About Me
Hello! I am Hamza Shili, a rising sophomore at Lovett College studying Computer Science and Mathematical Economic Analysis. I joined SEED because the program combines both my passion for engineering design and social impact. I felt that it would be a great opportunity to introduce me to the standards of working in the industry while also helping me develop personally and professionally. Throughout the past week, most of my expectations were met and I’m more than excited to give you an overview.
First Week
Dr. Taylor’s energy was unmatched during the welcome session. It felt very amazing to meet our mentors, hear their experience in impact-driven design and get to know fellow interns. Upon announcement of teams and projects, I felt very excited to work on the Smart Helmet Project, and this was the birth of team H&H. We were tasked with adding a haptic feedback system to a smart helmet designed for military soldiers to give them a better understanding of their surroundings on the battlefield. My teammates are Jun Chu, Firas Elkaissi, and Jesus Guajardo, and I am more than thrilled to work with them and learn from their previous experiences.
Throughout the week, we focused on understanding the problem and the context surrounding military helmets and haptic feedback systems. As a team, we created a chart of potential users and stakeholders of the Smart Helmet and ranked them according to the scope of usability (from direct users such as soldiers to involved institutions like the Naval Institute of Research and Military Academies). You can see the chart below.
Moreover, we had the opportunity to meet Mr. David Kimmey and Ms. Sonia Sosa Saenz from the Rice 360 Institute for Global Health during the Networking Lunch. Listening to their experience in working with low-resource communities helped us understand some of the challenges that we might encounter during our prototyping. After lunch, we engaged in an interesting hand tools workshop during which we learned how to use several tools (such as saws, screwdrivers, glue, etc) to make a bat house.
Towards the end of the week, we met with a representative of the previous team that worked on our project to understand the sensors that were already involved. We were also able to visit the MAHI Lab in the BRC and get the haptic kit that we are supposed to integrate into the Helmet. During our visit, we met Ph.D. student Zane Zook who introduced us to the science behind the haptic kit as well as Syntactics which is the software used to control it. We ended our first week by updating our clients on our progress by sending them our first technical memo.
My experience during the first week of SEED has been amazing so far. I cannot wait to meet some of our users, become more familiar with the haptic kit, and work on defining the design criteria for the projects.