Hello, all of my loyal blog post enjoyers (I have no idea if anyone reads this). I am starting week six here at Medevice, officially pivoting through the halfway point of this internship experience. Everything has been nothing short of a blessing and a privilege to be a part of, even if it’s challenging at times. This week, I was supposed to be focusing on preliminary function evaluations of my first prototype, which I was originally right on track for. My design was finalized at the start of last week, and was ready to print, but then we ran into power outages at work and fatal protests that had us home for 2 days last week, which prevented me from actually printing anything. By Thursday, we were back in the office, and I was able to start a print. After the attempt, it became quickly clear that orientation matters when trying to print hollow tubing; the handle to the suction tip I was designing was filled with support material and was virtually impossible to clear out without breaking the prototype. On to attempt number two. Friday morning, I attempt to print the handle and the hose of my suction tip as separate entities, but at the same time. This meant it was a 7-hour print, give or take a few minutes. All was going well up until about hour 6 when the support hadn’t quite reached the hose’s surface, and, due to its geometry, tipped over. It decided after a hard day’s work that it was going to give out about 2cm from completion. I had the weekend to mellow out and forgive the printer. It wasn’t imperative to have it done anyway because I still don’t have a suction machine to test my prototype. For now, it’s just a token to reflect a completed milestone, demonstrating that my ideas and hard work can be materialized. As for today, I have readjusted my design (again) so that it can be printed in multiple, stable parts, while maintaining the most structural integrity. Fear not, though, because our printer is now malfunctioning. The production of this 3rd rendering will have to wait until tomorrow. I have begun working on a second design in my free time. It is less of a novel suction tip and more of a filter attachment. I have high hopes for this design, and maybe my final result will be a combination of the two ideas. Crossing my fingers we can procure a machine so I can test my ideas soon.
In other news, we were able to finally set up an M-Pesa account! This name comes from the combination of the words mobile and pesa, which translates to mobile money. It’s effectively the Venmo of Kenya, allowing people to pay each other virtually for almost any good or service, from the little kiosks on the side of the road that vend snacks, to hotel and resort services, which is exactly what we needed it for. We were able to book a very cheap all-inclusive beach weekend with this M-Pesa account. Without it, we wouldn’t have had any other way to pay for it and would have had to go for something more expensive, which is unfortunately the case for a lot of things. We are now able to book our last safari visit to Amboseli National Park, too! Looking forward to that; we will be able to see elephants and Mount Kilimanjaro, two things on our bucket list to check off while here in Kenya. You would think setting up a mobile money service would take a few minutes and a few clicks on your phone, thanks to the convenience of our systems in America, but this was far from the case. We spent 3 days at the mall for over 4 hours total trying to get this set up. Confetti for finally getting it done!
Jasmine, Emma, and I went for a hike on Saturday to Ngong Hills, which was a lot of fun! It was7 hills to climb and come down, totaling just under 7 miles. I got the most steps in since I’ve been here, somewhere around 20,000 that day. A very modest hike that the guide recommends we do again, but go out and back. There were sheep, cows, and dogs all over the place, being guided by shepherds in the hills. There were also big groups of families picnicking at the top of the hills, where they had a 360-degree view of the Kenyan landscape. We were only 20km outside of Nairobi (and a ruthless 1.5-hour drive), but the landscape and fuss were drastically different. A lot of flat, open land below the peaks of the hills, very different compared to the hustle and bustle of the city. It was a ton of fun! I’m really glad we’ve been able to get outside and see Kenya’s beautiful nature. Until next week!
