Beginning of the Year Blog

The Calistoga HeatSync InvenTeam

The Calistoga InvenTeam has been working hard as the year begins. After sending out letters to wineries, getting recognized by the Calistoga Living Magazine and press, as well as hosting a cake walk, our team wants to keep on persevering and improving from here on out. Although it is the first month of the year, our team gives it their all and continues to progress by welcoming a new member to be a mentor in our tech group, fundraising in front of our local Safeway, finding ways to better improve the efficiency of our invention, and setting up events for this upcoming month. 

Achievements and Progress

Sonoma State University Visit

Our Calistoga L-MIT InvenTeam welcomes a graduate student from SSU, Mr. Bryce Jensen, who was willing to join our InvenTeam as an advisor to help our technology group!  Mr. Bryce Jensen is a graduate Electrical/Computer Engineering student who is currently working on a Mars Rover system with NASA at Sonoma State.  The technology group went to meet Bryce on January 5th at Sonoma State University and learned more about the advanced technology they will be integrating into our device. According to Jensen, working with more complex technology will help elevate their skills in programming the invention and will benefit them in the long run if they choose to continue through the route of technology. Overall on the first day of the meeting, a lot of knowledge was given and received. We are very appreciative of our new mentor who will further advance the tech team! Not only that, the SSU Instagram was able to collaborate with our InvenTeam social media which created additional recognition for our Calistoga HeatSync InvenTeam. 

Team Insight 

Technology - Our team went to Sonoma State University Electrical Engineering Department over our winter break and got a new dedicated Advisor!   Mr. Jensen came up with goals for our team.  He advised us to level up to more advanced technology that is more capable and powerful to meet our required needs. We created a PUGH Decision Matrix and determined the ESP-32 would work the best for our device needs.  It's more complex, and the team will have to commit to learning many new things, but they all agreed to elevate their knowledge because as our advisor said, it’s something applicable to real-world, current industry needs.  So the team agreed, if you have to learn something new, it might as well be useful!  The team is currently working on the integration of the temperature sensors into the ESP-32.

Scientist - Working on proper procedural protocols for testing the devices with regard to timing, intervals, and temperature requirements. Reviewed research to find the exact heat stress temperature limit for humans and ran trials on our automated temperature testing systems to see how the system performs for the best application.  Reached out to local resorts and hotels in the area to request support for the use of their dry saunas to mimic high-temperature environments for testing.  Firefighters thought a dry sauna would be the most similar environment suitable for testing the device.

Engineering - Currently working with Fire and Agricultural Prototype teams on creating a smaller, lighter yet more efficient cooling system. A challenge being faced is both size of the device and power consumption. Less power withdrawal with the same efficiency and smaller size is the goal. We want to focus first on more efficiency,  make the product work correctly first, and then once the cooling unit is ready, it can be adapted for wearing into whatever environment it needs to perform in, for use in agricultural fields versus wildland fires.  The team is additionally engineering and designing for the addition of heating on top of cooling for the Agricultural fieldworkers.  Earlier UC Berkeley and Sonoma State Engineering feedback advice from our December 7th mini mid-grant technical review is guiding our decision-making process.

Fire & Agriculture Prototype Teams - Are both working with Engineering to run the new lower power draw fans and pumps that use less water and a new sealed water tubing system to resolve leaks.  The hope is to hit our engineering goals of lower power, higher efficiency, smaller size and weight, and no leaking.  New Advisor Mr. Bryce Jensen has been extremely helpful with running our electronics that have 3 and 4-pin programmable wiring which is something new to us.

LEADS for our InvenTeam:

Left to Right in the image.  Our Leads are shown below:  Elias (Engineering Lead), Violet (Firefighting Prototype Lead), Graham (Lead Inventor), Xitlali (Agriculture Prototype Lead),  Kassandra (Sustainability Lead), Alexa (Lead Scientist), and Manny (Technology Lead).  THANK YOU LEADS!!! YOU DO GREAT WORK TO GET US TO THE FINISH LINE!!!

Administration, Media, & Fundraising

Fundraising at Safeway

At the entrance of our local Safeway, the Administration team decided to put up a fundraising table where we could greet and inform people about the incredible Calistoga L-MIT Inventeam! Many people were excited to see that a small school from their community was being recognized and achieving big goals. We got many attracted and in 2.5 hours we were able to obtain over $600. The donations given are greatly appreciated and thank you to the St. Helena community members!

Upcoming Events

We are proud to say that we will be hosting a Dine and Donate at our very popular local restaurant, Buster's! We will be receiving 10% of the proceeds which will help support our trip to Boston and a future engineering program here in Calistoga. 

Press

Calistoga L-MIT Inventeam x Napa Valley Education Foundation Media Day Final Video, click the link below to watch please!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OjZ3TO2B6itFHXq3R9tZPu3fH7qBWqrt/view?usp=sharing