It’s been a hectic last month as I’ve been settling in to Houston and finally getting started on my GMI projects! It’s hard to believe that I’ve learned so much about the DialOasis project in the last month. We started off by familiarizing me with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and peritonitis in order to understand the problems our project aims to solve. I didn’t realize that CKD was such a large problem in Costa Rica! It really gave me a good perspective on the project and just how impactful it was.
We then started looking through the GMI 2016-2017 cohort’s data and files to familiarize ourselves with the work done on the project last year, and what changes were made over the summer. Abby and I spent one afternoon rebuilding the final prototype from the 2016-2017 cohort in the basement of the OEDK (pictured). In doing so, we learned a lot about the importance of proper materials selection and are anxious to see the version built over the summer! While we didn’t have the chair to put inside, it was still useful to construct the frame and gave us a good understanding of the cuartito’s size.
I’m very excited to finally visit Costa Rica this week! This trip will allow me to meet with Invenio and Monica and Marta at Hospital Liberia in order to learn their thoughts and opinions on the design and materials. Based on these discussions we’ll know the scope of our work for the semester, and will really dive deep into project work!