Final Preparations

Today has been wild as the team works to wrap up loose ends before heading out tomorrow. In the morning, Riley, Emily, Scotty and Alejandra finished painting on the wood sealant. After letting it dry and sanding down the rough edges to ensure that the router can easily slide through, the day’s challenge was to design a box or frame to fit all of the templates in.

Alejandra, Riley and Emily worked on building the transport box- going on a road trip to different hardware stores looking for wood with the right dimensions. Dan, a man who works in the instruments room in Thayer, was really helpful once we came back with the supplies! He brought us a chop saw and table saw, which made cutting the wood to size much easier. Riley and Dan literally built the box around the templates, making it tight and as small as possible to make it light enough to bring on the plane. And so, “Bobby the Box” was created.

Unfortunately, later in the day after trying to sand it down, we had to accept that “Bobby the Box” was overweight. So it will become a window box when the team gets back in the fall!

There was also an alumni event going on at Thayer while we were working, and we met engineers who wanted to check out our project. We even had a little guy consider trying it out himself!