Hey guys, sorry about the long time since the last update. There's alot of important updates in this so make sure to read all of it carefully.

I. No meeting this week
II. Dev Day
III. Emerging Markets Club collaboration
IV. NCIIA Grant

I. Dev Day:
As all of you know, this Sunday in Dev Day. Ram will be sending out the schedule in the next two days. Please let me know if you'll be coming so I can get a headcount. We need to decide what we're going to do during the group work time. Originally I had hoped that we could work on the optics setup but it doesn't look like we'll be getting those parts in time. Some of the time will be spent going over the NCIIA grant, modifying it for this semester's submission. We'll also spend some time talking with the Nicaragua team about about adding a light to the pelvic exam table. We can talk about the light fixture, but I don't know how much of that we can do without having the lighting parts on hand. Please send out ideas of other areas that need work.

II. No meeting this week:
Since M-HEAL is monopolizing your Sunday, I'm canceling Thursday's meeting.

III. Emerging Markets Club collaboration:
Today I met with two people from the B-School's EMC. They are going to be assigning two MBA students to our team from now until the end of February. Tentatively we'll be meeting with them sometime next week.

IV. NCIIA Grant:
The next deadline for the NCIIA E-Teams grant is Dec. 3rd. We stand a pretty good chance to get it this year if we can beef up our business plan. Hopefully the EMC students will be able to help us with that, although the members I talked to today thought that could be coming up too soon. I'm planning to set up meetings with Moses Lee and Kathleen Sienko, let me know if you're interested in attending.

Steve

Lamp Update: 10/14

Here's this week's lamp update:

I. Tonight's Meeting
II. Next Week's Meeting
III. Engin 100 Team
IV. Business Team
V. M-HEAL Dev Day - 10/30

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I. Tonight's Meeting:
Tonight we had a very productive meeting. We started off discussing requirements for generator the Engin 100 team is designing/building for us. Then we moved the prototype from the LBME storage area to the Wilson Center. Jack finished up the base and put some adjustable feet on it. Mike worked on the vertical to horizontal joint. Elliot made a stopper that prevents the wheel from turning and I attached a new counterweight bar (the old one was pretty wobbly). The lamp is looking great and is much sturdier than it was last meeting.

II. Next Week's Meeting:
Next week we'll be meeting on Thursday at 8 at the Wilson Center. The primary focus will be on fixing the locking mechanism. Depending on when the lighting parts come in, we may begin working on the electrical system. Otherwise we'll just be generally diagnosing and fixing problems with the current prototype (primarily looking for stability issues).

III. Engin 100 Team:
Patrick and Ram (the M-HEAL VP) will be meeting with the Engin 100 team tomorrow afternoon to discuss the basics of the project with them. Patrick, please send an email to the list to tell us how it goes.

IV. Business Team:
M-HEAL is partnering with the B-school's Emerging Markets Club (EMC) and two MBA students will be joining our team. Hopefully I'll be meeting with them next Wednesday to get an idea of how this will work. I'll keep you posted.

V. M-HEAL Dev Day:
M-HEAL Development Day has been moved to October 30th due to a Solid Works workshop on the 23rd. We'll be starting around 10am with a pancake breakfast and finishing with dinner around 7 (so you have plenty of time to get home/to the bar for the 8pm game).

As always let me know if you have any questions, comments, or ideas. Also, if you come across anything interesting please post it on the blog.

Steve

Lamp Update 10/7

Hey everybody, here's this week's lamp update.

I. Tonight's Meeting

II. Assorted News

III. Blog

IV. Action Items

V. Next Week's Meeting

VI. M-HEAL Dev Day - 10/23

VII. M-HEAL Mass Meeting 10/12

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I. Tonight's Meeting:

Tonight Mike Harrison and I went to the Wilson Center and worked on a new horizontal to vertical joint. The joint on the current prototype is a bit wobbly because we had to cut up the steering column to to attach it to the vertical pole. The new joint has a couple inches of the bike's crossbars left on it so we can use those to attach it to the vertical pole without interfering with the steering column.

II. Assorted News:

An Engin 100 team will be developing a human-powered generator for us to be completed by the end of the semester. I'll be meeting with them in the next week or so to discuss the project. Let me know if you want to mentor them or assist in mentoring them. Tomorrow I'll be going to a meeting about integrating business students into M-HEAL projects. The meeting is at 5pm in 2185 LBME. If you are interested in the business side of the lamp design you are welcome to come. Last week I emailed John Barrie at ATC about getting LEDs from him but still haven't heard back. I'll let you know when something develops on that end. The next round of NCIIA grant applications is due in early December so soon we'll need to start working on our submission.

