Week 3 Milestone
In the third week of the spring semester, we split up into two teams on Monday. Robin and David talked to Ricky about the user interface and how the controls and electrical components were going to work. Nick and Kim ran through ideas on how the motor was going to work and where it should be bought. A couple of days beforehand, Dr. Sama mentioned that he may have a motor for us to use, but was not available on Monday due to a conference. The next part of the agenda was recalculating the bucket dimensions. Kim looked up local places that sold food grade buckets while Nick researched how long it would take for the buckets to arrive to UK from either a company or from Amazon. Prices were compared with both companies and money coming out of pocket for the shipping was considered. Kim found a local container store and Nick and Kim left at 4:35 pm to look around and confirm the findings. No purchases were made on Monday because the whole team was needed to discuss which container would be the best option. Nick and Kim drove back to UK, and that was the end of Monday's meeting.
On Wednesday, David and Robin spoke to Ricky to confirm their findings so that they could be given the go-ahead to order the desired parts. While this was going on Nick left Barnhart to get his car, and Kim looked for Dr. Nokes to obtain the credit card. The team left UK and went to the container store, and after 30 minutes of deliberation, bought one barrel, a five-gallon bucket with a special lid, and two jugs for water tanks. The team decided that while they were out, a visit to Lowes would be on the way. They went inside to look for glue and other parts. After 45 minutes, a 4x4 was purchased. Upon further research, the team realized that the large barrel was going to be difficult to cut and glue back together because the plastic does not take adhesives very well. Our next challenge is to figure out how to properly cut and mend the barrel back together. The team left Lowes, went back to UK, and dropped everything off and went home.