Hello all, and welcome back. It’s officially part 1 of midterms season, so we’re all enjoying that.

Luckily, EvapoGATOR has been really productive, and we’ve accomplished a lot this week on top of exams and projects in our other classes. This week’s main goal has been to prepare for the second Qualification Review Board (QRB2) presentation on Tuesday, Feb. 28. The point of the QRBs is to compile an update on our project progress to be evaluated and judged by a few IPPD coaches. With the information we present, our team hopes to persuade the coaches that we are on a good path and can confidently anticipate any risks to the project, especially when it comes to being finished by the end of April. We also look forward to the feedback we’ll receive from the coaches and plan to take it as advice for improving.

EvapoGATOR believes we’ve been working incredibly hard to stay on track and ensure the entire vacuum evaporator is assembled and tested by the Final Design Report (FDR) presentation on April 25th. In our post next week, we’ll give a brief overview of our QRB2 presentation, but until then, here are some tasks our team accomplished during this past week to prepare for that next milestone:

• received the completed welded stainless steel frame
• began manufacturing of corner brackets and steel bars to connect phase separator to frame
• began manufacturing of frame to connect main process units
• completed initial component testing on vacuum and pressure gauges
• completed purchase orders of 75 additional components
• continued updating BOM and CAD, hopefully to be finished by QRB2
• collaborated on QRB2 PPT presentation and required documents

Last week, I said EvapoGATOR loves IPPD, and that must be true because we all worked on this project every single day this week. The greatest accomplishment has been receiving the welded frame, especially since that was the biggest piece of feedback we received during QRB1. It has been slightly daunting to use the manufacturing labs, but our team really appreciates the lab manager, Jeff, and the progress he’s helped us make.

Looking forward, the priority is preparing for our QRB2 presentation Tuesday, but below are some other things we plan to work on next week:

• continue manufacturing parts in the Herbert Wertheim lab
• finish purchasing with our liaison and continue to take inventory of received components
• begin to assemble main process units to frame
• begin heat exchanger testing
• begin testing on thermocouples and create calibration curves
• begin an outline of FDR

Well friends, until next time, good luck during these trying times, you got this! EvapoGATOR believes in you! Now please enjoy some fun pics of us all manufacturing this week.