Tonight Kurt English, Peter Snyder, Mr. Gallagher, and myself, Juliana Wakeman, went to C.T. Male Associates, P.C. to meet with Lena Weber, Ph.D., GIS Applications Manager. This was a follow-up to information Mr. Wakeman gave us on an online NRCS soil database. Dr. Weber taught us how to use ArcExplorer Java Edition with GIS Software. Using ArcExplorer we can access maps that show regions of soil type throughout New York State. We can search for maps of broader areas as necessary. Using Microsoft Access in conjunction with ArcExplorer we are able...
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Last night Bruce Hodge, founder of local company Tech Valley Technologies, was kind enough to meet with us for a second time. Not only did he help us educationally with our project. Mr. Hodge we be donating a server for our use. We are extremely thankful for this wonderful support! Mr. Hodge taught us how to use Perl, which is the language we will use for programming. We now have a much better idea of where our project may be headed, both this year and in future years. It is very exciting to see everything coming together! We really appreciate...
Monday, December 17, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Two weeks ago, I went to the midwest to visit colleges. I stayed with my friend's family in which almost every adult male was a farmer. Not one to forget my InvenTeam responsibilities, I grilled my friend's relatives for about 2 hours about how they tested their soil, what measurements were most important, how they decided what treatments they needed, and how those treatments affected crop yield. Their input will help us make sure that our device is usefull; after all, despite all of our research, none of us are farmers. We should never forget...
Friday, December 7, 2007
While checking out the Saratoga Springs City School District web-site tonight I stumbled upon an article written about us!I think it was written in September because it says we learned of the award "this month" but the article briefly describes our plan for our project, the Lemelson-MIT Program, and Project Lead the Way. Mr. Gallagher is quoted saying, "The kids are really excited to be involved in this project. In the engineering world, this program is as big as it gets."He couldn't have said it any better. We really appreciate the support that...
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Hello Everyone -As you may or may not have noticed we have received our second comment on our blog. No, we didn't get Google-bombed again. Professor Ed Crawley from MIT posted a comment to a recent post on our blog.Dr. Ed Crawley is a Professor of Aeronatuics and Astronautics at MIT. He is also an Advisor to NASA, the Director of the Gordon MIT Program on Engineering Leadership, and has pretty awesome taste in music.We would like to thank you, Dr. Crawley, for your interest in our InvenTeam and we can not wait to get a chance to meet you at the...
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Today, Richard Wakeman, Vice President at C.T. Male Associates, P.C. and most important of all Juliana's Dad, visited our class after school to explain to us how soil type may effect our project as well as provide resources to us to help measure soil type.One of the coolest things he showed us was a Soil Survey. Every county across the U.S. is required to have a soil survey done. This survey provides information on the soil type, growing conditions,...
Monday, November 26, 2007
The InvenTeams Computer Integration Group recently met with local inventor, Bruce Hodge. Mr. Hodge is the founder of local company Tech Valley Technologies which produces targeting systems for use by the U.S. Military and in Police Officer Training.He discussed with us past projects he has done using LabView as well as using DAQs to acquire data. Bruce offered guidance to us by letting us bounce ideas off of him and him offering us multiple solutions to our problems and explaining to us the pros and cons of each. Mr. Hodge also introduced us to...
Thursday, November 22, 2007
For those of you that are unaware, there is a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam Class of 2008 Mega Blog where different representatives of the Lemelson Foundation, MIT, and past and present InvenTeam Members can post about the grant program and their teams accomplishments. I have just posted the first post for the SSHS InvenTeam on the blog. Check it out at the InvenTeams Blog Site to see what we have written as well as read about what other teams are up to around the Nation.- Elli...
Monday, November 19, 2007
One of the many resources available to us as a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam is the support of various corporations in fields related to what we are doing. Vernier Software & Technology is one of those companies generous enough to not only talk to us personally about what we are doing but also donate a few sensors to us. After talking personally to the president of the company, David Vernier himself, he offered to send us a few sensors to use as well as gave us a little guidance as to how to go about identifying future sensors to purchase. Since we...
