The focus of the week for the DesiGators was Prototype Inspection Day, an event where the team could show off their hard work to panels of judges and get feedback on their system and progress. On the day, the DesiGators were more than ready to show off their weeks of hard work, but one issue stood in their way: Rainesville. That’s right, Gainesville decided to live up to its dreaded nickname and turn the pleasant walk from the FSHN into half a mile of watery obstacles. Nevertheless, the team knew they couldn’t let the weather stand in their way and quickly devised a solution to get their sensitive electronics to the event safely.

The team was able to successfully transport all of their items to the Reitz Union and went on to have some amazing presentations during Prototype Inspection Day. The team received feedback on everything from their GUI design, load cell configurations, and possible additions to the system. The event was a great opportunity to make sure the team hadn’t overlooked any glaring details and reaffirmed that the project was well along its way on the path to completion.

Even with Prototype Inspection Day out of the way, the team wasn’t finished for the week yet. The team had progress on all fronts to discuss with their liaison at their weekly meeting. Korynn and Alex had spent the week diligently improving the air regulation subsystem, and were finally able to run a completed preliminary design past Dr. MacIntosh. The team received invaluable feedback on how to improve the design and account for things such as changes in pressure between the chambers and variances in flowrate. Virginia and Alex also spent several hours improving the code and now the team has a preliminary psychrometric chart feature that can plot values! Stanley spent the week improving the shelving and tray design to minimize the cost and weight of the system. As always, the team is making phenomenal progress!

For those of you who have read this far, thank you! Expect a Thanksgiving blog post next week, but until then eat lots of great food and happy holidays!