UROP: Saathi

This spring, I had the wonderful opportunity to join the Saathi team, previously known as Komera, as a UROP Research assistant engineer. I recently got the position and will start after my swimming season is over.

What is Saathi about?
Saathi is a project that has evolved from 2009's Product Engineering Processes class (2.009), Komera. It involves designing, fabricating, and assembling a manufacturing process to make inexpensive sanitary pads for women in developing countries from locally available materials. The need for this process stems from the fact that women in developing countries miss up to 50 days of school/work a year due to lack of access to affordable sanitary protection for their periods. Their makeshift methods of protection include rags, bark, or even mud. These are extremely unsanitary and often lead to the spread of disease. Our solution as a team involves using locally available material to make both the manufacturing process for sanitary pads as well as the pads themselves. We're using a pulp made from banana trees as the absorbent material inside the pads. We have been able to develop and test an innovative, integrated prototype that uses less labor in exchange for at least equal output. However, we are in the process of taking our design to the next level and adding useful features that will optimize its purpose and function.

My Job
I will be a part of a sub-team in Saathi that will develop the adhesive, sanitation, and packaging stages of the machine. More information will come soon.

NOTE: Saathi/Komera won the MIT IDEAS competition in 2010 and we are entered in the 100K competition this spring. In order to increase our chances of winning, I have decided to withhold new information and designs of our product on this blog until everything is settled out.