For the obvious reasons, I invariably get too busy to blog exactly when things get interesting...
 USST's PV Receiver |
 USSTs Drive Train (middle right) on the vertical treadmill |
 Andrew Williams, USST's mechanical lead |
 Lean and Mean - USST's climber |
This time around USST is not letting anything hold them back. They got in on Sunday and were ready to go on Monday if not for the LCH inspection. While LCH was interested mostly in the beam director, most of the Space Elevator were looking at the climber.
USST is a 4 year veteran of the games, and it shows well in their design – I should post the pictures of their climbers as the progress through the years (I will). So yes, clearly, less is more. USST model 2009 is all business. Lean and mean drive train, and a very impressive PV panel with an integrated cooling backplane that looks a lot, actually, like the fins on a radiator of a truck. (USST would like to categorically state at this point that they did NOT, repeat, NOT, hack their climber around a used truck radiator).
Indeed, the front plane holding the cells and the backplane with fins seem to be all integrated – any gaps would have resulted in heat not transferring properly to the backplane. Workmanship counts.
The PV panel has a golden appearance, and when mounted on its horizontal beaming test frame appears very much like an ancient Chinese ceremonial gong – hence the title for the post. I was wondering what would happen if we tried it out in that capacity, but none of the USST team members found it humorous.
USST is one of the TRUMPF teams, which means their operations are always coupled with the TRUMPF laser trailer, operated by Dave Marcotte.
USST this year is lead by Patrick Allen, Mark Boots, and Andrew Williams. Clayton Ruzkowsky, team captain in 2006 and 2007, came down to lend a helping hand.
Other activities of the day included University of Alberta’s system starting to come together – more on that in a post later today or this week.