Hola! Pura vida!
I have now been in Costa Rica for just over a week. I arrived last Sunday evening after an exhausting 11 hour flight from Paris. The clouds during my flight were quite wonderful to watch and pass the time. Some patterns had more shape to them than others, and at one points the only clouds I could see were the ones below me. The sun was also setting at this time, which was quite beautiful with how it cascaded into the dark blue of outer space. My favorite patterns were when thin clouds formed parallel lines across the sky. I learned later that these are often called sky streets or horizontal convective rolls and form due to cold air circulating over warmer waters.
Clouds
As my plane was landing, I couldn’t even tell we were near the ground as the clouds blinded my vision out of the small plane window. Before Costa Rica, I had been traveling abroad in Europe. The first thing I noticed over my first few days in Costa Rica was how much more relaxing the environment was than both Europe and the US. There wasn’t an immediate rush to get somewhere or get things done. I really appreciated this somewhat simple entrance into a new culture.
Our first day of the week was a day off due to Memorial Day. Myself and the other iSEED attendees explored the city of San Jose, including the central market, which was bustling with people. The central market itself was like a maze, with different stalls and shops at random angles and no distinct pattern. I got to try some local ice cream, which seemed to be cinnamon-esque flavored, and was quite good. I also had an Orange Fanta soda, which I determined was better than what we have in the United States. Similar to all of the fast food restaurants that dotted the streets of San Jose.
For the first week of iSEED, we were apart of a medical innovation bootcamp hosted by UCIMED and led by a group of six professors from Costa Rica and Rice. While we were at UCIMED we listened to a variety of lectures in addition to working through the engineering design process with a focus on medical devices on an interesting design project. The first day of the program was slightly overwhelming at first, but over the following days, I seemed to find a rhythm.
One of the activities we did that I enjoyed was a brainstorming practice activity. Everyone took two minutes to come up with as many uses for a paperclip as possible. We then discusses our findings. We then repeated the exercise, except this time the paperclip didn’t have to be a simple paperclip. It could have changed size, color, material, etc. What stood out to me about this brainstorming activity was the amount of ideas that were created in such a short amount of time. In the future, I might just bring a paperclip around, just in case I come up against any difficult problem. You never know, a paperclip may save the world. One of my favorite parts of this activity was the awards. I had written down the most uses for a paperclip. So, I was rewarded with a bag of marshmallows. I then went on to eat 16 marshmallows during the following lecture.
My group and I’s design project during the bootcamp revolved around the prevalence of chronic and acute foot pain in workers who stand for most of their work day such as nurses, construction workers, janitors, etc. We designed a shoe and sock combo utilizing socks woven with a conductive silver polyester thread, a wireless connection in combination with a phone app, batteries and electrical components located in the sole of the shoe, and a wireless charging system for the shoe. Our goal was to have our solution be worn during the work day, so therapy and pain relief could be applied immediately when workers began feeling pain due to standing for extended period of time.
Low-fidelity prototype of our TENS shoe
My group, Diez Calcetines, and I, won the judges choice award for the bootcamp, which was exciting. Sadly, the award did not consist of marshmallows.
One of my favorite experiences over the first week of the trip was my post-class interactions with the other student in iSEED. I really enjoyed bonding over playing pool upstairs, and especially going grocery shopping and cooking meals for ourselves in the Selina kitchen. While I mostly assisted by doing small cooking tasks and washing dishes, I was glad that there were other students who knew how to cook.
Douglas sharpening knives
After a long, tiring, yet fun week of the bootcamp, all the iSEED students spent Saturday at Jaco beach. The 2 hour bus ride there seemed to take less time than I felt it did, not sure if due to anticipation or my inability to understand the passage of time. Parts of the beach were quite rocky and pebbly, which made walking difficult, but there was a nice region of sand where we kept our bags and tossed a frisbee around.
Jaco beach
Other half of Jaco beach
The waves at Jaco beach were quite fun, though consistent focus was necessary or a wave might just blindside you. Though a few of the others decided to surf, I spent my time with a boogie board, riding the waves into shore, and then fighting against them to get back out to deeper water where the larger waves crashed down. As I hadn’t really been in the ocean since before Covid, I was reminded of a few things:
- The ocean is quite powerful
- The ocean doesn’t care about your feelings
- The water is warm, possibly the reason for horizontal convective rolls.
- The water doesn’t protect you from getting sunburned
The last thing I did on Saturday was eat 12 more marshmallows, leaving only 7 remaining in the bag. I’m not sure how much longer they will last, but I might need to find more uses for paperclips.
All in all, it was a wonderful first week exploring and learning in Costa Rica with a lot of new friends!I am excited for the weeks to come!
– Jake