Thank you reflections: Melinda, Thea & Aditi

Melinda
I'd like to thank Katherine and Karina and all of the other undergraduates for teaching us what it's like being in BME at UVA. This program really helped me get a better understanding of what I want to do in college and will help me a lot when I start applying in a few months.

Thea
This week has flown by so quickly and I've had so many amazing experiences and encounters. It's hard for me to just thank two people for their time and for being great impacts on my experience, so I would like to thank everyone who spoke with me this week and taught me more about Bio-Medical Engineering than I had ever known before this camp!

Aditi
David, you really helped me learn about BME this week. Your presentations were awesome, and the way you take the time to get to know all of the students was very nice. Learning about design, how to give feedback, and how to empathize with patients were three important things that you taught us this week, along with all the BME knowledge you shared with us.

Thank You Reflection: Mriganka

First, I'd like to thank Kim, David, Katharine, and Karina for setting up this experience. Your presentations on biomedical engineering, computer science, and virtual reality were very interesting and felt truly relatable, especially when we were given the opportunity to actually create our own technology and experience the design process firsthand (or even try out actual technology, like the virtual reality headsets!). Moreover, you all set up the lab visits, which were extremely interesting and showed me the diversity of the BME field. Again, thank you all so much for setting up this program! Bio-Med Tech-Girls really gave me my first taste of BME, and I feel much more confident in looking at it as a possible degree or career option.

Second, I'd like to thank the various PIs whose labs we visited: Dr. Peirce-Cottler, Dr. Blemker, and Dr. Meyer, as well as Sue Berres, who gave us a tour of the Children's Hospital and brought in a real patient, and Dr. Langer, who came in to present on epilepsy. Specifically, though, I'd like to thank the Peirce-Cottler lab for teaching us about microvasculature and showing us their 3D-Bioprinter in action. It was fascinating to see how it worked, and to imagine that it could regenerate removed tissues in actual human patients by forming microvasculature to redistribute blood supply is truly amazing!

Thank You Reflections: Jade, Sekum & Anika

Jade
Dear Jennifer Langer,
Thank you for educating me on epilepsy! I hardly knew any of the information you gave beforehand and am really glad I could hear you speak. You have inspired me and interested me in your field of work. A field I had not considered before. I am glad I could meet you.

Dear Kim Wilkens, David Chen, and all undergraduates who made this camp possible,
I am so thankful to have been a part of this camp and grateful to you guys for making it happen! Without this camp, I would have never gotten such a hands-on experience in bio-medical engineering and gotten to see all the cool labs! It was great getting to see such smart women and men doing what they love in STEM. I definitely feel like I've been inspired by this camp and will definitely not be forgetting it!

Sekum
This has been an awesome week of learning new things. I would like to thank Kim and David for collaborating with so many different people to make tech girls possible. I would also like to thank Kathrine and Karina for helping us throughout the week and answering all of our questions and giving us cool suggestions during our mini-projects.

Anika
I'd like to thank both Kathrine and Karina for dedicating their time to BioMed Tech Girls. I know they probably have lots of work to do for their own projects, and I appreciate the fact that they decided to spend their time working with us. They were helpful and friendly all week and worked to keep our spirits high when we were tired. Also, it was cool to experience what they work on in college and what working in BioMed is really like. Lastly, it was really interesting to hear their thoughts on VR in therapy and I was grateful they let us experience the Vive and other VR headsets.

Thank You, Karina!

Karina, thanks for being so supportive! You were always checking on us: "Need me to get anything?"
"What are you guys planning?" "What's the best way to do this?" "What about this method?"
The games you and Katherine thought up were hilarious and got everyone engaged. The M&Ms game, the Two Truths One Lie game, and Seven Seconds were some of my favorites. And I really appreciate how late you and Katherine stayed up, working on those presentations and CP patient profiles. Thank you for all your hard work!
God bless,
Gillian

Thank You, Katherine!

Katherine, I loved working with you! Your presentations are clear and beautiful. My favorite presentation of the entire week was the one you and Karina gave on Virtual Reality. Your games were funny (especially the Seven Seconds one) and you really try to get everyone engaged. You were cheerful, delighted and supportive, but not afraid to give a little help or correction (especially when it was needed!). And if we needed any single thing, you did your best to get it for us. Thank you so much!
Blessings,
Gillian

Thank You, David!

