Wrapping Up the MDI Program
It’s time to say goodbye to our peers from the Centre for Design Innovation & Engineering’s (CDIE) Medical Device Innovation (MDI) Summer Program. We’ve spent the past few weeks learning, building, and growing alongside an incredibly talented group of students.
Final Week Project
For our final week, we were tasked with designing a new piece of technology for competition. The goal was to solve a clinical need identified during Week 2 (visiting the hospitals) using the design and manufacturing skills from Week 1. It’s impressive to see our peers come up with some real solutions at such an accelerated pace.
Team Dinner
To celebrate the end of the program, our mentors took us all out for an all-you-can-eat carnivore dinner (with plenty of salad for our vegetarian teammate Saumya). It was certainly bittersweet.
Rice360 Still in Progress
While the MDI students are finishing up, us Rice360 interns will be here for another five weeks. That gives us more time to keep working on the project we started earlier this summer.
Our Device: Fetal Heart Rate Monitor
We’ve been working on a fetal heart rate monitor. During site visits, we noticed that many maternity wards avoid using ultrasounds because of cost. That led us to design a cheaper electronic alternative that can still record fetal heart rate.
Prototype Progress
After a week of research, circuit design, coding, and debugging, we put together a half-working prototype. Even though we weren’t eligible to compete in the MDI competition, we presented it to the faculty panel and got useful feedback for what’s next.
Next Phase of Work
Now, we’ll be working more closely with CDIE faculty as extra engineering support. We’ll also continue partnering with local hospitals to refine our prototype and get more feedback. It’s hard to see our peers go, but we’re excited to keep building. There’s still plenty of work ahead!
Jacey Denny
P.S. Enjoy these photos of monkeys we saw in the city Arboretum.
