Final Reflection (Ellena)

Posted on August 9, 2025August 9, 2025 by Ellena Jeon

Hello!

Welcome to my last blog. I can’t believe how quickly these two months have passed. This experience is one I will carry with me for a long time. In the beautiful city of Nairobi, I built meaningful connections and picked up phrases like pole pole and hakuna matata, words that eased my initial uncertainty in a new environment and reminded me to slow down, listen, and be patient — lessons that shaped how I approached both work and life here.

I grew in more ways than I expected, taking on challenges I never imagined, learning new technical skills, and developing personally. There were tough moments: spending a week researching signal processing methods, staring at endless rows of breadboard sockets, and troubleshooting code for hours. In the past, I might have rushed through these challenges, looking for quick fixes. But adopting the pole pole mindset taught me to slow down, be patient, and work through problems methodically. By approaching obstacles from different angles, noticing the details in the slowed-down observations, and trusting the process, I found solutions that were both more thoughtful and more effective.

Workshop and Clinical Visits

In the first 3 weeks, we were met with a warm welcome from both the summer workshop students and our mentors. I want to thank all members of my team, BioNova, Alex, Yvette, Diana, and Daniel. They come from different backgrounds, and I learned so much from them. We worked together to build and prototype various things: a phone holder, a foot rest, and an ultrasonic sensor. All from scratch! Seeing these ideations come into reality, I became excited about what we could achieve.

We also had the chance to connect with other Rice students in Kenya. I hadn’t expected so many different programs to be thriving here, but we met with iSEED and GMI students to shadow in hospitals and conduct needs-finding. In the Accident and Emergency units of Kiambu and Thika hospitals, I observed minor surgeries and saw firsthand how patients were cared for. While the infrastructure in Kenya differed significantly from what I was used to, the passion and dedication of the clinicians were unmistakable; the same deep commitment to helping those in pain.

The Pinard Horn Story

From our needs-finding analysis, we noticed many clinicians using the Pinard Horn to assess fetal heart rates because ultrasounds were rarely available for routine use. It made us wonder: what if there was a way to give mothers reassurance about their baby’s health using something as accurate as an ultrasound, yet affordable and accessible? Our first idea was to retrofit a Pinard Horn with a microcontroller cap that could read and display the heart rate.

Over the next two weeks, we dove into building it. We began with an Arduino, only to find it couldn’t handle the signal processing requirements. We switched to an ESP-32, but it was finicky, prone to frying, and still limited by short-term storage issues. Then came the Raspberry Pi, which led us to realize the real issue might not be the processor at all — it was the microphone. It simply wasn’t picking up the frequencies we needed for fetal heart sounds.

It felt like we had hit a wall. We tested recordings over and over, only to get the same disappointing results. Then we asked ourselves: what if we used the microphones already built into smartphones? Not only would this solve the hardware issue, but it could also make the device usable at home, letting mothers hear their baby’s heartbeat anytime. The catch? None of us had ever built an app before. So, in true Hakuna Matata spirit, we started from scratch, learning through YouTube tutorials, making mistake after mistake, and celebrating the small victories as we began to see the first hints of a working front-end.

ACE-ing the Active Cast

Our host project focused on creating an active cast that could help reduce muscle atrophy in patients recovering from sports-related injuries. The idea was to go beyond simply immobilizing the limb and instead integrate a therapeutic function directly into the cast.

We began by brainstorming widely, considering everything from electromagnetic stimulation to purely mechanical methods of maintaining muscle activity. Each concept was evaluated against criteria such as cost, portability, ease of use, effectiveness, and suitability for low-resource settings. After putting our ideas through design matrices, one approach stood out as the most promising: electrical stimulation therapy.

Electrical stimulation works by delivering controlled pulses to the muscles. Over time, this can help preserve muscle mass and even promote the regeneration of muscle fibers that would otherwise degrade during immobilization.

