Website

Coyt has put in the new menu for Y1. We need to post content.

Stampede

Joe will be setting up the Tesla Coil at 1:30 PM. Lucky will meet Joe at the trailer. Anyone else interested needs to contact Joe.

The demonstration is in the Knopp building from 2 to 4 pm.

There is also another Stampede in November. We should get more demonstrations ready.

Halloween party

Halloween night at Dr. Fehr’s house. We will have demos there for the neighborhood kids.

See the website for more details.

Expo

Joe is going to test the vacuum pump on the fusor. He has made arrangements to test it sometime in the next week.

Need to get demos working: electrostatic lifter, ring launcher, coil gun, rail gun, capacitor bank.

Need more stuff to make/fix a plasma speaker.

Maybe a big Tesla coil if we have the time

Y1

Alex will post the schematic on the website for everyone to look at.

ARGO floats are the closest thing to Y1 that Coyt has found.

We need to talk to professors regarding suitable sensors for Y1.

We have our plywood/PVC prototype. Now we need to TEST!

Perhaps research pools at local places like YMCA, the aquarium, or possibly in a shallow area of the bay. Billie will research local pools with sufficient depth.

Northshore pool in St. Pete, supposedly 20+ feet. (727) 893-7727

Brandon Swimming Tennis Club.

We can also look into renting a canoe or kayak to test the weight-release system at the beach.

We need to research the St. Pete campus for a deep pool and a pressure chamber that can be used to test our components. We can also talk to Dr. Fehr about facilities in Lakeland.

Sensors we want to test in a pressure chamber

Power components (wet cell, water turbine, solar panels)

Microcontrollers and components

Capacitors

Weight release system

In the future we could add sensors to monitor mineral content.

If we are going to vent our components, we probably want to use surface mounts.

Sensors

LM35 (temperature)

Accelerometer

Photoresistor (light sensor)

Pressure transducer (pressure sensor)

Power system

Capacitors

Electric

Ceramic

Batteries

Wet cell battery

Will have to be really well designed.

Possibly use the wings to increase surface area.

Regular batteries designed for deep sea, like those on the ARGO floats.

Water turbine

Solar

Would only work at the top. Maybe use it for the GPS and APRS independently.

We need to find a good power storage device.

Alex wants to design a breadboard after Thursday to put together and test at 100-200 feet next weekend.

Joe Johns  might be able to get us access to a smaller boat.

X-Labs, 

Last Friday we had a relatively productive meeting. We discussed several administration topics such as planning for the Engineering Expo and Y1. If you look at the menu to the left, you will see that I added content pages for Y1. I wrote some content for the Y1 overview and weight release system, but there is a lot more content that needs to be written. Please feel free to add anything that you think could be useful. 

There are a couple exciting events for X-Labs approaching in the next week or two, so we need to spread the word and be prepared. This Saturday (the 23'rd) is one of USF's Stampede to Success events! X-Labs will have a small demonstration which will consist of only the Tesla Coil. The demonstration is in the Knopp building from 2 to 4 pm. It would be great if we could get a couple other X-Labs members to help Joe out; he wants to setup at 1:30 pm. If you want to help, please email Joe Register at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Remember, this event is this Saturday! There is another Stampede to Success on November 20th. We should definitely make an appearance there as well. 

The other upcoming X-Labs event is the X-Labs annual Halloween Party!!!!! Please see the flyer below for details. Everyone should be there! 

Halloween

Remember, There will be a regular meeting this Friday starting at 3:30pm. 

Thanks, 

Coyt 

Expo

We got $1476 out of the $1500 we requested.

Need to find out if we need to design a shirt or if the Expo people will be providing the shirts.

Alex will talk to Chris Brown about a T-shirt design.

We now have two budgets, the normal club budget and the Expo budget. If we buy something for Expo we need to designate it properly.

We need a list of parts for the demos so that we can find reasonably priced parts. We also need to determine what we want for the non-Expo experiments. We have money, so let’s spend it!

Coyt will work on a parts list for the Expo project.

Coyt will fix his plasma speaker for Expo.

Y1

Alex has the schematic for Y1 unwired in Eagle and all the components for the main system on board excluding sensors. Alex will bring the schematic and a projector for review next meeting.

We need to design the electronics so that we can start buying the parts.

The density of the Gulf water changes density, so we need to make sure the torpedo is light enough to make it to the surface regardless of the change in density.

Payload components

Kevin will provide us with fuming nitric acid to dissolve the plastic casing of the chips.

Battery (we need to find a battery to go that deep)

Thermal battery?

Arduino chip

Micro SD card (need to buy) or EEPROM

Radio beacon and GPS (possibly use a water sensor to activate these)

Real time clock (Coyt has one)

Possible sensors (* mandatory sensors)

Pressure*

Temperature (LM35)*

Salinity*

pH

Sonar*

Conductivity

Dissolve oxygen

Light

Accelerometer*

Sensor to detect oil (public recognition)*

Soil sample

Simple optical*

Possibly a camera on later versions?

Many of these characteristics are probably measured optically

We need to talk to professors about the sensors

We need to know if the boat has a sensor to detect the bottom

We need to find a pool!

If the Y1 project is successful, Coyt will buy Alex some linen pants.

Google Groups

Everyone needs to sign up for the Google group!

Coyt will find out if we need to create a Google account in order to sign up for the group.

Flyers

Billie will post the flyer to the website in PDF format and the Google group so that we can start printing them.

Hello everyone! Hope that you've all had a fun and productive week. We will be having our weekly meeting today in ENC 3006 at 3:30 PM. I hope to see you all there!