David, you were awesome this week! Your talk on BME was clear and interesting and explained that it was a much larger field than I had been aware of. You were encouraging, but gave a nudge in the right direction to those who needed it. When you drove us to the Medical Imaging Center, you asked everyone questions, kept everyone engaged, and got us there without any accidents (thankfully). I wish you could have been with us on Wednesday, but whenever you can be around, I'll take it!
Thanks so much,
Gillian

Day 4 Reflection

Can you believe we just have one more day! Today you got started on your final design project. You also had an exclusive and hands-on experience with an MRI scanner in Craig Meyer’s Medical Imaging Lab. Don’t forget that tomorrow we will be in the i.Lab at UVA (621 Nash Drive). Please invite friends and family to a reception starting at 4pm - RSVP here. Pick up will be at 5pm.

Thank you!
Bio-Med Tech-Girls would not be possible without all the people who volunteer their time to speak with you, offer lab tours and work with you throughout the week. Please identify at least 2 people who have made an impact on you this week and write them a thank you note as your blog post/e-mail to me. You can find the names of the team, speakers and lab tours on the blog.

Day 3 Reflections: Jade, Melinda, Sekum, Grace & Thea

Jade
My mind has been blown by all the people we've gotten to meet who are connected to bio-med engineering in some form or way and are trying to help make the lives of everyone better. Especially for those who lead altered lifestyles, not of their own volition.

I've been inspired by the bio-med students, such as Katherine, Karina, and Liam, who are working in the labs. It's nice to hear that they're choosing to help people because they want to and that there isn't an incentive like money, that drew them there. Philanthropic work like that is very inspiring.

A high point for me has been seeing bio-med engineering in person because it is helping me to see if it's a path I want to follow when I'm older. A low point for me has been how fast the days have gone by since it seems like the camp should be longer and that there's much more to learn.

Melinda
My Bio-Med Tech-Girls experience so far has been great! Seeing all of the different varieties of biomedical engineering has definitely blown my mind. Seeing that many of the BME majors are willing to focus on making designs for individuals instead of trying to earn profit is very inspiring. My high point so far was making the google cardboards and my low point would be missing out on the activities on Monday.

Sekum
It always blows my mind to see how diverse the Bio-Med Engineering field is. It's nice to know that you don't have to have just one specific skill set and that there are a variety of different skills that are compatible with the field. It's also very inspreing to see that there are other women in the field that work in labs daily. The high point of my week has been chatting with the other girls in the program about their future endeavors and how they plan on encorporating this experience into their life.

Grace
I was especially inspired on Wednesday by the possibilities of virtual reality in physical therapy. Using the glasses was an incredible experience, because I had only ever used low-tech versions, and there was a huge difference in quality. I felt that the potential behind the concept is really, really important.

I also really enjoyed constructing prototypes, since it required quick-thinking and problem-solving. I feel that speaking with those in the field is really important in deciding on a career, since it provides a valuable insight to the field.

Thea
My experience with Bio-Med Tech Girls has been very good so far. Everything that we have done whether it be visit labs, talk to doctors, watch Bio Medical Engineering in action, or experience patient care has been a great advance in learning what I may want to do in the future. I thought that using virtual reality to help CB patients was incredibly interesting, and I was really inspired by the work that college students were putting in to help advance the Bio Medical Engineering field. My high point for this camp had to be experiencing virtual reality and learning how it can help patients in so many different ways, and my low point was the lab tour on day three because my interest isn't really in computers and coding.

Wednesday Reflection: Mriganka

I have enjoyed my Bio-Med Tech-Girls experience so far. The fact that biomedical engineering encompasses so many disciplines has blown my mind, as I though it was very interesting to see the myriad of ways it was used at the labs we visited and from individual presentations. Overall, these experiences involved David Chen's talk on BME; Kim Wilkens on CS; Dr. Langer on epilepsy; Sue Berres and a patient at the Children's Hospital discussing therapy, limb braces, and stabilizers; the Peirce-Cottler lab on math modeling and 3D printing; Liam Cornwall on his experience with BME; the M3 lab; and the various presentations and discussions by Katharine and Karina, like on virtual reality, for example. The people and labs mentioned above are living proof of the capability of biomedical engineering to truly improve the lives of many, and their dedication to BME to attain this goal is inspiring. Aside from visiting labs and viewing presentations, high points of the program included how we were actually able to take BME into our own hands and envision the design process by creating prototypes of devices that would improve realistic problems. I would not go so far as to call not having enough time to complete prototyping a low point, but all the same, I hope we have more time in the future.

