Hello Everyone,

It is the fourth week and the SEED is blooming. I would say we are on the stage where the farmer had uproot the weeds to make sure the seedlings grow better. This was the week we had to make presentations and before Tuesday i was so nervous of how am going to do the presentations. I had to learn the pronunciation of several words over and over again and that made me more nervous.

“RENDERINGS”        “DYSTROPHY”

Before I started preparing for the presentations, as a group we set targets to finish before the day for the presentations. we were to screen our brainstormed solutions to determine the feasible solutions and score them to find the best solution. This was a challenging experience. It was so because we had to set standards and quantifiable scales in which we could use to score the solutions without bias and no parameter left uncovered. The process took us the whole of Friday last week and we still did not finish scoring. We had a lot of help from our teaching assistants and Faculty mentor that helped us to have a whole new way of viewing the scoring matrices.

We finished scoring on Monday morning. The solution that scored best was the solution we nicknamed “Iron Throne”. the Iron Throne is a design that uses a solid frame for the back and seat, it has a telescopic frame to adjust the height, ratchet hinge to adjust forward, lumbar/ lower support, side neck supports in a design similar to travel pillows. The strapping will be in form of  a breastplate. We reviewed our scoring and it was also reviewed by our teaching assistants, Grant and Aldufo. The Faculty mentor was quite pleased and that gave us confidence to go forward.

 

CAD Drawing of the Iron Throne Low fidelity prototype of the Iron Throne

 

The presentation was done on Tuesday, yesterday, so we started preparing for it on Monday. Making the presentation was not as hard as we document most of our work everyday but for me i had to make sure i familiarize myself with every word and be able to give explanations to illustrate our idea to people that might be hearing about it for the first time. That meant learning new words and practice, It was not easy but I put my heart into it and i tried my best. We had two practice sessions with our teaching assistants which boosted my confidence and their feedback helped me to improve in my presenting techniques. I was encouraged by Cordbin one of the Rice Students to speak slowly with emphasis and I used that and it made it all better.

Presenting

The presentations day was awesome for me and watching our friends present was so great. The feedback was  good and I wouldn’t be more proud of me from not panicking. Yesterday ended by baking in the Martel kitchen and it was a huge success. So its confirmed I can bake anywhere in the world!

Today, we started making a medium fidelity prototype which is progressing so well, you will get to see it next week. Making this prototype, I have to sew and that has been interesting especially the manual part. I also 3D printed my own little purse for practice. I can now officially 3D Print myself, that’s cool.

So today we are going to the Dynamo game, great way to start the long weekend for the Independence Holiday. So many things planned for this weekend and as it happens America’s Independence coincides with Malawi’s Independence which is on the 6th July. So this weekend double independence cerebration, I couldn’t be in the US at a better time!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See you next week

Chiso