Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams

Hey Teams,

Nate Ball here, 2007 winner of the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize and host of Design Squad on PBS. I’ve always been habitually bad about using lab notebooks–I would usually rather just make what’s in my head than bother writing it down.

However, over the past few years I’ve made it a point to be more diligent about using lab notebooks, for a couple of important (and useful) reasons:

-The lab notebook needn’t be anything fancy, and there are no rules about what you can or can’t put in it. It’s not all about nice-looking part drawings for some invention. Put everything in it: Phone calls related to the project; printouts of websites with useful information; photographs of things that worked and things that didn’t; and your thoughts and ideas about all of these and more. If you’re even marginally neat about this sort of design-scrapbooking, your lab notebook will change from annoying hassle to useful resource.

-Patents. If it comes time to protect your idea, it’s critically important to have it well-documented. Date your work, and on especially important things, have somebody look at it and sign it with a date. U.S. patent law is based on first-to-invent, not first-to-file as other parts of the rest of the world, which means if in the future you wind up in any patent litigation, because somebody thinks they built your cool idea first, you have to prove that you in fact were the original inventor. And you must do this using your lab notebook. So use it!

-It’s a resource for others. Teammates need to make use of your work even when you’re not there. If you wind up leaving the project, or just aren’t around some weekend, your well-documented work can help answer questions and guide them with your expertise on the project. Now remember, it’s a lab notebook, not your personal journal, so don’t start gossiping about teammates or anything…
Hope this provides some kind of insight into the wonder and amazement of regular lab notebook use.

Fail fast succeed sooner, measure twice cut once, if one bolt’s good 2 is better,
Nate

We thought you might enjoy viewing this clip from the Martha Stewart Show, which features co-author of Howtoons and former Student Prize winner, Saul Griffith.

Best,
Kayla

Hi Everyone -

My name is Elliott Poppel and I am the Project Manager for the Saratoga Springs High School InvenTeam Initiative. Our team is off to a great start in creating our garden consultant. Our ultimate goal is to build a device to be “planted” in ones garden which will collect data about your garden’s growing conditions which will be checked against a database to identify a set of plants which are perfect for your growing environment. Rather than having to adjust your garden environment to suit your plants you will be able to choose the perfect plants to suit your garden environment.

At this point in the design process we have split our team into three groups which each have a set of specific tasks which they are accomplishing. From the great exposure we have received in the papers as well as local television stations we have drawn the attention of various members of the community who have offered to help us with our project. So far we have had help from Tom White (Director of Technology for Project Lead the Way) who is teaching us to use LabView, Bruce Hodge, (a local inventor and family friend of mine) who is helping explain the technology behind the programs we are using, Richard Wakeman, (Vice President of C.T. Male Associates and father of one of the team members) who will assist us in quantifying soil quality measurements, David Vernier, (President of Vernier Software & Technology) who has donated some of his sensors to our team, as well as various teachers from Wyoming who were touring our school to learn more about our Project Lead the Way Engineering Program. The exposure that we have received from this grant has helped us form bonds with various corporations and members of the local community who will help us in this project as well as help our engineering program for years to come.

At this point in our project we have begun to assemble an initial prototype of the Garden Consultant. This prototype will start small and measure pH and moisture in the soil and identify which plants will work best in this environment form a starter database of five vegetables and five flowers. It is awesome seeing our project starting to blossom from the research stage of development into what will soon be an initial working prototype.

The Saratoga Springs HS InvenTeam and I look forward to working with everyone and eventually meeting you at the InvenTeams Odyssey in June. We could not be more excited and can’t wait to hear from you soon.

Thanks -

Elliott Poppel
PS: In response to Ben Pickers post I have some ideas for how to set up communication within your InvenTeam. Like your team we have a blog where we post updates on our team’s daily activities but we also utilize a Google Group. With Google Group you can create your own group page where you can post private posts that the public can not see as well as any documents you may have which are then accessible to your team members. The greatest part about the Group is that it can be configured to send each team member an e-mail every time there is an update or addition to the Group. Also from Google we use a Google Calendar to keep informed on deadlines and events which is made accessible and available for edit by all group members. One of the coolest tools we are using is an open source gantt scheduling chart software called GanttProject. This program allows us to plan and prioritize task as well as assign resources to each task. Our InvenTeam is in the process of making tutorials for each of the programs described above as well as others and as soon as those are available they will be posted to our team blog and available on the web. I will also post to this blog once they are viewable. Good luck and if anyone has any questions about these programs feel free to contact me or any of the Saratoga Springs High School InvenTeam members through our blog. We would be glad to help.

Hi InvenTeams,
Lemelson-MIT Program Executive Director and former InvenTeams Grants Officer Josh Schuler is in the December issue of Men’s Health magazine for his excerpt in the 2008 Tech Guide. Read it in the online edition. Also, in case you missed it, former InvenTeam student Brennan Ashton gave some helpful communication tips for this year’s InvenTeams. Read about his advice under the comment, in response to Ben Picker’s post. Thanks Brennan!
Cheers,
Melissa Makofske
Lemelson-MIT Program communications officer