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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

 

Week 1: Openings & Orientations: June 10

Posted on by Shrutika Gupta

June.10.2023

Hello! My name is Shrutika, and I am a rising junior at Rice University from Jones. I am pursuing a B.S. in Biosciences and minors in Global Health Technologies and Medical Humanities. Along with Ojas and Annika, I will be traveling to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania this summer as part of the Rice360 internship.

This past week has been a whirlwind of insightful lectures, fun activities, and team-bonding exercises. I have enjoyed learning more about the importance of communication and ethical engagement, among various other topics as well. Without doubt, one of my favorite sessions so far has been the PhotoVoice presentation, an activity that has emphasized the wealth of stories that can be captured by single photographs. As we each presented five photos, common threads emerged: from travel-lovers to nature addicts to sports enthusiasts to engineers, we all had some connection to each other. As I prepare to travel abroad next week, I hope to continue forming these links. As an admittedly poor photographer, I probably won’t be taking too many new pictures; nonetheless, I hope that I can continue to add new stories and relationships to my own arsenal, and I am excited about the prospect of connecting with others and learning about their lived experiences.

The three of us will be working with and learning from the NEST360 team this summer. My project will take a mixed-methods approach to evaluating neonatal unit infrastructure in health facilities in Tanzania. I will be conducting a combination of quantitative analysis, such as analyzing floor plans, and qualitative work, including interviewing healthcare workers. Through this research, I aim to understand and inform on the impact of hospital infrastructure on the quality of care delivered.

This summer, I am looking forward to working with a diverse team of individuals from all across the world. I aspire to keep a beginner’s mindset in my journey, and I hope to gain a deeper context to factors that can affect healthcare. We will be departing for Dar es Salaam in a week, and I am both nervous and excited about what the next 7 weeks have in store for me!

Shrutika

Workshop Whizzes: Part 2

Posted on by Grant

Angela and I were tasked on adapting and implementing a version of the biomedical equipment troubleshooting workshop (taught as a senior elective to Rice BIOEs) at DIT. The workshop takes approximately two weeks to complete and is structured as a flipped classroom: prerecorded lecture videos explain the operating principles and various components of the devices, and students are left to open up the devices and troubleshoot instructor-created “breaks.”

There are six devices covered in the troubleshooting workshop that are present in most clinical settings:
Microscopes, Centrifuges, Sunction Pumps, Rerigerators, Syringe Pumps, and Oxygen Concentrators. At Rice, the workshop is taught in a lab space that contains multiple fully functional versions of each device. We brought a used Suction Pump with us from Rice, but we had no other equipment with us at DIT.

The classroom we were given to use as a workspace contained a lot of sophisticated laboratory equipment and medical devices donated by nonprofits and local hospitals, but the thick layer of dust on the equipment indicated that these devices hadn’t seen a lot of use. Students were quick to tell us that they had never seen most of the devices before, even when taking classes about those devices, and they had not been allowed to touch or operate the few devices they had seen before. This was confirmed by the instructors we spoke to, who expressed concerns about students potentially breaking expensive equipment.

Medical Equipment Sitting in the Telemedicine Room

All this was predicted by Dr. Renata Ramos, head of the BIOE curriculum at Rice and current teacher of the troubleshooting workshop. When we met with her before our trip, she explained that DIT and other unversities in the developing world simply didn’t have the resources to buy functional equipment and provide it to students to use and potentially destroy. The way the course is taught at Rice is incredibly expensive, requiring significant investment every year to repair equipment and buy replacement parts. Such a proposal at most universities in the world would seem laughable.

So our task at DIT was to adapt the structure of the course to make it feasible and sustainable to teach in this environment. But how to teach a troubleshooting workshop without access to equipment? We didn’t want the students to sit through yet another course that focused on theory without any practical application.

We concentrated on using the resources we had to source equipment and materials for our workshop. For our firs session on the microscope, we were able to acquire a microscope from the DIT dispensary and a nonfunctional microscope from our workspace. After watching the videos and learning about the device, the DIT interns were able to operate and take apart the device. For many, it was their first time using a microscope and identifying electronic components in a circuit.

The next day, we were also able to work on some microscopes donated by Aga Khan Hospital, which has a partnership with DIT that donates used equipment for instruction.* The microscopes were broken, and we were able to fix them in collaboration with the DIT interns. Using the maintenance guidelines from the course, we cleaned and repaired the microscopes to improve image quality. It was immensely gratifying to see them turn their newfound knowledge into tangible equipment fixes and mainte.


