Day 26: MIT Make in India

Day 26: MIT Make in India

I had been sleeping a beautiful sleep on Kristin’s bed until I woke up to a noise. Something told me I should check the time, to, you know, then i decided to check the time and saw that it was 10:30. I had slept through my 8am alarm. There’s a first time of everything.

Of course I freaked and so quickly showered. And then I walked outside and saw everyone so casually conversing over breakfast… I coulda shaved, man. 

I went over to the fab lab and i don’t actually remember what I did. I think I started working on the shark. Seems legit. 

I quickly ate lunch. And I came back to continue working. The servo had been moving weirdly for a few days now, and I couldn’t figure out why. Forest and I had Raj come look at it and everything. It really just wouldn’t stop twitching. After so much messing with the code, we figured out that it was me who had accidentally put the power at 3 volts instead of 5 volts. This is why I'm 6-3 and not 6-2, my friends. 

Finally once that was resolved, we worked on making the actual electronics component smaller. We located a smaller breadboard and were planning to use a battery to power the trash can. After many failed efforts and again Raj’s help, we realized that the circuit required more current than the batteries could provide. We ended up having to use a USB battery. Good enough to stick inside a trash can for now. 

Forest began to paint the trash can body with blue paint that we barely had enough of. We also didn’t have paintbrushes so we had to use the ratchet solution of folding paper into paintbrushes… It was pretty sad. I began to help too, making a fin and painting as well. Forest even put water into the paint when we were getting extremely low. He has truly learned the Indian way. 

While the paint dried, Aishwarya, Forest, Duncan, and I went to the corner store to buy food. and mango juice 5ever. Unfortunately only half the trash can turned out somewhat decent, but Forest had already made a thing to print out that said trash we could stick on the crappy part. Now our trash can looks beautiful. 

Another funny thing is how many prototypes Forest made of this shark trash can lid. 3D printed, paper, cardboard, plastic, styrofoam. I told him this is true materials science. 

Now I would like to take a moment to pay respect to all those that have been victimized by Aishwarya and her Facebook postings on their wall about sambar and idli and marriage and god knows what. RIP to their reputations. So far I have been spared…one day to go... 

Dat shoulder doe.

Mehndi laga ke rakhna. Fevicol se.

The brochure I helped make for the soap team came in, and unfortunately it looked kind of bad thanks to the printer and the size of paper and such. I tried to make do with it, but in the end, we decided to reprint later. 

Dinner I came too late for. Awesome. I called my family in India, and of course, Swapnil had to walk by and realize I was speaking in Hindi. I do not understand their obsession with my Hindi, but he wouldn’t leave. I tried walking here and there and some hitting, but dang man. Swapnil finally left back to making soap with Jaspreet and Vignesh as the local women of Kerala they were. But I looked back and saw Jaspreet looking at me. He began to walk toward me. I ran, still on the phone with Maji. Like, this is ridiculous bro. I half expected Jaspreet to not run and follow me but I looked back and saw him. I’m perfectly fine, Maji! Then he came to where I was and started speaking and it had reached the point where I told Maji to give me a minute, so I could say something to him. “Is there someone talking to you?” …”oh Maji yes sorry it was just my friend…” Y’all suck. 

I came back, finally finished the call without too much further running. Raj wanted us to present our presentation and business plan, so we put our presentation up on the projector and walked him through it. He gave us a lot of feedback of what we needed to fix and laughed a bit at our numbers… It’s hard to pick between profit and reality. 

We tried to completely fix the shark by making the mechanical and electrical aspects stuck onto the trash can and not move. It was all working, just kinda looked…well like trash. Ratchet Solutions, Inc. 

Forest had located a rather large spider on the ceiling of the room and decided it was a fantastic idea to throw paper at it because he “wanted to see it in action.” After many, many tries of barely touching the spider, who actually gave nothing, Forest got the broom and hit it down. It landed on the ground and of course, Ching-Ching scurried out of the room, Aish was on the chair, and I too decided being in this room wasn’t the best idea. Forest managed to get the spider by the broom and then between paper and cup. “Ching-Ching, catch!” Why man. Manoj also told how he had many even larger spiders that he used to bathe with when he was younger at his home. How pleasant. 

Anyways, we tried to get our trash together by the use of tape and paper and such. Raj came in and asked us, “is it called Sharky or Trashy?” I’ll try not to take that as an insult. Unintended. But Sharky was offended. 

Random sign I found...can't say it completely fits.

Vignesh came in to say goodbye as he was leaving for tomorrow morning and went in for a hug and he knocks over the freaking shark that we worked so hard and getting to look almost like a thing. I almost cried. We tried to put it back together but now it was just laughable. I almost cried because I was just laughing too hard. We finally got a decent hug, though. And the shark was more or less okay. 

Now Aishwarya and I are staying up late (it’s 4:36am) to work on the business plan and finance spreadsheet…oh progress please come soon. And bring us food. Can't wait to show everything to VIPs tomorrow. Or today rather. 

We all look so different...visit our website...buy trash cans...

Random thoughts past 4am…it’s so sad to think all the amazing people I have gotten close to will now just dwindle down to the friendship level of occasionally liking one’s post on Facebook.

We went to sleep at about 5:45am...