Hello! We, Nikhita, Irene, Scott, and Alejandro, are the new group of Rice students working with Cántaro Azul this summer.  We were tasked with designing and building a household incubator that can test for harmful fecal bacteria in ENGI 120 last semester. We’ll get more into the details about our incubator as we work with Cántaro Azul! 

I, Irene, will be writing the first blog post for our visit to Chiapas to work with Cántaro Azul!

Technically, we arrived in San Cristóbal yesterday. But, yesterday, we spent most of our time flying and getting to know the city. It’s so beautiful here and all the buildings are so vibrantly colored. All of us can’t wait to explore more and discover delicious foods!

Today, after a brief breakfast at the hostel we are staying at, Puerta Vieja, we took a taxi to Cántaro Azul, where everyone welcomed us! After going around the whole room, sharing names and the different aspects that they oversee, they gave us presentations, first on the organization, its mission, different aspects of Cántaro Azul, and all the work they have done far, and then a more technical presentation regarding the Mesita Azul and similar devices, and of course, their current water testing process: the aspect with which we worked on. It was especially interesting to hear about the different “branches” of the organization: implementation in communities and schools, knowledge management, the technical side, communication about clean water and the Mesita Azul to schools and communities. We also learned that when they implement a kiosk in a community, they train four members of the community: one in communicating the benefits and spreading the word to the rest of the community, one in the technical aspects and maintaining the kiosk, the third in charge of the budgets and financial aspect of the kiosk, and the fourth in charge of the community. Afterwards, we presented our final presentation from ENGI 120 and showed them our two prototype incubators we brought.

At first, we were worried because the testing process they showed us was very different from what we had been told. Essentially, they showed us the plastic bag (the size of approximately a quart-size Ziploc bag) that they store the water samples in; they also showed us the tablet that they dissolve in the water samples they test. This was completely different from what we had molded our design around. Our incubator currently takes 5 glass test tubes and has a powder inside the tube that dissolves in the water sample. Immediately, we started to think of ways we could adapt our design to this different method of sampling. We thought of having a casing to put around the bag and then to have Nichrome wire, our current source of heating, wrapped around the casing. Fortunately, Antonio talked to Héctor, the coordinator of water quality, and relayed to us that, actually, Cántaro Azul will be transitioning to the method we were told of. So, our prototype still works for Cántaro Azul! We were all so relieved and so excited to move on to the next steps!

With this, we got a tour of the organization, including the workshop where they assemble the Mesita Azul and the laboratory room where they store the samples in the incubator: the two main rooms where we will be working. Following this, we decided to run a trial run to compare our incubator to their laboratory incubator. For us, we used the powder and the test tubes to hold the water samples, while they prepared their samples in the bag with the tablet. We will be checking on the samples tomorrow, after 24 hours have passed!

We then sat down all together with Antonio and a few others working with the mechanical and technical aspect and discussed the materials we used.  We were relieved to find that mostly all of the materials we used to build our incubator were easily accessible and commonly used. Some changes we would see would be in the building of the box; we used the laser cutter, but here we’ll create it with nails and glue. We also discussed changes to be made to our incubator. First, instead of having the only “output” of the incubator be a wall plug, we will be adding a USB output, due to the different sources of power the incubator will have on the way back to the headquarters of Cántaro Azul. Simply put, they bring back water test samples back to their laboratory. However, during the transportation of the water samples, they need to be incubated. So, we need to be able to attach three power sources with the USB port: one to batteries, one to the wall, and one to the car. Later, they also mentioned that they would prefer to have the batteries recharge while the incubator is connected to the wall outlet. Another feature we will be adding is a handle because it will be easier to carry as they got to various communities. Also, we were tasked with adding another hole for a sixth test tube. Other than that, they said they were very happy with our design!

So, TOMORROW, our main task will be building our incubator at Cántaro Azul with the supplies we have and those that they collect for us.

Cántaro Azul closes at 4:00 pm, which took us by surprise; actually, it is mostly the eating schedules that we have to get used to. People eat breakfast between 9 and 10 am and then eat lunch at 4 when they leave Cántaro Azul. This is probably quite normal; we’ve gotten quite accustomed to eating breakfast, lunch, and especially dinner, very early at Rice, haha! Now that we know, we’ll be getting some breads and snacks from the bakery next door to our hostel and the local store, Super Más, to eat as snacks during break times between 8 and 4, which is when we’re at Cántaro Azul, and then head out to have lunch at one of the many delicious restaurants nearby after 4!

Also, our hostel hosts special events each night, and tonight, we got to learn how to Salsa dance! We all paired up and learned the basic steps to Salsa. Overall, I learned that Salsa dancing is all about just following the rhythm of the music. And afterwards, we got to eat some freshly, “hostel”-baked pizza with fresh basil!

We are so happy and thankful to have gotten this wonderful opportunity to come to Mexico and work with Cántaro Azul, and we cannot wait to get building!

Thanks for reading!

Irene