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!