This semester I have two main projects and I will have the opportunity to contribute to my teammates’ projects through our weekly Sprints. I may have mentioned this while we were in Costa Rica, but a Sprint is essentially a focused week on one problem within a long term goal with the output of a set of prototypes. Last semester, our progress on our implementation projects were essentially marathons, steady and long improvements in each cycle. Now with these Sprints (hence the name), we condense our efforts with our teams and put in 3-4x the work on one project for a one week span! It’s exciting because my team and I have already produced 5 new prototype concepts for my Stent-X project in preparation for our next animal study at the end of February. It makes me really appreciate the importance of having a team effort on a project because not only is the output more fruitful, but in addition the span of ideas spark interesting conceptual discussions.
Stent-X Project Map
Sprint #1 Kick-off
In addition to my implementation project and weekly Sprints, we have also kick started our design projects. Chandler, Karlee, and I are on the Virtual Reality (VR) team, where we are working on bringing VR to Rice University and especially to future GMI students. The possibilities are endless with VR, but we are mainly focusing on virtual ethnography, medical and anatomical education, and medical device design. Imagine being able to be in the room of a catheterization lab procedure and conduct clinical needs finding with a fully immersive experience. Or imagine creating a medical device and being able to test it out before actually manufacturing it. We are now in the process of finalizing our selection for the system and we can’t wait to finally set it up! Karlee, Chandler, and I had the chance to do some VR research at a nearby arcade to help with the selection process. 🙂
Fruit ninja with the HTC Vive VR set!
VRoom VRoom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LfeJdpk3K4
As a fun little group activity, we also went to an Apollo mission themed escape room where we may or may not have been successful, but we did have a great time!
Apollo Mission Escape Room