Williamston High School InvenTeam Blog #3
Welcome back to Williamston High School InvenTeam’s third blog post where we will be posting monthly updates on the team’s progress so far. We have lots of progress this month with lots of ordering, an interview with our local news source, and preparing for the mid-grant technical review.
Recap:
Members of the team are: Faith Schafer (administrative lead), Allyson Suandi (communications lead), Amanda Jaworsky (research lead), Gabe Lounsbury (sustainability lead), Owen Gulick (technical lead), Jack Schafer (technical lead), Katelyn Kersten (financial lead), Emmett Fountain (programming lead), Noah Palmatier (engineering team member), Cam Denk (engineering team member), Will Bellinger (engineering team member), Ethan Egger (engineering team member), Trucy Phan (PR team member), Nick Rubeck (engineering and PR team member), and our lovely advisors: Joe Rasmus and Steve Kersten.
Our team’s mission is to create an autonomous beach cleaning device that will remove small pieces of plastic that are often missed by other beach cleaning methods. It will identify and collect the plastics which will then be filtered through a system that will separate the plastic from the sand and other natural pieces of the environment in order to ensure that we will not disturb the natural environment surrounding the beaches.
In June, our team will be flying to Washington, D.C. to attend a conference called EurekaFest. Hosted by the Lemelson-MIT Program, this event will afford us the opportunity to present our prototype, engage in fun activities with students who have similar interests, and get advice from experts in engineering and invention. We will use the Lemelson-MIT Program’s grant money to develop, build and finalize our invention. In order for our entire team to be able to attend EurekaFest, the Williamston High School InvenTeam needs your help.
Tax-deductible donations can be made to “InvenTeams” via the Williamston Schools Foundation (P.O. Box 70, Williamston, MI 48895). Your support is greatly appreciated!
We are also doing corporate sponsorships! Through this, we have different levels of memberships based on how much the corporation donates. The platinum membership is when corporations donate $500 where a picture of our team in front of the corporation will be posted on all of our social media pages. The silver membership is when corporations donate $1000 where they receive what the platinum membership gets and they receive a bonus tshirt with the name of their corporation on the back. The gold membership is when corporations donate $1500 where they receive what the silver membership gets, a banner that will be displayed at our Mid-Grant Review, and a sticker on our autonomous beach cleaning device.
Vlog:
Fundraising and Community Outreach Updates:
Letters and Donations!
In December, each member of the team sent out twenty solicitation letters to friends and family that explained what InvenTeams® are, what our team was creating, and about EurekaFest. We also sent letters out to corporations and are still hoping to get some corporate sponsors as well. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated! We have raised almost $7500 through these solicitation letters which will be put towards our fund to travel to EurekaFest in June!
Facebook Fundraiser
Want to donate online? You can donate through our Facebook fundraiser!
https://www.facebook.com/donate/2973355086021705/?fundraiser_source=external_url
Community Outreach:
On January 22nd, the team was interviewed by WILX to be on their Schools Rule segment. Noah Palmatier (engineering team member), Gabe Lounsbury (sustainability lead), and Allyson Suandi (communications lead) were interviewed. The team showed WILX our workroom and what we are working so far. We talked about what our invention was and why we chose to help try and create something that would help solve the plastic pollution crisis. We also talked about what InvenTeams was and what an honor it was to receive the Lemelson-MIT grant. The segment is below and we are incredibly honored and thankful to WILX for allowing us to share our progress on their platform!
Mid-Grant Review Preparation:
Our Mid-Grant Review is set at the College of Engineering at Michigan State University on February 15th. This will be in partnership with the Stockbridge InvenTeam and we are so excited to present with them! We have been in communication with the Stockbridge InvenTeam, alongside Tony, and we have been sending out invitations to interested citizens, school faculty, government officials, and more. Our presenters Amanda Jaworsky (research lead), Owen Gulick (technical lead), and Trucy Phan (PR team member) are hard at work at perfecting the presentation. The PR team also plans to go to the College of Engineering to look at the place where the event is being hosted in in order to see how the team should set up our displays.
Oshki Collaboration:
We have partnered with our corporate sponsor Oshki on a unisex t-shirt that will be made out of 100% recycled plastic from the Great Lakes. We have worked with Jackson from Oshki on a blog that can be read here! Thank you so much Oshki and Jackson for supporting the team! If you are interested in purchasing one of these shirts, please contact us whsinventeams@gmail.com and give us your name and size!
