2/10 Meeting Summary

Hey guys,
Here's a summary of lamp business this week:

1. Meeting Summary
2. Assigned Tasks
3. Next Meeting

1. Meeting Summary:
First we reviewed M-HEAL's IP policy.  Pretty much any ideas anyone has regarding the lamp becomes property of M-HEAL.  That said, the point is to freely distribute the plans so it shouldn't be much of an issue.  Next, Phil told us about his idea for a mechanical latch and pedal system to lock and unlock the rotation of the main joint.  We then discussed other ideas involving a pneumatic system similar to those on office chairs.  General consensus was that it was possible but no one had a specific implementation idea.  Next we discussed the reflector.  Seth pointed out that the distributed nature of the LED system might not need a reflector or defuser.  We just need to carefully place the LEDs.  I haven't ordered the LED flashlights online because I was concerned about their brightness and shipping cost almost as much as the lights themselves.  We discussed buying LED flashlights locally.  We discussed batteries, but Seth told us we need to wait until we have more information about the LEDs before we can talk about batteries.  Then we discussed the general timeline of the project.  Next week we want to have LED flashlights to play with and have a good idea of the physical structure.  Over spring break Seth (along with anyone else who is interested) will get to work on integrating the flashlights together electrically.  Before the end of spring break we should have all the parts we need.  After spring break we can begin building the physical structure.  We will work on integration and testing until the third week of March when we will send our prototype to Liberia with WMR.  If Abigail firms up on her next trip to Uganda and it fits well into our timeline, we will consider sending the lamp with her.  Let me know if I forgot anything.

2. Assigned Tasks:
As you make progress please post on our project blog.  The url is http://mheal-lamp.blogspot.com/.  You can also get to it through the main M-HEAL website by going to the activities page and scrolling down to the lamp section.  

Please sign up for the one hour Wilson training session.  The next sessions are Thursday at 2 and 3 and Monday at 10 and 11.  You can sign up here: http://www.engin.umich.edu/teamprojects/About/training.html.

Carl: Look into LED flashlights locally.
Elliot: Work on firming up the parts needed for the joints and how we can build them.
Mike: Work on methods to lock and unlock the joints using a foot pedal.
Phil: Look into the market for the surgical lamp.  Find data on target countries and rough estimates of the size of our target population and the number of clinics/hospitals that translates to.  There is already some related information on the Ctools site.
Chris: Find other surgical lamps that our somewhat similar to ours.  Try to define the niche where we fit best.

Elliot and Mike you two might need to work together since you are both working on things related to the joints.  As  always, let me know if you run into any problems.

If you couldn't attend today's meeting but still want something to work on, shoot me an email.

3. Next Meeting:
Next meeting everyone will talk about what they've found this week.  If we have LED flashlights with us we'll play around with them trying to figure out how we'll attach them and test out different arraignments.  I'll give the three minute San Fransico VC pitch to get feedback from the team before Pratik and I fly out there.

--Steve