Our three-week passion-project time has come to a close, and I have achieved all that I was hoping to. I met with a prominent sponsor and reached out to several more, as well as finding a way to express my deep gratitude to those who have already assisted the team. Even as this brief period draws to a close, there is still much work that needs to be done before this challenge is completed. I would be grateful of any and all donations to our team through the GoFundMe button below. Also, please keep up with the events of the team via our Facebook blog and Website (both linked below).
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While working on the thank-you cards, I found that it took more time than I had originally expected. I have finally finished with all of the cards, addressed them, and sent them. I also drafted and sent an introduction email to a representative of Xcel Energy, a large renewable company based in Denver. The team has also recently received the fixed charge controller and sent back the hand-held programmer.
Today, I plan to write and send the Thank-You cards to our sponsors, as well as send the specs of the motor controller to a member of the team that is currently away. I also need to print envelopes with the team logo to send with our cards.
Today, I contacted Vantiv and asked about who would be the best person to contact about the team at the herald. Also, I got the thank-you cards in, so I can write and send the letters tomorrow.
Today is when I am going to make contact with Vantiv, as well as talk to the Herald about interviewing the team.
Today, the call with the expert was very fruitful. We discussed the possible reasons for an error reading on the motor controller. He said that with a brushed motor, we could be running into problems with corrosion. He said that we should put current directly to the motor, maybe 12 volts. We started to do this, but noticed a problem, the motor that we were told that we had, was not the one we were using. It was instead a brush-less motor. This is both good and bad news. On the one hand, a brush-less motor is much more energy efficient than a brushed, but on the other hand, we cannot as easily diagnosed as a brushed.
Today, I am going to be on call with an expert on electric vehicles, trying to troubleshoot our motor controller problem. I expect to get a lot of valuable information from this call, especially what we should try to fix our voltage problem.
Today, I succeeded in re-organizing the donations/expenditures spreadsheet, as well as delegated the creating and printing of thank you cards as well as posting to our website blog. I made contact with Ska and got a contact for Vantiv.
Today I plan to work on contacting First National Bank. I also need to order replacement parts for the battery system. I anticipate that I will be able to get these things done, as well as update our income/expenses document to show our income from Shaw Solar. To find more team updates, check out our website www.energyodyssey.weebly.com.
I was not in class at the beginning, so I will just take this time to recap. In my original plan, I was going to try to set up a meeting with Shaw Solar sometime towards the end of this week or beginning of next week, but yesterday I got an email asking if I could meet today during the day. I am super grateful to Shaw Solar for being so quick in getting a meeting set up, and then deciding to donate to our team almost immediately. All in all, today was very successful. My goal for tomorrow is to contact the owners of a couple of local businesses, as well as talk to the Herald about running an article on the team. I also hope to get the necessary replacement parts for the batteries ordered and on their way.
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