Hello! The first week of SEED has gone off with only minor hitches! I’m Caz Smith and I’m glad to be back at Rice University in the OEDK, where I truly belong. Last year I ran through the ENGI 120 and ENGI 200 Intro to Engineering classes for a nine month marathon, and after a month off in May, I’m ready to be back working on projects. Living in Houston has been a fun and enlightening experience so far, even if it is very different from what I am used to, and the SEED Internship has already bestowed me with many opportunities in the first week.
Learning about subtle differences between cultures with Charity
On Monday, day one, we started with lots of information sessions and icebreaker moments to learn more about our program and the people in it for the next 7 weeks. Although I had already met the other 7 Rice students, I got to meet the new interns from Malawi, Brazil, and Houston. After meeting everyone and learning names, we jumped straight into the information about the SEED program. After looking through the summer calendar, I have a lot to do. We also took time to learn about implicit cultural differences in things like punctuality, directness, and individuality. To cap off the day, we took a short trip to the zoo, jumpstarting our mini engineering project for the first week.
On day two, we continued learning about the tools and facilities of the OEDK, and about what was expected of us for the summer. A highlight of this time was Deconstruction, where we used OEDK tools to take apart a pump, monitor, printer, and medical device, learning what makes them tick. In the afternoon, we switched tracks to learn more about the different cultures of Malawi, Brazil, and the USA. To do this, we made culture presentations about different aspects of daily life, then presented them to the group. This was a huge learning experience.
On Wednesday and Thursday, we began engineering bootcamp. This is Rice’s Intro to Engineering Design class, condensed from one semester to five days. This is a whirlwind of information and practice, even though it’s my second time going through this process. Our mini engineering project for this week is to design an enrichment device for an okapi in the Houston Zoo. This “small giraffe” is very interesting, as it uses its tongue for all kinds of things we would do with our fingers. To learn more about this project and to begin to develop design goals, we returned to the zoo and talked with Kim, the zookeeper. After gaining information from her and external research, we developed design criteria and began brainstorming ideas. We came up with lots of unique and clever solutions to entertain and enrich the okapi. Now it’s time to boil down those ideas and select the best one to move forward with prototyping.
 This scratching post has spinners for the okapi to play with |
 Brainstormed idea to use a chain link fence to hold hay in a fun and natural way |
 This idea holds lettuce up high to simulate leaves on a real tree |
Week one of SEED was a lot of things happening very fast, but it was great to be working back in the OEDK full time. After finishing this mini okapi project, I’m very excited to move on to the bigger project that will last the entire summer.