Repairing Microscopes

The workshop continued on like this, with me and Angela improvising at every turn to source equipment. For refrigerators, we trekked over to our hotel room to dissect our minifridges. For centrifuges, we borrowed a delapidated centrifuge from the DIT dispensary and added a safety switch mechanism. And for oxygen concentrators and syringe pumps, we visited Muhimbili National Hospital to help them troubleshoot some broken equipment.

Repairing a “Broken” Refrigerator

In the interest of sustainability, we were able to take constructive steps to add functionality or fix worn-out equipment instead of taking already-working equipment and breaking it. We also had to modify the structure of the course and supplement its contents to suit the needs of the DIT interns. After each session, we sent out a survey asking anonymous questions about the usefulness of the session and desires for future changes or instruction. Once we realized that the interns had little experience working with circuits or electronics, we added instruction about basic circuit components and implemented a brief soldering workshop to teach proper soldering techniques.

Soldering Workshop

* Note: we also bore witness to one of the more gnarly aspects of equipment donation to resource-poor institutions. On one of our first days at DIT, we were suddenly summoned by an administrator to help with unloading an 18-wheeler truck loaded with 5 huge, 900-pound Vitros chemistry analyzers from Aga Khan Hospial. Much fanfare was made celebrating the donation and official handshakes exchanged, but the sad truth apparent to everyone present was that the analyzers belonged in a junkyard. The huge metal and plastic shells were broken beyond repair, stripped of everything of possible value (processors, monitors, and samplers were all notably absent). They were placed in a classroom at DIT, where they will likely sit for years accumulating dust.

We frequently hear about the harms of donating faulty or improperly maintained equipment to the developing world. Here was an in-your-face example of the possible impacts even further downstream.


Chemistry analyzers taking up space in a DIT classroom

 

7. A new project

Posted on by Angela

This week, we finished up the electronics teaching modules and then found a new project to work on! Dr. Moshi, one of the professors in the electrical engineering department, asked us to help review the proposed revisions for the new biomedical curriculum to be implemented in the fall.

This past year, I was one of 7 students on the Rice BIOE department’s Advisory Board. We surveyed fellow students, researched other schools’ programs, and wrote reports making recommendations for changes to our curriculum. Getting the chance to help improve DIT’s BME curriculum was super exciting, especially since our fellow interns have been telling us about its many weaknesses since day 1.

We spent a few days collecting feedback on the proposed curriculum from current and former students. Overall, they were pleased with most of the changes: reducing unnecessary modules from 12 per semester to 9, combining courses that didn’t have enough material to be stand-alone modules, and adding more practical content.

We then spent a day working with Dr. Moshi to better understand the content of the proposed curriculum and go over the comments and feedback we received from the DIT interns. The new curriculum should provide a better and more-well rounded education for future DIT students. However, many more changes will be necessary before it can be effectively implemented.

Many of the problems with the current curriculum seem to lie with lack of practical skills and fundamental knowledge. We anonymously surveyed more than 15 students and found some concerning results. Students overwhelmingly complained that the large number of modules “kept them busy” with unnecessary information rather than allowing them to focus on important core modules. They also told us that lecturers of biomedical courses often did not show up, and for some classes have only attended 1 or 2 lectures the entire semesters. This forces students to basically guess at what would be covered by midterms and final exams. Even when they did show up, there was no syllabus or course plan for the class, so lecture content was determined by the depth of the instructor’s knowledge rather than importance of each topic. They want more support, both in terms of money and instructor guidance, during their final year design project. And finally, students emphasized a need for practical experience in their coursework, from learning basic electronics skills to actually seeing and being able to take apart the equipment they are learning how to maintain and troubleshoot.

The new curriculum seems to alleviate some of these problems. The overall number of modules has been reduced, and hours have seemingly been set aside for practicals. We’ve also pointed out modules where the Rice troubleshooting course can be implemented and provided example circuits and teaching materials for learning practical electronics. However, instructors must be held responsible for attending lectures and actually communicating the knowledge that they’re hired to teach.

