Bicycle Rope Maker

This Spring semester I had the chance to be in an International Health Class.  Instead of being a boring class filled with reading text books and listening to lectures, we focused on getting hands on experience by actually solving issues that affected a village in Paraguay called Ascuncion.  Because our projects were designed to be implemented in a real community with real people, I think it made us all try a little harder.  BYUI sends a few students and faculty to the village every year or two to implement the projects that students have recently been working on.  Then, they come back to the university to tell us what worked, what didn't, and what we can still improve on.

Our project:
The last group of students that went down helped design a bed that could easily be build there.  Beds are important because there are bugs that live in the dirt that can cause diseases in the people.  Most people in this village are too poor for a real bed, and even if they had a real mattress, it would probably become infested with bugs and/ or get moldy etc.  Instead of using rope to make a weave to sleep on, they found a way to connect plastic garbage bags together because it was cheaper.  The problem came because the plastic bags would stretch out in time.  They decided to try and make rope with twine they had.  They were able to accomplish this, but it took approximately 8 people, 8 hours to hand braid the rope to go on the bed.  That's 64 man hours!  Our task was to design a rope-maker that could be built in a third-world country from supplies they would have easily available to them.

We went through a lot of brainstorming sessions and trials and errors and eventually we came up with the design for our bicycle rope maker.  I won't go into the details of all the problems we encountered building it...but there were a lot.  And we overcame every obstacle so it worked beautifully in the end.  We were able to spin all the rope needed for the bed in about 10 man hours.  Even more motivating to us was the fact that we decided to enter it into the school's Research and Creative Works Conference.  Sadly they placed us in the Junior Engineering category so we were up against the engineering students but we still managed to place 3rd out of the 5 or 6 teams in our division.  That's quite an accomplishment for some health science kids!

This is my wonderful group.  It's a good thing we all liked each other or it could have been a really long semester.  The poster is made of rope of differing materials.  We used yarn (red), toilet paper (white), thread (green), crepe paper (yellow), twine (brown) and baling twine (black, and what we used for the bed).  You can make rope out of anything!

This is all the rope we made for the bed.  We got faster as we went and if we had made it as efficiently at the beginning as we did at the end it probably would have taken less than 6 man hours to make it all.

The main side of the rope maker is designed to spin the twine separately, first.  We used anywhere from two to ten lengths of twine/yarn/ thread in the first phase to create a strong base.  They were twisted by simply turning the pedals of the bike.  If you sat on a chair you could actually pedal it like a bicycle but we preferred just turning the pedals by hand.  

The second part of the rope maker was made by using another bike.  We attached the two parts of the rope on the other side and spun that side to twist the two individual pieces together to make a rope!  We could adjust the space between the two bikes to be about as long as we wanted if we wanted to make a longer rope.

 My certificate!  We win!  Well, at least we didn't lose...that counts as a win for us.

Business in the Front...Party in the Back

I know, I know, I KNOW, you're sick and tired of me blogging about my job.  But I just love it and the people so much!  Granted, there are days when I would really rather stay home and take a nap or watch a movie instead of go to work, but once I get there I usually have a good time.

Yesterday we had a work party at the Director of Admissions' house in Rigby.  It was a blast!  We had almost all of the student employees there as well as quite a few full-time employees with their wives and children.  Can I just say, those men did well.  They all had absolutely GORGEOUS wives and cute-as-a-button kids.  It was neat to see them interact with their families and not be dressed in suits.  Most of them aren't more than 10 years older than me so it's fun to talk with them and their wives and hear their stories.  Oh my goodness, I just love them all so much!

Can I also mention how incredibly awesome it was for our director and his family to open his home to us for this shin-dig.  His wife organized a big cooking lesson and taught us how to make everything we were going to eat.  She teaches culinary classes in Idaho Falls and her food is spectacular.  We made mini pulled pork taco things for the main course and then creme brulee for dessert...we even go to torch our own!

Molly, one of the new front desk workers.

Kevin and Annalise.

Okay, time to talk about a few people.  This is my first semester working with Kevin.  He started last semester and is also in my Program Planning class.  Annalise and I have been working together since Spring 2011.  She's amazing.  So amazing, even, that I'm living with her in the fall!!  

 Hilary here is also new for me.  She started last semester while I was away.  Hilary works part-time at the office, is taking 17 credits AND has an internship that she does 20 hours a week.  I have no idea how she does it all.  Oh, and she's preparing for a mission and can't wait for her call :)  In the back we have (from the left) Johnathan, Jason, Jason's wife and Brady and his wife...plus lots of children.

 We played a nice friendly game of kickball in the backyard.  Somehow we managed to split up all the couples but I think that helped the competitiveness of the game.  I didn't play the entire game (as I wanted to help with the cooking a little more) but when I left, my team was winning.

 (From left) Vi, Janeen and Emily.  I honestly don't know Vi too well as she works mostly in the back room.  Janeen and Emily I've known for a while but I've really gotten to know them better this semester.  They both used to be readers (of applications) in the back and have now moved to the front lines.  Oh, and lets not forget Boston being a man.

Kevin wanted a picture looking like a hick...

 A not-quite-in-focus picture of my food.  Soooooooo good.

Here's a few pictures of most of the group just chilling after food.

 Jordan and his cute little family.  He's worked as a counselor starting the winter after I started and has been a HUGE help in me learning the counseling job.  We love when his wife and chunky little boy, Boston, come to visit us in the office.  Sadly (for us), Jordan got an internship in Belgium for the fall so he won't be working.

Torching our creme brulee

Brady and Adam playing with fire.

Christina and Janeen.

 Jeana and her husband Trevor.  Jeana is the only one of the students who's worked longer than I have.  She has a plethora of knowledge and has also helped me immensely in learning my new job.  She and Trevor just got married in December and they're expecting their first baby at the end of the year!

 Adam and Brennan.  Adam started in the office just after I did and has been my boss for part of the time.  He's listened to my rants about life and boys way more times than he probably would have liked, but I always appreciate his advice and insights.  He and his wife are the managers of my apartment complex and we're next door neighbors which is fun.  I like being able to look out my window and watch his son play out in the grass :)  (and I say that in a totally non-creeperish way)

 Kaylani here is half Samoan and she's gorgeous.  This is also my first semester working with her.  She's a sweetheart with some spunk and always has funny stories from work.  It took me a few weeks to realize she lives in my apartment complex too haha

Adding sugar to my creme brulee before torching it.

  And here's our wonderful director and his wife who so graciously allowed 30-40 people in their home for an afternoon.  They're amazing examples to me and I hope one day I'll be able to have people over to cook in my home :)

Overall, I'd say it was a pretty successful party!

Picnic in the Park

What's the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon?  A picnic in the park, of course!  Chicken salad sandwiches (or wraps), pasta salad, chips and salsa, grapes, and brownies.  Beautiful.