Wednesday Reflections: Gillian

I'm so thankful that Mrs. Kim, David Chen and the team at Tech-Girls have put together this inspiring camp for girls interested in BioMed!

The girls are all supportive and fun to hang out with. For example: working with Aditi on our virtual reality headsets was great, because we had lots of differences, talked a lot and worked together well. The speakers are clear and engaging, especially Jennifer Langer and David Chen. The activities are hands-on, interesting and teach me something. One of my favorites was story-boarding our therapeutic virtual reality game with Sekum and Jerica.

What's crazy to me is that BioMed spans so many categories. I thought that it was limited to prostheses and devices to extend limits. I learned that it's the study of how medicine and technology can help disabled people and cure diseases! I certainly didn't know that they can use virtual reality as motivation for therapy, and also as a distraction during uncomfortable and tedious procedures. It's so much more than meets the eye.

The one thing sad thing: there doesn't seem to ever be enough time! I would love to go more in-depth with nearly everything we're doing, especially virtual reality projects, but we just can't. After all, our families need to see us this week! Seriously, though, I could work on just virtual reality technologies and not be done in a month!

Day 3 Reflection

We had a very creative day today:

• Explored 3D Virtual Reality and then worked with a small team to design/storyboard your own VR program a patient could use for rehabilitation at the MILL (multi-purpose innovation learning lab).
• Liam Cornwall shared about his BME lab experiences during lunch.
• Toured the M3 Lab (multiscale muscle mechanophysiology)
• Created cardboard VR glasses prototypes for our partners at the BME Coulter Lab.
• Explored CAD design for VR glasses prototypes with Tinkercad.

Reflection:
Share about your Bio-Med Tech-Girls experience so far. What has blown your mind? Who has inspired you? What has been a high and/or low point? Why?

Tuesday reflections: Mriganka

This morning, I tried eating my breakfast without the use of my arms. The most challenging part about this assignment was actually getting food into my mouth, as I was eating biscuits and wanted to dip them into tea. I wasn't able to use my feet at the table, so I resorted to using my maxilla/mandible as multipurpose tools: I bit down on the biscuits to dip them into the tea, and then I dropped them on a plate and ate them. This was extremely frustrating, as the biscuits would often slip from my mouth and fall into the tea, resulting in me not being able to retrieve them as the diameter of the cup was smaller than the space needed for me to completely move my jaws and grab the biscuit. Since the tea was hot, the biscuits stuck in the cup became a squishy mess and dissolved in the tea. What surprised me the most about this assignment was how easy I thought eating biscuits with only my jaws would be, when in reality it was rather difficult. One would think that 15 minutes would be enough time for me to figure out away to merely dip biscuits in tea; unfortunately, however, the amount of time spent on this assignment was directly proportional to the amount of dissolved biscuits in my delicious English breakfast tea :(

Tuesday reflections: Melinda, Grace, Jade, Katie, Thea

Melinda
During my 15 minutes of not using my arms, the most challenging thing was eating dinner (I had spaghetti, so it was a bit messy). It was very difficult and I often felt a little frustrated knowing that I couldn't do simple tasks that I could usually do without any problems. I was surprised that I was still able to use my phone.

Grace
I began my fifteen minutes without the use of my arms at dinnertime. I did a bit of research beforehand, and found that a lot of people without use of their arms learn to eat and pick things up with their feet instead. I quickly learned after dropping a container of food all over the place that I am not talented enough to use that method. I also learned (after cheating a bit to clean up the mess) that a lot of household appliances are really difficult to use when you can't use your fingers to push buttons. I ended up pushing a stool into the kitchen with my feet to sit on the counter and push buttons with my toes, which felt fairly ridiculous, and I almost fell trying to get down without arms to catch myself (I also cheated a bit here to avoid injury).