One method we suggested was to have instructors create course syllabi and schedules for the semester. This would also help students understand how much each subtopic is emphasized and provides a study guide. Finally, a syllabus would hopefully ensure that scheduled practicals actually occur as planned. We sent Dr. Moshi a few examples of Rice course syllabi, which we hope will provide a good starting point. Dr. Moshi seems excited about the new curriculum’s potential, but acknowledges that it’ll be a lot of work. He predicts that his fellow instructors will be resistant to creating the documents, so the responsibility to create and reinforce the syllabi may fall on him.

Dr. Moshi seems to be somewhat of a visionary in terms of trying to change DIT’s education system. He’s in charge of curriculum for 8 degree programs and recently attended a conference on active learning in Malawi headed by Drs. Matthew Wettergreen (current Rice engineering lecturer) and Ann Saterbak (former Rice professor and basically the creator of Rice BIOE). He came back from the conference with lots of ideas for improving the BME curriculum by implementing more practical project-based learning. Though he seems so stressed out already, I hope that he will be able to fulfill his dream of creating a more effective curriculum.

6. Marafiki: Friends

Posted on by Angela

This past week was Week 5 out of 7. While we waited for a response from Muhimbili, we worked on the two projects we developed during Dr. Leautaud’s visit. For the electronics modules, we taught the DIT interns how each component worked, then how to use a breadboard, and finally how to assemble the circuit on a through-hole board. We also created some guidance documents on using a DMM, breadboarding, and soldering. As for the centrifuge safety switch, we successfully modified the two centrifuges we had available so that the motor only runs when the lid is closed. All we needed for each circuit was a small push button, epoxy, and some wire- a really simple but effective solution that will help protect future device users.

Watching the interns put these two projects together made me feel really proud! We were able to teach them some new skills and provide some more practical experience. The feedback for the electronics modules was especially positive; it seems that they would be an effective teaching tool if incorporated into their coursework or offered by the new design workshop.

While we didn’t receive a response from Muhimbili last week, we did get permission to visit Aga Khan. Our intern group was able to see more of the new facilities and talk to a nurse in the maternity ward. Aga Khan definitely has more resources than Muhimbili does, including newer facilities and equipment and a lower baby:nurse ratio. The two technologies that we’re especially interested in, phototherapy for neonatal jaundice and syringe pumps, are used frequently there, but the nurses rarely have problems with the devices. I’m glad that we were able to visit Aga Khan, whose maternity and neonatal care practices seem to be working well. If we get a chance to talk to a nurse or doctor at Muhimbili, I wonder what differences we’ll see. I also wonder how the DIT interns will view those differences, in terms of a potential workplace.

Though at times things have moved more slowly than I would have liked, I’m also surprised that the end of our internship is so near! There’s so much that we would still like to do here: get faculty feedback on the proposed OEDK space, help with curriculum revision, and visit Muhimbili again. But we’ve accomplished a lot too, from piloting the troubleshooting course to teaching the interns how to solder. Most importantly, we’ve developed strong relationships with the DIT interns and our supervisors. On Saturday, after our visit to Aga Khan, we had all the interns and Madam Kianja come over to our apartment for a lunch featuring Italian, Chinese, and American dishes. We had a great time and I hope that we can spend more time together outside of work before the end of the internship!

5. Matata: Trouble

Posted on by Angela

This week we finally got a chance to go to Muhimbili. We spent 3 days there working with the technicians and helping troubleshoot equipment. There are a lot of broken devices here! Much of it sits in the BME department’s main workshop, waiting for spare parts from dealers or other cannibalized equipment. If broken parts can’t be obtained or the device can’t be fixed, then it is “condemned”: stored in the courtyard for an annual public auction. Additionally, Muhimbili seems to depend on inconsistent government funding and donations from NGOs to obtain new equipment, unlike Aga Khan which replaces its equipment after 5 years. Thus, the hospital has many brands of the same type of equipment, but parts in those devices are not analogous with each other, resulting in even more machines collecting dust in the workshop. I wonder how this lack of functioning equipment affects Muhimbili’s patients, doctors, and nurses, and if there are any technologies that Rice and DIT students could develop to help.

The BME workshop/ device graveyard

We were also able to see some of the hospital wards, like maternity and the surgical ICU. Unfortunately, we found that we had yet another obstacle to overcome: while we were allowed to work alongside the BME department, we had not received authorization to ask doctors and nurses questions about neonatal and maternal care. We’ve now written and submitted yet another letter that specifically requests permission to do so, and I hope that it is approved soon.