Friday, November 16, 2007
On Thursday November, 15 AutoCAD celebrated its 25th anniversary. The Saratoga InvenTeam utilizes Autodesk Inventor(a similar product) to generate designs and prototypes for the PAFSI product. Such incredible technology has allowed for beautiful and complex 3D designs to be generated quickly and effectively. The result is increased individual productivity and possiblity for near unilimted achievements. "What AutoCAD did, if you look at a snapshot of the past 25 years, was really to democratize computer-aided drafting,"-Mark Fritts senior manager...
Thursday, November 15, 2007
In researching various sensors and power sources for our PAFSI device, we ran across in article about a associate professor of agriculture who has been able to optimize sensors and power sources for use in a plant environment. Lei Tian was featured in the June 2007 issue of Growing magazine for his beta version of a fully autonomous weed removal robot. The weed-seeking robot according to Tian's website, "explores the theory, implementation,...
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Hey Everyone -Using the free tracking software from Google Analytics we have been monitoring the traffic on our blog since its inception at the start of the project. Using this data we have been able to watch as visitors rushed to our site after seeing us on the news or reading about us on the paper and now that we have reached over 250 visitors to our site we are happy to offer a new way to keep up on whats going on with the Saratoga Springs High School InvenTeam.As you will notice if you scroll down the page we now have two new features. Google...
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Today we had our first visit from MIT. Leigh Estabrooks, a grant officer for the Lemelson-MIT Program's InvenTeams came to class to check in on our progress and update us on how the InvenTeam process works. After reviewing Ms. Estabrooks' PowerPoint presentation on the InvenTeam as a whole, each group leader from our three inter-project research groups presented a progress report for their individual grou...
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
I invite you to take a look at our web site:SaratogaEDD.googlepages.comThe site features information about our project, an overview of Saratoga Springs High School's Project Lead the Way program, and projects previously completed in the Engineering Design and Development class. Check back for updates as our project continu...
Monday, November 5, 2007
Grant Enables Invention Project By Ann Marie French, The Saratogian10/31/2007SARATOGA SPRINGS - Some seniors at Saratoga Springs High School have been given an opportunity to develop an invention that could change the way people plant gardens and crops on both a local and global level. The group, Saratoga Springs InvenTeam, is made up of 14 seniors enrolled in Michael Gallagher's Engineering, Design and Development course. They were recently awarded...
Sunday, November 4, 2007
I was wandering around the internet today and guess what I found. An article about the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams Program on the CNet News Web-Site. It does not specifically mention our team but as you will see we are mentioned in the comments. Hopefully this article will bring world-wide attention to the InvenTeams as well as world-wide attention to our group. Check it out.- Elli...
Friday, November 2, 2007
This Wednesday, Tom White visited our Inventeam group in order to give us a basic preview of LabVIEW's capabilities. It was very enlightening!First, Mr. White showed us a video of a LabVIEW-powered robot that, with feedback, could sustain a bipedal walking motion; it did so by obtaining and analyzing data from accelerometers in real time. We then discussed LabVIEW's ability to create logic circuits and integrate with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. This verified LabVIEW's potential as a very powerful software package.He then showed us a piece of...
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
After Mr. Gallagher informed us that we had made it to the final 36 possible High School InvenTeam we as a class were eager to do something to help set ourselves apart. This video was made by our team to be a supplement to our grant proposal. Though the committee deciding our final fate was never allowed to view our video we though that you might want to check it out now and get a better idea of what we plan to do.Enjoy - Elli...
Tomorrow, SSHS Engineers will be getting an awesome Halloween treat courtesy of Tom White. As previously mentioned Tom White is the Director of technology for Project Lead the Way. He has been kind enough to offer his help in demystifying the LabView Software which will be heavily utilized in the completion of our project. Check the blog tomorrow for more info about his visit and all the cool things we hope to learn from h...
During the next two weeks we will be having a lot of visitors, meetings, and deadlines during class and after school. Many of our goals are dependant upon the outcome of these next few weeks’ events. Check out the official Google Calendar page for the InvenTeam to stay on top of what’s going on in class....
