Again, asleep at the switch...

As usual, I failed to keep up with posting. I seem to always find other things that need doing which put this posting thing further down on the list.

anyway, here it is, probably with lots more forgotten...

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The new season has started, the 2nd year that Margie and I are responsible for the team. At the end of last season, we lost our faculty advisor, her contract wasn't renewed, and until a few weeks ago, we weren't sure if anyone would step up.

Someone did, and we're moving forward again. Thanks, Mrs. Perrault!

Orientation night picked up a slew of new members and some that dropped out early last season have rejoined. It is good to see them back. One of them took the initiative to visit every participant at the business exposition in September. Out of that there was a connection to a web-hosting business who's donated time and space on their servers for our website. Thanks to Eric Pfeifer of RightPath Networks!

At this time, the new host is operational and the web team has a bright future now, to put a slew of neat things on the site.

We've a new subteam: Marketing, and it has a bunch of enthusiastic members who are not only willing to work, but anxious to get started. We've a business plan and we have the start of a presentation to use when soliciting funding. Our prime sponsor cut funding across the board, so we now have opportunity to seek other sponsors, and the marketing team is going full speed ahead.

Yesterday, several of the marketeers visited the Merrimack Rotary Club to inform them of who Team 166 is and what we do. That went very well, and was a good exercise for sharpening their presentation skills.

Training has started and we're doing pretty well with that. There are more mentors helping there and that makes all the difference in the world. Alan Soucy, Steve Beauregard and Al Bourassa have been outstanding throughout last season and now. They're overseeing the training that is being done by the student leads. The Mech crew is massive again this year, so having several mentors assisting is necessary to get everyone up to speed by Kickoff.

Software has been working throughout the summer and are making progress; they're one of several beta test teams and are preparing a session on programming and the use of the multitasking code they developed with the help of a mentor.

Halloween provided an avenue to earn some money; the Town puts on a festival at the local park and T166 volunteered to run the haunted house. What they managed to pull off in 2-3 days effort was amazing, and more amazing was the amount of interest (and money) the house generated.

Where have I been...

Busy, that's where. The year's been a whirlwind of activity centered around FIRST. The team grew by a lot this past September, and that took me quite by surprise; we really were not ready for that number of people to show up.

With all the new students came a bunch of energizing parents and of them all there were three who really stepped up during build. I really don't think we could have gotten thru the season without their help.

That's not to say that everything went according to plan; quite the opposite as it played out. While gaining three mentors, we lost two, one went to the west coast to a new job, the other just walked away, and that really damaged our prospects for success this season. So, being left in the lurch and the only one with an extensive history, I was left to try to keep things moving along as best as I could. When the two MEs who were present for the training sessions didn't show as often as I would have liked, the mechanical designers were left to their own devices, which was a really bad decision to have made.

Anyway, this season's robot was less than superb, although it did manage to support the agreed upon strategy, albeit, poorly. The past several weeks since GSR have been spent redesigning the ball control mechanism, kicker and hook deployment scheme in preparation for Atlanta.

A hunner't years ago...

The following is not my complilation, it was sent to me by a co-worker.

1909 FORD Model R

The year is 1909.

One hundred years ago..

What a difference a century makes! Here are some statistics for the Year 1909 :

The average life expectancy was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower

The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour.

The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year.

A dentist earned $2,500 per year.

A veterinarian earned between $1,500 and $4,000 per year

A mechanical engineer earned about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births took place at HOME.

Ninety percent of all doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as 'substandard’.

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death were:

1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was only 30 !!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented yet.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
( Shocking? )

Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A.!

Feel free to copy this and forward it to anyone you care to...

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.

IT STAGGERS THE MIND.

Why I loathe Exxon

It's really more about their attutides and business practices than anything else.

'Way back, I learned that Exxon had been doing pioneering work in solar cells, but that the researchers were not going to share the fruits of their labor. It wasn't a long time after the first oil crisis thru which I lived that it became clearer to me just how loathsome these people are.

Americans are in love with their automobiles; I'm one of those gearheads who loves the sound of loud exhaust, loves the smell of burning rubber and lives for the rush I gets when I mash the gas pedal and bang some hard gears. It's all a symphony of sounds, smells and sensations that cause a drug-like high in me.

So, what has Exxon been doing all this time since the mid-70's? Feeding us bogus misinformation and spending millions of dollars lobbying congress.

Here are a couple of links from Treehugger.com about Exxon...

Sabotaging Oil Fields (so no one else can use them)

Spending Million$ to lobby congress.

Exxon to USA: Stop Trying, Resistance is Futile

Thieving bastards.

What's been going on...

It's been a long time since I last wrote anything, and a lot has happened. No surprise there.

Anyway, my youngest graduated this year and is now at Purdue, which makes next season the first that I won't have a child on the team. It will be certainly different.

Last year was also different, it was the best year ever, the team had the most successful season to date, the reasons for which are manyfold. Since the last post of 2006, which was our first season at the school, lots has happened, and not all of it good. What once was a bright future at the school as we entered that phase turned out rather poorly. I could go into the whole story with volumes of why that was so, but suffice to say that one leader was less than stellar and had a position of authority which was abused, IMHO. That person has been removed; a cancer excised and healing has begun.

That is all past us, all connections have been severed and we're on a path to grow the team in the school. Bridges that were burned by the individual mentioned above are being rebuilt by the successor. Preparations are being made to move ahead, dwelling on the past only long enough to learn from the mistakes made.

One of the biggest changes is the sharing of our training sessions with other teams. We put a lot of time into these sessions and want to share what we've learned. We also want to gain knowledge from others and incorporate that knowledge into our sessions. That is now possible.

Unlike the last few seasons, I will not take so long to share my thoughts.