MLTI and FINE Lookin' Tether

You got ready this morning around 4, as you had not been able to sleep due to your upset stomach. You arrived at the HS around 06:10 and left soon after, driving Nick, Liam, and Josef to UMaine to attend the 17th Annual MLTI Student Conference. You, along with your friends, were keynote speakers at the conference.

The conference started with an engaging discussing about innovation in Maine. After the keynote speaker you went to two different learning blocks. The first block you went to you learned how easy it was to program Mac Apps using Xcode (found in the App store). After the Mac block, you head over to the Hackathon. This block was awesome. There were tons of students working on different programming and electronic activities. Your group was even approach by the leader of the session who inquired about the project, and if your group would be able to be an approachable groups during the Hackathon. You, Nick, Josef, and Liam agreed that you could do this. 

At around 11:50 you headed to the UMaine bookstore so Liam could buy a sweatshirt. Then you headed back to the Collins Center for the Arts to eat lunch and be debriefed on the technicalities of your keynote presentation. After eating, setting up the presentation, and wiring up the mics, you were all set. You then waited around for 30 minutes. At around 13:30 you presented. You had a good presentation, although you wished you had not stubbled over your words as much as you had (at least there is room for improvement). After the presentation you listed to a brilliant 8th grade coder and a recent Lewiston HS graduate who urged Mainers to stay in Maine. 

After driving back from the conference in record time, you, Nick, and Liam headed over to Nick's to put the tether together(this tether looks REALLY professional). You had just received the foam you had been waiting on. Below is a picture of the 2 wires we are using for power and communication, as well as the foam cord for flotation and the polyester tubing:

After preparing 100 feet of the tether (because that's all the foam/tubing you had) you worked on creating the power transfer system on the float. Using aluminum and brushes from a DC motor you, Nick, and Liam worked on creating a system to transfer power to the tether. You ended up settling on using large "washers" on each end of the spool which are connected using the brushes from a DC motor to the batteries. This took a while and you plan on finishing it tomorrow. 

MLTI and float work

Today you woke up at 0530 and met the rest of the team at school at 0610. You then left for UMO and the MLTI conference. You heard the opening keynote speaker talk about innovation in Maine and why the MLTI program is really useful.

You then went to sessions on coding for Mac iOS and OS X. And during the second session went to a "hacker club" meeting. At the second session you got to talk a little bit about your project and see some other cool projects.

You then ate a rather lackluster lunch before getting ready to present at 1325. The four of you then presented in front of about 800 people, which was much less intimidating than expected. The presentation seemed well received and was followed by two other cool presentations. One about a coding class taught by an eighth grader and the other about making movies (the soundtrack and video editing) using MLTI technology.

Upon returning to Freeport around 1700 you headed back to your house with Liam and Travis in tow. You then untwisted the tether so that you could add the foam and put it in a casing. It looks very nice as a finished product, however, we only purchased enough for half and so need to buy the rest on McMaster now that we know it works.

The three of us then ate ribs for dinner (courtesy of your dad) and then went to work on the power transfer system. You are using brushed from an old starter motor and aluminum sheeting to transfer the power from the batteries to the spinning spool and tether.

WHAP and a good game (5/21)

You woke up at a reasonable time (0845) and then headed to Travis's to work on the presentation for tomorrow as well as a few other things. In the end both Liam and Josef didn't come due to necessary chores…this left you and Travis to finish the presentation and work on odds and ends. You also watched Mr Amory's TED talk that he gave earlier this year in Bangor.

You then went to the library to take the WHAP test. You found it to be easier than expected and finished the test a little early. After the test Jennifer Libsack dropped off the Schmidts and Quinton so we could bring them to the frisbee game. She was also nice enough to get you a subway sandwich.

The game went pretty well, you won 15-13 in come from behind fashion. Unfortunately you either got dehydrated or got food poisoning and felt like you were going to pass out after the game.

You headed back to Travis's for a short time to practice the presentation for tomorrow and then headed home. You were looking forward to food until you started eating at which point you felt nauseous and went to bed (hence the late blog post).

WHAP, Frisbee, and Bad Food... (5/21)

You woke up in the morning at 08:00 for a scheduled meeting with the team at your house to practice the MLTI presentation. Unfortunately, only Nick was able to make it.

In the morning you spend some time connecting the Razor IMU to the BeagleBone and reading data from it. After doing that, you and Nick re-read over the presentation and delegated slides.

At around 11:40 you and Nick headed over the the Community Library to take the AP World History (affectionately called WHAP) exam. You started around 12:15 and spend the next 3 hours writing essays and answering multiple choice questions dealing with "big picture" questions. After the exam you waited for your brother (and his friends) to be dropped off at the library. Once they were dropped off you were going to head to the Frisbee game.

Your mom dropped off the boys and the sandwiches. You then carpooled with Nick, Ben, Bryce, and Quinton to your frisbee game against Scarborough.

The game went well. Although you had a few dropped passes, you played well and made up for it in other plays.

Upon returning home, you, Nick, and Liam finalized the MLTI presentation and then parted. You were very excited for an Indian dinner with Jessica, but unfortunately you got sick. It seems that the Subway had been bad....you ended up spending all night sick and fortunately felt well enough in the morning to go the the MLTI conference.

PVC and heat sinks (5/20)

Today you woke up fairly early and headed down to Baxter with the whole group. When you arrived you were asked/forced to give an impromptu presentation about Project RoboGoby to Mr. Amory's class. After the class was over you headed to the computer lab with Mr. Amory and worked out how to fit the LEDs and their heat sinks into the dome, turns out the best solution is placing the lenses into the actual dome.

You then created a quick CAD model of a jig to cut out PVC, created the MasterCam code and cut out plywood using the CNC router. It was amazing how quickly the router cut out the part, and I realized that the hardest part of machining things is setting up the code and getting the piece to be perfectly in line before cutting.

After that you headed to Portland Pie for pizza, and then worked a short time more at Baxter. You then headed to frisbee with everyone but Josef (as well as Ben and Bryce Schmidt and Quinton). At frisbee you again worked on the new stacks that you came up with.

You then went home and cleaned up for the NHS induction ceremony – as a NHS officer you got to swear in next years NHS students. After that you went to Travis's house and completed the jigs for the PVC.

(Unfortunately this post is two days late as you forgot the night of and felt sick last night)