Searching for facilities readily equipped with technologies
to help a sick family member in Karachi, Pakistan piqued my curiosity in how
biomedical engineering could influence healthcare development. I
decided to read more about bioengineering in global health, and eventually it
led me to neonatal health issues. I realized I wanted to work on improving
oxygen concentrators to decrease the mortality rate of children infected with
pneumonia in South Asia with Dr. Nathalia Peixoto. This semester, I’m working
on designing a low-cost oxygen analyzer using zinc-air batteries coupled with
an Arduino. Zinc air batteries are batteries most commonly used for hearing
aids, and Arduino is a microcontroller board. This is all a fancy way of saying
I am working to make a device that measures oxygen concentration from a machine
that filters air for oxygen.
On a weekly basis, I mostly work on
programming an Arduino board and running tests for the zinc-air battery. For
example, this week, I ran an experiment for the zinc-air battery and measuring
the voltage changes depending on the oxygen concentration with the Arduino.
Then, I programmed the Arduino to sample the voltage every second and output
the value. My current work is focused on finalizing the relationship voltage
and oxygen concentration as linear and writing a program accordingly, as well
as making a basic circuit with comparators so that a specific LED lights up
depending on the range of concentration.
