Summer Heat and Tired Feet

I have just complete the long awaited first week of SEED. It was filled with a lot of heat, some cool new friends both from Rice and Brazil, and a little bit of learning. Scratch that… we did a LOT of learning.

The first day was packed with an insane amount of excitement. Waking up at 7 AM for the first time since the middle of the school year was an experience in itself. But, once I saw the smiling faces of my soon-to-be new friends, I suddenly felt a bit less tired and remembered why I wanted to do SEED in the first place. Through icebreakers I learned the names of the 10 other students and some interesting facts about everyone. Even though we are all engineers, there’s a lot that differentiates us, especially with such a diverse group. Even before we had culture presentations, I was learning about the different college system in Brazil and some of the things the Brazilian students do in their free time. I got to know even more about my peers after a surprise visit to the zoo. We did get a little lost on the way there, but made it all the same and bonded over the fact that it was around 90 degrees outside. In fact, I learned all about everyone’s love for dippin’ dots. Since we knew we would be designing some type of device for the zoo, we spent time looking at the devices that were already in use for the animals.

The next day was essentially the start of SEED in my opinion. Once we knew everyone, it was time to learn about information that could help us during the rest of the program. We began with the decomposition of a copy machine and an engine of some sort. Having never taken apart something so complex, I was fascinated by the inner workings of the copy machine. There must have been around 1000 screws and 50 circuit boards throughout the entire machine. Just taking it apart showed me how much effort and planning had to go into manufacturing each of the parts.

               

These are pictures of the printer as we were decomposing it.

Later that day, my group presented about student life in Brazil vs. in the United States as a part of the cultural presentations. Out of everything we have done in SEED so far, this is one of the activities that has stuck with me the most. I love learning about cultural differences and how life operates in different places around the world. Some of the most interesting things that I learned were about the college system in Brazil. Rather than having a campus that students live on, they have a campus built just for the classes while the students live outside in apartments or at home. Even though I am having a great time in the American college system, I can also see the merits of having a system similar to the one in Brazil.

To close the day, we found out the animal that we will be designing an enrichment device for. The tapir is an animal that is large, kind of like a hippo, and has a long snout that it uses to shovel food into its mouth.

On Wednesday, we took another trip to the zoo. We walked there in record time too ! This time, we went specifically to talk to Memory, the zookeeper able to answer questions about the tapir enrichment device. Our list of around 60 questions was compiled into a much needed shorter list of around 20 important questions. Upon learning about Noah, Moli, and the capybara Matilta (see picture below), my group and I had a sense of the restrictions we would have to place on the enrichment device. Memory also showed us some previous designs for the devices that she suggested we improve on. The blue barrel gave us a sense of the hole size and a possible design for our creation.

             

The rest of the week centered on the crash course in engineering design. I wasn’t sure how much I’d learn from a second time hearing the material, but to my surprise, there was a lot of information that I had forgotten about. Going over the steps again was definitely a necessary addition to SEED.

I am very happy with the people I’ve met so far this week and can’t wait to spend some more time with them! See you next week.

P.S. I ate a lot of snap peas this week so I might turn into one.

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