We got to start this week off by speaking again with Prince Mtenthaonga, a clinician in Malawi, who was able to give us his feedback on our low-fidelity prototypes that we constructed last week. He liked most aspects of our designs, and gave us some great ideas about what we could improve upon with the next iterations. With that, we jumped right into the work.

To tell you the truth, I’ve spent about 80% of my week staring at my computer screen. At the beginning of the week, I helped Michelle and Rachel start their prototype renders while I experimented with door assembly options. Then, I spent three days turning those 3D renders into flat pieces that we could laser cut out of wood and acrylic for assembly. It was a lot of measurements, trial and error, and teaching myself to use the fancy new laser cutter, since my beloved older machine is on death’s door. Eventually, all of our pieces were cut, and Michelle started staining them to prepare them to be glued together. 

On Friday, we met with Nicole Moreno, who helped us go through our project pitch. After that, we finally got to go on our (much needed) team outing, to Flower and Cream! We got to enjoy some amazing ice cream and relax at the end of a really frenzied week. 

I’ve attached some photos here of our prototypes through the week! With our final few days before next Thursday’s showcase, we plan on finalizing all our visuals for our project table, and finishing assembly of the prototypes. We’ll all need to push, but I’m definitely excited to make it to showcase and celebrate all the work we’ve done.