Williamston High School InvenTeam Blog #4

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 our mid-grant technical review and planning more community outreach events! We also have had lots of progress this month on the technical side as well!
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.

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® is, 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 $9000 through these solicitation letters which will be put towards our fund to travel to EurekaFest in June! We are so close to reaching our goal of $11000!

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:

East Lansing Kiwanis Club:
This month we presented to the East Lansing Kiwanis Club to present our invention and our team’s mission. Amanda Jaworsky (Research Lead), Gabe Lounsbury (Sustainability Lead), and Trucy Phan (PR team member) were the ones to present on behalf of the team. The club thought that the topic of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes was very pressing and was interested in donating. They suggested that we submit a grant application to them which we turned in last week!  Thank you so much once again to the East Lansing Kiwanis Club!

Upcoming Events:

Oshki Collaboration
We have partnered with our corporate sponsor Oshki on a 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 will be coming out very soon! Thank you so much Oshki and Jackson for supporting the team!
Want to order one?
DM us on Instagram @williamstoninventeam or Facebook when you look up “Williamston High School InvenTeam” your name, email, and shirt size!

Culver’s Fundraiser
We have another fundraiser at the Okemos Culver’s! Come stop by on March 2nd from 4-10pm to support the team! Make sure to show them this flyer when you do so!
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

Mid-Grant Technical Review

We had our Mid-Grant Technical Review in partnership with Stockbridge High School InvenTeam this month. It was very successful! Our mid-grant technical review was at the Michigan State Engineering hall. We had family members and donors come, as well as Dr. Kurt Guter and Dr. Edward Robinson who both have a background in working with the environment and are people we go to for consultation. Dr. Guter has worked on many research projects on microplastics with many students from our school’s Math and Science Academy, and even a couple of the members of the InvenTeam. Wolfgang from the Bekum Corporation also came to the Mid-Grant Review. We have been working with Bekum to create the hangers for our device and he was excited to hear more about our progress since working with them. Trent English, a local patent attorney also attended. Mr. English had previously helped the 2016 Williamston High School InvenTeam receive a patent for their HANDL device and he has expressed interest in potentially patenting our Automatic Beach Cleaning Device in the future. Drew from the Alliance of the Great Lakes also gave us valuable advice on what we should include in a presentation and what we should consider doing to our device moving forwards. Former members of the 2016 Williamston High School Inventeam came by, as well as the team’s former advisor Mr. Schab.
Everyone was eager to see our progress and were impressed by Emmett’s plastic detection programming work. We also learned a lot from the people who filled out feedback forms and spoke with us after the presentation. One of the most frequent questions related to the device’s ability to go over rockier beaches instead of just the smoother, commercial beaches around Michigan. Though the beach cleaning device would probably work best on smoother beaches, we have worked to make it stable enough to go over less-than-ideal surfaces as well, and maybe this is something we can address in the next presentation. Another thing we want to clarify as well is how our innovation is new considering it targets the smaller pieces of plastic found alongside beaches, whereas most beach cleaning devices are large rakes that only cleans up the larger ones. We want to make more of an emphasis on the fact that our device will work in tandem with these rakes to work towards plastic removal. One concern that popped up on several feedback forms related to our funding. Since our PowerPoint did not have clear graphs labeling how we have spent our money or really any of our financial records, this is something we need to add in. We will integrate the feedback we received into our next presentations to make them the best they can be as we prepare for EurekaFest in June.

Updates from the Management Team:

Technical Lead
Jack and Owen made a chassis that the technical leads welded together but it was seemingly off, so we decided to weld a new one this month. The engineering team went to bekum and made the bearing hangers. Then the team needed more hangers so we went to Alro steel to get more materials for the second chassis. Noah also made a CAD of the chassis. After the engineering team decided on motor mounts, and made a CAD of that too. The team also got the axels cut, which then, a subcategory of the engineering team dubbed as the bucket group, started on some 3d prints using the form. The lulzbot is a constant battle between the engineering team members so we are ordering a new throat tube. Also the team tested on the wheelchair motors we acquired, and we got the old hubs off so the drive system should be ready to bolt on as soon as the chassis is done.

Programming Lead
Emmett integrated the identification with the stepper motor when the linear rail is static, began writing code to make it work while moving, and began working on the programming and wiring for the drivetrain motors. During the mid-grant technical review, Emmett was able to display his identification programming that he did for the linear rail which many people were impressed by.

Administrative Lead
Faith has been preparing for the Mid-Grant Technical Review and been setting up future fundraising activities for the month of March. Faith has also been writing grants to ensure that the entire team can go to EurekaFest this year. Faith has submitted one to the East Lansing Kiwanis club and is in the process of writing one for the Williamston Rotary Club. Faith has also been in contact with Culver’s and with Panda Express for fundraisers that will take place next month.

Financial Lead
As financial lead, Katelyn bought resin for 3D printer, metal for chassis. Katelyn also recently ordered sprockets and bearings, and also put in initial deposit for plane tickets. With the feedback that Katelyn has gotten from the mid-grant technical review, Katelyn is now creating charts and diagrams to show fundraising and financial progress for future presentations. This will be very useful when we want to get financial feedback at EurekaFest.

Research Lead
Amanda has been coming up with a plan to get feedback at EurekaFest and is in the process of getting it approved by the IRB. The IRB is going to make sure that it meets proper guidelines. Amanda has also been presenting on behalf of the team as a presenter for both the Mid-Grant Technical Review and the Rotary Club.

Communications Lead
Allyson also has been prepping for the Mid-Grant Technical Review. Allyson has looked through the feedback forms and taken note of all of the valuable feedback for the team to work on with EurekaFest soon approaching. Allyson has also worked on writing the East Lansing Kiwanis grant and wrote a write-up for the MId-Grant Technical Review as a whole. She is also working on a video for next month!