Today was a pretty slow day for us. I started by writing down the process for printing the Sketchup longboard temaplates for Dr. Neato. Afterwards, I worked with the squad on finishing the materials list for the storage units. I successfully got the correct Sketcup files onto Connor, Erin, and Keilah's laptops, and Keilah startes making the materials list for the taller unit. WHen I got home, I deconstructed the taller unit to give more of a visual list of parts for the unit. I hope that we can get some sort of a discount for buying 2 by 4s in bulk, because otherwise, it's going to end up being a bit expensive.
Today the non-veterans had a Wednesday Challenge where they had to design and build a boat that would traverse a rain-gutter in the least time as possible. Connor, Erin, and Keilah were set as the judges of the Wednesday Challenge. Connor, Keilah, and I worked on a prototype boat using just a couple of scraps that we found in and around the shop. The boat looked like some sort of swamp boat thing, and it worked pretty wel. We decided to individually work on our own boats and then have our own mini competition after the official Wednesday Challenge comprtition.
Today was the block schedule for periods 2, 4, and 6, so I didn't do anything.
Today was the last day for the Wednesday Challenge, and the competition was to be held during the last hour of the period. My boat design was basically just a plastic water bottle with a balloon glued to one side, and a nozzle cut into the lid. It actually worked really well, But the moment that i tested the boat on the rain gutter, the balloon immediately popped, and that was the end of that. While the competition was underway, I was supervising the people that were working on their longboard stuff. They were gluing together their cardboard templates. When Connor, Keilah and I had our mini challenge, Keilah didn't have time to build his boart, and Connor's design was an improved version of the prototype boat, made with a 3s LiPo and some better motors. Connor's boat wasn't balalnced correctly, so it ended up constantly flipping over on its side. I made a really ghetto spoon-paddle boat in about 5 minutes, and that boat ended up technically winning because it went the farthest distance. The prooblem with the other people that actually did the Wednesday Challenge was that no one realized that they had to make their boats have self-propulsion. As a result, the only boatsx that really went anywhere were the sailboats. Unfortunately, even those boats were kind of screwed because the wind was blowing the wrong way that way, and the sailboats only got about 3 feet down the gutter before the wind pushed them back to the start of the course.
Today was the block schedule for periods 2, 4, and 6, so I didn't do anything.