The Value of a prototype is in the education it gives you, not in the code itself - Amari Cooper
The week began with a meeting with Madalitso Fadson, Dalitso Kathyola, and Emmanuel Ngwala from my group. We went over all the deliverables we had stated on the prototype presentations from the week before, and these were the ones we had set for Friday: Training kits, a development project for a vein finder (circuit design, image processing functionality, and a 3D model of the system), and a systems engineering project for a newborn monitor are all available (complete circuit design,inclusion of the bed design and fucntionallity of the sensor in detecting neonatal parameters). We also held a workshop with BuhleTshabangu-Moyo at 10 a.m. The workshop's main focus was on effective methods of presenting and communication for conveying concepts. The workshop was held on at 10 AM to 1 PM. The meeting was held on Zoom. In order to strengthen our group's sense of teamwork, group 1 (Traveinea) divided the deliverables among ourselves after the meeting. I was given the task of working on the Neonatal Monitor's power supply system, the Vein Finder's projection system, and the Laparoscopic Training Kit's capturing mechanism.
The US ambassador to Malawi, David Young, paid a visit to the design studio the following day of the week. He was accompanied by Vice Chancellor Prof. Nancy Chitera. We were thrilled to show the Ambassador all of our Low Fidelity Prototypes, and he was equally pleased with the projects we are working on because they will significantly benefit Malawi in general, particularly in the medical sector. I began working on the vein finder's projection system in the afternoon, primarily by figuring out how to connect the projector (DLPDLCR2000EVM) and the Raspberry Pi.
After figuring it out, I started working on the piCamera for the Laparoscopic Training kit. However, I ran into some issues with the connector of the piCamera to the Raspberry Pi. On Wednesday, I continued working on the connections of the projector to the Raspberry Pi. In the afternoon, I also began working on the Neonatal Monitor's power supply. I was determining the charging system, the type of battery in light of our design criteria, as well as the step-up transformer component.
The vein finder projection portion and the piCamera system of the neonatal monitor were completed on Thursday with the assistance of our teaching assistant, Brenard Dzonzi. With my pals, we began to work on the links between all of our work and the prototype in the afternoon.
In the morning on Friday, Team Traveinea continued to connect all the components needed for the afternoon prototype presentation. Later in the afternoon, Team Traveinea presented all the work we had completed throughout the week to Dr. Chepuka, Ms. Will Moyo, Mr. Hillary Lodzanyama, our TAs, and our fellow interns from MUST and MUBAS. We received positive feedback on the work we had completed, as well as suggestions for improvements to make to our project.
In conclusion, the week was brief because we had to work on all of the prototype deliverables and attend workshops, but Praise the Almighty God that we were able to meet the managers' demands with the help of our TAs, who had been collaborating with us to ensure that we met this week's deadlines.