A lot of things were easier to do sitting down, such as opening a bottle of water, since I could use my knees. Still, I ended up spilling some water on the carpet, since I couldn't keep the bottle level. I ate a slice of pizza, which wasn't incredibly difficult, since it didn't necessarily require silverware, but it was messy and I couldn't keep food in the container (which I ate out of, since I couldn't get a plate down from the high cabinets).

By the end, I learned a few major things:
1. When I can't use my arms, I'm a bit off-balance and significantly more aware that a fall could really hurt.
2. It's very difficult to clean up a mess with only my feet, and messes happened much more often than they otherwise would.
3. My household appliances aren't made with disabled people in mind, even though they need to cook just as much as the rest of us.
4. Silverware just doesn't work.
5. Afterwards, I investigated disabled kitchens, and found that there are kitchen appliances made with disabled people in mind, but most require a good deal of use of at least one hand, and really are only suited to SOME disabilities.

Jade
1) I think one of the most challenging things to do was eat because it was burgers. Fortunately for me, we also had fries. Basically, for the 15 minutes without hands, I slowly worked through the fries by picking them up with my mouth and making the necessary movements that would lead to swallowing the fry. As I attempted to move onto the burger, I wasn't really able to get it into my mouth.
2) I felt really irritated and helpless without my hands. As I kept failing to eat the burger with ease, my frustration grew and I almost felt like giving up.
3) I was most surprised by how creative one has to get without the use of hands. When I was eating, I had to resort to just using my mouth and eating similarly to a dog!

Katie
Today was such an amazing experience for me. To try to live as though I had a injury was really challenging and eye opening. I feel like now I can understand and help people better who have disabilities/injuries. I learned so much about what they have to deal with.
The activities we did were really fun, especially the last one when we built our ideas for fixing our partner's problem. Looking forward to tomorrow!  :)

Thea
The activity I chose for the challenge of not using your arms for fifteen minutes was to get ready for bed. The most challenging thing to do during this time was trying to brush my teeth because of the arm movement and stability needed to hold the brush, move the brush, and put tooth paste on the brush.

At first I was very frustrated with the fact that when I tried to put toothpaste on the brush I would squirt too much out, or even end up with some toothpaste on the floor. But, as I continued to struggle with the assignment I began to realize that I was doing things in a way that presented more of a challenge instead of trying to create a new and improved way of brushing my teeth.

I was surprised when I applied one of the tools I learned from the occupational therapist, to hold the toothbrush in place with another object, and began to see that it worked better then trying it with the tooth brush moving around on top of my counter.

Tuesday Reflections: Gillian

This evening, I ate part of dinner without using my arms or hands. It was difficult to drink water or clean my face off. As you can imagine, eating dinner using only your tongue and mouth is really messy! I had to get a rag, put it on the table, and rub my face on it.

The experience was embarrassing and funny. My brothers did the exercise with me, so I didn't feel that awkward, but if I had been the only one eating without my hands, it would have been really hard. It's challenging to imagine what it would be like day in, day out, never going out to eat, always being stared at and always dependent on others.

The most surprising discovery of the exercise for me was that the awkwardness went away when others were in the same boat.  I actually enjoyed it! But in real life, no one wants to eat without hands when they can eat with fork and spoon, so few people are going to choose to make a person with limited use of their arms feel more comfortable by not using their arms either.  Doing this exercise really brought home to me the struggles that people go through when their disability affects basic parts of living. If BioMed technologies can help with that in any way, it would really improve quality of life for people who are deeply affected.

Bio-Med Tech-Girls Day 2 "homework"

Wow - so much to absorb from day 2 of Bio-Med Tech-Girls at UVA BME:

• Spending the morning with Occupational Therapist Extraordinaire, Sue Berres to get a behind-the-scenes tour of Pediatric Therapy & Rehabilitation at the UVA Children’s Hospital and go through empathy exercises.
• Getting to see the bio-printer in action at the Peirce-Cottler Lab.
• Working through the Design Thinking process.

