Project Details:

Ohio State University, College of Engineering

Engineers for Community Service (ECOS) Project

Computers and Computer Training for

Centro de Adopciones, Casa de Maria y El Niño Orphanage

Medellín, Colombia, South America

July 29, 31, 2004


Pre-Project Planning:

Computer Equipment and Transport:

    1. Equipment: Four P3 PCs, HD, zip, floppy
    2. Team: Cedric Sze, Matt Mulyana, Jorge Finke, Nicanor Quijano, Kevin Passino
    3. Activites: Set up and tested computers at OSU, prepared them for transport. Travelling together Jorge, Nicanor, and Kevin put 4 computers inside their luggage to transport them. We decided against carrying monitors since they are big and heavy, and would put us over the weight limit for luggage (and perhaps the size limit). Also, we were quite concerned with rough treatment of monitors by baggage handlers and did not want to deliver them only to find on the other end that they would not work.
    1. Pre-trip planning: Marisol Osorio, a professor at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) in Medellin, helped by lining up places for us to shop, and to know what the prices and availability of equipment was.
    2. On-Site Team: Camilo Chamorro and Hernán Patarroyo, graduate students from UPB, Jorge Finke and Nicanor Quijano, OSU graduate students, and Kevin Passino
    3. Activities: We went to a nearby computer mall and purchased (out-of-pocket donations, anonymous donor), four 15" monitors, four sets of speakers, four Spanish keyboards (important for the kids), four voltage regulators (needed to ensure clean power signals to computers, more than a surge protector), one laser writer, and a variety of software (mostly educational for reading, math, music but also one "Barbie Rapunzel" and a "NASCAR" racing game; the reason for this fun software is that we wanted them to have fun with the computers so that they would have a very positive view and besides even some of that software has nice educational components). All software was in Spanish, some in English also.

Computer Set-Up:

Computer Training:

Computer Maintenance:

What we would do different next time:

This is a learning process; hence, it is best to identify how we could have done a better job to serve the orphanage. Some issues: