Ethan Peters

This week we made a lot of progress regarding our branding as a team. Over the previous Saturday we had all met at Avidh's house to do the emulsion process for the silk screen. There were quite a few failures as we messed up 3 out of our 4 attempts, but we finally managed to get our shortened house logo to not come apart. On Tuesday we finally received the t-shirts that we had ordered from a wholesale retailer called Jiffy Shirts, but we decided to not immediately try printing on them and instead start practicing on some practice shirts from the screen printing shed. After we had burned some of the shirts (we discovered that the heat press was actually a heat lamp) we felt confident that we wouldn't mess up the shirts we were going to use. The next day we started printing, and most of our shirts came out really well, and for the ones that didn't we luckily had the foresight to buy extras.

This week we made a lot of progress with a lot of different things. First off Andrew designed and printed out our lanyards so we could check that off our to do list. We also finalized the design for a job and Thomas got Mr. Reeves to sign off on the sales acknowledgment form for it. Avidh and I started working on our house plaque which is going to look really sick as its going to have a three paneled wood back with our house logo engraved on Alumamark. So far we glued the panel together onto a backing so that we can hang it up as the panels are very thin. Next week we will finish up our plaque and hopefully finish up our job for Mr. Reeves.

This week I made a lot of progress on our house plaque. I cnc'd our names onto it in a vertical column and it looks amazing. All that's left to do is hang it up on the wall. I'm really happy with the way it turned out and I'm really proud of it. Andrew and I then took product shots of it to show off to future customers as to what our business is capable of doing for them. We just need to put them up on a page on our website. Also this week Thomas started on designing doorstops for Mr. Li, Mrs. Ferris, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Duston, and Mr. Villano.

This week we didn't do much as we only had D-Tech for one and half periods. Daniel made a lot of progress on finalizing the design for the Cold War Project for Mrs. Adams. He's going to make a few test examples to show to her and then we can go into making all 25 of them. On the right you can see a test he lasered onto a piece of scrap wood. Andrew and Nate worked on refining our financial spreadsheets. Avidh also proposed the idea to us of creating our own version of a product called LimeLight and sell it to newer robotics teams who can't afford LimeLight as its $399.99. We would 3d print the case and use opensource code for our device.

This week we decided to change the material of our doorstops from PLA to wood as it is cheaper and much faster. We took some 1" thick pieces of wood cut them with miter saw. We then glued these pieces together and after they had dried, used the band saw to cut them diagonally. All we have to do next is to laser engrave the names of the teachers on to them and whatever other designs they want, and attach the rubber to the bottom. Kaden has also gotten us two new jobs, one from the brewery his dad owns, Seaward Brewing, for coasters, and from Filmore Middle School ASB for shirts. Currently we are working on creating designs for the shirts and importing the Seaward Brewing logo so that it can be laser engraved.

This week we made progress on our jobs as well as a few other non job related things. First off Andrew finished altering the Seaward Brewing logo so that it would fit onto the coasters as well as creating a separate design that would fit onto curricular coasters. We did a few test runs with the logos, laser engraving them onto scrap pieces of wood and after a couple of tries we managed to get the logo to come out very nicely without burn marks around the wood. Andrew also finished designing the shirts for Fillmore Middle School ASB. For the non job related stuff Liam, Nate, Kaden, and I helped assemble the carport out on the patio earning our house some feat points. And finally at last we hung our sign on the wall with the late addition of Kaden hanging hilariously off of the bottom.

This week our team finished designing the logo for Mrs. Ferris' doorstop. We also managed to finish cutting it as well, but had a few bumps along the way. At first we cut the wood down to size using the miter saw but soon discovered that we couldn't cut the rectangular block of wood diagonally as it would be too dangerous. So we decided to use the bandsaw instead and this method worked out much better. Next we'll start working on the doorstops for Mr. Li, Mr. Villano, Mrs. Hunt, and Mrs. Page. Members of our house who haven't led a project yet will get to be the lead for a doorstop. This way everyone can fulfill their requirements of becoming a lead at least once for the semester.

