The NEED Youth Award Submission and Uganda Light Plant Update

Hello Everyone! I have several updates since my last post! I will try to cover a couple tonight and the rest later in the week. My computer has some battery/charger problems and I need to get it to the IT department at LWC...but I can't afford to be without it!

NEED Youth Award Submission 2011
It has been very busy time for the Academy! Spring Break was the week before the NEED Youth Award deadline, so we lost a whole week to work on the submission! We, once again, were racing against the clock to get our NEED Youth Award submission completed and in the mail by April 14th at 3:45!!! I took the Adair Seniors over to Russell County High School on Thursday the 14th to finish the final compilation together, as an Academy! It was a great day! Stressful, but great!
I received an email informing me that the Academy was chosen to be one of the few high schools to have a display table at the NEED State Ceremony! So proud of our kids!! We submitted 5 separate goals 1)The Uganda Project 2) The Arnold House Project 3) A Wind Study in Kentucky 4) Solar Data Analyzation and 5) Biodiesel. Can't wait to take 6 students to Frankfort on May 18th! Wish I could take all my seniors and juniors, but this year the space is limited; so, voting will determine who will go. Democracy at work!

The Uganda Light Plant Construction Continues
Once again, Spring Break put a damper on the progress of this project at RCHS. And, WOW, the Senior schedule is crazy this time of year! As of today, I only have 9 days with my RCHS students!!!!!! We have a lot to do on the light plant, so I will probably have to do the battery discharging study with the ACHS students. The Anemometer is ready for a new home....the first 40-gallon batch of biodiesel is waiting to be processed....the Arnold House Project needs loose ends tied up and I would love to take a quick day-trip to Danville before the end of the year. Anyway, back to the light plant!! Below, JD Coomer, an ACHS Senior, gives a "Thumbs-UP" to the light plant...in a dark RCHS library!!



I have had so many opportunities to share my engineering background with the Seniors on this portion of the project. We really discussed error-proofing and its importance in any assembly operation. We talked about quality assurance, too. The students themselves did all the machining and construction of the plant itself, with the help of Lake Cumberland Technology Center's tools and equipment! Thank you LCTC! Emily Holsinger and Tra Taylor have been leading the Operations Manual portion of the project. Of course, it's hard to develop instructions using mostly pictures, until the plant itself is completed! Please enjoy the slideshow of pictures below and remember, you can click the slideshow to open Picasa and view the captions that I have added to most pictures!
Good Night....
Heather