Mid-May Update

Z Magazine

Our story was covered in the May June Z Magazine issue! Here is the link to the article:

http://92131magazine.com/online-issue-archive/may-june-2015-issue/

High Tech High Village Fest

On Thursday, May 7th, the second annual HTH Village Fest was held at the Naval Training Center (NTC) Park in Point Loma, San Diego.

High Tech High has a few big events, the largest one being Village Fest. All five high schools (High Tech High, High Tech High International, High Tech High Media Arts, High Tech Middle Media Arts, and High Tech Middle) came together for an amazing event showcasing the many talents of the students. The festival included student performances (bands, dance groups, singers), games, food, and exhibitions of student work.

Current Invents took this opportunity to present all of their hard work and accomplishments, as well as tell people who they were and what they were doing. At the booth the team presented some tools, such as the oscilloscope, the shock box to show the basics of electricity and safety, and of course the actual fence. Villagefest was crowded with people from all over San Diego, and the booth was a success. People were very interested in what the team has been working on and definitely enjoyed being shocked by the shock box. Current Invents' presentation was reportedly "shocking".

Technical Update

Over the past two weeks we have been making a lot of technical changes. We now have a clear game plan for our detection system, which is what we have mainly been working on over these past two weeks. The system we are currently working on is meant to briefly turn the fence off so we can send a high voltage pulse to all of the coils or to the device that will read how much voltage is going through the fence. Each of these coils will send a response back, allowing the brain of the system to know that part of the fence is working correctly. If one of the coils does not respond, then the brain should know that somewhere between the last response and the unresponsive coil there is a break or interference. As of now we are testing out the different parts that will make this whole system work together. We are trying to see if our coils are reading the voltage, and also at what voltage we can get an accurate response from each coil.

In addition to the coils, we have been working on modules for the fence. We believe these are the primary steps to completing our final product. The one module we have been intensely working on is a pulse generator. It sends pulses at random using an arduino. We connect it to the fence and send pulses through the fence wire and into the oscilloscope. We believe the modules are a key factor to completing our project.  

Hopefully soon we will learn how to work each part so we can put it all together for a successful notification and detection system.

Communications Update

The team has been working on the press release to announce Current Invents' participation in EurekaFest in June. The press release will be sent to all the media contacts they have collected. The Communications team has also been avidly working on the Current Invents' social media, by constantly capturing moments and posting them for all followers to see.

On top of this, the team has worked hard on a 59" x 118" banner for EurekaFest that represents the different milestones of the team. It also includes the names of sponsors and mentors who helped make this project possible. It was finally printed last week and it looks amazing. If you want to see it real-size, you need to come to EurekaFest!

Administrative Update

We have been working on the final presentation due on the 22nd of May for EurekaFest and uploading all of the required forms for the trip.

May Fundraiser

In May, the team is planning to create Current Invents stickers and selling them with the Current Invents T-Shirts, in order to raise money for the trip to Boston.