The first week of EDES 200 went quickly. We jumped straight into it on Monday with choosing the projects we would be working on and separating into groups. Sam, Jemimah, and I are working on a device for community health promoters (CHPs) to use to screen for common diseases.
CHPs are the first line of health and directly connect people in the community with the healthcare system in Kenya. It is a volunteer position, and CHPs receive only about 3 weeks of training, so they are not medical professionals. Their work relies primarily on visual inspection and patient reported symptoms to refer people to receive care. Currently the CHPs are not doing any screening, and most people won’t go to the doctor for screening or checkups unless they are very sick. This means that many people have undiagnosed conditions that they won’t seek treatment for until they experience major complications which may cause permanent damage. Our goal is to create a device that allows the CHP to easily screen for a range of indicators using a single sample in order to identify early signs of common health conditions.
Our approach to the first few phases of the engineering design process was a little bit different than usual because we had the unique experience of identifying the need ourselves after our observations the last two weeks in EDES 350. We had already spoken to a CHP and had a good idea for where to start to make something that would fit the need. Since we had prior research and firsthand encounters to draw from, we were able to work on the first three phases somewhat simultaneously. We went between clarifying the assignment, understanding the problem, and design criteria as we filled in the details from what we knew and identified areas we needed to look into further. We called Prof. Wanyoro to discuss our project and he helped us schedule a meeting with a CHP at Kiandutu Level 3. During that meeting we were able to see the glucometer the CHPs carry in their kit and the app used to record data and refer patients to the hospital if needed. We were able to get all our questions answered and talking directly to the CHP gave us valuable insights to consider with the design and function of our project. She was excited to talk with us and said that being a CHP was her passion and she would appreciate a device that allowed her to do screening. Some other considerations to take away were that the battery must last long enough to work for 5 households each day and that people would likely be willing to provide urine samples or finger pricks because the CHPs have previously done testing for malaria and pregnancy without resistance.
Glucometer used by CHPs to monitor patients with diagnosed diabetes
Speaking to a CHP during EDES 350
Our brainstorming consisted of two main phases of idea generation accompanied by several rounds of grouping and organizing ideas in clusters which later formed our design blocks. After brainstorming we began to evaluate our solutions. Because our device had so many aspects to consider, we had a lot of partial ideas. We used a morph chart to put these components into complete ideas, then screened these ideas to narrow it down and focus our design. We eliminated designs requiring a blood prick due primarily to cost and decided to focus on a urine test strip which measures 14 parameters and a pulse oximeter. We also eliminated designs which relied on solar power because after talking to the CHP, it didn’t look like a viable option for a power source. We scored the designs that passed our screening based on our design criteria and ended up with two top scoring ideas to compare. We created low fidelity prototypes of the two designs and ultimately chose one to continue with a few modifications.
Low fidelity prototype of our top design
Friday morning was our Cycle 1 evaluation and the first time we presented our progress. The morning got off to a rough start when Sam wasn’t feeling well, but we made it through the evaluation and got good feedback on our design. Then, we ended the day early for an extended weekend. Sam, Katherine, Sherry, and I all flew to Diani for a short beach weekend. On Saturday, Katherine and I took a walk along the beach at sunrise. Sherry and I went shopping, and when we came back, Sam and Katherine found a boat to take us snorkeling. We saw starfish, sea urchins, lots of fish, eels, and a few sea slugs. Katherine even found a pregnant starfish! We ended the day relaxing on the beach. Our flight back was early Sunday morning… but our plane had technical issues mid flight and we had to land in Mombasa. We ended up delayed for almost ten hours and were all pretty tired by the time we made it back on the plane. We were happy to get back to Nairobi that night though because week 2 of EDES 200 started the next day and we didn’t want to miss it (especially because we had a very secret field trip planned for Monday afternoon!).
A walk on the beach during a cloudy sunrise
All four of us in a tuk tuk on our way to the boat