Today was relatively calm compared to all the activity yesterday. Started with a nice workout.. .. we saw some red wing blackbirds which means its really spring !

spent  the last part of the afternoon at generator helping Shannon with the  BETALab program that she and Tyler are leading. We worked with some great kids from Spaulding high school on a project to fabricate a electric motor demo. I was really impressed with the kids creativity. 

got home in time   for a walk //still a dusting of snow.. 
Wonderful sunset !

ahhhh

nite all, nite sam

-me

After the relative peace of yesterday. today was a complete .. and very fun.. whirlwind. 

It started early. with a visit to my freind Chri’s dad /John Cleary to unload the fire organ.  John and his wife Jean operate Cleary Stone on Gov Peck roat.  They’ve kindly offered ot let me park the fire organ there until we have the time to asswmble it. 

Chris’s freind Alex works wiht John and is an absolute artist with a forklift and highlift.  Hey was able to unload the 600 pound fire organ in a couple of minutes and park it neatly in John’s shop.. I don’t know what I could have done with out their help !

From there I headed to BETA. It was a very exciting day for us. Dr. Jill Biden. The First Lady of the US was coming to visit us along with Education Secretary Miguel Cordona, Senator Peter  Welch. Congresswoman Becca Ballant. Sen. Bernie Sanders wife Jane Sanders, Burlington Mayer Miro Weinberger, . In addition Vermont Governor Phil Scott was there with nearly his whole cabinet .. It was pretty amazing. The whole building had been secured and the hanger was cleared of all but our Alia SN 1 and SN-2 and an electric car demo from a local Tech Center.    Space was limited so  60 of us had gotten invited by lottery to attend the event in person.. The rest of the company watched remotely. The places was crawling with secret service and bomb sniffing dogs.. It was exciting !

We all waited outside until the doors opened and we went through security. 

 

All of us headed upstairs to the  standup table while we waited for Airforce One. We could look down in the hanger and see some of the folks there to meet the visitors. My friend and studyhall intern Phoebe was one of two interns chosen to speak with the First Lady directly.. we got to watch her get interviewed.. so fun !

We waited for about an hour and then we heard Air Force one roll up to our hanger… I’m betting there aren’t many companies where they can land and drive to the back door 🙂 

Atthat point about half the group upstairs were secorted down to the hanger floor  while the rest of us watched through the upstairs hanger windows.
We all cheered when Dr Biden and her team came in the hanger.. it was so amazing to see !

We were able to see and hear them upstairs…  Then a funny thing happened.. The First Lady looked up at us cheering from the upstairs window.. She asked why we were upstairs and not down with her.. talked to her team.. to the secret service and to the Beta folks.. and a few minutes later a secret service team escorted the rest of us down to floor of the hanger.,

Then  we got tot hear short which is all the dignitaries on the same subjects…. I particuallry liked the commnets of Secretary of Ed Cordona an, Governor Scott and Dr Biden.  Dr. Biden was traveling around the country promoting the Biden Harris education agenda. That includes two years of community college for any student who wants it and also other initiatives which make alternate pathways to allow people to grow skills. There was a lot of discussions about technical education centers and community college which I really liked.… Another theme was bipartisanship. Vermont has a very popular Republican governor… Governor Scott… he’s a huge supporter of public education in a huge supporter of beta. Both the governor Scott and Dr. Biden talked about the issues of education were not democratic issues or Republican issues they were American issues… That drew huge claws. I was really proud to be a Vermonter because  democracy still works here. 

Afterwards Dr Biden, Sec’y Cordona , and Gov Scott came down and shook all of our hands who were on the first row.. pretty cool !

I found this picture of Dr Biden on the white house instagram.. 

Gov Scott and his cabinet lined up for a picture next to Alia.. so I took soem too. I got a chance to talk to a few of my firends in the cabinet. 

 

I also got a chance to talk to  the  Governor a bit about our work with FIRST robotics.. Our teams visited him at the state house 3 weeks ago.. and he’s very excited about helping us.. My friend Abby from the gov’s office is working with us on the FIRST interactions with the state and she sent me this pic of the conversation.. so great !

Dr Biden then rounded up her group.. left the hanger and a few minutes later was in the air. We all filed out happy and smiling !

Such a great day!

Such a great day !
nite all, nite sam

-me

After 4 different beds in as many days, diane and I are happy to be home. I had a simple and productive day at work… nothing of note happened..

ain’t that great !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Today was as busy as I had anticipated. First order of business was to check out the hotel and walk down to the U-Haul depot about a quarter of a mile. There we picked up a 10 foot box truck. From there we drove to Pratt University Max used to go. We met up with Professor Mark Rosin, I one of Max’s Professors who for many years had a science troop called “guerilla science”. The group would go and set up at festivals and show fun interactive science projects… Just my kind of thing. Mark was a very fun guy… He had a PhD in mathematics from Cambridge and loved teaching art.… He was donated to us a 600 pound fire organ. Basically multiple Rubens tubes which convert music to dancing sheets of fire. I’ve built a small one… But this will take it up a few notches. Marc and his calling Frank helped us maneuver the heavy gear into the back of the box truck. Thank goodness we hadn’t gone with anything smaller because it would not have fit.

 

From there we negotiated this large vehicle through the crowded streets of Brooklyn up towards Williamsburg. There we met my friend Suzanne (“Suz”) who is a neuroscience professor at NYU. For the next 4 1/2 hours Suz, her student Phoebe, Our Friend Nitin, Diane and I prepped for a data recording experiment we’re doing later in the month. I can’t go into the details here but it was really good that we had this practice session. Lots of technical details to work out… and lots of fun !

THen a long drive hoem to Vermont in a big truck.. not easy.. but nice being with DIane

 

More on the project in the coming weeks 

nite all, nite sam

-me