Taking Initiative: 2nd Hospital Visit Day

Bienvenidos

So this week there was a little switch-roo(i don't think i spelt that right)! Because this Friday, May 30th is Mother's Day in Nicaragua, we went to the Hospital this thursday instead.

Again we were split into the same 4/5 groups. Being that some groups had less engineering/exciting tasks to do last week such as fan-cleaning, we made sure that each group had a new experience. My group was therefore on fan cleaning having had very interesting and involved session with troubleshooting the problem with the Dryer.

Old Battries(One side)

 As we waited for our assigned maintenance engineer i notched the Manager had out a soldering iron and trying to make small conversation, I told him-in spanish- how we had been soldering a lot in lab. He then asked me if i wanted to solder and of course i said yes. He was trying to take off the wiring that was soldered to two AAA batteries used for the phone. For some reason the phone didnt have the usual spring and designated area for batteries so wires have to be soldered to the battery and then the wire was connected to a port in the phone.

Old Batteries(Sided II)

New Batteries that needs soldering!

Team-Work! Suceess :)

I was a little nervous because i came to realize i need assistance and for someone to hold the battery as i tried to de-solder and remove the wiring. Never be afraid to ask for help! I called on brittany and we mapped out a plan for how i should desolder. The director who was working on other task also offered some suggestions for holding the batteries in place. He also gave me a higher Watt soldering iron when the one i was using was not warming up enough. Nikki, my roommate also happened to walk by and i asked for her assistance and together we successfully able to de-solder and re-solder the wires to new batteries and the Phone WORKED! *High-Five to that*

Hello..Dayo!

Hi Nikki!

Ready!

Having been so successful and wanting to solder some more we asked the Director and he showed us a old-photocopier. we examined it  a bit and found that it no longer worked because of some user error but they didn't have a manual so we would have to do some research at home but he didn't want us to fix it. Instead he wanted us to take it apart and try and salvage parts from it and practise desolder more things. Laura also joined us on the adventure.

Taking apart something has always been something i wanted to do and with the lack pressure of not having to reassemble it i was excited. we unscrewed the back panels and took out some of the boards. I was excited when i could guess what some of the chips were. We took apart some gears and transformers. I learnt from Jimmy my last week assigned maintenance guy and the Director how to take apart gears. Overall very cool experience and more interesting day of work. We did stay a full day this week which will take some getting used to. Im also happy to have established a working trust relationship with the Director who saw i was willing and excited to jump in on any task and thankfully completed them well.

Impresora-Printer!

In our debrief as a group we talked about although we were here to help  and hopefully fix things, we are still amateurs and still learning and we should also use this as an opportunity to learn from the Engineers we work with at the hospitals and not be afraid to ask for help. Also the importance of establishing a plan and troubleshooting before jumping into a task. For example, before de-soldering I took pictures and we agreed taking pictures in order to remember how to put things back together is very important.

Painted IV Stands drying :)

I am excited for next week and hopefully get to do more cool things. This weeks tasks: Cleaning fans,  Painting IV stand, testing Centrifuges etc were more relevant to things we have and will learn and hopefully that will be the same for next week.










-----Adios :)