This week our team was able to finish up all of the doorstops for the teachers. In addition Daniel started working on manufacturing the trophies for the Cold War Project however he began to run into issues with the laser cutter as it began to ruin the bottom portion of the trophies. The problem was that the rails used to move the laser were dirty as well as the lens for the laser. This was causing the laser to miss its target causing the inaccuracies. However by Friday Daniel had fixed the problem and delivered the trophies to Mrs. Adams.

This week we managed to land a major job with the Fillmore Middle School ASB. They want us to design and print 37 shirts for their program. Andrew has already started creating three separate designs for them and then they will choose the design that they like the best to be printed. In addition we started working Mr. Villano's doorstop as we finished cutting the wood, lasering his design, and then staining the wood. We also put the rubber stop underneath it to give the doorstop increased friction with the ground so it won't slide as much.

This week we started on getting the silk screens ready for printing. We first printed out the design that Andrew came up with onto transparent plastic. We printed two of them and doubled them up so that it would be harder for light to pass through, creating a tighter and cleaner line when we print. We then proceeded to go through the whole emulsion process, first cleaning the screens and then going into the shed where it was dark and applying the emulsion. The emulsion is UV sensitive so we had a non UV bulb in there so we could see but not start the curing process. We then finished curing the emulsion and washed out the rest and our design came out really well. In addition we also ordered the shirts we're going to be using which are a blue color.

This week was started work on the shirts for the Fillmore Middle School ASB program. At first we struggled a bit but with help from Saaje, who have a lot of experience printing shirts, we managed to get our first couple of shirts done correctly. The problem that we initially were having was that the shirts design was cracking when stretched. This was because we weren't properly curing the ink on the shirts nor were we putting down enough ink. Now we've managed to get 10 shirts done this week, and hopefully we'll be done by next week.

This week we continued working on the Fillmore Middle School ASB shirts. Fillmore ended up requesting two more shirts which brought up our total to 39 shirts from 37. We worked the whole day on Monday and finished up on Tuesday. I was in charge of curing the shirts. This required a specific method of 15 seconds flash then it gets reprinted, then 25 seconds, then take it off the board and then put it under and wait until the ink starts to steam. At this point the shirt is done and ready to be worn. On Wednesday Kaden delivered the shirts to the school for which we recieved $370. This has so far been our biggest job.

This week we started working the soldier project trophies and by we I mean Thomas and Daniel. Thomas stated designing the project in Illustrator and then ported it over to inkscape. Daniel was also there assisting him the design process. Our group decided not too take part in the "bid" to see which teachers want our trophy as we preferred to keep on working on our other jobs. We discovered that some of our doorstops were failing such as Mrs. Hunts whose doorstop had already cracked. The problem was that the grain of the wood was going the wrong way so that when the door hit the doorstop, it would effectively start splitting the wood.

This week is the last week before winter break. Recently Avidh and Andrew went to Lowes and got us two pieces of 8.5" x 11" oak wood from Lowes which we are going to use to make better doorstops. Oak is a hardwood which will make it a much better material than the other softer wood we used previously. We are also planning on using the wood for a new job for BioScience to make a trophy for the their BioScience Olypmics. Thomas went and spoke with Mrs. Anderson and they agreed upon $150 for the job. He got her to sign the sales acknowledgment form and now all we have to do is the make it.

This week is the first week back from winter break. This week we started work on the BioScience trophy. Liam used the router to start making a fillet on the edges while Avidh and Andrew started getting the acrlyic ready to be lasered. I helped cut the wood the trophy as well as the new line of doorstops that we are making which will be much stronger than the previous ones. In addition Kaden has begun making stamps for Mr. Li as well as other teachers. We have a lot of jobs and so far its a good start to the first week of the first year of the new decade.