Transitioning from a Gap Year into the SEED Internship was much smoother than I had feared. The first couple of days consisted of meeting our colleagues in person and abroad, previewing projects, workshops on essential communication skills, and more. By the end of the week, I had been distributed into the ReFil major project and the Womb of Warmth last mile project.

ReFil seeks to design and prototype an extruder that can generate 3D printer filament from plastic bottles, a significant source of waste in our Client’s locale in Nigeria. Fortunately, the design team that had previously been tasked with this problem utilized documentation that I helped create during ENGI 120 in my freshman year at Rice. Along with my colleague Megan Enriquez, a member of the design team I mentioned previously, and our international colleagues, Florence Sakaya and David Ogana, we hope to make significant progress on this problem. Our first goal will be to improve Team ReFil’s prototype intake and crushing system. Our international colleagues’ experience in CAD will certainly prove advantageous.

This Friday, SEED and Rice360 Interns attended a networking event with several experts and professionals in relevant fields. I hope to follow their guidance and reevaluate the scope of our plan. In particular, I believe that choosing a less ambitious goal to ensure excellent quality of outcome and detailed documentation will serve future teams in the future. Their insight helped me to step out of my individualistic viewpoint and focus on the larger picture.

Nothando Chingodza, a fellow SEED intern, has teamed up with me to tackle the Womb of Warmth project. In low-resource locales worldwide, premature neonates(newborns) have a particularly high mortality rate due to their hampered ability to regulate their internal temperature. Technology like incubators isn’t always available, and unique cultural customs and viewpoints have prevented the widespread deployment of previous prototypes. We seek to design a low-cost, reusable, and visually appealing material that will help premature neonates maintain their core temperature in the first hours of life, when they are most fragile. When I applied for this internship, I hadn’t imagined the opportunity to make a real difference and save lives; I look forward to doing whatever I can to solve this problem.

Week 1 flew by, but it was a welcome learning opportunity. I can’t wait to learn even more next week!

Above: Team ReFil’s prototype bottle crusher, minus the motor and voltage modulator that power it.