Week 9

At this point in the design process, we are done with the building, done testing and this week worked on our presentation. For the presentation is only five minutes long and so only the most important points can be made. We want to present the need for sterilization in third world countries as a leading problem in the medical field. With that, we plan to highlight the design we have created. The solar sterilizer is so fitting for third world countries in hot, dry climates because it is solar powered. The sterilizer was cheap to build and is efficient.  The biggest downfall is that it takes so long to properly sterilize equipment, however, the larger design the more equipment it can hold. 

The team was able to build this for under $100. Autoclaves and other methods can cost thousands of dollars and require energy, chemical or other resources. The solar sterilizer only requires sunlight which the target areas have an abundance of.

Our design is not a working model. There would need to be more insulating material to hold in the heat and the reflective material would need to be more reflective. The calculations have been done to prove that the design can work. There will be enough sun in the target areas to allow for at least 5 cycles of sterilizations. With multiple sterilizers or larger ones, they will have the capabilities to sterilize an entire clinics instruments. Other improvements to be made would be an attached timer and thermometer that counts how long the sterilizer needs to be at a temperature. There are multiple different methods to angle the sterilizer, our method is very simple and reliable but does not provide angles much greater than 50 degrees. Lastly, the racks should be installed when the ceramic/clay materials are drying to hold them in place.