Day 19 - Design Reviews part duex

The labs were a busy place this morning as teams continued their work on their projects with the aim of having as complete a prototype as possible available for the design reviews at 1pm. The teams are all aware of the importance of this set of reviews, as they realize that this represents their their last chance to get specific feedback from design consultants on the direction of their projects.

I sat in on the review in room 16-160 and thus had the pleasure of seeing the Charcoal Crushers, the Breast Milk Treatment team, the low cost Incubator team and the Pico Hydro power all present their projects. The Charcoal Crusher's were first up easily captured the attention of the audience with their already functioning prototype. The reviewers asked some tough questions about the prototype, some of which the team had answers to, some of which they said were already on their "to do" list and some of which they had not previously considered. This last category is of course the most useful and the team made sure to note down the potential methods, ideas and changes that were suggested by the reviewers.

The charcoal team demonstrate their machine

The charcoal crushing team's explains some project specifications

This process was then repeated for each of the teams, with the large variety of reviewers offering a wide range of views and expertise on the projects. There were some minor concerns expressed about the specific design focus of both the Pico Hydro team and the low cost Incubator but the participants I spoke to on both of those teams said they were eager to hear the advice and suggestions that the reviewers had, as only positives could come out of it. All of the teams are now looking forward to getting the chance to implement these design suggestions and changes into their prototypes over the upcoming weekend.

The current low cost incubator model, complete with sample baby!

Johanna and Shaibu field questions about Micro (pico) Hydro power

The Power Generation team pose with their treadle pump at the Design review

Doctor David Sokal, of the Breast milk team, explains a key concept to a design reviewer

The participants finished up the week by completing another set of evaluations and heading out to the sports field for another game of Ultimate Frisbee. While we were out enjoying ourselves we were surprised to see numerous police cars and fire engines pull up outside the entrance to Burton Conner, our dorm! We were initially worried that something serious had happened but thankfully, it was only a minor incident, and the whole evacuation process was recorded and made into an extremely amusing video by Suprio Das. I think the caption he put under it when he sent it to me was "What's cooking?"...

Suprio's home made video of the evacuation, with a hint at the cause behind it!