The Dawn of a Great Exchange
The beginning of every journey is exciting to not only the beginner but also the people around them. Besides the excitement, the start always has people questioning and wondering what it entails. This was no different for me. I had always wanted to be a part of this internship since I was in second year and it coming to pass was really a dream come true.
The first day was not only exciting but full of questions that could not be uttered in words. I was looking forward to being part of the “internship for the elites” as we students called it. The day was full of introductions to the whole team of interns which comprises of really amazing humans that are friendly and welcoming. I also got introduced to the team I would be working with throughout the internship, well it was both exciting and scary since making new friends has never been one of my best suites.
Our projects were also given to us on the same day and I felt an adrenaline rush in my body, perhaps challenges have that effect on me. It might have also been the excitement of working on some real-life problems that I never thought of before. Expectations for the internship were laid down and a schedule of activities was given to us. We were also introduced to our teaching assistants, the design studio technician and the studio managers. We later went out for lunch together, what a better way to know each other than over food. The afternoon was mostly about learning the safety rules for the studio and information we needed to know about the studio like where tools were stored in case, we wanted to use them during our stay.
On the second day, we focused on understanding our projects and brainstorming on a third project. My team was assigned to work on a pulse oximeter and Dental mouth opener. Will Moyo gave us a brief workshop on clarifying team assignment and understanding the problem which aided in my understanding of the projects. We also got contacts to the people we needed to fully understand the current device and its problems. The following day we had a Needs finding workshop with Mr. Mafuta and Mr. Ng’anjo who are both MUBAS lecturers and it was really an eye-opening session. I learnt the dos and don’ts in finding a project to pursue. The next two days were focused on clarifying on what we were supposed to do and we managed to meet George Banda of NEST 360 who helped us understand how a pulse oximeter works and what improvements we could make.