Trip to Irvine, CA

Yesterday, May 7, 2018, 6 members of our InvenTeam took a 3 hour van ride to Irvine, CA to meet with the head engineer—Dale—at Dinsmore Incorporated, a production company that specializes in 3D printing, in hopes that they would be able help us with the software components of our invention. We toured around the company and unfortunately told us that they don’t specialize in software and that they can’t help us right now, but when it comes time to build the circuit boards they’ll be there to make it. We left and got food at Pei Wei. We were determined not to lose hope, so our advisor Mrs. Thibault told us to go on our phones and find engineers closer to our high school. We eventually found a company called Valencia Circuit Works and met with their owner Mark DeSantis who told us he specializes in designing circuits and that he also couldn’t help us with what we need. However, he did refer to us to his longtime colleague of 25 years, Ron Boe who works at FO Engineering, a company located just down the street of Valencia Circuit Works that designs control systems for the defense, aerospace, and industrial markets. So we gathered in our van and drove 5 minutes up the street to meet with Ron who gave us advice on how to start fixing our invention. Ron then brought in his head software/coding guy, Ben, who gave us various explanations as to why our sensors may not be working. Ben also gave us a code on starting the filter that helps us condense the data of the thermal sensor and articulate it within the serial monitor. Ben and Ron gave us their contact information and told us to reach out if we ever need anymore help. This trip was a blessing; we were able to us expand our contacts so that we we have many people willing to help us whenever we need it.