January Blog
December, a time for joy and cheer and that is no less true for our team as we eagerly work towards the completion of our machine. This month has been a flurry of activity from seniors working on college applications; to finals preperation; to getting ready for the holiday festivities and winter break. Our team presented, fundraised and brainstormed for the next step in making our product a success. While there was limited time to make the progress we wanted while school was in session, being able to work during vacation time has afforded our team the luxury to set a plan for the coming semester and streamline our process as much as possible.
Progress During the Last Month
This past month the AHS Inventeam team split into many teams, the two most notable teams this month were the fundraisers and the sponsor seekers. The fundraisers set a booth at our school to fundraise and advertise to people visiting for our annual Christmas fair. The other directly communicated with companies and created ties that connected sponsors to the team. We recently converted the fundraising team to be the new “blueprint” team. With the sole objective of making an extremely detailed blueprint, then a materials list. Completion is estimated to be done by the end of this month. The first generation of EMMIT will be under production as we get our ordered materials.
Goals for Next Month
To start the year on a good note, we plan to make some major changes to the current EMMIT prototype. This January, we will begin purchasing new materials and sensors in order to move past the limitations that working with VEX parts has, allowing our team to implement ideas to our machine that were not possible before. Besides the plans we have for EMMIT, our out-reach team also plans on doing community service throughout the town. That way, we will be able to advertise our project while still having a positive impact on our community. Lastly, although we have established goals for the month, our team will continue making progress in other aspects of the project.
Financials
Our team has been doing extensive research on sensors and inexpensive materials that can make the cost of our invention more affordable for further production. Our plans for finances are to begin buying materials that can gradually replace pieces in our prototype that are currently made from VEX Robotics kits to industrial materials. However, we are still also focusing on plans to travel to Eurekafest as fundraising is still a major concern. Currently, a sub team is contacting various public associations to raise money for the upcoming year aside from the grant we received from Lemelson-MIT. Not only are we planning to have presentations at various public places that support environmental issues or technology based innovation, we have already been setting up locally as recently we aided our school's Winter Fair and received smaller donations. Our team looks forward to the new year as we are finally progressing further into the developmental stages of EMMIT, whether it is financially, mechanically or socially as we get the word out.