Fixing an infant warmer

While I’m getting more accustomed to the slower pace here, peeling back these layers of red tape is incredibly frustrating. My main goal for this internship is to learn about patient care in a low-resource setting. I hope to compare the standard of care, available facilities, and patient/provider needs here with those at the hospitals and clinics I will be trained at when I begin medical school in the fall. Of course, I expect that the technologies and resources in an American hospital would far exceed those at Muhimbili or Aga Khan, but I wonder if those advancements have any trade-offs that might be revealed when talking to healthcare providers here. Furthermore, I am really interested in observing patient care that occurs in a different culture and language.

On Thursday, Grant and I attended a signing ceremony of a memorandum of understanding between Rice and DIT. We witnessed the principal of DIT sign the document and said a few words about our schools’ partnership. I’m excited to see what the internship looks like in a few years’ time! Hopefully, pushing through all of our current difficulties will pave the way for future interns here.

Signing ceremony

Finally, some bad news. We spent the weekend in Zanzibar, which was beautiful and lots of fun! But Gilden was right to be worried about my phone; it was stolen while we were there. 🙁 Sadly, my future posts will probably not have pictures. Note to future interns, especially wearers of pants for women: your pockets are not a safe place for your phone!!

Workshop Whizzes (Part 1)

Posted on by Grant

One of the main goals for our internship was for Angela and I to pilot a biomedical equipment troubleshooting workshop for DIT students and find ways to integrate the workshop into the biomedical engineering curriculum. Keeping with this goal, we worked with DIT students, graduates, and lecturers to understand the curriculum and education system here.

At DIT, the biomedical engineering program is still relatively new (the first class matriculated 5 years ago), and the nascent department is housed under the electrical engineering department. In all of Tanzania, there are currently only two universities offer programs in biomedical engineering: DIT (where the highest degree offered is a technical diploma) and Arusha Technical College (where students can earn up to a Bachelo’s.)

The biomedical engineering curriculum at DIT lasts 3 years, and students accrue additional certifications at the end of each year (levels 5-7 in the chart below). In between years of study, students have the chance to go on Industrial Practical Training (IPT), a 2-month job shadowing opportunity that embeds students in the engineering departments of hospitals across Tanzania and even internationally.

Students take 12 modules per semester: 6 core courses (typically centered on a particular medical device) and 6 general education requirements (math, physics, finance, and the ilk). Grades are determined by high-stakes midterms (40%) and final exams (60%). All this sounds fairly banal, and you may wonder why I am going into such detail about these education requirements. Had Angela and I stopped after this assessment, we may not have seen a role for ourselves in the coursework here. However, peeling back some layers and asking questions of current and former students revealed some disparities between the curriculum’s design and practice.

For virtually all of their core classes (half of their coursework), our fellow interns had either never met their lecturers or met them only once. Their teachers, they explained, were typically busy professionals and adjuncts who lived and worked far away, so they rarely (if ever) show up to scheduled classes. Students end up attending fewer than half of the lectures on their syllabus, and they are left to study on their own and guess at what material will be covered on their exams. Even when lecturers make an appearance, they teach theoretical concepts without demonstrating on real devices. The students’ core curriculum is supposed to include 2 sessions of practical lab work per week, but almost all the sessions are cancelled or never scheduled.

The list of grievances go on, but students cite 2 major problems again and again with their education: lack of instructors and lack of practical training. This leads them to feel unprepared when they go for IPT or enter the workforce. When asked about DIT graduates, the head of engineering at Aga Khan hospital noted that they lack the required technical skillsets.

The challenges faced by DIT are compounded by the fact that the national government is pushing DIT to establish a Bachelors program for biomedical engineering. As Mr. Moshi, the head of curriculum for the biomedical engineering explained to us, the degree-conferring system in Tanzania is strictly hierarchical, with National Technical Association (NTA) levels assigned to each degree (detailed in the chart below). Instructors in a particular program must have an education level at least 1 above the students they are instructing (i.e. a Masters or above is required to teach Bachelors coursework). The current biomedical engineering staff, already spread thin, does not have lecturers qualified to teach Bachelors courses. Moshi expressed worries that he would have to hire unreliable adjuncts that were unlikely to stick around to teach upper-level coursework.  
Source: Tanzanian National Commission for Universities Qualification Framework

Armed with this enhanced understanding of the educational bacground at DIT, Angela and I set out to pilot the Rice biomedical equipment troubleshooting workshop.