Transcript of a recent interviewee with Caitlin Toogood, a 2016 Curtin graduate who also recently obtained her masters in Biomedical Engineering from Universität zu Lübeck. This interview reflects on herexperience studying a humanitarian thesis and its benefits.
T: In terms of your thesis, can you sort of explain what your thesis was on, and what were some of the outcomes of your thesis?
C: My bachelors’ thesis that I did was about the design and development of a biogas system for use in refugee camps. The idea was to create something that could produce energy in a refugee camp environment that didn’t involve a lot of maintenance or expensive parts and also looking at what sort of materials were available in refugee situations in refugee camps around the world. What I ended up designing was sort of just like a complex snaking of drainage pipes. The idea was that you could take the drainage pipes, the PVC pipes from existing toilets, or if there were no existing toilets, potentially put toilets in. And to have sort of this snaking of the pipes to allow for the production of biogas by creating an anerobic environment. If you have the right sort of bacteria in an environment like that, then they begin to produce methane, and other combustible gases that you can then use as biogas. So, I had a prototype that sat in my parents backyard, that they were less than impressed with.
T: I can imagine.
C: Basically, I had this white plastic piping, the ones you usually find in plumbing. From memory it was 100mm in diameter and it sort of created a series of waterfalls inside the pipes, so that the biomass that was contained inside the pipes had enough time to decompose before it got pushed onto the next stage where new biological matter was added to the import.
T: So, the design of the pipe made it so that the organic matter had enough time to decompose in each stage, just from the design, I mean just from the structure?
C: Yeah, from the structure. If you think about it, it’s almost like a cooling tank with baffling inside of it, that’s another way to sort of think about it. Or, if you think about it, it’s kind of similar to the intestinal tract of a human, or animal. It’s basically just a long snaking pipe, where it basically had air pockets, and a longer amount of time to actually produce gasses and so on.
T: So, what were some of the outcomes of the project, in terms of deliverables for EWB?
C: We had a shared system called box.com, I think it was called, but we had a shared sort of cloud system where I could upload all of my findings and all of the design so that they could also have access to it. Everything I designed and created, and also my thesis, was given to them so they could have a look at it. I don’t know if it was ever looked at to any extent. I know that after I finished my project it was then continued. So, someone came and picked up my lovely stack of pipes and transferred it to his house, and he was looking at insulating the system, and improving it by increasing the temperature of the system. I don’t know how successful that was, unfortunately he didn’t keep in contact with me, I couldn’t even tell you his name at the moment, which is pretty poor, but it’s been a while now.
T: Yeah, I heard from Kris McKee, I think a few people have taken your design and continued it on.
T: in terms of studying a humanitarian thesis, instead of a traditional mechanical engineering thesis, why did you choose the humanitarian thesis, and secondly, what do you think the differences are between them?
C: Well I choose it because I’ve always been interested in design that can actually help people, which is why I also went into biomedical engineering after the bachelor. I believe wholeheartedly that a good design can save people’s lives, and it can also improve people’s lives significantly. And the thesis that was offered, it appealed to me because it had a human aspect to it. It wasn’t just that we were going to build a faster car, or a better pipeline. It was about something where you could definitely see the impact on others and see the potential for the prototype that was developed to actually going to be useful to people. That was definitely the fact that it was going to be something useful, or something productive instead of, I have increased the efficiency of this wind plate by 4%, I mean not saying that’s not important as well, but that’s what attracted me to it was the human aspect. The idea that you could actually help people and impact their lives with what you create or what you discover, or at least make the steps in the right direction. And in terms of second part of your question, how was it was how different?
T: Yeah, so what were some of the differences between studying a humanitarian thesis compared to a technical in terms of efficiency or something to do with materials? What were some of the differences and benefits for yourself?
C: Well definitely in terms of differences, it does come back to this idea that it affects someone else, so you can’t just make considerations for it needs to be this strong, or if you’re looking at the design, you actually need to consider how it will be used, and what is the life for a person in a refugee camp like. It was a lot of sort of skills that I think are sometimes lacking in the engineering profession. The sort of soft skills when you are in the zone not just looking for the technical solution to something but also a solution that also takes into account the human aspect. I think in that sense its very different. I had to learn a lot about the refugee situation at the time, it was 2015, it was all happening. So I definitely learnt a lot about the actual humanitarian crisis and in terms of benefits for myself, it makes you consider more aspects when you are creating a prototype or a design. You learn a lot about solutions to problems that you have never really approached before, for example, when there’s not enough cooking fuel, there are so many inventive ways by people around the world to replace wood with something else. So just looking at different ways of thinking that you’re otherwise not exposed to when you’re very sheltered in a university environment.
T: Yeah, because I know when you’re studying engineering, well mechanical engineering, its sort of like materials, and then you just focus on that. You have a question and you just purely find a solution to that problem, which is purely technical. I guess what I got from your answer, when you are studying a humanitarian thesis, you have to solve the problem right, but you also have to consider all the different aspects associated with it.
C: Exactly, I think a lot more complex in that sense as well, you can’t just say, “well, they need power, I’ll put a power station there.” You’ve got to consider, who’s going to run it, and how’s it going to work, who will get the energy, who will build it, and who will pay for it. In that sense its very broad, you require broad thinking, because everything is very much interconnected, and you can’t just take the simplest solution because it won’t necessarily work.
T: There is one question on that. Cause the way a lot of people think about a humanitarian thesis, it is very broad. But there is this train of thought - that it’s not very technical, would you say that’s true?
