Hey all!
For all returning readers, as you have likely noticed, it has been 7 months since I have last uploaded a blog post here! Many incredible things have happened in these 7 months, and I’m extremely excited to share one our most eventful progress updates thus far.
For all new readers, welcome! In my blog, I publish engineering/technology/software tutorials as well as progress updates on my engineering project, Puriphico (puriphico.com)! Puriphico is a company that designs handwash-monitoring devices to aid hospitals in improving handwashing compliance and reducing the transmission of HAI’s (hospital-acquired-infections)! You can follow us on Instagram @puriphico and subscribe to our website puriphico.com to stay updated!
Much more content is on the way this Summer, and I always appreciate a subscription, so... you know what to do ;) Anywho, let’s get back to the update!
As you might have known, in December of 2021, Puriphico was operating as a two-person team. To fund the development of new prototypes, we relied on a fellowship we had earned the year prior. As of July 10, 2022, Puriphico has grown to a team of five, and we have earned two more fellowships (for a total of $6500) to carry out our vision of a cleaner community. We have developed several new prototypes as well as a system to manufacture these prototypes with much greater ease. This post serves as a complete overview of the last 7 months of Puriphico — every advance we have made thus far in 2022.
— — — — — — — — — — Funding — — — — — — —
Puriphico has earned two fellowships in the last four months: the Dragon Kim Foundation Fellowship ($5,000) and the Paws for Humanity Fellowship ($500)! We are extremely honored to be the recipient of both awards, which have been instrumental in the development of our newest prototypes.
— — — — — — — — Product Development — —— — — — —
Our latest prototype — the Model 0.6 — features a load of incredible new features, but for brevity I will detail the two most significant advances. Principally, the Model 0.6 is capable recognizing human hands using artificial intelligence, greatly minimizing the chance of false positives during pilot testing. Secondly, the Model 0.6 is capable of remote server communication, which allows us to easily access handwashing compliance data in a web-hosted MySQL database.To make these changes possible, we pivoted our infrastructure from the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense to the Raspberry Pi Zero.
— — — — —— — — — Manufacturing — — — — — — — — —
To build our prior Model 0.5, we simply went out and bought hollow wooden boxes from our local department store and, using a basic saw and blade, carved the devices in form we wanted. We were very proud to have found such a frugal way of developing prototypes, but as our software continued to advance, we realized that we needed a quicker, more-efficient way of making cases. After bringing Max on board, we began 3D printing our own case designs in-house. This has proven to be an incredible advent! Currently, all of our prototypes are custom made with 3D printing, allowing our prototypes to be very compact and spacially efficient!
— — — — — — — — — Testing — — — — — — — —
We have deployed two devices at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, California, where we are conducting an experiment to determine the effect on Puriphico handwashing aid on handwashing compliance and hospital-acquired-infections (HAI’s) transmission rates. A full report on our findings and impact will be published in an upcoming post!
— — — — — — — — Company — — —— — — — —
Puriphico is now a registered LLC with a patent pending on our unique system for identifying handwashing, which combines both calibrated audio identification as well as human-body sensing.
— — — — — — — — — Team — — — —— — — —
As I mentioned, we are currently operating as a team of five, consisting of Max , Charlie, Roy, Edith, and myself! All of us attend the same high school in Los Angeles, California, and we are each in charge of a different facet of Puriphico. Edith manages our social media presence and website; Max designs and prints intricate device cases; Charlie leads software development, specifically related to our Raspberry-Pi-based infrastructure; Roy is in charge of assembling, testing, and proofing our prototypes before they are deployed; and I design our circuits and PCB’s (though I am heavily involved in software development and case design as well).
— — — —— — — — Future — — — —— — — — —
Many exciting things are on the way! We will be deploying more Model 0.6 devices this summer and monitoring the impact our devices have on handwashing compliance in the hospital setting. Our findings will be published in this blog, so make sure to subscribe if you would like to stay updated (it’s always encouraging when you subscribe, too!) :)
And with that, I’m signing off! Stay safe,
Adrian
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Check out my project! https://www.puriphico.com
Connect with me on LinkedIn! https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian-lazzi-02b45b21a/
Follow Puriphico on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/puriphico/