Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Ready for the School Board Presentation

The pressure of being the first students to present to the school board in two years is not getting to our team in the least bit. We have finalized our powerpoint and scripts and have even included screen shots on how to set up a student account on the Aegis website. After that, we plan to demonstrate how the revolutionary system works by pressing the alert button and show the program finding our access location and placing it on the map. We have been thoroughly practicing the presentation, and even gave it to one of the freshman Design and Draw classes. It was good practice for the crowd we are going to have to present in front of tomorrow night.

Friday, May 21, 2010

With the School Board presentation coming up, Tom Corona decided to bring Tristan Frey's laptop with him to Long Island. Tom should be able to complete debugging the program so we can demonstrate Aegis in front of the entire School Board. We are extremely excited to have this honor and to show the board that investing in Project Lead the Way is paying off. We all plan to share where we are attending school next year and what we are majoring in. They need to know that the PLTW program has had a tremendous influence on our future plans and our success at this school.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Upcoming School Board Presentation

The end of the year is quickly approaching, and the school board has asked our EDD class to put together a presentation in front of our parents, the school board, and the press about why we were invited to Austin, Texas. We plan to include the past projects such as the Garden Consultant and the Cell-Phone Car Starter. We are also going to demonstrate Aegis and show how it can grab the victim's GPS location and send it to security.

On a sidenote, Dennis Conway, who is in charge of campus security at Skidmore, recently got back to us regarding us performing preliminary tests of Aegis on Skidmore's campus. We are going to arrange a meeting with him next week, before the school board presentation, where we can run through Aegis and hopefully set up a time to try it on Skidmore's campus.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Washington DC-Day 2


After a long day at Capital Hill, Mr. Gallagher took John Otto and I to the Smithsonian Museum of US History. There were plenty of interesting things to see at this museum. One of the things that I enjoyed the most was the section dedicated to Jerome Lemelson, the same man who started the InvenTeam organization that we are a member of. Other interesting exhibits included the evolution of products like the light bulb and the steam engine. We also got to see the contest winning autonomous vehicle created by Stanford that had to maneuver its way through both an urban setting and a country setting. It used lasers on top of the car to determine obstacles and avoid them.

Capital

Washington DC-Day 1


Today was a busy day at Capital Hill. John Otto, Mr. Gallagher, and myself spent the day in eight different meetings. The purpose of the trip was to lobby in front of Congressmen and Senators' staff to try and convince them to provide more funding for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematical. This STEM education is specifically supported by programs like Project Lead the Way who would be able to grow even more rapidly with government funding. We even got to meet with Louisiana Congressman Bill Cassidy while talking to his staff in his office. After a long day of talking with staff members, Project Lead the Way CEO took us out to dinner at Legal Seafood and bought each table an eight pound lobster!