To make the device more than just a passive therapy tool, we decided to incorporate monitoring capabilities as well. By adding an EMG (electromyography) circuit, the cast could record muscle activity in real time, storing and transmitting this data to clinicians. The result was a concept for a cast that would not only protect and immobilize an injured limb but also actively work to prevent muscle loss, bridging the gap between treatment and recovery monitoring in a single device.

Final Thank You!

I am grateful to everyone who made this experience possible. Waka, a student at Kenyatta University, worked with us on the ACE project and contributed so many creative ideas. Our mentors, Eubrea and Stacy, regularly checked in to offer advice, feedback, and encouragement. Dr. June provided valuable guidance on both the technical and business sides of our projects, sharing tips on product development and opening doors to networking opportunities. Dr. Ken arranged our hospital visits and gave an insightful lecture on the Kenyan healthcare system.

I also want to thank Dr. Mugambi (OB/Gyn at Pumwani Hospital), Dr. Mugambi (Pediatric Surgeon), and Dr. Longji (OB/Gyn at Kenyatta University Hospital) for their feedback on the Rice360 devices and for offering practical advice on our Pinard Horn project.

Finally, I want to thank my co-interns, Jacey and Saumya! We navigated challenges and celebrated milestones together, and I couldn’t have done it without you guys:) We hope to continue our Auto-Feto projects back in Houston, continuing our efforts to make fetal heart rate monitoring more accessible.

Looking back, this experience taught me far more than technical skills. I learned the value of patience, adaptability, and truly listening, whether to teammates, mentors, or the communities we aimed to serve. I

discovered that innovation is not just about finding a solution, but about understanding the problem from every angle and being willing to pivot when the path forward changes. Most importantly, I saw how collaboration, empathy, and persistence can turn an idea into something with real potential to make a difference. Kenya challenged me, inspired me, and reminded me why I want to keep building solutions that bridge gaps in healthcare.

Signing off,

Ellena

Final Moments

Posted on July 28, 2025August 7, 2025 by Ellena Jeon

Last Week at KU

Hi everyone!

Welcome back to my blog! It’s hard to believe, but this is our final week of the internship. We had the chance to share our project updates with Dr. June and Eubrea, who gave us thoughtful guidance and helped us work through some of the challenges we’ve been facing.

Maasai Mara Trip

Last week, we took an unforgettable trip to the Maasai Mara. We spent two days exploring with Tony, a local Maasai guide who navigated all kinds of terrain to get us the best views of the landscape and wildlife. Here are some photos from the Mara!

Our projects: AutoFeto and ACE

After an inspiring trip to the Mara, we returned to present our progress to AutoFeto and ACE to our design mentors. Their insightful feedback and introductions to new contacts have been incredibly helpful in moving our ideas forward.

AutoFeto

The AutoFeto project began as a way to digitize the traditional Pinard horn and make fetal heart rate (FHR) monitoring more accessible and reliable.

Initially, we tried using a microcontroller with an external microphone, but we found it difficult to capture the narrow frequency band of the fetal heartbeat. After several trials and discussions, we pivoted toward a more responsive solution: a mobile app that uses the phone’s built-in microphone, paired with the analog amplification of the Pinard horn. This hybrid approach improves sensitivity and usability, especially in low-resource settings.

As someone completely new to app development, I’ve found myself deep in YouTube tutorials, Google searches, and plenty of trial-and-error moments. But slowly, the pieces are coming together! AutoFeto is designed to serve both mothers and clinicians, providing the emotional reassurance of hearing the baby’s heartbeat and enabling more reliable clinical monitoring to catch any early signs of distress.

ACE (Active Cast Electrotherapy)

Our second project, ACE, is our host project and focuses on post-injury recovery. ACE delivers electrical stimulation to prevent muscle atrophy in patients recovering from fractures or soft tissue injuries. In my last blog, our circuit wasn’t delivering effective stimulation, but after switching to medical-grade electrodes, everything changed.

