Hello again! The second week has been even busier, full of workshops and meetings. We’ve almost finished covering the engineering design process, which will mean we can spend more time focusing and working specifically on our projects. By the start of this week, we were all familiar with each other’s projects, and it’s been great getting to bounce ideas off of other interns. Everyone is excited to see what the other teams are doing and to learn from each other. Beyond the projects, we’ve had an opportunity to get to know each other, and it’s been really fun to hear about everyone’s experiences and perspectives.

For my team, this week was really about expanding and solidifying our understanding of the problem motivating the project. We were able to speak with several members of the Rice 360 team about their personal experiences in the relevant clinical settings, as well as explore potential solution paths with each of them. These meetings were really valuable as we work to compile as much background information as possible, and they also helped frame our idea of what exactly we should be working towards this summer.

As a team taking on a brand new project, it’s easy to try to jump to solution brainstorming and prototyping as soon as possible. It’s also easy to feel pressure to keep up with the other teams that have inherited prototypes to work with. Meeting with Abby, Josh, Sonia, and Jackie at Rice 360 let us talk through what will be most helpful to future teams that will take this project on. We would love to get to start prototyping by the later weeks of the program, but our main priority is collecting in-depth, detailed background research and then doing benchmarking to understand exactly what is needed from this solution. Especially in global health, taking the time to do thorough research and interviewing to fully understand the problems facing clinicians in low-resource settings is so crucial.

I’m really enjoying learning more about these early stages of engineering projects, and I realize now that not many undergraduate teams get the chance to work on projects that are so new. This is daunting for sure, but my team and I are also fueled by the challenges and possibilities. The opportunity to lay a strong foundation for future teams is really exciting!