Introductions

Hey there!

My name’s Mina and I’m a sophomore at Rice University studying Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Engineering Design. After taking ENGI 120, I was stoked to be chosen to intern at SEED this summer. Along with the duty of being an intern, I, along with fellow intern Nothando Chingodza, are helping host the international students at SEED. From taking them shopping to visiting the soccer pitch, we hope to give them a fun experience not just at the OEDK, but outside of it too. Unfortunately, for the first couple weeks, the international students are unable to attend SEED in person, so the activities will have to wait for later weeks. I am looking forward to collaborating with my fellow Rice and international students and learn more about each of them on a personal level. This summer, I would like to learn basic circuitry and electronics skills, as well as continue to improve my CAD skills.

Monday

Walking into my first day of work was, I’ll admit, a little nerve wracking. I didn’t know exactly what to expect from the program and I wanted to ensure my personal success, as well as success for my colleagues around me. Immediately, through ice breaker activities, I was put as ease and I was much more relaxed. I was able to immediately meet my fellow interns who are in person and a few on Zoom. Following this, we went over some OEDK procedures and some ground rules for the summer. We then got to have lunch, meet some of the students interning at Rice360, and hear about their impending trip to Tanzania. After lunch, we finally got to start learning about mini-projects for the summer. I got placed on my first choice of team, which was super exciting! With Janie Lim, we are Team OneFiftyHertz, a design team working to conduct testing on a haptics system of a Smart Helmet. This ties into my desire to learn more about electronics, so it was a perfect project for me. After talking about first steps with Janie, we concluded out first day at work.

Tuesday

Tuesday started with a quick activity to get to know each other better, which consisted of five photos of each intern and them explaining about the photos. Then, the big item of the day started: Project Fair. This was where clients would pitch their projects to us, and really the project we would be working on for the rest of the summer would be introduced here. All projects were interesting, but one really stood out to me: development of a stomach pump for prematurely born babies. But, I didn’t get to find out what project I was on (or who I was with) till later that night. After lunch, for the rest of the day Janie and I conducted research surrounding our project, including what the scope of our project was. Additionally, we went to the Ion to meet with our client, Grant Belton, to pick up the existing gear that we would need to conduct our tests. Finally, my day concluded by meeting with our Team Leads Esau Guajardo and Eleanor Kimbro along with Nothando to discuss our plans surrounding hosting duties.

Wednesday

We kicked off Wednesday with a working on Team Communication and Listening, given by Dr. Tracy Volz. This workshop was very helpful and I learned that I am not as good as listening as I thought. Dr. Volz gave good advice on how to improve my listening skills (e.g. stop finishing other’s sentences), so hopefully by the end of the summer my listening will have improved. After this I got to have my first meeting with my major project group, which consists of Parnika Mandewalkar and Precious Faseyosan. Parnika and I set up a Zoom with Precious and we got to know her (her blog is amazing!!), and we set times on when to meet daily until Precious makes it to Rice. The team then set up a team drive, agenda, and daily notes of meetings. We spent the last hour before lunch reaching our to our clients and formulating questions for the interview with them. After my daily lunch PB&J, we had a quick run though how to order materials, then Janie and I got to work again, where I learned that I need to work on my Excel skills. This discovery was made when Janie and I started to create data sheets for our data and I was very slow with the creation of a sheet. Aside from this, Janie and I had done research and found that we would need some materials to actually be able to start testing. After a little research, we got out parts ordered and the day ended on that note.

Thursday

This day started off early, as Parnika and I came in early so that we could meet with Precious. We discussed the questions that Parnika and I came up with and make steps outlining what we needed each team member to do throughout the next two days. We set up a meeting with our two clients, Dr. Jasmine Nejad and Dr. Bindi Naik-Mathuria, as well as asked for the old capstone teams documentation. We concluded the meeting by asking Precious to come up with a couple interview questions. The next item of the day was a workshop on Engineering Communication given by Dr. Ashley Taylor. This workshop was very fun and I learned a lot, specifically about Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions. After this, Parnika and I spent a little more time on the project research, then it was off to lunch. In the afternoon, we received instructions on blogging (what I’m doing right now 🙂 ) and then Janie and I got back to work. Janie had done a little research and we learned how to connect everything to the haptic system so that testing to commence. But while still waiting for parts, we kept developing the data sheets.

Friday

Last day of the week! Honestly though, this week has been one of the most fun weeks I have had. I’ve met so many people and I am excited for the rest of the internship and get to working on these projects. Parnika and I met again with Precious in the morning and found that the documentation we were needing had been sent our way, so we quickly started going through it and divvied up the reading for the weekend. This reading is dense and is honestly a lot, but by seeing who was interested in what part of the project, we were easily able to split the reading up. The rest of the morning was reading and research (and maybe the occasional glance at the French Open match scores). Lunch was special today as we had our first networking luncheon at the Cohen House. I sat at a table with Mr. Efren Munoz, Mr. Grant Belton, and AJ Price, and all them offered exceptional advice for young engineers. After this, Mr. Grant Belton led a CAD workshop, and then Janie and I finished our day with setting up the supplies we ordered and dowloading OS to the Raspberry Pie.

This week was amazing and I can’t wait for the next one, and I hope that these projects come to fruition by the end of the internship!

 

Until next week,

Mina