Don’t forget your "homework" assignments:

• Spend 15 minutes this evening going about a typical activity you would do, but without the use your arms. Afterwards, reflect on: 1) what was the most challenging thing to do? 2) how did you feel while you were doing this assignment? 3) what most surprised you about doing this assignment? Share your reflection on the blog or e-mail it to me.
• Bring in a pair of glasses or sunglasses tomorrow.
• If you have a smartphone, look up some VR apps, games, experiences and download them on your phone (free ones:).

Monday reflection: Jade

I would say that I am most excited about this camp and the future of biotech because it involves creating something that can help the quality of life for all types of people. Especially for those who lead lifestyles that were forced upon them due to medicinal reasons.

Today's activities were a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the getting-to-know-you games as well as Tinker Cad and the Hummingbird Kit. While I had no experience with cad or the kit prior to today, it was intriguing to learn something new that I had not seen before. Also, I really liked learning about epilepsy and the seizures that it entails from our guest speaker. Most of the information was new to me, which definitely helped keep my attention. Overall, it was a great first day at camp!

Monday reflection: Katie

I am so excited to learn more about the science of technology and the medical field in general. I'm thrilled that our generation has the possibility of saving so many more lives using the technology at our fingertips, we just have to reach out and do it. Miss Jennifer Langer taught us so much about Epilepsy and really opened up my eyes to possibilities in my future. Thank you teachers for your time that you set aside to teach us! I can't wait to continue this week!

Monday reflection: Olivia

Later in the week, I am looking forward to being able to see what happens in hospitals that the patients aren't able to see. I am excited to see the knowledge ans and reasoning behind a diagnosis. During today's activities, I wish we could've looked at other sites to code the hummingbird kit to do different things. Each activity was timed fairly well and was fun to do, especially the hummingbird kits. I loved hearing from an expert about epilepsy and the reason behind seizures happening. Learning about how and why things happen, especially in the human body, has always interested me.

Monday reflection: Sekum

Today was a day of learning! I've been interested in the BME field for a while now however, I never really knew what it consisted of. I have a way better understanding of what the field is and the subunits in it thanks to the presentation today. The computer science presentation was cool as well. I had always thought computer science was just mainly coding but now I know that just like BME there are many subunits included in it and you can use computer science to solve a variety of issues. I was already aware of the lack of girls in stem fields like computer science but it is always nice to see the data backing it up like the charts in the second presentation. I also liked the presentation on epilepsy that our guest speaker gave to us. It was interesting to hear how the improvement in technology over the years has helped her better treat and understand her patients. Learning how to use hummingbird was my favorite part of the day because of the satisfaction I felt at he end when everything started working. I am excited to learn more about the field of BME this week.

8.07.17: Monday Reflections

With the Bio-Med Tech-Girls program, I am most excited for the various UVA tours and the biomedical engineering design challenge to understand the design process in action, especially with real-world scenarios involving actual patients.

As for today’s activities, I enjoyed the informative talks on epilepsy, computer science and the diversity of biomedical engineering. It was also fun to experiment with TinkerCAD and Hummingbird/CREATE Lab, as these helped me gain an improved understanding of basic CAD and programming.

-Mriganka

I loved the speakers, especially David Chen who spoke on the wide variety of BioMed fields and Jennifer Langer when she spoke about epilepsy.  Both were clear and informative while also entertaining. I enjoyed getting to know the other girls and learning from them about other engineering opportunities in our community.

I'm excited to explore the various fields in BioMed. I've always been fascinated by prostheses and other medical engineering. Learning how to help with quality of life in degenerative disease, amputation, or disabilities through technology is a dream coming true!

-Gillian

Day 1 Reflection

We spent day 1 of Bio-Med Tech-Girls in the CS Lab at St. Anne's-Belfield School:

• Getting to know each other. This year we have 15 girls representing 8 different schools from around the Charlottesville region and beyond.
• Learning about the biomedical engineering (BME) and computer science (CS) fields.
• Being inspired by our guest speaker, Jennifer Langer, a neurologist at UVA
• Getting hands-on with 3D design using Tinkercad & tutorials from KiraKira 3D.
• Exploring the Hummingbird Robotics kit.

Homework assignment:

What are you most excited for with this Bio-Med Tech-Girls program and/or the future of biotech? Please also reflect on today's activities!