My Internship Experience - Week 3
This was quiet an eventful week. On Monday is when we started putting all the data we had acquired from the internet and interviews to use. Prototypes for all the three projects were being made. In that day, we experimented with colored water, led light and laser light to see how well our winning concept for the suction tank monitor would work. In our experiment, laser light worked well and that is what we are using.
In the first picture, we aligned the laser light with the light dependent resistor (LDR). When the tank is empty, the laser light hits the LDR directly on point but when the tank is filled with water, the light is refracted and not hitting the LDR. This will cause an alarm to go off signaling the medical personnel using the device that the tank needs to be emptied.
For the dental mouth opener, we started printing a prototype which in the end turned out to be small. We later had to adjust the dimensions to make it bigger. We used the 3-D printer for this. It is a combination of the bite block and the dental mouth opener. This was printed on the 3-D printer. For the pulse oximeter, we experimented using the heart beat sensor, Arduino Uno and a monitor to see if the oxygen concentration would be led well. Our challenge was that it was very unstable at the beginning and we had the task of figuring out why and how we can improve it.
Below is a picture of our experiment with the pulse oximeter.
On Tuesday, we had a workshop with Dineo Katane-Mkwezalamba from Dzuka Africa. I can’t even begin to explain how my eyes were opened from this workshop. I realized from here that in trying to establish myself in business, I haven’t given it my all. I was in it half hearted and that needs to change. I was inspired to put so many things in order and give my businesses all my heart and a lot of energy.
On Wednesday, was equally eye opening. We had another workshop with Dr. Doug Sanyahumbi on entrepreneurship. It is indeed the greatest feeling when you realize what you have been missing and knowing that you can do better. That is exactly how I felt. Everything he was saying was so significant that I felt the need to write down literally everything that was coming out from his mouth but my hand wasn’t fast enough. In other moments, I had to just quietly sit and just take it all in because it was all too amazing in every way. The day ended with us taking some pictures with Dr. Doug.
A review of the prototypes was done on Thursday and Friday and changes were made so that things can be done better. A bigger design of the dental mouth opener was produced, we had to switch from using Arduino Uno to Arduino Nano for the pulse oximeter and we started physically implementing the idea we had for the suction tank monitor.
Below is the improved design of the dental mouth opener. The week was then concluded.