Today, at 12 PM, was the deadline to submit our e-poster and video. Luckily, we did so just in time! Below is our poster and video. It took a lot of energy and time for us to complete the tasks, but we had a lot of fun doing it. Thank you Ms. Moon for showing us the OTC Challenge, and thank you to Doctor Gibson, our BP sponsors, Jevon Williams and Sireesh Dadi, for helping us pull it together!
Click here for our e-poster! Click here for our video!
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Today, the team started the meeting with an overview of research we completed over the past week. We brainstormed a couple of ideas, and sophomore member, CJ Kaufman, brought in different oils from restaurants she visited. We noticed how different the oil of each restaurant was from each other, and brought into consideration the kind of marketing strategies we would need in order to incorporate leftover oil into our engine. Speaking of engines, after months of waiting, we have finally received our engine! It is a Cummins model, and is quite large, almost the size of two people standing together. We took a trip to the warehouse to see our engine, and we immediately began taking it apart (like unwrapping a present as Dr. G said). We are really excited to dive into the engine and its parts. Finally, our initial proposal for the MIT Grant is due on April 10 (Monday), so wish us luck on our acceptance! Written by Trisha Today we decided on what method of transmission we would use for extracting data from the drone. We decided that satellite waves would be the simplest, most efficient way of transmitting data. We chose this idea over using a hard drive to store data on the drone and using cable across the ocean floor. We also Skyped with our mentors, Mr. Shireesh and Ms. Jevon in order to discuss our progress. We now hope to complete our eposter and video before our deadline, April 7. Today, Sarah Lucas, a representative from BP came to visit the team at our school. We were able to ask her any questions about the competition, as she helps run the competition from the beginning to its end. By asking questions, we found out that we can use our thousand dollar stipend in any way we deem necessary for the project. In addition to this, she advised us that we should focus our project on components we are the most knowledgeable about rather than spreading ourselves out too thin with mediocre tasks.
After the informational session, the team created a decision matrix that outweighed the pros and cons of three different ideas we came up with. -First Idea: Develop three drones, each with specific purposes of finding one metaocean condition -Second Idea: Develop one multipurpose drone that finds metocean conditions simultaneously -Third Idea: Develop a swarm of a million nanobots that measure metocean conditions as a collective group and average the information from each nanobot to get the most accurate information We decided to go with the second idea! Today, the team decided to further the biodiesel engine project for our MIT grant application. This grant, if our application is accepted, is worth $10,000 to produce a prototype for the invention we create. We are excited to continue working on this project and add more (sophomore) members to the crew! The sophomores may use their idea they were developing as a pet project for the club, but our main focus will be on our biodiesel truck. In our next meeting, we will use decision matrices to determine what we can propose for our grant application in early April.
Written by Trisha Today was a momentous day! We met up with our mentors Jevon Williams and Sireesh Dadi at the BP office building located in the Energy Corridor of Houston. Directly after school, we carpooled down to BP and got straight into business. We had a powwow in one of the conference rooms, and we discussed what we know and what we would like to learn during the entirety of the project. We were able to come up with an attack plan for the Offshore Technology Conference challenge. Since the due date for one of the products is March 31, we plan to meet up during breaks and have Skype sessions with our mentors at BP. There is a lot of research for us to do, so we will divide the tasks and figure out what the best solution to our challenge is. We can't wait to have more meetings with our mentors, and we are glad to have finally met them! Thank you Ms. Williams & Mr. Dadi for your guidance in this project. Written by Trisha Today, Alvaro taught the team about diesel power stroke engines. We also got to hold a broken carburetor that he worked with previously. While carburetors are strictly for gasoline and not diesel, we felt it was important to understand the major differences between a gasoline-fueled car and a diesel-fueled car. Below are a couple of pictures! Also, tomorrow, Danny, Saige, Mark, and I will visit the BP Office in the Energy Corridor to meet with our OTC mentor. Wish us luck and knowledge! Written by Trisha At yesterday's meeting, the team discussed the basics on how an engine works. Since a company is (hopefully) donating an old diesel engine to us, we wanted to inform ourselves. Luckily, one of our members, Alvaro, knows a lot about cars. He taught us a broad overview, and today, we learned even more during our free time. We can't wait to work hands-on with an actual engine for our project! Written by Trisha Yesterday, four (Daniel, Trisha, Mark, & Saige) of us accepted the challenge the Offshore Technology Conference has presented us. We will be taking up the challenge of creating a device that measures and collects metocean data for offshore oil/gas companies. We will create our invention, make a poster, and present our solution at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. Wish us luck!
Written by Trisha Today is the creation of the InvenTeam at Energy Institute's official website! What a momentous time. Hello to all readers! We hope to keep you informed and entertained with our projects and updates. Leave any comments or questions you may have under each blog post, or contact us using the information under the tab labelled "CONTACT".
Sincerely, Trisha (president of InvenTeam 2014-Present) |
AboutCurrently, HISD uses B5 (Diesel with 5% Biodiesel) in most of its bust fleet. Research shows that B100 (100% Biodiesel) would reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly, but as a fuel it tends to “gel” in colder temperatures and this can lead to engine malfunction. The EIHS InvenTeam is currently developing “The Slush Buster”, which would be an automated system for regulating fuel viscosity in any diesel vehicle. Our invention would facilitate the use of B100 in any climate, as the current, widespread solution is simply to reduce the blend of biodiesel if the weather gets cold. We hope that our invention can be used by buses in HISD, and eventually vehicles in all parts of the country!
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