FRESH box 1.0 Beta complete!

Hey Everyone,
This weekend, we made our first prototype ice box! We bought materials from Home Depot then got to work at the Hillel center, where we used Jasons awesome power tools to build our box. Below are the pictures of our progress.

We began by cutting the lexan panes so as to make an 8"x8"x8" cube inside that would hold the vaccines:



Then we tried to cut the polystyrene, but the wire cutter would not work, as the wire had an enamel coating on it...So we tried to burn off the coating:


Then we decided to use the circular saw to cut the insulation, and it worked really well. We then embedded the lexan panes into the polystyrene and secured it with liquid nails:


Next, we put the rest of the insulation around the inside lexan cube and made a top to fit the box:



Finally, Sahil and Jason finished the box off by putting the corrugated plastic pieces around the outside:


The building team made really good progress this weekend. By building the box, we found out how to use all the tools, what works, and what does not. Now we can use this box to simulate ice box experiments that will model our actual final prototype!

-Ravi

New semester!

Well, Team FRESH is now in their final year - seniors! The project largely needs to be wrapped up by the end of this fall semester, leaving a couple of months for writing and tying up any loose ends. The summer was marked by a couple of changes. I moved lab and family to San Diego, which was a chaotic experience. Fortunately, both Team FRESH and Gemstone staff were supportive of and flexible in dealing with this adventure. (Thanks!) I'll continue to mentor from afar, and Gunja will take over the in person mentoring every other week. After some minor technical difficulties the first two weeks (one which was my fault and one which I can blame on some poor SDG&E worker in Arizona, who blacked out San Diego, parts of Arizona, and parts of Mexico!), weekly meetings are also in full swing. The new syllabus reflects ambitious, but realistic goals to wrap up the project.

The blog should be updated more regularly now that the semester is going strong. I continue to have high hopes! Good luck!

PCM measurements scheduled for next week on the DSC! (apparently the chamber was contaminated so they were rescheduled from tomorrow)

Business Plan Competition? I think so.

Team FRESH is now considering entering in next year’s University of Maryland $75K Business Plan Competition. Needless to say the prize money would be well-appreciated and put in to good use. This gives the marketing team even more of a push to get a good marketing plan written out. So far we seem to have a lot of the background research and rough estimates on the costs associated with the cold chain in past drafts of our thesis and concept paper. What remains generally is a cost comparison of our own product to that of our competitors.

-Amanda

Marketing Plan Search

The marketing team is currently on the search for a new marketing plan template. We all agree that our current marking plan template is too broad and does not account for the unique features of each individual cold chain. Unfortunately we can’t use the template we learned about at the Unite for Sight Conference because they asked not to have it cited or copied. There are conferences out there dedicated solely to healthcare product marketing and business plan development (http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/execed/Programs/HEALTHPRO.aspx), but of course, they are a few $1,000’s out of our budget (feel free to donate!!). We are currently trying to adapt a standard business plan to our needs in order to market specifically to Unicef, and other organizations responsible for the maintenance of the cold chain.

Frozen, Yo.

Last Thursday, we had our last mentor meeting with Dr. Shah for the semester. I can't believe we're going to be seniors next year! It seems like yesterday since we were researching less developed countries and their problems...oh how fast time flies by.

We met at Yogiberry instead of the boring engineering building. Everyone sat around and enjoyed frozen yogurts. It was a good bonding time. We talked about Angry Birds, Words with Friends, and whatever else we had on our mind. All in all, it was a great ending to the semester.

Good luck to everyone during finals!

Keeping it Fresh since 2008,
Young

Minutes - Mentor Meeting 4/28

Hey guys,

Here's the minutes from our mentor meeting on 4/28/11.

Undergraduate Research Day:

Success! Thanks to all the team members who volunteered and made everything go smoothly.

The editing team for the first three chapters of our Thesis completed their revisions. There are currently 5 objectives listed in our thesis (1 - is the concept paper; 2 - Characterize PCM...5- Marketing Plan). All of the edits can be noticed on the google doc (Sorry for the lack of details here...Matt talks extremely fast and I couldn't keep up with him).

This is a very rough draft of our thesis and still needs editing from our other editing teams. Also, the next team should take the paper out of a google doc and put it into a word document.

The main update is that all of the supplies have been purchased and construction will commence at Andrew's apartment this week.

