Hello and welcome back to my (last) blog! I’ve been home for the past week and reflecting on my 8 weeks in Tanzania. Going into the internship, I knew it was going to be a great experience; how

ever, I didn’t realize just how much growth it would bring, both professionally and personally. It taught me so much about bioengineering and prototyping, and also about Tanzania and a completely new culture. Here’s a recap of the things I learnt during my internship:

Professionally: 

• SolidWorks: This was a huge one for me. I knew SolidWorks before I started the internship, but I absolutely hated it from the depths of my heart. Even if I had to make a simple drawing in SolidWorks, I would need to completely isolate myself for like 5 hours and lock in. But in the first few days of the internship, our colleagues at DIT helped me so much and explained it to me so patiently that now I can whip up several drawings for the 3D printer within an hour. I actually started having fun making the little drawings, which, if you had told me 3 months ago, I would have called you crazy.

• Rapid prototyping: We iterated so quickly on all of the projects. We would test, analyze, and rebuild, just keeping that cycle until something finally worked. It was frustrating and tedious at times, but when it finally worked, it was so rewarding. I think the most memorable one for me was the heating system. I spent 3 days testing so many different types of heating systems, trying to get one that was lightweight, had a low power consumption, and heated up quickly. Quite a few constraints, so I went through over 10 different heating systems before settling on the 3D printer heating filaments inside a copper pipe. And even once we decided on that, there was still trial and error with the shape of the copper pipe for maximum efficiency. 
• Mechanical skills: I did a lot of drilling, cutting, and just generally building things. I had some basic experience with it before, but I definitely got a lot more comfortable during the internship. 

• Arduino: Another skill that I had some experience with, but I definitely got more comfortable during the internship. I also do not think I would have had any other opportunities to work on these skills so extensively. 
• Networking: In order to get feedback on our incubator, we reached out to several industry professionals, both engineers and doctors. Connecting with professionals taught us so much and helped throughout our process. I got a lot more comfortable with reaching out to people with questions and realized that a lot of people are so willing to help. 
• Self-motivation: This is a bit of personal growth as well, but this internship was definitely the most freedom I’ve ever had, and while that was great, it also meant I had to take a lot more initiative to get things done. I had to set my own goals, deadlines, and be really persistent if I needed something done. Definitely different from Rice, but great practice for the future. 

Personally: 

• Adaptability: I thought I was just adapting to a new workplace, but nope. I was adapting to a whole new everything: pace of life, cultural norms, and even how to improvise when the tool you need doesn’t exist (or exists… somewhere… maybe). Meetings started “soon,” Bajaji’s arrived “soon,” and projects got done “soon,” so I learned to live with “soon” as a legitimate unit of time.
• Patience: Prototyping taught me technical patience, but daily life in Tanzania took it to an Olympic level. Sometimes I’d wait hours for something that took five minutes to actually do. I went from silently screaming inside to genuinely enjoying the extra time to chat or just stand around like a local.
• Cross-cultural communication: Even though English was common, I quickly learned that communication is way more than words. It’s also about listening, reading the room, asking a lot of clarifying questions, and sometimes nodding thoughtfully while I had Google Translate open on the side.
• Travel adventures: On weekends, I got to see more of Tanzania beyond the design studio. Zanzibar was literally paradise with its turquoise water, white sand, and delicious food at its highest rooftop teahouse. Near Dar, we escaped to Mbudya and Bongoyo islands for perfect beach days. And the safari? Definitely a top 3 experience of my life. I saw lions, elephants, and giraffes actually in their natural habitat after years of hearing about it on National Geographic.

• Gratitude: Living and working there made me extra grateful for small things like reliable Wi-Fi, a washing machine that wasn’t a 15-minute drive away, and usable tap water. But it also made me appreciate how much creativity and resourcefulness bloom when you don’t have those conveniences.

This experience taught me so much, and I would 10/10 recommend it to anyone who is interested. I contemplated it a lot before accepting the internship offer, but I am so, so glad I did; it really was the experience of a lifetime. 

So, for the last time, thank you so much for reading!

Kwaheri,
Shreya ♡

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 ♡

Hello and welcome back to my blog! On our last episode, we had just returned from a long weekend in Zanzibar, followed by some great progress on our travel incubator and rapid prototyping for the syringe pump.

In the last week, we’ve continued working on the incubator. Andy worked with Albert and Alu, 2 DIT students who have been instrumental in the incubator design process, to design the PCB, and we are currently working on soldering the electrical components onto it. We also got the new box for the incubator cut, so I worked on putting that together.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on SolidWorks recently, designing pieces for the incubator, like the

housing for our display and buttons, and a place to keep our sensors inside the incubator. It’s a slow process, with multiple iterations and additions, but it’s rewarding when it all comes together. Before this internship, I used to hate SolidWorks, and it would nearly bring me to tears every time I had to use it, but now it’s actually kind of fun. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still annoying, but now it’s more like a fun little challenge.

Keeping with the SolidWorks theme, I’ve also been drawing a lot of pieces for the syringe pump project. I think we’re nearly done with that project, after several iterations of a holder that can fit multiple syringe sizes, pictured below. It was a really fun project to visualize and draw out, and it was super gratifying to see our ideas actually work.

