Team:Cornell/notebook/drylab/week 9

Entry:

This evening in the ECE lab, Lydia and Kelvin continued working on their respective tasks, while Manny and I discussed ways to fix the solar panel to the case.

The most promising design is to make L-shaped brackets out of Plexiglass or Lexan. The bottom of the L’s would be adhered to the case with some kind of plastic welder. It would raise the solar panel a little bit from the case surface, giving enough space for the water tubes and wires to come through the hole underneath the panel. The solar panel would be bounded to the case by its wire, which would be taped to the inside of the case. The influent and effluent tubes would be fixed between two brackets in opposite directions. Thus, there are 2 L-brackets that run longitudinally along the solar panel, and 4 smaller L-brackets that run latitudinally--2 on each side, with a tube running between each pair.

The other designs are simpler to implement, such as using elastic bands that run around and underneath the lid and zip-tying the solar panel to the case handles (the solar panel frame has holes for zipties to run through). Some other materials we are interested in getting include paracord rope.

#chassis #solar panel

Entry:

Manny and I met up after lunch on this warm, cloudless day to run tests on the Pelican case. We wheeled the case out of Rhodes Hall and into the nearby trees. It easily passed the field deployment test. The wheels held up well against the rough path of pebbles and gravel and the handles made it easy for us to carry the case down the steps. When we got to the stream, we slid the case into the water and unsurprisingly, it floated fine.

To test the watertightness of the case, we loaded about 50 pounds worth of rocks into the case before tossing it back out, making sure the case opening was below water surface. With 50 pounds inside, the case was still floating. As Dan mentioned in a previous meeting, it should still be able to float with all our equipment inside. After about 10 minutes, Manny and I dragged the case out to find no detectable amount of water content inside.

Dan had also wanted us to see whether a phone would still be able to reach the network inside a submerged case. Despite results from the waterproof test, neither Manny nor I wanted to risk our own phones, so we roshamboed to decide whose phone (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-paper-scissors). Roshambo master that I am, Manny lost and reluctantly put his phone inside the case and held it down under water. Shortly after, I called his phone and Manny felt his phone’s vibration through the case. Completing the final test, Manny scrambled to pull his phone out of the case before we headed back.

#chassis