Service Learning in Guatemala: Adios Guatemala City, Hola Antigua!

Amazing Antigua

Engineers are known for math and science but how about poetry? Creativity is not only limited to the liberal arts, but is also applicable to engineering (I am sure that my fellow commodores in Senior Design would agree). Nonetheless, at breakfast we shared our creative side with the reading of our poems. The topic was how “Pass the Pigs” (a roll-the-dice type game) is a metaphor for BME service.

Busy hands, tools, brains

Hard work but no engagement

Oinkers we collide

- Dr. P

It is your turn now.

The cool crisp air caress my hand

The uncertainty floats in the fog

Will I get a razorback? Will I make a difference?

Roll the pig…roll your dice.

- Jasmine

On our final day at the Moore Center we continued to work on our instructable videos.

Let’s hear some words from our team leaders Meredith, Ryan and Lydia about how their video production went!

Last day at the Moore Center

Meredith updates us, “Today at the Moore Center, the video team working with the non-invasive blood pressure (NIBP) machines finished capturing video footage for their instructional video. Videographer Sami recorded video while Alison, Claire, and I described and demonstrated how to check for leaky tubing and calibrate NIBP machines. After completing this phase of the video development, I started placing and editing clips into a coherent story timeline while Claire and Alison began preliminary work on writing the script for the voice-overs to accompany the team's video clips. The group's next immediate steps will focus on detailing out the script and integrating the video clips into a cohesive video.”

Farewell Anesthesia Machine!

Ryan, Joanna, Cassie and Joe, were working on Anesthesia Gas Mixing and Delivery videos. Ryan shared, “Today, our main objective was to progress far enough in the video editing and scriptwriting processes to identify any gaps in our story. We only needed to collect a few additional videos and replace a couple, and by the end of our time at the Moore Center, we had collected all the clips we could there, had the clips ordered, and had an outline for the script.”

Hey! Look at my oxygen saturation!

Lydia, Linus, Jasmine and Quinn were working on Anesthesia Ventilation videos. Lydia said, "Today, Luise Jose and Eminio (very unsure of these spellings) were so gracious to travel back to the Moore Center to help our team finish our video on Anesthesia Ventilation and Monitoring Systems. After going over our first round of clips and experiencing some trial and error, our team was able to learn a lot about best film shooting practices, and Jasmine and I (Lydia) were able to catch some great clips of the Del Valle students demonstrating the function and repair of the Anesthesia systems. We’re looking forward to putting the video together these next few weeks. With Linus’s great script writing skills and Quinn’s awesome editing skills, after translating and recording everything in Spanish, I think we’ll have a great product, which hopefully will be very useful for our friends in Guatemala whenever they run into trouble with Anesthesia Ventilation further on down the road.

After wrapping up everything, we loaded up the truck and got comfortable. Last day in Guatemala City, Last day at the Moore Center; we had a great time but Adios, Guatemala City and Hola, Antigua.