March Update

Earlier this month, out team hosted our Mid-Grant Technical Review. We were so excited to have Dr. Estabrooks come down to help review our team; we met with her before the event as well after to tell her a little bit more about our team and hear some of her many dotty stories.

During the MGTR, our team leads gave a brief fifteen minute presentation overviewing our story and each sub-team's progress so far. We gave special emphasis to our mechanical sub-team. Many community leaders were in attendance including several professional engineers and endineering students. After the presentation, our sub-teams broke off into several tables. The audience was then given a change to view our desing up close and visit each group to fill out comment cards. This was a great way for our members to interact with the proffessionals and mentors and gain some feedback. 

Our communications and administration sub-teams got many suggestions about our presentation as well as the event as a whole. One suggestion was to format and organize our presentation more consisely. Each sub-team, especially the mechanical side, needs to go into more detail about what we have done so far. They also suggested to incorporate more SolidWorks designs into our slideshow as well as other visuals such as pictures. Overall, the feedback was very positive, and we will use these suggestions to build on for future events. 

Our financial sub-team recieved many comments on our fundraising efforts. We were fortunate enough to have educators from Gulfport High in attendance who gave us some ideas for possible fundraising and sponsorships we can pursue. 

One of the suggestions that was made regarding the design of our invention was the type of metal that we will be using. It was brought to our attention that it nee

ds to be rust resistant as it will be constantly exposed to to salt water. We are currently researching metals that will be viable for our lift design. Another comment that was made was that we could use the power outlets available on the docks verses using our origional solar panel power system which would make our device bulky. 

Overall, our Mid-Grant Technical Review was a success, Moving forward, we will use the comments we recieved to help us improve our team and prepare us for Eureka Fest. Thank you again Dr. Estabrooks for flying down to meet our team, we are very grateful for your imput!