Upcoming Events:
- Culver’s Fundraiser
We have another fundraiser at the Okemos Culver’s! Come stop by on February 24th from 4-10pm to support the team!
The address to the Okemos Culver’s is 5140 Times Square Dr, Okemos, MI 48864
- Panda Express Fundraiser
We also have another fundraiser at the East Lansing Panda Express! Come stop by on March 14th to support the team!
The address to the East Lansing Panda Express is 439 E Grand River Ave, East Lansing, MI 48823
- On February 24th, the team will have a presentation at the Lansing Kiwanis Club to do some community outreach! We plan to talk to the club about our invention, the InvenTeams program, and the problem of plastic pollution alongside our Great Lakes!
Updates from the Management Team
Programming Lead:
We have made very slow progress in programming in general. Due to several issues we had to purchase a new motor driver which we have not had a chance to test yet. The largest progress has been made in the area of detection and location of plastics. The accuracy of the detection software has increased significantly, but could still use some fine-tuning. In addition the software that converts a map of plastics into specific steps for the stepper motor has begun to take shape, however without the stepper motor attached, it cannot be reliably tested.
Sustainability Lead:
This month has been another crucial month for sustainability. We have begun to craft the drivetrain for our device which is incredibly dependent on the batteries we will use. We are trying to make the device as sustainable as possible, since efficiency is a key factor in our robot’s success. This means that the less power we draw at an instant is power to be saved for later, ultimately leading to increased time to drive the beach and collect plastics per trip. To save power we are discussing ways to keep the robot light. The lighter the robot the less power is needed to start and stop the movement as well as maintain its power required to travel a constant speed. We also do this by trying to minimize the total size of the project as well. This correlates because it naturally keeps the weight down. We also have discussed using lighter materials such as aluminium for our chassis. This will improve the efficiency of the project greatly.
Financial Lead:
We have purchased a lot of materials this month and have spent over half the grant money. We are heading in the right direction to getting a substantial part of our invention together. So far this month we have bought axles, stepper motor drives, sprockets, a caliper, and a coupling. The team has bought a large portion of the materials necessary to build the drive train and the chassis.
Administrative Lead:
The administrative lead has been hard at work with organizing the team together to work on preparation for the Mid-Grant Review. The administrative lead has worked on sending out the invites through both email and mail, and collecting RSVPs from our guests. The administrative lead has also set up fundraisers for both Panda Express on March 14th and Culver’s on February 24th. The PR team is also in the midst of drawing up floor plans and designing a set up for the display for the Mid-Grant Review.
Technical Lead:
We worked with the financial lead to purchase materials for the drivetrain and chassis. We also got the motor controllers and figured out how to use the converter. We mocked up and designed a chassis using wood that was 2x4 to get an understanding of the size that would be needed. We made a sketch of what the final design should look like and the robot from different angles. Engineering team members have done lots of CAD work regarding the hubs, the hanger, and an outlet for the vacuum. We have had lots of engineering team meetings to decide on a drivetrain and ordered components for it. We also have gotten metal to weld the first chassis ourselves. We also plan to have someone make our bearing hangers on a plasma table. One of the technical leads has also been hard at work on presentation practice for the Mid-Grant Review. We are working together as a team overall to work on the setup of the bot and what components we plan on bringing to the mid-grant review.
Communications Lead:
The communications lead has created a vlog that has behind the scenes footage of the team’s progress from the last two months from community outreach events to engineering team meetings and build days after school. The communications lead has been partnering with the rest of the PR team on working on the mid grant review. The communications lead has been sending out invites and is in the process of designing a set up for the display. The communications lead is also working with members of the PR team on a t-shirt design in collaboration with one of our corporate sponsors, Oshki clothing, which is a clothing brand that uses recycled plastic waste from the Great Lakes for everything they make.
Research Lead:
The research lead is one of the main presenters for our mid-grant review. This month the research lead has been perfecting the mid-grant review slideshow and has been leading the mid-grant review presentation practice. The research lead has also partnered with the administrative lead to write a grant for the Dart Foundation that will hopefully help the whole team to be able to travel to Eureka Fest.
