After an action-packed day in Jaco, we started off the second week going to medical clinics in Santa Ana and San Jose. The first day we went to Santa Ana and it was a bit slow, but it was interesting looking at the behind-the-scenes processes in the hospitals. My group went to the lab and radiology section of the hospital, and I was surprised to see how many observations I made. The second day was a bit busier in San Jose. My group spent most of our time in the pharmacy, where Dr. Bruno gave very helpful, in-depth explanations about specific processes and potential areas that needed to be improved. Later that afternoon, we joined our 3-hour zoom meeting together on the deck of Selina. To be completely honest, I started getting distracted near the end because I started hanging out with someone’s dog (her name was Kuki). We ended the night with a typical game of pool (normally I just watch), which I thought was a nice and peaceful start to week 2.
This is Kuki! Cute dog.
Playing pool 🙂
The next day, we started class at ULACIT. The university is really nice, and I especially like the coffee shops – I’ve gotten a dessert from the coffee shop on the second floor literally every single day since we’ve been here. On the first day, we got to pick which project we would want to work on for the rest of the time we would be here. I’m glad that I got assigned to the Parkinson’s project again and that I get to work with the same people. Shoutout Brendan and Jeff. You guys are pretty cool I guess. I really like our group dynamic and laughing with them about things we probably shouldn’t be laughing at… Oops. Anyways. We changed our initial design idea to a structure with the motor resting on the back of the hand and straps to attach it. The past two days, we’ve made significant progress with our prototype design and I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished. Jeff helped a lot with the 3D print and electrical aspects of our design, and Brendan and I did a lot of research together on the spiral test (but we honestly are still confused about what the numbers mean). Yesterday, with the help of YouTube and Google, I was able to wire a control device to our Arduino to change the speed of our motor. I was really lost at first, but as I did the wiring, I understood more about what each of the inputs did. I was very excited to see that it worked because this was the first time I had wired something on my own. Let’s just say many videos and photos were sent to the Luan family group chat. Brendan was also able to write some code to randomize the speed of the motor. In the future, we will make modifications to our design, but we’re still waiting on things to ship here. Overall, it was really fun sharing small moments of success with my group members this week and I’m looking forward to more.
My favorite dessert that I bought from the coffee shop!
Low-fidelity prototype and us testing it on James.
Outside of class, I have really enjoyed our time spent together in the kitchen making dinner. I’m not really much of a help, but I cut the veggies every now and then. This week, we’ve made tacos and pasta. On Tuesday, Brendan, Leticia, Jake, Carly, and I joined in on the dance class at Selina. I was a little nervous at first because I know absolutely NOTHING about how to dance. But I can confirm that it was a safe space. It was honestly pretty hard and definitely a bit of a workout because I was sweating and tired afterward. Thursday night (aka yesterday), Joselyn and Paula met up with us to go out with us to a few clubs/bars. It was really fun and a nice change of pace from my typical nighttime routine of homework and watching Stranger Things. We went to 3 clubs in total, but the last one called Antik was my favorite. It had different floors – the bottom floor played EDM music, the middle floor was a restaurant, and the top floor played Spanish music. The top floor was definitely my favorite (even though I didn’t know any of the songs), and it was fun dancing with all of us together in a group.
Dinner yum yum
Going out on Thursday!
Today, we had our technical design review in the morning and then pretty much had the rest of the afternoon to ourselves to explore the city. We went to the central market again, and this time ate at a taco restaurant. I got the chicken tacos, which were really good. When we had to pay for our meals though, there was a small mishap and the worker charged us for meals that we didn’t order. It was kind of a mess and through roughly translated Spanish, I think we might’ve solved the problem? Not sure. Venmo will come in handy though. It was nice walking around the area again and paying more attention to all the sights around me. We stopped at a bakery on the way to the Jade Museum, and a man stopped Jake and Jeff to ask for money. Apparently, he’s from Miami and was robbed while he was here in Costa Rica. I saw Jake give him some colónes, so I hope he had some nice bread.
Chicken tacos from the restaurant.
At the Jade Museum, we ran into the other group and explored every floor together. I really liked looking at the jade objects ranging from jewelry to sculptures. I also enjoyed looking at the art gallery, specifically because I recognized one of the artists from my art history class I took spring semester – Francisco de Goya. The other floors featured information about shamanic rituals, which I found interesting but also slightly creeped out by. My favorite part was interacting with some of the games on each of the floors. One of them was a memory matching game and another was a slide puzzle. The last floor we visited had a sand pit that had fake artifacts and human bodies so that visitors could pretend to be archeologists and “dig them up.” I’m not sure what we were thinking but Brendan, Jake, Jeff, and I felt determined to cover everything up with the sand. But you know what. We’re just making the next child’s experience even better by hiding everything well for them.
Photos from the Jade Museum: featuring Jeff and Douglas (and his hunchback)
Tomorrow, we plan on taking a long bus ride to Monteverde to explore the cloud forests and go ziplining. More updates on those soon! I can’t believe we’re already two weeks into the trip. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know the people on this trip more this week – from making dinners to playing pool each evening – and getting familiar with this city. I’m glad that we now have friends here and I hope we can see them again before we leave.
Other images I enjoy 🙂 They don’t need explanations.
Bye for now!
-Sarah