Week four started with a four day weekend we spent in Manuel Antonio. We left super early Friday morning, walked to a bakery to get breakfast, and then headed to the bus station. We took an almost 4 hour bus ride to the coast where we rented an Airbnb where all 9 of us could stay. The views from our Airbnb were spectacular! the pool looked like it led right into the jungle and you could even see the ocean while you swam. And we did just that. The first day after our bus and a sketch Uber up a gravel road we all changed into our swimming suits and hung out in the pool for hours.
The next day after waking up for the sunrise and then
making banana pancakes with Tori, we hiked an hour toa secluded beach in a little cove. The waves were super fun to play in and the swim was a great reward for the sweaty hike.
The only downside was putting my socks and shoes on my sandy feet. Then after hiking back to our Airbnb, we went straight back into the pool to cool off some more. Then we walked through the rain to a sports bar with an ocean view for dinner.
I started the following day by waking up to watch the sunrise again and then more banana pancakes before a tour bus came and took us to the Manuel Antonio
National park. I was reluctant to spend more money on a park tour, but the bus was nice and the guide pointed out so many animals I would have never spotted by myself. We ended the tour at another beautiful beach where I took lots of pictures with my film camera and then we walked back to catch the
bus back to our Airbnb. Then we walked to a restaurant with an incredible view of the ocean for dinner.
After one last sunrise and a super sweaty (like 90 percent humidity) walk to the bus station with a
smoothie break in the middle, our trip to Manuel Antonio was soon to be over. The bus took us back to San Jose where we wasted no time getting back to prototyping our project. Benji, Elliot, and I had entered the prototyping phase of our project and we spent much
of our free time in the Selina coworking space working on the device.
We ended the week with a prototype I was very proud of. It has two pressure sensors (made of conductive fabric and a foam spacer), a soft wire cover, a 3D printed housing which holds an
Arduino, breadboard, potentiometer, indicator LEDs, a speaker, and a 7 segment display. The display shows the amount of time before a reward song plays. This is so the child can work on holding the correct posture for longer and longer. You change this time threshold with the knob connected to the potentiometer and the green/red indicator lights go on then the handle is correctly/incorrectly held. All in all, I am very proud of what we accomplished with this project and I am so glad I had the opportunity to participate in this experience making new friends the whole way.