III. Blog:

The lamp team has a blog that all of you are welcome to post on. Please post any work you do between meetings so everyone can be updated to any developments. Likewise if you are running into any problems post them on the blog so that other people can help you out. The url for the blog is http://mheal-lamp.blogspot.com/.

IV. Action Items:

New team members: Read our previous NCIIA grant application (attached) and get Wilson Center training

Mike W: Talk to John Barrie about the LEDs. Evidently he doesn't respond to my emails. Move the lamp prototype to the student group office.

Old team members: Read section 4.3 in Abigail's thesis and post your thoughts on the blog.

V. Next Week's Meeting:

Next week we'll be meeting in LBME at 8pm as usual. After some brief updates we'll break up into two groups. One group will go to the Wilson Center and put the new joint on the prototype. They will also figure out how to prevent the wheel from turning and will assess the performance of the current locking mechanism. The second group will develop a list of specs for the Engin 100 team and discuss the interface between the lamp and the generator.

VI. M-HEAL Development Day:

This semester's Dev Day will be October 23. Dev Day is an all day M-HEAL event where the design teams work on their projects and periodically break up to brainstorm with people from other teams on how each project could be improved. During last semester's Dev Day we made a ton of progress and (at least I) had a ton of fun (and free food). That Saturday is a bye week, so you don't have to worry about missing the football game. Stay tuned for more details.

VII. M-HEAL Mass Meeting 10/12:

The next M-HEAL mass meeting is next Tuesday. Frank Anderson, MD will be talking about infant and maternal health issues in Ghana; it should be a fascinating meeting.

As usual, let me know if you have any questions or comments.

See you at the M-HEAL mass meeting!

Steve

Entrepreneurship Blog

This is only mildly relevant, but I've started reading this entrepreneurship blog by the guys who wrote Rework (a book on startups currently on the NYT bestseller list).

http://37signals.com/svn

Power Regulation Design

Since the generator will be giving a variable AC voltage depending on crank frequency, we will need a full wave rectifier and smoothing filter. Here is an example bridge configuration to work off of:

After the prototype generator has been characterized, we can identifty the needed shunt diode (or some other type of simple voltage regulator) to drop down to the needed 12V supply.

All components must be power rated to prevent damage.

Lamp Head Design

Here's the result of tonight's brainstorming session:




Any comments?

- Elliot

Gamma Design

Here's a picture of our imagined design for Lamp Gamma. The base design is not solidified and still needs some work, mostly on how is the base going to support the lamp proper (angle?). Think of any questions you might have for the next meeting.

Hey guys, here's this week's lamp update:

1. Today's meeting
2. What we know about the electrical system and what we don't know
3. This week's assignments
4. Next week's meeting
5. M-HEAL Design Weekend (Feb. 6th and 7th)
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1. Today's Meeting:
Today we did a rough paper design of the gamma prototype. We decided to go with a mechanism similar to the first joint on the beta prototype, except using a bike wheel instead of the shower drain (and now the peg goes into the wheel radially from the rim instead of through the edge). We also decided to go with a simple cross design for the base, forgoing the golf push cart design brought up last week (due to its complexity and non-mission-critical advantages). Mike will be posting drawings of what we discussed, so don't worry if you can't picture it from my (poor) description. We also discussed what we need to figure out to get the specs for the electrical system. What we discussed is in the next section.

2. What we know about the electrical system and what we don't know
Here are questions that need answering:
What surgeries do we want this to be used for and how long do they take?
Are we targeting places that only need a lamp during blackouts or places that don't have lamps?
How do handcrank charging systems work (specifically)?
How long would it take to charge up the battery with a handcrank? How long hooked up to a bike?
How can one prevent equipment damage from power surges from the grid?
Do we need to charge from the wall?
Should we incorporate solar cells?
What is our target price?
What is our target brightness?
(Let me know if there are any questions brought up today that I forgot to list)

What we do know (relevant to the questions above):
Something similar to our alpha prototype was built in Fort Portal, Uganda for ~$40
FDA spec for a minor surgical lamp is 850 lumens for a 6" spot at 36"
Our current lamp is 810 lumens and has about a 6" spot at 36"
Our current lamp uses 26 W at 3.5 V
We decided that ideally the lamp would work just off the handcrank (assuming we can get reasonable crank times)

3. This week's assignments
Mike H: Post drawings of current gamma prototype design, give me Kelly's email address (assuming she wants on the email list)
Mike W: Talk to AAPD and East Quad Bike Coop (http://www.eqbc.org/) about getting bikes (talk to Carl to figure out best method to procure bikes)
Carl: Look for bikes on Craigslist (talk with Mike W to figure out best method to procure bikes)
Patrick: Learn how handcrank generators work, talk to girlfriend about preventing power surges
Elliot: Look through Abigail's website (http://empowerdesign.org/) and thesis (http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/63801) for info on handcranks
Selvan: Get back to me about the penta-chart, do a quick write up on the tiers of Uganda's healthcare system and anything else you've looked into this past week
Naroo: Get back to me about the penta-chart
Phil, Mustafa: Get info on what surgeries are done and how long they take
Anita, Brian, Geeti: Let me know if you still want to be involved in the project
Steve: Talk to ATC about using their LEDs

Post what you have on the blog by Friday. If you're having a hard time with what you're supposed to do email me by Thursday and post something on the blog, so we can figure out how to collectively help you get it done.