The team social was on 4/30 at Ledo's (already happened because I'm late on this post. But it was a really fun time).

Looking forward to next semester, we really need to focus on our thesis and our prototype. The full thesis is due by the end of next semester (150 pages!!) By that time, we hope to talk to all external experts and invite them to our thesis defense in Spring 2012.

As far as team feedback from Dr. Shah goes, he generally said we're pretty awesome.

-Andrew

Minutes - Non Mentor Meeting 4/26

Hey guys,

Here's the minutes from our non mentor meeting from Tuesday night.

UPDATES:

Editing team – Quint, Matt, Kelly and young have editing done by Thursday's meeting

All of the building materials have been purchased, and buildling will be occurring at Andrew’s place

Timeline for PCM testing : The lab for testing the PCM is extremely busy. Quint is going to see if he can conduct testing during the night.

For those who are going to be in or around campus during the summer, a meeting time needs to be decided upon.

Summer goals:

· Complete prototype building

· Concept paper – near final draft completed

· Complete PCM testing (early summer)

· Marketing plans - find a new template by exams

· First draft by May 26^th (marketing plan)

· Second draft by June 9^th (marketing plan)

· Submit to Dr. shah -draft by june 23 (marketing plan)

· Final draft – July 14^th (marketing plan)

Concept paper

· First draft of concept paper –June 1^st

· Dr. Shah for edits- June 15^th

· Final draft- August 15^th

As for our Thesis, it will be focused on during next semester.

-Andrew

Thesis Editing Party at Amina's

Hey Team Fresh

Quint, Young, Amina and myself, collectively known as the first round editing team,have spent the last 2 hours wrestling our thesis google doc into something readable. We made a lot of comments and found some holes, but most of it makes sense. It would be nice for the team to take a look at the google doc before the meeting tomorrow!

Thanks Amina for the M&M's!

-Matt

Undergraduate Research Day Extravaganza

Today was the Undergraduate Research Day!

I went to Undergraduate Research Day to support our fellow teammates presenting our project to the public. There were definitely some fascinating projects going on around campus, and I got to learn more about our fellow Gemstone colleagues and their progress. Team Green Justice was close to where we were stationed, so I went to say hi. To briefly explain their project, they are evaluating the impact of changing the trash pickup from twice a week to once a week in Hyattsville. It's an interesting topic and I'm sure they've put in a lot of work into their research. I came across another Gemstone project while wandering around. This research was to improve the effectiveness of the Maryland sex offender registry. I couldn't help but read more about the research because it was such a unique research idea. Last but not least, there was a psychology research about domestic violence. The researched wanted to determine if the domestic violence courses here at the university changed the students' opinons and attitudes.

Even though there lots of cool research today, I couldn't help but feel that our project is still the coolest and the freshest. Maybe I'm a little bit biased though.

If you didn't get a chance to check out today, there's always next year!

- Young

Follow our Twitter Account!

http://twitter.com/TeamFRESHumd

Trip to Home Depot

So this weekend, I rented a van from motorpool for a different club. I forced Foo to wake up and come with me to Home Depot. Somehow, we were able to fold down the seats and fit the 8 x 4 ft boards into the van at the expense of a seat for Foo. So with boards over my head and Foo crouched on the ground in the back, we made it to Courtyards and stored the boards and Liquidnails in his place. We are going to transfer all supplies to courtyards and start building next week!


-Sahil

It's that time of the semester!!!

Our semesterly social has finally arrived!!

The plan, you ask?

On Saturday, April 30th, 2011, we'll be dining at Ledo's Restaurant on Knox Road at 6:00pm, and at around 7:00pm, we'll be leaving for Memorial Chapel where we will go see the Faux Paz Spring Show! (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=191310897580915)

Get ready for a FRESH night...

14 hours until Undergraduate Research Day,
Amina and Divya

Using Google Maps to Visualize the Literature on Vaccine Freezing

As my final project for that same Digital Communication class I'm taking, I decided to make a Google Earth map of the studies we've looked at demonstrated vaccine freezing in transport and storage in the cold chain. I've been wrapped up with MCAT studying, so I keep forgetting to bring it up during our meetings, so thought I would link it here for our whole community to see!

What better way to get a grasp on what data is out there than map it out?

