Fourth of July and a Big Pizza Pie

This week was quite the rollercoaster of excitement. It started off with my team finding our solution! YAY! We learned that signal processing does not always mean what you think it means… Princess Bride anyone? We had our presentations which we prepared for in a total of 4 hours. We had our Fourth of July party and saw incredible fireworks from the top of Martel. And we determined that we would have to test around 100 different syringes to make sure our solution works the way it should. Wow that was a lot!!

Just as a refresher, my team is working on a syringe calibration device that will allow the Kasupe (a syringe pump used in Malawi) to function properly with any syringe, whether it is branded, unbranded, 5 mL, 60 mL, or anywhere in between. For a long time, my team had been researching the types of sensors that could find the inner diameter of a syringe. To our dismay, none of the sensors that we thought could work would actually work. This includes ultrasonic, infrared, camera, and flow rate. So we backtracked and looked more closely at our most laughed at solution: LINES. Yes, lines.

Let me explain… There are sensors that are already on the Kasupe that can help us determine dimensions like outer diameter. And we will use this sensor. But to make it more accurate, we will create an algorithm that takes in other dimensions like the distance between two markings on a syringe and finds the similarities between the two dimensions. The lines themselves will be added to the Kasupe and will be a known distance apart. When the nurse gets the syringe ready to use, they line the syringe up with the lines and enter the volume at the two lines into the Kasupe. Kasupe/our code in the Kasupe will do the rest of the work.

 

On Tuesday we had our presentation. Arisa almost passed out. So that was not great. That pretty much sums up the presentation.

Wednesday was THE FOURTH OF JULY!!!!! Cue the “Chicken Fried” music. We had a great cookout in the back of Martel and then went up to the fifth floor balcony to watch the fireworks. It was an amazing time! However, we had some difficulties getting the charcoal to light on fire. Note to self: make sure that you get the right type of charcoal… make sure you grab the one that doesn’t need lighter fluid if you don’t plan on buying lighter fluid. Yikes.

 

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Tomorrow, we will be having our next SEED lunch! I believe a pizza pie is in my future!!

P.S. I think I should bring some snap peas to share???

One Response

  1. Carolyn Huff at |

    I love the photo of all of you.

    Your confidence is apparent in this piece of writing as well as in the one before it.

    Reply

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