Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams

Greetings from Upstate New York!

Our InvenTeam this year is continuing the Garden Consultant project from last year. The Garden Consultant is a device that a gardener can put into a potential garden to collect data relating to growing plants. Such data includes wind speed, temperature, sunlight, soil permeability and pH. The user then takes the device and plugs it into a computer via USB. The data is collected and put into a comprehensive database. The information is then compared with existing plant data, and possible matches for the garden are suggested. These matches are your “Perfect Plant” recommendations.

We hope to streamline the website this year, making it more visually appealing and usable. It will also have some of the tests on the website. For example, hardiness zones will be detected by a user’s zip code. Users will also be able to sign up for an extreme weather advisory e-mail. Incorporating Weather Bug and Google API code is another goal for increasing the functionality of the website. Visually, we will have a changing, season appropriate, background. A control panel will be present to provide uniformity and certain functions. All of the buttons have been re-designed, and we hope to use JavaScript to make the user interface aesthetically pleasing.

All in all, we are looking forward to a productive year.

Saratoga Springs High School InvenTeam
2009 Recipient of an InvenTeam Continuation Grant

Hello from Georgia! We’ve been busy getting started: getting to know everyone and doing some team training through BASIC at the FFA Camp. We have pictures that you can check out at our wikispace: whs-InvenTeam.wikispaces.com.

Greetings from West Valley City Utah. The Hunter High School InvenTeam is working on designing and building a solar-electric powered personal watercraft (PWC). We are in our preliminary research phase currently. For this preliminary phase we have converted a “fleet” of 6 different PWC to battery-electric power to obtain data on hull design, impellor design, and motor configuration.

Welcome and hello to all! The Bromfield School’s InvenTeam had its first full group meeting with mentors, advisers, and students. About an hour ago, this blog was created to record, report, and update information by the Bromfield School’s InvenTeam.

The Bromfield School is located in Harvard, Massachusetts with its InvenTeam consisting of high schoolers actively participating in making inventions for the public. The Bromfield InvenTeam is sponsored by the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam initiative. As of October 2008, we’ve received a $8,000 grant from MIT to aid our project. This year’s invention is a virtual cane for the blind; the invention will determine elevation drops, distances, and give the blind an “image” of what’s in their surroundings by using vibrations and sounds.

The blog will be run by Annette Chu and Matt Schmitt (Schmitty). With the help of the members of the InvenTeam, we will commit our time to record every meeting. We’ll record our progress, future plans, and discussions of our virtual cane to present it to the public in our desire to aid the blind.

As of today, the InvenTeam has officially divided itself into multiple groups.
Adult Helpers
Advisor: Mr. Gary Menin Senior (Physics teacher at The Bromfield School)
Mentors: John McGoldrick, Karl Schwiegershausen (Parent), Kevin Donahue, Mike Mintz, Barbara Petroulis (Parent), Gary Wenger (Parent) & Sharon Schmidt (Parent).

Student Members of the Bromfield InvenTeam (Divided in their Groups)
Team Leader: Brian Lynch (Senior)
Planner: Brian Lynch (Senior)
Bloggers: Annette Chu (Senior) & Matt Schmitt (Freshman)
Note Taker: Luke
Photographers/Film makers: David Choi (Senior) & Linesas
Website Producer: Matt Schmitt (Sophomore)
Financier: David Choi (Senior)
Public Relations: Ben Waldman (Senior), Andrew Hong (Sophomore), & Jeffrey Yates (Freshman)
Hardware Designer: Mac Devlin (Junior)
Software Designer: Matt Schmitt (Sophomore)
CADD Designer: David Choi (Senior)
Writers: Shunan Zhao (Senior), Brian Lynch (Senior), & Jacob Waldman (Senior)

Those are the listings of the groups and the members within each group. The InvenTeam decided it would be easier to have all members organize themselves in groups to use their specialities. Each group is connected with one another so we can combine our skills to propose our virtual cane at the EurekaFest.

TO DO LIST:
- Make a timeline of future meetings and what we hope to accomplish from each one
- Make a list of improvements
- FOR THE PUBLIC RELATIONS GROUP ONLY: Create a set of questions for an interview of Mr. Menin’s brother-in-law about his blindess, ideas for the virtual cane, and what the blind really need in a virtual cane.

NEXT MEETING:
As of now, we’ve all decided to meet next Sunday, November 16th at 1:00 PM at Brian Lynch’s house.