Concept: Since many of the reports are from developing countries, and are of variable quality, it is important to focus on peer-reviewed studies and technical reports from trusted organizations like USAID. Each marker on the map will be accompanied by a link to the study, an abstract if available, and important findings (percentage of freezing in transport/in storage, unit of analysis). I want to have a clean format so that the
information doesn’t overwhelm the audience. I think this project is very important to researchers, policy-makers, and even the public because it will demonstrate what parts of the world may be neglected. In addition, it will empower the audience to readily access the research in one window rather than navigating Pubmed or relying on media reports.

Here it is so far!


View Cold Chain Findings Around the World in a larger map






~Veena

WorldTalk Undergraduate Research Symposium

Hey everyone!  I want to get the word out on a conference coming up that may be of interest to you, our globally-minded followers.

On May 1st, the University of Maryland's Honors Humanities Program is holding its annual research symposium.  This year's theme is "Human Rights in the Global Age."   I just found out that my paper was accepted, so I'll be presenting myself!  The topic of my presentation?  BLOGGING and combining online communication tools to approach global health issues in the future.  I started exploring online tools in a Digital Communication class I'm taking right now on campus.  My midterm paper was basically a tutorial on building a student global health research blog in WordPress, and the blog it's posted on is a perfect example!  For this presentation, I want to cover a little bit more ground, drawing from my experiences trying to navigate the web for Team FRESH as well as other projects I have done in the past and am currently working towards.  I want to cover what worked, what didn't work, and what may emerge in the future.

Our involvement in online communities has led us to some amazing experts like Dr. Yarrow-- just imagine if this became a widespread resource that anyone with a bit of passion could turn to.    Just imagine how many projects people could collaborate on across borders!  More Team FRESH projects would certainly be good additions to the world! :)

 This conference is free and open to the public-- feel free to stop by Sunday, May 1st, from 9-4:30.  I will be presenting my paper during Session 4, which starts at 3pm.

~Veena

Clark School Sustainability Workshop

Hey Team FRESH and followers,

I meant to mention this today, but forgot. The Clark School is hosting a sustainability workshop tomorrow and I am presenting in my position as project leader for the University of Maryland's student chapter of Engineers without Borders' Burkina Faso IV: Health project. My talk incorporates some ideas of sustainability that I got from Amanda, Ravi and Kelly at the meeting on Tuesday from their experiences at the Unite for Sight Conference. The workshop info is available here: http://www.eng.umd.edu/events/sustainability-workshop2011

Talks run all day, but for some reason they volunteered Engineers without Borders to go first. The talk is in the Kim building so its easy if you're around those parts, but if you're just waking up its also webcast!

Just getting the word out...

Keep it fresh,
Matt

Meeting 4/21/11

3:45 review over conference call with our source in india, Justin Yarrow he gave us several important papers to look at. Additionally it was revealed that one of the biggest problems with the cold chain studies now and decisions made about the cold chain indicate that there is very little data out there. And the existing data may or may not be generalizable as we’d like. Furthermore is was discovered that the exact effect of freezing isn’t really known. He mentioned that no one does shake test. A study is currently being done with a temperature measurement of lots of vaccines within the system.

Recommended changes. Reusable materials. Look into leaving stuff out, as people don’t actually leave stuff out.

3:55 Discussion of what Dr. Gabino, She didn’t think immediate implementation is feasible. Need to look at our solution as more of a long term system. Suggested green insulation. She said that it would be really nice for us to talk about how sturdy our system is, just throwing boxes around. Her experience in the field indicates this is a highly relevant test. She may have offered her facilities to test stuff in her facilities. Can we ask her for more information about what she does?

4:00 Two guests at our meeting!! Dr. Wallace and Rebbeca Thomas from the gemstone main office. Updating them on our progress as a team. We informed them of our recent work with the new people we have met. Dr. Gabino and Dr. Yarrow from the conference and blogs respectively. How we talked with him and her about what they have done.

Our team right now is putting a lot of focus on the theoretical modeling. I.e. our goal will be to really nail this down while getting assistance with the prototype building occurring simultaneously. How we will take the prototype and use the PQS tests to make sure the system works.

We explained how our system will be using the theoretical model that is COMSOL with an added program for PCM b/c phase change isn’t supported.

We were asked how we feel about our progress as a whole towards our goal. We feel that we have a lot of feedback and are ready to keep going and improve how everything is working.