With great excitement (and a bit of hesitation), we tested the system on ourselves. The rhythmic muscle twitches on our arms confirmed that our circuit was finally working as intended! We also completed the integration of the EMG sensor and stimulation circuit into one streamlined system, housed in a compact, custom 3D-printed box that fits inside the cast. This combination enables ACE to detect voluntary muscle activation and reinforce it with electrical stimulation, helping patients maintain muscle strength during recovery.

Meetings upon Meetings

This week, we were also able to hear back from the Rice360 country director in Kenya, Dr. Okello, who kindly connected us with a pediatric surgeon and a gynecologist to discuss the EMB Trainer and the low-cost Gastroschisis Bag. Both clinicians were incredibly generous with their time and gave us valuable feedback grounded in the realities of clinical care in Kenya.

Dr. Mugambi, the pediatric surgeon we met with, was especially enthusiastic about the development of the low-cost gastroschisis bag, noting that it addresses a significant gap in neonatal care in Kenya. He shared that managing gastroschisis is a persistent challenge, particularly in rural and low-resource hospitals, where access to sterile, purpose-built bags is limited or nonexistent. We had a chance to walk him through the functionality, design, and proposed implementation of our prototype, and he provided incredibly helpful and actionable feedback. He suggested offering multiple rubber band sizes to better accommodate different infant anatomies, improving the mechanism for sealing the top of the bag to prevent contamination, and incorporating clearer guidelines or systems for sterilization.

The OB/GYN, also named Dr. Mugambi (a funny coincidence!), at Pumwani hospital, emphasized the critical role simulation-based training tools like the EMB Trainer can play in improving procedural competency, especially in settings where clinical exposure may be limited. He stressed the importance of anatomical accuracy, noting that trainees are more likely to develop proper technique when the device closely resembles actual clinical conditions. He also provided valuable suggestions for improving the trainer’s design. In particular, he recommended making the uterus model more stiff silicone, interchangeable services for variable resistance, and integrating other screenings such as LEEP and cryotherapy into the device. This would not only enhance training but also make the device more sustainable and cost-effective for use in medical education programs throughout Kenya.

We also had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Lonji, who is currently collaborating with a group of students from Kenyatta University to simulate childbirth for diagnosing cephalopelvic disproportion. His background in maternal health innovation made his feedback on our AutoFeto app especially insightful. He was very encouraging, expressing that the concept of digitizing the Pinard horn has strong potential to improve maternal care across Kenya. At the same time, he pushed us to think beyond our current scope by raising critical considerations we hadn’t fully addressed yet.

These included questions around data storage and patient privacy, particularly in systems that are still largely paper-based, as well as how to mitigate obstructive ambient noise, like maternal heartbeat, bowel sounds, or background chatter, that can interfere with fetal heart rate detection. Dr. Lonji also opened the door to potential collaborations, such as integrating our app with a digital partograph, which could streamline labor monitoring in low-resource settings. His input broadened our perspective and helped us better understand the broader ecosystem our app could eventually support.

Friends and Adventures

We’ve gotten to know so many amazing people during our time here, including some fellow Rice students. Hanging out with the Loewenstern Fellows from Rice CCL has been especially fun. One evening, we all went to a horse race and made friendly bets (no money involved!). Another evening, we went to a rooftop restaurant/movie theater to watch a documentary about Sister Nancy, a Jamaican singer and DJ, who revolutionized the hip-hop community as a female rapper.

This past weekend, we took our final trip in Kenya to Naivasha. We boated across Lake Naivasha, rode horses, and hiked through Hell’s Gate, which inspired The Lion King. A great way to wrap up our time here!

The two months I spent in Nairobi have been one of the most meaningful chapters of my life. The new experiences, friendships, and personal growth I’ve gained here are things I’ll never forget. This trip reignited so many of my passions and reminded me why I love what I do.

Signing off,

Ellena