FADE Update

Update 11/6: Make sure that you get me your budgets and receipts to me by Thursday.  They are due to A&M by Friday, and teams will be penalized for not having them submitted on time.  Also, the information from A&M says that you will be doing much walking.  You will need to bring comfortable shoes since you will be touring the A&M campus, and it is a BIG campus.  We would still like for you not to dress "totally casual", but factor in the shoe thing when planning your attire.  You will either need to bring a change of shoes or wear clothes that you can walk comfortably in during the afternoon.

Also, don't forget that you will need to turn in a "journal" (typewritten report of your project with diagrams & pictures) on Saturday.  If you need me to scan hand drawn diagrams, I have a scanner in my room to take care of that.


Update 11/1:  We need to be in CS around 7:30, so we will need to leave VERY EARLY.  It is important that everyone be on time to the high school and catch the bus.  If everyone is here on time, then we can stop in Rockdale at McDonald's for breakfast.  The bus ride will likely take us one hour and forty-five minutes.

Meet at the front of the 100 bldg at RRHS.  I will have a bus there shortly before 5:30.  Feel free to bring pillows & blankets to make yourself comfortable on the early morning ride to College Station, or stay awake and enjoy the sunrise.  Please wear "business casual" clothing.  That means slacks (no blue jeans or shorts) and closed-toed shoes.  Your team can decide if you want to place further restrictions, such as ties, etc. or not.

You can get more information from the FADE web site or access the design brief from this page.
The itinerary for the day is as follows:

5:30 am	Depart RRHS Meet in front of the 100 bldg
6:15 am	Stop  for quick breakfast, if time permits. If we are not in Rockale by 6:15, we will not have enough time to make the rest of the trip to College Station.
7:00 am - 8:00 am	Team Check-in
8:00 am - 11:00 am	Design Competition
11:30 am - 12:30 pm	Lunch / Student Panel
1:00 pm - 3:00 pm	Campus Tour
3:00 pm - 6:00 pm	Department Tours
6:30 pm - 7:30 pm	Dinner / Awards Ceremony
9:30 PM	Eighteen tired students and a few worn out sponsors will return to RRHS

Here is the design brief for the challenge.  Refer to this for all questions, and let me know of anything that it doesn't answer.  That document describes how they will test for the metorite strikes, rock slides, and rain (which includes flood).  They don't give any specifics about how they will be testing for the temperature extremes, so I assume it will not be tested.

We also asked about the required size of the door.  The minimum interior volume is 1'x1'x1', so that is assumed to be the size of the rover.