Discussion of our new plan for experimentation. (were a little behind our plan) Goal is to build a practice system before semester ends. After that is to design a system using the COMSOL model and construct the final over the summer. Break at 4:25

4:30 Talk about the points brought up by Rebecca Thomas and dr. Wallace. It may be key to discuss availability over the summer. Talk about how far we want to progress before we graduate.

4:35 Use of biodegradable materials, there are some out there.

Skype with Dr. Yarrow

Hey guys,
So yesterday we skyped with Dr. Yarrow, who has considerable experience with various cold chains in Africa. This was extremely helpful, as he definitely reassured us about our project's importance. Additionally, we had lots of ideas and inklings about how the cold chain actually worked, and his real-world experience verified most of our assumptions, and gave us a lot of details. Some important things he told us were to keep in mind that each vaccine is different, and not to generalize too much. He gave us a bunch of papers and reviews to reference, and ideas for actually implementing our prototype in the various cold chains around the world. I think he was much more reassuring than Dr. Gammino, but both of them gave us valuable, credible feedback. I'll post my notes from the conference call on our groupspaces.

Good job team, this means we are on the right direction and we have credible support!

Sahil

NEW PCM!

The new PCM from Acutemp finally came!

We received 5 panels of the VXS-1 PCM from Acutemp that has a freezing temperature around 2-5 degrees Celsius. And they were completely free!

We can now test the new PCM along with the PCM from Greenbox and find thermal characteristics of each PCM. Hopefully one of these PCMs will match the properties needed for our design.

Unite for Sight Weekend

This weekend we went to the unite for sight conference. I was surprised by the wide range of people who were there. We were sitting next to physicians, CEOs, other students, health workers, and other types of people. A common theme of the day seemed to be collaboration between different organizations and people. The keynote speaker talked about how pharmaceutical industry reform is possible through teamwork between NGOs, and other speakers also talked about how organizations needed to come together to solve various problems.
After the keynote we sat in on a series of conferences talking about HIV treatment and prevention and the importance of mobile technology in healthcare. I was surprised to learn that there is not that much progress on an HIV vaccine and that microbicides seem to be a promising avenue for HIV prevention.
Then, in the afternoon was our presentation. We were put in a room about clean water issues, which didn't really go with our topic but there were a few other projects that also weren't on this topic. The presentation went very well and we had a few questions after. There was a lady there from the CDC and we ended up talking to her for a while afterward because she works with the immunization department and is working with a project similar to ours. She gave us her contact information and I believe she will be a good resource in the future.
On Sunday, we attended the first of three keynote addresses in the morning. It was given by Jeffery Sachs, a professor of economics at Columbia University, who has also advised the Congress on budget issues. He talked about the recent budget crisis in the USA and how our spending and tax plans compare to other wealthy nations, making the point that the USA is lacking in good, ethical leadership. I was blown away by the talk and the information he gave as to how terrible the economic situation really is in the USA.
Then, we took a break in a coffee shop to talk about some information we found that Dr. Gammino has published about the cold chain. After that, we attended a series of lectures on product design and implementation. One lecture in particular was related to our situation because the speaker was part of Catapult Designs, which is a nonprofit engineering organization that helps groups who are looking to make a social impact in the developing world. His team may be able to help us with design details or product implementation in the future.
Next, we ate at a vegetarian restaurant, called Claire's, and the food was fantastic. Our experience there actually inspired us to establish a Team FRESH twitter account (@TeamFRESHumd) because they gave us a free slice of cake out of the blue!
After lunch, I went to a workshop that was lead by the director of the hospital I worked at while I was in India during my Unite for Sight trip. I talked to him for a little while after the session, and it was nice to catch up, since we had not kept in touch for a while. It also turned out to be worthwhile because two other men came up and talked to him, so I was able to connect with them, as well. One was an MBA student at University of Maryland and the other had been a professor at the University of Maryland Medical School for 20 years! It was an amazing coincidence, and I believe they will be able to give us some information or put us in contact with the right people in the future.
The last talk I went to was about photography for NGOs. A professional photographer talked about his experiences all of the world, including Kenya, Bangladesh, and Russia. It was interesting to see how much detail goes in to taking a photograph. This talk was a great end to a fantastic weekend! I look forward to pursuing the opportunities that our new contacts can provide!

-Ravi