This past week was somewhat an eventful week but not too busy. I mainly focused on my Final Product Progress Assessment. While doing this assessment, I was able to look back at the progress I have made so far and look forward to what is left to do. So far, for my Final Product, I have done intensive research for four countries. The water filter I want to create is going to be designed for a specific village within Nepal, the country I chose. I have bit more researching to do before I can begin my blueprint. However, after this stage, I am going to enter the second half of my Final Product journey.
In addition to my Final Product work this past week, I also had an interview with Dr. Edna Prieto-Ballengee at Abbott. Compared to my mentor, the field chemical engineering she works with is closer to biochemical engineering. It was interesting to get a different perspective regarding this field. Some of my other interviews were with chemistry professors who were not really my field of interest but talking to them earlier helped me understand what Dr. Ballengee was saying more clearly. After my interview, I was able to tour the laboratory and see how people work together in groups. This was the first interview that portrayed chemical engineering as I imagined it to be. There was never a full laboratory with lab coats and safety goggles on other interview visits I have been on. By the end of my interview visit, I was able to compare various branches of chemical engineering together.
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For the majority of the past two weeks, I gave my full attention to the progression of my Final Product. While continuing my study, I aimed to be more specific and detail-oriented so I can have all the possible information I might need while designing my water filter for a developing country.
During my mentor visit, I was finally able to choose a village in a country out of the initial four countries I had picked out. My top two choices were Nepal and Haiti. Nepal's situation intrigued me however, I had more valuable information for Haiti. I knew both countries were great choices so, in the end, I decided on Nepal. My initial plan is to redesign some techniques commonly used in Haiti to fit with Nepal's environment. To take a step further in our analysis, my mentor and I developed a problem statement, a new research chart and listed out potential solutions. I prefer the idea of creating a chart to organize information. It ensures you will get all the information down that you wanted to research. Normally, I get ideas sporadically and I aspire to investigate it, but by the time I get a chance, I forget it or misplace it. Having a chart makes sure you do not forget anything. Overall, I have made great advancement in my journey of developing a water filter. The actions I took these prior two weeks will give me a solid foundation and get me to my goal. Most of this past week involved me editing my Final Product Proposal Final Draft. This stage in my Final Product Journey is crucial to the ladder steps coming up. Without a solid plan, there will be many questions on what step to take to achieve the goal. This proposal includes key information such as materials and procedures involved in this journey. On top of that, I explained the major issue I am trying to solve. If this section was excluded, I knew I will not be able to keep track of my main intention of creating my Final Product. When I work on any major project, I always have ideas flowing in my head I can never keep track of the good ones. Having this proposal will keep this problem from taking place. This proposal is in simpler terms, an agenda designed to help drive me to keep up with my plans and ideas. This assignment is turning out to help me in the best way possible. The organization of the key elements in my proposal and calendar has been keeping me up to date.
To keep up with my calendar, I have been researching the countries on my Final Product Proposal. So far, I have only touched the surface on my research but got a ton of useful information. However, I had a few questions which drove me to research deeper. It is a bit difficult to find information easily regarding statistics or specific information regarding my topic of study: water filtration. To overcome this issue, I started to research how to research information more effectively as well as use video to find data. By doing this, I am already starting to achieve a goal on my Product Proposal. By already getting a head start, it has motivated me to work harder and find ways to improve. So far in my path to creating a water filter to help with the UN’s Sustainability Goals, I have made some progress and aim to do much more in the upcoming weeks. |