4. Next week's meeting
Next week plan on meeting at 8pm on Sunday in the LBME project room once again. The meeting will be focused on big picture stuff so we can develop some good specs to design the electrical portion of the lamp.

5. M-HEAL Design Weekend
Feb. 6th and 7th is M-HEAL Design Weekend. We'll be working on the lamp from ~11am Saturday until ~6pm on Sunday (don't worry, you get to go home to sleep). Try to clear your schedule so you can be there.

As always, let me know if you have any concerns, questions, problems, or ideas.

Keep up the good work!
Steve

A Little Info about Ugandan Healthcare

With Selvan's connections in Kumi, Uganda is an easy starting point in developing specs for the lamp. Here's some links that Selvan dug up from WHO:

http://www.afro.who.int/index.html

http://www.who.int/countries/uga/en/

http://www.afro.who.int/uganda/index.html

Interesting tidbits:

4% of all deaths in Uganda are women right around the time they give birth

42% of births are done by skilled personnel

30 million people live in Uganda

There are 19,000 nurses and midwives (1 per 1,600 people)

There are 2,200 physicians (1 per 14,000 people)

Pics of Prototype "Beta"

Well done everyone.

1/10 Meeting Update

Sorry about the long post, but make sure to read all of it (and not just skim through). We had a nice and productive meeting today, the beta prototype is pretty much done. We had to stabilize the peg and mess with the wire tension, but it is pretty solid. The only things we need to do next week are to cut down the counterweight arm, attach the counterweight, and figure out a way to easily adjust the wire tension.

Here's some random things to consider for the future that we discussed today:
- we can shorten the vertical pole by ~6", this will make the lamp less ungainly and will mean it will take fewer bike frame pieces welded together to make
- it would be nice if we could program some of the stuff for the CNC machine so we get nicely done holes (after we have a good design figured out)
- we need a stiffer base, the current one bounces a little
- we need to redesign the "helicopter" joint, the current one is too unstable and sensitive
- we need to redesign the head to make it lighter/easier to assemble (possible use of zip ties instead of pipe fitters)
- we need to know what bikes in our target countries look like (are they single/multi speed, do they have breaks, do they have pedals and chains, etc)
- making it out of primarily bike parts is going to be hard

M-HEAL Development Weekend:
For those of you who I haven't told yet, M-HEAL is planning to have a weekend where all the project teams spend the majority of the weekend working on their projects. We'll probably start Saturday late morning and end Sunday evening. With those thirty-odd hours we should be able to get a ton of work done. Right now we're tentatively thinking of having it either the last weekend of January or the first weekend of February. What weekend do people prefer? I'll probably send out another email about this tomorrow after the officers' meeting.

Lamp Meeting Time:
Please fill out when you are free for a lamp meeting here http://whenisgood.net/a4yzs8

Wilson Center Training:
We're going to need alot of training before Dev Weekend. At the very least everyone needs to take either milling or welding training and we should have one or two people who do lathe training. The Wilson Center people still don't have January training up on their website yet so to set up a training time email the relavant person on the Wilson Center training page (http://www.engin.umich.edu/teamprojects/About/training.html) and try to set up a time. Everyone should strive to get one training session in this week and one in next week. Please email the list to say what training you're planning to do so that we get a good mix of skills.

Stuff to do before the Next Meeting:
Everyone: Please read Abigail's thesis pages 64-69 and 109-110 for some background info (link: http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/63801)
Engineers: Schedule a training this week
Anita and Selvan: Look into the structure of the Ugandan healthcare system and what is normally done at each level (ie local clinics, regional hospitals, major hospitals) Abigail's thesis might be useful as a starting point
Naroo: Make a penta-chart for our pitch
Mustafa: Find out what the major procedures are in Uganda that might require a surgical lamp and how many are done
Brian: Look into electricity availability and use in Uganda, Abigail's thesis might be a useful place to start

As always, if you run into any issues or have any questions shoot me an email. If you're having trouble trying to find some information be sure to cc the lamp list; someone on the team might know someone you can talk to (or know where to find some resource). As you find out information please post it here on the blog.

Steve

Project Lead