Welcome back! This week was another work from home week. I put the final touches on my presentation, so now it’s all about practicing for our Final Presentation, which is this Thursday! It’s crazy how close we are to the end.
However, I did go into Ninos one day this week in order to get some feedback on my device from the EEG Techs. They were so nice and answered all my questions about my device. They were able to understand what my device was and thought it’s goals were worthwhile. They did bring up some interesting points, like it’s application beyond just mobile EEGs and existing alternative methods to consider, even thought they aren’t used widely at Ninos. And, we we’re able to have the whole conversation in Spanish, minus a few words that I forgot in the moment. Note to self, pillow is “la almohada”.
And, what is this mysterious project, you may ask? Well, seeing as I present this week, I can finally tell you! (I know you’ve all been waiting on the edge of your seat, right, right?) I’ve been focusing on a way to reduce motion artifacts when using a mobile EEG device in order to retain test integrity. The most important things to my device are that is is 1) reducing motion artifacts in the EEG, 2) keeping the electrode cord from tangling, and 3) adaptable to existing mobile EEG machines.
My solution takes the form of the EEZ Pillow, who’s goal is to make EEGs EEZ (easy). I love a good pun, don’t judge too hard. The device is made up of two parts – the main pillow and the pattern clip. The pillow itself has extract supports on the side and down to the neck, in order to limit the range of motion of the patient’s head. The back of the pillow holds the second part of the device. The pattern clip is designed to hold the electrodes in the correct pattern, so that the tech applying them can not only keep better track of the electrodes, but to further limit movement of the cords that can cause motion artifacts. Plus, the clip can be slid out of the device with the electrodes still in it, allowing for faster set up and clean up in the patient’s room.
Even as the summer winds down, we are still finding things to do! This week, we got lunch with Ricardo and Emilio at one of our favorite spots in Chinatown! It’s always very tasty and yes, we did let Apple and Rei do all the ordering for the table. The place is called Restaurante Laye, for any future GMI students.
Aside from that, the four of us have been doing a lot of movie watching. We went to see the F1 Movie this week mostly so Apple and Rei could see it again. (I was mostly there for the popcorn 😁.) While I am still not an F1 fan after seeing it, I did think it was a good movie and definitely a fun evening out as we spent time before the movie in the Lego store (to look at the Lego F1 cars…).
In terms of other things we’ve watched, WandaVision took us two nights to get through and lots of questions about why there are 8 minutes of questions. We’ve got plans to watch the Cars movies as well, but we’ll see how many of those we get through.
On top of everything else, I’ve been working on packing, which also involved praying my suitcase is under the weight limit. I don’t have a luggage scale and while yes, it was under the limit on the way here, maybe it magically gained and extra couple pounds when I wasn’t looking.
Onto the last week! Until then, be sure to keep up with the rest of the Costa Rica crew by checking out Apple, Rei, and Connor’s blogs!