Control Engineering

AIM Friday update
August 18, 2007

AIM's RADAR specialist, Ed, wearing the team colors at the Las Vegas auto show.  Ed is working remotely from his various assignments around the world as a USAF civilian RADAR contractor.  His most recent return address said Kwajalein Island, which is part of the Marshal Islands Pacific Missile Test Range (think ICBM target) +8.44 N   +167.43 E    



Support Staff Team member, Mary, packaging up some of the stuff we are selling to raise money for the team.  There are three more of them left to sell and ship.  The cash is spent on essentials like vehicle computer memory, vehicle paint, wire, switches, shop heat and light etc.  



A technical writer, Joe is working on the next AIM press release in a corner of the AIM Technical Libary connected to the the vehicles main control computer through the local network.  The computer was provided by VIA .  We are keeping it working even when the vhicle is not moving.  No sense letting all these computer resources just sit around idle so when it is near the shop, the vehicle is part of the AIM computer network.  As you might have guessed, it is blazingly fast doing word processing.

Rick, a supporter, frustrated with the rate of progress on our US Army truck AGV WENDY DARLING, has offered us his spare station wagon to automate for the trip to LA and back.  Victorville CA is 2264.5 miles from here.  This is an interesting proposition since it would blend in with traffic and it would not be obvious that it has been automated.  We do want to automate a series of vehicles for the practice.  This does look like a good one.  There would be transfer of ownership expenses, cost of ownership expenses, etc. 



Heather2 in the shipping room, boxing up old copies of technical journals for recycling.  There are a lot of great pictures in these old magazines to clip out if you want to decorate with them.



Part of our information booth at the Kalkaska County 4-H Fair.  Linda did a great power point presentation that explained what we are doing and why you would want to be part of the AIM Team.  Donna is checking to see why even though continuous loop has been selected that it does not loop.



Jessica Lynch's autobiography that we are selling to raise money for the team and raise awareness about what we are doing and why.  If you saw the news you know how it turns out but the story still leaves people in tears. It is why we volunteer at AIM.



Here we are replacing a wheel-hub on a non-race vehicle.  Team members can use one of the seven service bays, tools and team discount to maintain their own vehicles (team support vehicles).  The part for this repair would cost most people about $350 but team members can use the team discount and pay $106.  The overall repair would have bee about $660 to have done at a local repair shop.  That is a savings of about $554. One of many benefits of being an AIM Team member.   

Posted by on August 18, 2007 | Comments (0)