August: Two new competitions

Designing

Part of our VEX frame

During the month of August, the Funky Shiitake Mushrooms met often to complete a number of goals. However, not all of the team members were present throughout the month. Eric was gone for three weeks to work for Stratum Energy Systems in Ohio. Catherine, having finished her work with the Oakland Children’s Hospital, is taking a week off to spend time with her family in Alaska before school starts.

We decided to enter the Digital Open, an online technological competition for youths. Additionally, we began building our robot for Vex Robotics Competition. Today, we’re refining and restoring the blimp to flying condition. Raymond is working on the speed controllers, Eric cleaned up the wiring, while David and I ran around for materials (such as helium). Eric and David are reattaching the blimps to the frame as I type.

Oh snap, did we burn out a battery?

At other meetings, we typed up our project report for the Digital Open, which can be found here: http://digitalopen.org/projects/hybrid-airship. Also, Catherine, Raymond, David and I finished building the frame of our robot which will be entered into the VRC in late October. Hopefully we’ll be able to finish the internal workings soon. Eric, who has been in Ohio for the last three weeks, has stayed in contact with the rest of the team and was researching the logistics of patenting our dual-blimp design.

School begins for us in less than two weeks. As seniors, we’re all taking challenging classes, applying for college, and juggling other extra-curricular activities on top of working as the Funky Shiitake Mushrooms. However, I have full confidence that we’ll be able to succeed this year, just as we have in the years before.