January 20, 2010

Meet and Greet

Looking to join the fun? We are hosting a Meet and Greet as well as an informal Information Session tomorrow from 5:30pm-7pm at the High Bay. Enjoy some Jimmy John's and get to know our members and different CMSS groups.

For those of you who don't know where the High Bay is, it's in the bottom of Hamburg Hall near Newell-Simon. Below is a map with a dotted line from Forbes and Morewood to the High Bay.

Any alums in the area should definitely stop by!

Hope to see you there.

January 18, 2010

Back to Work

Welcome back everyone! Last Monday we held our first Exec meeting of the semester. While there's still quite a bit to be done, things really seem to be coming together. Over break, Paul bought a new lower unit for Hydra, something we are all excited about. It's a little banged up around the skeg, but nothing we can't fix.

New lower unit!

On the cell front, we will finally be able to buy them soon. After a failed lead that took us to a Chinese company, which would have sold us cells at an obscenely inexpensive price (child labor, perhaps?), it turns out that there's actually a good old American manufacturer willing to supply us with the necessary goods.

As for batteries, we're still puzzling over that one. To quote Dave, "There's no ideal battery for us, and the best we could have done was the old batteries we used to have...and we can't seem to find [that model] anymore." Turns out the old ones were bordering on explosive, which is just enough of a safety threat for Chemical Safety to wait several months before removing them from our workspace. Yeah. So anyway, we've found a battery "that will do," but it doesn't quite match what we had before, and purchasing 6 volt deep cycle battery would add an extra 100 lbs to the boat.

There are still some heavy-duty MechE things to be done, such as finishing thermal analysis and and deciding where to position a water inlet. In other words, we'd like to drill a hole in the boat. This could prove to be an issue in terms of the mechanical inspection; according to competition regulations we can't change the wetted surface, so we probably would not be able to plug and unplug the hole for different races.

If any alums are in town, stop by the High Bay and check out the shiny new finish on Hydra! The picture doesn't do it justice. You might want to grab someone with a key first, though -- some people just haul it through the window, but Paul is still shook up from that last time the cops questioned him...

How'd they get that so shiny!?

"It's okay, Paul. I'll keep a lookout while you climb out the window."

And for Carnegie Mellon students looking to get involved, look for us at the Activities Fair this Wednesday, 4:30-6:30 in Wiegand Gym.

Keep checking back for more updates!

January 4, 2010

Donate to CMSS

I hope that everyone is having a great break! Carnegie Mellon Solar Splash is looking forward to an exciting new semester and the 2010 competition.

If you haven't already, please consider donating to CMSS. Anything you can give will greatly assist us in purchasing the solar cells we need to build our custom solar panels for the 2010 competition (see preliminary design in earlier post).

Donations can be made by credit card or personal check. To donate by credit card, go to the Carnegie Mellon University Giving website (www.cmu.edu/giving) and select "Give Now" at the top of the screen. Select "Other" and write in the "Preferred Designation" as Carnegie Mellon Solar Splash.

Checks can be mailed to:

Carnegie Mellon University
P. O. Box 371525
Pittsburgh, PA 15251-7525

All donations are tax-deductible.

Thank you!