C: I would say that it is less technical in some respects, I would agree with that. If you’re looking at a humanitarian thesis, you’re not going to be sitting in front of Matlab all day, because there isn’t necessarily a mathematical solution. But there are definitely a lot of technical aspects. And if I’m very honest, having worked a little bit in the field nowadays, engineering is more than just the technical. And I know a lot of other graduates who say you do all this incredibly difficult math, when you do your fluid dynamics, or your thermal dynamics. And then you get into the field and you start working, and they say, “we need a new valve,” you look into the protocol that someone else has written, and you find the safety values, and you order the one they’ve order before. So, the technicality isn’t necessarily that important in real world engineering, it’s important that you need to be able to do everything around it as well. You can’t just be good at math and be a great engineer, because there’s so much more to it.
T: So those skills, would you say you learned them specifically from the humanitarian thesis?
C: Yeah definitely, considering the human aspects of design is something that I learnt mostly from my thesis.
T: So, in terms of creating a partnership, I’ll give you a brief about it. The first level of the partnership is the EWB challenge, it’s what you do in first year, it’s very similar to what you’ve done. The next step is humanitarian thesis, it’s called the research challenge, so humanitarian theses will be available to all final year students doing their bachelor’s thesis, or PhD thesis. The current situation is as Kris McKee put it, he can take on two or three students to research a topic, but in terms of EWB support from national, it’s not there. If we were to have the partnership what would mean is that we could definitely take on more than a few people, it’s not limited so it’s open to chemical engineers, mechatronics etc. Some of the benefits of creating the partnership, they won’t limit the amount of people we can take on, so other engineers can take on, or the lecturers, [can take on more students].In terms of the support there was four main benefits. A research workshop becomes available to you, so that introduces you to concepts of sustainable development, such has human centred design, and appropriate technology, that would be a few online modules and workshops. The second benefit is information session with the stakeholders, or the community-based organisation.
C: Oh really?
T: Yeah, so the third benefit is potential field work which could happen during the winter break. So if you ever needed to get more insight into the community your researching, then you have the opportunity to go there. And the final benefit, is that you have ongoing support, so if you have any questions you can just ask EWB National. So yeah. In terms of those benefits, how do you think that would have been able to help yourself?
C: If they had been available to me?
T: Yeah.
C: Well I think the four sort of benefits that you just listed now; I would have really enjoyed the opportunity to take part in those sorts of things. I mean a workshop where you actually look at sustainable solutions and have those online modules so you can refer back to them, that would have been excellent. Because, in terms of having knowledge from other parts of my degree, it just wasn’t there. I mean a little bit in foundations, but when you’re in final year and you look back at foundations it seems a bit like basic knowledge, like “Oh yeah think about who you are designing it for.” It wasn’t like tools like I know I’m designing for this type of group, or this type of living situation. I think in terms of the workshop and having the human centred design, and humanitarian design available to you is something that I had to learn for myself when doing my thesis, and if I had had that at the beginning, I probably would have got a lot further with my design as well and it probably would have looked completely different from how it actually turned out. Because I would of actually had more information on how I should have made an appropriate prototype or design in response to the issue. It would have been amazing to actually get in contact with stakeholders. When you actually talk to the people dealing with the problem that you are trying to address you get a completely different perspective, and you can ask questions where you otherwise simply can’t find the answers. Sure you can look up, and read as many journals and research papers as you want, but until you are actually confronted with someone who is actually living in that situation, or is actually having that particular issue, you can’t really understand their perspective about how that problem affects their lives, and how they think that should be addressed, because that’s also something very important when considering human centred design. Because if they say we have a problem with how our rice crops are planted every year, and you say I’ll fix that by bringing in a machine, but they say well we don’t want a machine. If you design something that is a machine that isn’t going to be successful at all. So, in terms of my thesis it would have been absolutely amazing to be able to talk to actual stakeholders and to be able to do fieldwork as well. That’s an incredible opportunity to actually be on the ground and know, “wow this is the situation as it actually is,” and to be able to then also come into contact with other stakeholders there as well. I think that’s a fantastic opportunity, and I would have loved to have it, and I think that I would have jumped at the opportunity to actually take part in something like that. In terms of ongoing support, I found that EWB National were really, really helpful during my thesis. Even though we weren’t a partner university, they still took the time to look after me, it was definitely a bit few and far in-between when we actually were able to have a meeting with each other. But they definitely put a lot of effort into supporting me, and I reckon that if you were actually a partnership university as many students doing this research challenge as students who want to, then I can only imagine that the amount of support and effort that they put into that would be even more than it is now. So, I think that that’s definitely something worthwhile. I’m going to be honest; I’ll be a little bit jealous, but I will celebrate and enjoy the fact that they can do it, but I’ll be slightly jealous.
T: Alright, I think that’s everything, I really appreciate you taking the time for this. Do you have any lasting words, or pieces of advice for anyone who wants to start a humanitarian thesis or is thinking about it?
C: My advice would be to trust your instinct. If your guts telling you do it, but your friends are telling you that you’ll never get a job, don’t believe them, because they have no idea. I definitely heard it from a lot of people when I was considering what thesis to do, I had a couple I could have taken on, and I had a couple of people say, hey it’s not technical enough, you won’t get a good mark, or you won’t be able to get a job after this. As they say in German, “Totaler Quatch.” Completely bullshit that’s not the case at all. There’s a lot of need in the industry for engineers who are able to think about people who will actually be using the design when they create something. And in terms of how the thesis was, it was also a lot of fun, it was so interesting, I learnt so much and I know that some of my friends who told me not to do it regretted not doing one themselves in the end. So, go for it.
T: Thank you for that.
C: No worries.