We’ve also been taking a couple field trips during work. Last Friday we went to Aga Khan hospital, a private hospital super close to DIT, to meet with a neonatologist. We showed him our travel incubator and the gastro-bag, both of which he wasn’t really sold on. He said that people are moving towards Kangaroo Mother Care so there isn’t much use for the travel incubator, and that the gastro-bag can be imported quite cheaply. He did give us some valuable insights that we can take into account while prototyping and he showed us the state-of-the-art travel incubator that they use. It was really cool seeing it in real life and learning about its features.

Then today we went to Saba Saba, the annual trade fair here in Dar. It’s a big deal, DIT is closed next Monday because of it. First we went to DIT’s tent and learned about a lot of different projects that DIT is working on. They do SO much here, we’ve seen such a small part of their work. There were some medical devices like a phototherapy machine, but they also had things like leather, satellites, bathroom cleaners and so much more. It was really cool. Then we walked around looking at other companies, but it was so huge. It was like the size of the Houston Rodeo but probably more crowded than that. We got hungry after a bit of that so we found a place to eat and I had to try to get the wali na maharage (but it wasn’t as good as Galito’s).

Last weekend we didn’t travel anywhere but we did go to some cafes here. They were so cute and had really good food, and I was also able to get some work done! There are a lot more cafes in Dar than I expected, but I’m not complaining, studying in cafes is one of my favorite things to do in Houston. There was a giant art collective really close to one of the cafes with the coolest paintings. I did cave and buy some things but I think they’re very valid purchases.

Now, you may have noticed that I am posting this blog a little earlier than usual, that’s because tomorrow at this time we will be in the Serengeti! We have a 5am flight out of Dar and we will be spending 4 days on a safari. In order to prepare for the early rise I’ve been trying to wake up at “safari time” so that I won’t fall asleep in the middle of the safari and miss seeing any lions. Have I been successful with safari time? No. But I’m hoping adrenaline and excitement will carry.

As always, thank you for reading this far and see you next time!

Hadi wakati mwingine,
Shreya ♡

Hello and welcome back to my blog! On our last episode, we had just figured out the heating elements for our incubator, had a basic display set-up, and had visited Bongoyo Island. Well, we’ve had a busy 2 weeks and there’s a lot to catch you guys up on.

In terms of work, we’ve made a lot of great progress with our incubator. We spent a lot of time figuring out the best set-up for the heating elements and testing out a lot of different options, but we finally found an arrangement that gets us up to 39 degrees Celsius in 20 minutes

using an 18V power source! We’ve incorporated 3 heating filaments, a fan, and a thermal insulation sheet.

Our controlling circuit has also multiplied to be able to set the temperature of the heaters, control the fan speed, show the values of all the different sensors, and we’re currently working on a pulse and SPO2 sensor as well. In the next few days, we’re going to be able to make a new box for the incubator and make a PCB from our Arduino circuit.

Also, last week, we had the chance to visit Amana Referral Hospital and get feedback on our incubator and the gastroschisis bag from doctors and nurses. We got a lot of really great insights that we worked to incorporate into our designs, and everyone seemed really excited by our projects.

But the incubator is not the only thing we have been working on. This week, we started on the syringe pump design. The project is almost complete; however, we were tasked with modifying the housing so that it can fit multiple sizes of syringes. We’ve been designing and 3D printing a lot of different pieces over the last few days to try and accommodate syringes ranging from a diameter of 0.25 inches to 1.5 inches.

And when we weren’t working, we’ve been having the time of our lives. These last 2 weeks have been so much fun. For our second weekend in Dar, we spent Saturday hauling our laundry to a laundromat and waiting for 4 hours for it to finish. Then on Sunday, we went to Kigamboni beach with our friends at DIT and spent the day swimming and trying to play kick shuttle, a game that Melissa brought that’s like soccer, but instead of a ball, it’s like a shuttlecock as pictured below (I was horrible at it).

During the 3rd week, it was my birthday, and everyone surprised me at dinner with cake. It was so sweet and fun. They have a tradition here where the birthday person gets asked questions like Who’s your best friend here? or Who’s your biggest opp here? and they feed a small piece of cake to that person.

Then our 3rd weekend was insane. We went to Zanzibar! Pictures could not capture how gorgeous it was. I genuinely did not know that the ocean could be those colors, definitely a giant step up from Galveston.

We got there Friday night and spent the evening exploring Stone Town, a world heritage site. Then we did a walking tour the next morning before heading to Jozani forest, where we did a nature walk and saw the endemic Red Colobus monkey. After Jozani, we headed up to Nungwi for the beach. The next morning, we went to Mnemba atoll for some snorkeling. The water was so clear, and we saw dolphins! They also gave us a fruit platter, and I have missed fruits so much; I really enjoyed that. Then, for our last day, we headed back to Stone Town so we could take a 15-minute boat ride to Chungu Island to see the endemic Aldabra giant tortoise. After the tortoises, we had a delicious lunch at the highest rooftop tea house (tea not included) in Zanzibar, then it was time to head out. It was such a fun trip filled with amazing experiences.

And we’re not done yet. This Wednesday, we went to the title decider of the Tanzanian Premier League (soccer) right here in Dar. The match was between the 2 biggest teams here, Simba and Yanga. All our friends here told us to root for Simba, but we accidentally ended up sitting in the Yanga section. The game was super fun and energetic, and Yanga did end up winning.

I can’t believe that we’re almost one month in, but I hope you guys will stick around for the rest of our adventures! Thank you for reading and see you next time.

Hadi wakati mwingine,
Shreya ♡

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 ♡