A column titled "Local students in national engineering event" by Omar Aquije was featured in the monday(Oct. 29,2007) edition of The Post Star. The section featured a general overview of the PAFSI project, and the Lemelson-MIT EurekaFest next spring. Mr. Gallagher is quoted saying, with respect to the project "the kids are really excited to be involved in this project" and "In the engineering world this is as big as it gets"http://www.poststar....
Monday, October 29, 2007
Web Design is a complicated and meticulous field. I have some training and have been appointed in charge of developing our web site. So far, I've made a few basic outlines for the design and content of the site, as well as a few prototypes of different components for the site. Chris and I have almost completed a basic web site using Google that has information on it, however it does not have Flash or images. The web site I am currently working on will be Flash based; we recently bought Studio MX which has a fantastic program for Flash and Web Design....
One problem that the pH group has run into is distinguishing between analog and digital pH sensors. Our research has shown us devices that do not digitally display pH levels. Instead, they display their measurements with a needle that moves back forth along a color-based pH chart. Are these devices digital or analog? If these devices are analog, can they still be integrated with Labview? Our group will most likely have to get our hands on several different types of pH sensors so that we can find out what will work best for our own device.Greg...
In my research of electric moisture sensors I have found a sensor that feeds information to a program called MultiLab. This kind of sensor is exactly the kind that we have been trying to find and expand on. The site is :http://www.fourier-sys.com/pdfs/sensors/soilmoisture_dt171a.pdfI have found other sensors however they are not computer capable as far as I know. One of these is http://www.decagon.com/Ech2o/?gclid=CK3sqoKaqo8CFSasGgodPUq5Sg. I will continue to research electric sensors and hope to find even better products then the ones I have...
Friday, October 26, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
The Times Union is the largest newspaper serving the Albany Capital Region. Check out todays edition to see two photos and a great article on the Saratoga Spring HS InvenTeam. We are psyched to have this awesome exposure and hope to see more and more in the near future. Below is the article as it appears in the paper or click this link to read it now.Nurturing seed of invention:High school class gets funding to build device to help grow better plantsBy DENNIS YUSKO, Thursday, October 25, 2007SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Saratoga Springs High School technology...
To many, Google is synonomous with searching the internet, but through the years Google has essentially become an online operating system. Among their developments are a variety of communication tools including GMail, Google Calendars, Google Groups, and Blogger. I will be creating a demonstration of how to optimize the performance of the services offered by Google in order to maximize the productivity of a team of people. It will be created as a video file, and hopefully we will be able to embed these tutorials into our website for anyone to view....
From reading the last few posts it is obvious the Saratoga InvenTeam is up to something. Baby steps are in full effect and we have split our team into three main groups. The First group is focusing on building a device to measure the pH level of a soil area. The Second group is doing the same but for moisture. And the final group is producing a 5 Plant database which will take the data collected by groups one and two and match their set of plants to the environmental factors.Each group has been instructed to make a document of all long and short...
Today we discovered that our blog has been google bombed. This google bomb is an anonymous comment to one of our posts that contains links to other websites. The settings of our blog prevented us from deleting comments to our posts. We now have changed it so that we can remove a comment to our posts if it has nothing pertaining to our group. Although we have changed the setup of our blog, we still can not go back and get rid of the one comment that had links back to their website because it pre-dated our change. We learned how we can change this...
In the short term, our group has tried to divide and conquer, with each person responsible for researching one pH measuring device and creating a pro's / con's table for using that device; this will be completed by class today so that we can discuss what we learned in class.For the long term, we think that we can decide on the best 3 devices and purchase them online. This will allow us to have the actual device in class and break it apart - see how the wiring wor...
Part of the inspiration for engineering projects ought to be to spread ideas and knowledge. In class, we learned that MIT has followed through on an initiative to make all of their lessons available on line for anyone to access. We think that this sharing of information should accompany any significant project. Therefore, as we research and learn about the technology and software that we will use for our device, we will make an effort to publish what we learn on line, where it is easily accessible. One goal we have is to create a tutorial for the...
