Hello, I’m Nneoma Ome and I’m a rising sophomore hailing from Sugar Land, Texas. That was my standard introduction. My Rice introduction would be: I am a Bioengineering major from McMurtry College … MURRRRTTTT! While I’ve only been at Rice for an academic year, but I have made the most of my time here and made it my mission to be involved in campus organizations and activities that resonate with me. I am excited about my roles as the Rice Student Association Wellbeing Committee Chair, a McMurtry O-Week advisor, and a McMurtry Associate Justice.

In addition to being involved with various extracurricular engagements, I also made an active effort to explore the academic opportunities available to me as a Rice student. This pursuit landed in ENGI 120: Introduction to Engineering Design this previous semester. Although ENGI 120 intrigued me, I was very nervous to take the class because I was worried that my previous design experience from AP Physics I and AP Physics C in high school would not be adequate. Luckily, my dad encouraged me to take the class, and assured me that all the necessary skills and resources for success would be made available to us students. I think he was so convinced because we made numerous visits to Rice when I was a prospie. On one particular visit, we attended a talk featuring deans and associates deans from the various schools. The representative for the School of Engineering happened to be Dr. Bart Sinclair. Dr. Sinclair stressed the importance of students being involved in hands-on experiences early on in their academic careers.  He also encouraged the prospies to tour the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK). From then on, I was destined to participate in Freshman Design.

Taking ENGI 120 this spring was a blessing because in addition to learning how to tackle engineering challenges and becoming more confident in my design abilities, I was also able to learn about the Summer Experience in Engineering Design (SEED) program. I am excited to participate in SEED for numerous reasons, including insight into day-to-day life as a working engineer (with working hours from 8AM – 5PM), another chance to design innovative devices, and the invaluable opportunity to gain practical experience in engineering design. I am also delighted to once again work in an interdisciplinary engineering team with the new twist of the team consisting of international students from Malawi and Tanzania.

 

Monday June 10, 2019

Monday was the first day of work, and luckily, we had a start time of 9AM, so there was an extra hour of sleep made available to us, interns. (I should have cherished it more.) I was excited to meet the students from Rice that I did not already know as well as the six visiting students from Malawi. (Unfortunately, the Tanzanian students had not arrived yet.) After the initial introductions and a welcome 15-20 minutes of icebreakers, we set out for the Houston Zoo. While on our journey from the OEDK, past the main gate entrance, across Main Street and the MetroRail and finally, into Hermann Park, I couldn’t shake the feeling that being on campus felt so strange, even though school had concluded only 5 weeks ago. Well, I hope the old adage, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” is true; although, I’ve come to believe that proximity is really what makes one fonder.

Once at the Zoo, we split up into two teams of and set off on a scavenger hunt to solve the riddle: “What do you get from a bad tempered shark?” (Answer: “As far away as possible.”) The adventure was fun and I felt like I was rediscovering the Zoo considering that the last visit I made was in 8th grade. My team consisted of Andrew, Corbin, Eduardo, and myself. After the zoo trip, I can definitely say I completed my workout for the day (and probably two times over.) I had completed 10,000+ steps by noon and it was super hot, y’all.

 

Tuesday June 11, 2019

This was probably the best day so far. Mid-morning, we had a Deconstruction Lab which is exactly what it sounds like – taking apart devices instead of putting them together. I took apart an old Motorola DVR and a Dell desktop monitor screen. I’ve never had the opportunity or proper assemblage tools necessary to take apart old and damaged devices before, so I thoroughly enjoyed this. Sometimes taking apart something tells a better story about how something was put together than anything else. It was some pretty cool stuff.

In the afternoon, we were divided into teams to make and present slides that highlighted the similarities and differences between the countries represented by universities of the SEED interns. This was a blast. There were lots of laughs and digressions in conversations as we explored the university life, big culture (overarching cultural aspects), and little culture (day-to-day interactions) of the countries.

At the end of the day, we were pitched our first project of the summer: a mini-project that involves creating an enrichment device for a red river hog named Luna that lives in the Houston Zoo.

 

Wednesday June 12, 2019

The time and arrived when we were expected to conduct client interviews. With a freshly printed list of questions and one of the designated interviewer roles (I volunteered), we headed over to the Houston Zoo; although, we took a new (and must faster route)  by cutting past the Cambridge Building and Lovett College to the side of Hermann Park that faced the Texas Medical Center.

Once at the zoo, we were given official guest stickers so we could access the off-limits zones and meet with our client, one of the zookeepers who oversees the hogs. Our discussion with the zookeeper, our visit to the hog stalls, and our inspection of the enrichment devices currently in use gave us more insight into the behavior of Luna, the red river hog, and clarity on how to approach this challenge.

We also discovered that slow and steady indeed wins the race. My team, Team Bear, won the challenge of creating something that would withstand the weight of a textbook while providing it with the highest elevation using only 6 sheets of paper, a foot of string, a pair of scissors, and an unlimited amount of tape. Eduardo had the brilliant idea to make bases for the textbook by cutting each sheet into fourth, rolling it into a cylindrical shape, and taping it closed. We then taped them in clusters of five and placed them where each corner of the textbook would be and one cluster of four in the center. Even though we spent most of the 20 minute period cutting and tapping paper together, we were able to assemble and tested our idea before time ran out. (This boosted our confidence that we could win because it was very sturdy.) Lo and behold, Team Bear took the win with a proud 4 3/8″ height from the table (apparently, the extra height from our unused piece of string we placed last minute on the textbook is negligible) while all the other designs ultimately crumbled when the book was placed on them.

We then moved on to conducting more research about our zoo project. We  discovered there are at least 3-4 existing patents for hog-specific puzzle feeders .

Thursday June 13, 2019

Brainstorming’s the name of the game, as we soon found out today. From utilizing the Card Method and Writing Slip Method to find wild ideas, to creating charts galore, we had an busy afternoon. It’s not over though, as we still have the Pugh Screening and Pugh Scoring charts to look forward to bright and early tomorrow morning. Wish us good luck, Charlie!

Our Morphological Chart.It’s been an exciting and eventful week, but I am excited for the weekend. It has been a struggle adjusting to the 9 hour days (and 2 hour commute times) and I can’t wait to sleep in past 6:15 AM once again.

In closing, Week One Bites the Dust.

 

SEED you next week,

Nneoma

 

P.S. You can find a list of the Rice lingo used in this post and their definitions below. Enjoy!

 

Rice Student Glossary

MURRRRTTTT – Emphatic chant of Rice’s biggest and best residential college, McMurtry College. Students not associated with McMurtry can often be seen cowering in fear as Murts shout this from the bottom of their lungs.

prospie – prospective student; one who is considering applying to Rice, or is currently in the application process