Progress Report 3 – November 27th, 2018

We began to materialize some of our project goals and did a survey of techniques for collecting relevant data. Our main goal was to finalize the material composition for our absorptive pad and begin prototype testing some of its features. In order to accomplish these tasks, we decided that a simulation was needed in order to model blood.

What we did to accomplish these goals:
- We had outstanding questions about some of the logistics of blood collection and quantification. We decided to schedule another meeting with our advisor, Dr. Schorn, in order to get some guidance and schedule some clinic visits. Equally important as building the actual device was procuring fluids that closely modeled that of an actual pregnancy. From our own studies, we had concluded that the fluid was composed mainly of blood, amniotic fluid, and possibly stool. Dr. Schorn explained that the School of Nursing had a protocol for pregnancy simulations that involved the use of fake blood with similar texture and quantity. Our next step will be to investigate the unique properties of each component in the fluid and arrive at a method for separation. Although we recognize that there are many robust techniques for separation and quantification, the nature of our project requires us to consider a device that functions in low-resource environments.

3. What went wrong; what we need help on; what we did not accomplish:

Again, we are still in the design stage of our project and no tangibles have been made for errors to occur. However, our timeline demands a finalized approach for fluid collection in just a few weeks. We aren’t particularly familiar with the specifics of the delivery process so we need to continue to ask for more clarification with Dr. Schorn. Because there are so many interesting solutions that we have brainstormed, we are still having trouble selecting one that meets our skillset and the project needs. Delegation of responsibility still continues to be a tension point, as team members are often absent during important advising meetings and brainstorming sessions due to academic and personal conflicts.

4. How we can fix errors; how we can accomplish unfinished goals:

Since there is a large disconnect among our group members, we need to be meeting more consistently as a team to continue developing our ideas. We need to set aside time for dedicated research so that we can finalize a material for our absorptive pad. We have decided to work on both subprojects in tandem- one task is to determine the material composition of our pad while the other will focus on gleaning relevant information given a mixture of fluid. We are attempting to reach out to faculty who have expertise in separation techniques and will ask physicians for their advice. Our meeting with Dr. Schorn this week went very well and we were able to schedule an appointment with the Nursing school’s simulation director to obtain samples of their fake blood.

Additional goals for next week; how we’re going to accomplish them
- We have proposed a tentative deadline for a tangible product by the end of January. We will meet briefly in the next week as a whole team to search for more separation mechanisms and talk to some physicians to get more advice on desirable characteristics of our product. When we obtain our samples from the simulation director, we will coordinate a lab day, where we will test different materials that we have selected for their absorption profiles.