Last Plane

Well the last plane that we will see until we leave, in 20 day, left today leaving 14 people behind; 10 crew members and us.  We are now officially stuck here!

Last plane until June 27.

Day 3

Electric snowmobile taking over our work space.

Ben bench testing the boost converters
and Alden working on the GPR.

Went to work this morning to make sure that we were still able to at least drive the robot, which took a couple of hours until I figured out that motor enable wires were not connected right.  Sooo glad we are able to drive else it would be a long 3 weeks of doing not a whole lot!

The electric snowmobile that was taking up half our work area was gone by the afternoon, which was nice.  Hopefully we will be using one to survey where we want the robot to go when we drive it through the clean air sector.

We believe the cause of frying the 24v power supply was due to having the boost converter in the circuit and having the program cable connected to the power board upon the started up.  So while Ben bench test all 5 boost converters to make sure they are all working as expected I am giving the Cool Robot chassis a bit of a face lift by re-gluing the center support, which was loose and re-taping all of the top edges of the box.

The working progress of robot chassis touch up.

Day 2

Cool Robot coming in from staying out all night.

 We brought in the Cool Robot from sitting outside over night after its photo shoot to disassemble it to work on getting the power system up and running. The robot had some ice and snow on it but showed no signs of being harmed by it.  After disassembling we spent the rest of the day trying to setup our work space and preparing the robot to test one booster converter.  Well we turned on the robot and ended up frying the 24v supply on the housekeeping board :(  Not a good ending to the day.

Getting ready to test one boost converter.

Unpacking and Assembling the Cool Robot

Me removing the robot from the crate.

A quick test drive to make sure it works.

Attaching two side panels to the top panel.

Ben and I securing the last bit before driving it out the door.

Photo Shoot with Grover

We got the robot up and running with the solar panels on!  We were able to drive the robot right out the bay door for its photo shoot with Grover.  It drove with no problems except when the serial to USB cable I was using got to cold and the computer could not long recognize it, so we were no longer able to communicate with the robot.  Lucky the robot was stopped when that happened and I had another one, so that we could drive safely back.  We were also able to receive GPS coordinates.  Tomorrow the solar panels will come off so that we can work on getting the power system up and running.

Grover on the left. Cool Robot on the right.

Arrival to Summit

Well we have just arrived at Summit camp!  I guess I better tell you who we are, there are 4 members in our group: Ben Walker - electrical engineer for the robot, Jim Lever - leader, Alden Adolph - scientist/engineer, and myself Allison Morlock - mechanical engineer for the robot and blogger.  We are currently hanging out in the big house getting uses to high altitudes and drinking our fluids.  There is currently another solar robot here, Grover, that we are going to try and get a photo shoot with the Cool Robot sometime later today as they are leaving tomorrow.

Arrival to Greenland

We have arrived in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland!  The day started out with a 4:30am wake up call to leave the hotel by 5am to make our way over to the Air National Guard base in Scotia, NY.  The plane took off around 8:30am.  The flight was about 6 hours long and we arrived sometime after 4pm (Greenland time, 2 hours ahead), when we got our passports stamped and a bus ride over to the International Science Support building where we are all staying.  Our luggage arrived shortly after but had to be quickly unpacked and repacked so they could load it up again for the flight to summit because it leaves tomorrow morning.  I hope I got all the warm clothes I need?!

Alden and Ben on the plane ride over to Greenland.

Place we are staying in Kangerlussuag.