We’ve been sprinting, but it’s been more of a longer distance sprint. The end is in sight, yet still far away! For the past two weeks our sprints have been focused on DialOasis, which has been immensely helpful with helping Abby and me get closer to our goal of starting clinical trials in May. At the same time, our team has spent a considerable amount of time on the project, from refining SolidWorks models last week to developing parameters for our clinical trial this week. Now that we’ve solidified our design, this leaves us with time to make progress on starting the paperwork required for the clinical trial we aim to start. I am leading the sprint for last week and the following week, which gives us plenty of time to explore multiple directions for the clinical trial.
Results of the sprint kickoff. So many areas to focus on!
The sprint format has given us the opportunity to practice a wide range of team-project-focused techniques to implement into our “huddle” sessions. It’s also emphasized how important planning is to keeping a team productive. For most of the sprints we’ve done so far, we’ve held brainstorming sessions, which really helps us come up with new ideas and move our projects along. With DialOasis, it’s been helpful to have Tasha and Callie’s new opinions, since they are newer to the project. Additionally, it’s been interesting to gain new perspectives while working on Tasha and Callie’s projects as well, since they are so different from DialOasis in both topic area and project design. Through these sprints I feel that I am able to get a significant amount of work done on my project, while also having the opportunity to learn about my teammates’ projects. So while these sprints have been feeling more like marathons lately, it’s all about the journey!
Team Tik-TACS at the Stent-X animal study! Will transition to working on Stent-X once my sprint is over.
For my design project, things have taken an interesting turn. One essential part of the design process is investigating past solutions, and in doing so we found a couple devices in development to effectively treat retinopathy of prematurity in the same way that we had wanted to. This didn’t leave us with much space to develop a different device, so we are currently investigating other potential project ideas. While this was a bit disappointing initially, this is just a part of the design process that happens sometimes! Our whole team has definitely learned from this experience, and are looking into other exciting project ideas.
It’s always important to see the fun in projects! I’m glad the VR team has been so willing to let the rest of us try out their equipment. While I’ve used Google Cardboard once or twice, it was fun to get to use it again! I had also never played a VR video game before, so that was a fun experience as well. I can’t believe that there are only two months left in the program, and a week of that includes spring break! Time is really flying by, but I’ve definitely been having fun.
Trying out a VR headset at Baylor before the animal study. So cool!