Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1138339
important that we do these procedures," Parra said. "Everywhere we go, I'm impressed that everyone is so receptive to it. And everyone wants to buy it." Fail early and often Worldwide, cervical cancer kills about 300,000 women each year, with approximately 85 percent of these deaths occurring in developing countries, according to the World Health Organization. But if detected early through proper screening, nearly 100 percent of these deaths could be prevented. The problem LUCIA addresses is the widespread lack of clinical providers trained to perform pelvic examinations to screen for cervical cancer. In some low-resource settings, this type of training uses models adapted from animals, which aren't as effective or true-to-life as the LUCIA model. Other models are prohibitively expensive. The LUCIA kit was conceived in the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK) at Rice, a workshop that fosters innovative solutions for real-world problems, and the Rice 360° Institute for Global Health, a program that creates new technologies for health challenges in the develop- ing world. Through collaborations with students and clinicians in low-resource settings, Rice 360° works to design tools that are effective but also low-tech and inexpensive. One of the many chal- lenges in solving global health problems is the fact that existing technology often doesn't work in places with unreliable electricity, scarce resources and sometimes harsh environments. Rice 360° is working to develop alternatives better suited for those conditions. "This kind of environment is all about reduc- ing barriers for the students to accomplish their design tasks," said Maria Oden, Ph.D., director of the OEDK and co-director of Rice 360°. "We have a facility where it's really easy to laser-cut, 3D print, get into the machine shop—so students can try things out and if they don't work the first time, they are surrounded by tools and people who have ideas, so they can keep improving it over time relatively quickly." Oden encourages students working in the OEDK to build low-fidelity prototypes early as a way of communicating ideas and determining— quickly—where those ideas break down. "We strongly espouse the concept of fail early and often so you'll have sooner success," Oden said. "We have so many different kinds of tools and we have a lot of different students working here who have different levels of expertise in these tools, and it opens up a lot of opportunity. LUCIA uses a laser cutter, 3D printer, simple brackets and fasteners and screws and nuts and bolts. All of it was here for the easy taking, so they could try things out. The first few times they made it, the frame wasn't sturdy enough, but then they were able to get advice quickly and try again." ➟