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
We have divided our ultimate goal into three main tasks. The first task is finding more information concerning electric sensors, which will be covered by Tim V. The second task is to determine how soil type affects soil moisture. In doing this we must identify the most efficient way to determine soil type as well. This will be covered by Juliana and Tim G. Finally, the third task is researching other methods of determining soil moisture, which will be covered by Susie. My Dad is a civil engineer at a local engineering firm and will be coming in...
We are going to start with five vegetables and each member in this group will research one vegetable. By Friday we plan to have the necessary pH and moisture levels for each plant. Members of this group will also be familiarizing themselves with LabView. We plan to use LabView heavily within this group and the project as a who...
Monday, October 22, 2007
During the recent conversation with Leigh Estabrooks it was recommended that we form some sort of task management calendar. Her mentioning of the Gantt Model led me to find an awesome program which our InvenTeam is now using. GanttProject, a free and user friendly Gantt chart based project scheduling and management tool, is already making our recording, follow through, and planning of tasks very easy to keep up on as well as easy to understand. As soon as I can figure out how we plan to publish our Gantt Chart to the internet as so anyone can...
During tomorrows class we will be meeting as a whole class to discuss our next step in the PAFSI Project. At this meeting all team members will choose groups to be part of, then each group will choose a group leader and form an initial plan and set of goals for their group. After our brief conversation with Leigh Estabrooks we decided based on her advise and the ideas of people present for the conversation that taking baby steps is the way to go. The plan is to split into three groups. Two groups will be assigned variable, either pH or...
The Times Union, a newspaper for the Albany Capital Region, sent a photographer to get photos for an upcoming article on the P.A.F.S.I. Project and Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam Grant. An interview with Mr. Gallagher had been done prior to the photos on the phone but the photographer mentioned a follow up story's later in the year as we get closer and closer to the ultimate solution....
Thursday, October 18, 2007
At today's after-school meeting we had a telephone conversation with the Lemelson-MIT program's grant officer, Leigh Estabrooks. We talked about different goals to set as well as how to best manage our resources as to have the best project possible come the end of the year. Leigh Estabrooks plans to visit us soon to view our progress and give us direction. We are all very excited to meet her soon.- ...
Today ABC WTEN News anchor Mark O'Brien visited our Saratoga Springs High School Invent Team members. After receiving the high schools own press release WTEN was first to respond. Various members of the class were interviewed and filmed during the class and meeting our Invent Team held today and the segment is planned to air during the 6:00 News segment this evening. Capital Region viewers can tune in to channel 10 tonight to watch the segme...
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Tom White is the Director of Operations and Technology for PLTW. On a recent phone call between Tom White and Mr. Gallagher, Tom White mentioned his willingness to help us learn LabView. He has said that he is working on a LabView tutorial and would love to come meet our class and help us learn the program. We are very excited that Tom White is comming to join our group and help us learn to use this cutting edge software.- Pe...
Gallagher is very adiment about the usufulness of LabView. I have checked out videos online that demonstrate what it is capable of doing and I am impressed. It does appear to take a good deal of work and practice to use correctly due to the apparent complication of the system. Hopefully we can figure out how to take advantage of this awesome software.-PeterHere is a link to a really cool video of what LabView can do. Check it o...
Thursday, October 11, 2007
With our first deadlines and goals set in place I thought it might be a good idea to post the deadlines on our EDD Class calendar. After realizing almost every day has an activity on it I decided a separate calendar for our specific goals and deadlines should be made. Either search Google Public Calendars for "SSHS Invent Team Project" and join the group or send me an e-mail at elliott.poppel@gmail.com and I will add you to the administrator list....
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Now that we officially have the grant from MIT it's time to get the ball rolling. In today's team meeting we set split into different groups to start compiling the background information and utilities we will need to make the PAFSI Project become a reality. Here are the groups and tasks assigned to the groups as discussed today.1) VARIABLE IDENTIFICATION: Mike, Steve, Jeffa. Talk to Gardening Expertsb. Access Cornell Plant Database2) VARIABLE MEASURING: Rob, Tim G, Julianaa. Effects of Basic Variables on Plant Growth3) TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE: Chris,...
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