Everybody Poops and the Sun Always Shines

An Update on the Team & the Work

Today was a good day.

The solar projects are completed to the level that we can complete them. That is to say, the solar panels on the school are installed and operating, and we simply have to tie up the loose ends of getting lightbulbs that everyone is happy with.

The solar panels have been fully installed on the roof of the Traverse City house, and all that remains is for the cable to be run from the batteries out to the pumps that will eventually pump the blackwater through the sanitation system.

That sanitation system, is also nearing the 'end' of what we can do here. Essentially, the current game plan is to record as much data as possible and design the system once we are back in Nashville, then have a second and much smaller group come back and two months to oversee the final installation of the system. That means that for the next couple of days, we'll be taking frequent measurements(as in every two hours throughout the night) of how much septic tanks have filled, recording a highly detailed survey of the pipes, running between the systems. Essentially creating a design report from which we will make all of our decisions. (I'm pretending to be taking down information about a sanitation system on mars, because once we leave here, we won't really have access to measure this information again.)

Overall I think we are tired. Despite our impressive history of what we can do on little to no sleep, cross cultural communication, heat, and a nice combination of manual labor and on the fly problem solving has left all of us exhausted. Spirits are high and tomorrow looks to be a promising day.

Pictures:

Billy instructing Hanleigh and I how to properly wire the solar panels that will power the sanitation system. Dr. Weeden-Wright looks on in a mix of concern and approval (she knows how bad I did in my survey of electrical class).

Hayden, our beloved recently graduated senior, makes sure that one of his first adult decisions is to play on shaky metal structures.

Taylor (bottom right) is by far one of the most encouraging members of the team, congratulates his shovel on a job well done.

Hope, captures the epitome 'dealing with the cards you are dealt' by soldering with a cheap soldering iron, a makeshift stand for said soldering iron, a heavily used kitchen sponge for cleaning the tip soldering iron, and the thing she is working on is some sort of flow measuring apparatus that people smarter than me came up with. Codenamed 'Number 2' it has worked in a controlled environment and will likely be deployed soon.