SashaStraussHawkenProjects2021

  Since I am planning on majoring in biomedical engineering, I wanted to do this project to get a feel and perspective on the biomedical engineering field. That’s why I liked having this opportunity to be outside of a classroom setting and more in a work environment. Overall, my project went well. I’ve learned a lot about MRI incubators, but I also learned some things about myself. I’ll admit, the first week wasn’t my favorite week since I did a lot of reading including two grant proposals Ravi has been working on and a forty-page packet for requirements for an incubator. The second week I started working on the trifold/poster and ran three heat-rise experiments on the incubator. That week was definitely more interesting and hands-on than the first week. In the past three weeks, I got to see one side of what it is like to be a biomedical engineer. I learned that a standard incubator takes 45 minutes to an hour to prewarm which is too long especially during emergencies. Current incu...

  It is week 3, the last week! It has gone pretty fast and it’s hard to believe I am almost done. Like I said in my last blog post, Monday I worked on my trifold/poster project. I had to finish the methods/design, results, and conclusion. Ravi took some pictures for me so I could include them in my project, in the methods/design part. That section just talks about the process of the heat-rise experiments. In the pictures, I labeled the different parts, so viewers know what each part was, so they can see visually see what I’m talking about in the other sections. I put together three graphs and three tables for my results sections and we got really good results for this just being a prototype. I enjoyed making the graphs and tables because it makes it easier to understand the information and it gives a break for people from reading. For the conclusion, I wrote about how this product is improved and how it will make a huge impact in hospitals and on its staff and neonatal patients. Wo...

  Friday was the last day of testing and it’s been interesting to see the results between the three heat-rise experiments. The previous two experiments were with unregulated power meaning, the amount of power isn’t controlled, it’s 100% power because we wanted to see the capabilities of the incubator. For this experiment, we used two 12 volt batteries to see how much power the incubator used and if there are differences between battery and power source. We also didn’t have the MRI radiofrequency coil inside similar to the experiment before. It was another two and a half hour experiment and collecting the data was the same except I didn’t have to record the amps. The results were similar to the prior test (without RF coil) which didn’t really surprise me. Once I finished all three experiments, Ravi and I sat down together and started looking at the data and graphs (made from collected data). For the most part, the graphs looked like Ravi’s example graph beside the ending part of the...

  Wednesday was finally the first day of testing! All the reading and preparation helped. Reading and then doing the testing finally connected, I started to understand what I was reading about. I like the idea of reading, then doing the test/experiment, and then going back to the reading and connecting the different parts of the reading to the experiment. I will be doing at least three experiments, depending on if we have enough time since there are other things they are working on and I have to have enough time to finish my trifold and organize it. Each experiment will take about two and a half hours (a little longer for setting up). Wednesday, I measured the temperature inside the incubator with the MRI radiofrequency coil inside. I used an excel sheet to record the data of the temperature from the heater, temperature inside the incubator, and the voltage and amps of the power supply of the heater. I used two Digital Multimeters (DMM) and an INCU display control to measure the te...

  It is now the second week of my Hawken project and on Monday, I started to prepare to run tests on the prototype that is a version to the MRI incubator that can be found on Sree Medical Systems website (http://www.advimg.com/product/neonatal-mri-transport-incubator/) to see if it meets the requirements. I learned that I am creating a PowerPoint trifold board to talk about the tests that I will be running. The testing and the trifold board are what I will be working on for the two weeks that are left. Each test takes two to three hours to run, so I will probably run one a day. When I am finished, I will be able to share out what I have learned throughout the 3 weeks. So far, I have my title and I’ve been working on writing the abstract. I also learned what the head circumference, weight, and length for 0-1 month old boys and girls in the 95th percentile are. Ravi and Jose based their part on the boys’ measurements because boys tend to be bigger than girls and this product has to f...

  This week was introducing me to the pediatric image-related development field. I read a lot (more than I’ve read in school 😄), but thankfully it was interesting to me. For the rest of the week, I read about the requirements in creating the actual product which is something related to an incubator. It was about forty pages worth of requirements! It makes sense, but also amazes me how many things you are required to have for an incubator and even more for the kind of product Ravi and Jose are making. I typed all the requirements into Microsoft Excel because then they could look at that instead of the forty-page packet. Ravi wanted me to paraphrase each requirement and try to have each one be about ten words long, however, I had trouble shortening some of them because they had a lot of specifics. He told me they could always go back and look at the packet for clarification and specifics if needed. Then Ravi and I went over them together and wrote down on paper if it applied or didn...

  On my first day, I was, at the same time excited and nervous because I wasn’t sure what I was going to start with, but it was exciting to see what it was. I didn’t know Ravi before my Hawken Project, I met him through my dad, so we were still getting to know each other. I toured the building and saw what Ravi and his partner Jose were working on. My aunt Sue was also the accountant for Sree Medical Systems and he showed me her old office and told me that they still call it “Sue’s office”. That day, I read one of his grant proposals which included a lot of detailed information on how each part worked and what their plan is in getting to the final product. On the second day, I read his other grant proposal on another project which turned out to be even more complicated with lots of new information I didn’t know. On both of the grant proposals, I also read through them to find anything like grammatical errors or things that I think could be improved on. However, because both project...