Today is Veteran’s day I’d like to honor the service of my late father Hugh who who served in the Korean War… Many of the stories of our youth are about dad’s time in the Navy. He loved telling those stories… And he loved serving his country.
Also want to do a shout out to my late father-in-law gabe mariano who served in the army… he loved his country .!
I’d also like to thank our good friend Aaron. He’s twice wounded marine vet who served in the Middle east. Aaron is one of the kindest and wonderful people I’ve ever met . I feel very privileged to be able to work with him and hang out with him
For all of you who served.. hanks for your service !
We had such an exciting day at work… Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy came to give a special all company talk today at BETA.
Sen Leahy has been a fantastic advocate for beta and a fantastic advocate for Vermont. He’s been our Senator for 48 years ! Thats since before I moved to the state. He is such an inspiration to me. I’ve met him many times over the years in multiple capacities both from his work on patents while I was at IBM and his work at the Echo Leahy center … He always has time to stop and talk and he has an amazing memory. (He once told me what’s the most amazing story of taking Jerry Garcia Mickey Hart and Bob Weir from the Grateful Dead to the Senate cafeteria where they met Strom Thurmond.… Crazy.… ). Marcelle told me that they still have a Samstone on their desk at home which was so nice to hear ! Today the senator and his wife Marcelle were at Beta talking about progress that’s been made in building clean hi tech jobs in Vermont.… It was such an honor having the Senator and Marcelle visit us here. . As part of the visit Kyle had asked me to do a very short demo of a new demonstration model we just got. It’s a working model of the 1837 electric motor designed by Brandon Vermont blacksmith Thomas Davenport. Senator Leahy liked the story Kyle told of being able the worlds first patented electric motor right next to some of our plane’s electric motors which are among the most energy efficient in the world. I saw the Senator wrote this tweet about it .. how cool is that ?!?!?!
While visiting BETA today, I was able to see a model of the first electric engine, patented in Brandon, VT, in 1837. Thank you to Dr. John Cohn for sharing it with me. Nearly 200 years later, VTers are still leaders in innovation. pic.twitter.com/1kvgyZ8GKr
The motor model was made by my good friend David Hammond from the UVM physics department. He is a master physicist and crafts person. He’s been studying Thomas Davenport for a couple of years and used his 1837 patent drawings to re-create this beautiful working model of the motor. It is the first patented electric motor in the entire world and was patent number 132 of the US patent office. I believe it to be the first patent of any device that used electricity to do useful work in the world.… That’s pretty amazing coming from a self trained blacksmith in Brandon Vermont in the 1830s!
Dave even used 200 year old maple that he found in the barn of his beautiful old farmhouse to make the frame of the model. He also hand machine all the metal parts. It’s really a beautiful art piece and a great demonstration of science, history and culture.
we’re using the model motor as part of our Studyhall project to show some of the basic physics of her motors work and to show that great Vermont ingenuity that lead from davenports motors to the motors on our plane. I love this pic of my friend Aaron demonstrating the motor to our fried and team mate Harper.. T
There was one more fun stop on the day… ‘Diane and I took our young friend Finn to the Flynn (say that five times)… To see a lyric theater production of “into the woods”… It’s a Stephen Sondheim musical about a mix of children’s fairytales. I got a free ticket to go because I had to help build asome of the the props… A magic smoking wand for the witch and a self playing harp for the jack in the bean stock part. My young friend Henry and also helped by using their FIRST tech challenge (FTC) robot dressed as a chicken to come out on stage and lay an egg ! Super fun !
Fund day at work.. We have a student group coming from Crossett Brook school… They were particularly interested in airplanes so it’s fun to tour them around.
News at home is Dane is doing an experiment on some thing she just found called “boiled cider”… It’s a reduction made from boiling fresh apple cider down by a factor of eight… It has the consistency between maple syrup and jelly… It reminds me a little of apple butter which is reduced applesauce… But it’s much more syrupy and delicious. T
This stuff is so delicious and the house smells so good !
Busy workday… With two doubtful tables. Had a late afternoon board meeting at generator… I had a conflict so I arrived just as they reconvene at the bar across the street.… I was happy to see that they now serve nonalcoholic beer!… Great seeing my generator friends.
Then home for diane second Tuesday night yoga.… It was so nice getting together with friends. ‘Diane made some yummy Tom Yum Thai soup !
