

The first project I’m working on is a low cost tourniquet training mannequin which my team last semester dubbed “Tourni-Kit”. We started it in the Appropriate Design for Global Health course in January 2025. The goal of this project is to improve access to life-saving bleeding control first aid training in a market where current models cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. 

By the end of the Spring semester, our team (Figure 1) had developed a working arm prototype that bleeds and stops bleeding at the appropriate pressure of a tourniquet being applied. In Tanzania, our primary goal with this project is to get feedback on this current prototype on how it can be improved. Additionally, there are several areas of improvement that we’ve already identified, such as durability to water exposure and consistency of the bleeding mechanism. Another focus area will be to ensure a prototype can be fabricated from locally sourced materials.

Team Tourni-Kit

 

Figure 1: Presenting the current Tourni-Kit prototype at the Huff OEDK Engineering Design Showcase in April 2025. Left to right: Katie Voong (currently in Malawi with Rice360!), Joanna Wei, myself, Naayaa Mehta, Justin Xia.

The second project we’re taking is the gastroschisis bag, which is a treatment for newborns with a birth defect that causes their intestines to be on the outside of their body. Although it is a treatable condition with high survival rates in the United States, the standard method of care there is too expensive to be implemented in much of Africa.

Previous Rice360 interns have developed a prototype designed to isolate and protect newborns’ intestines out of just two materials that can be fabricated in only about 15 minutes (Figure 2). Moving forward, there are two major goals to get this device closer to helping real patients. The first is to find a way to sterilize it and maintain this sterilization until it is used. The second is to develop an effective way to package it. Another goal to make the gastroschisis project a success is to ensure the materials can be locally sourced here at DIT.

 

Figure 2: Current gastroschisis bag prototype. A 500 Tanzanian Shilling coin (slightly bigger than an American quarter) is used for size reference.

Starting tomorrow, we’ll be planning other projects such as our collaboration with DIT students.

Although I was a little nervous initially, Joel, Cleria, Dr. Msumba, and everyone else I’ve met here have made me feel so at home even in the first 24 hours. I’m so excited to keep learning from everyone and I’ll make sure to share the highlights in this blog.

Stay tuned!

Figure 3: Keeping my Swahili Duolingo streak alive!