Mono Tragedy

Team Altus suffers its first casualty. The deadly mistress Mono has struck down Samir Kothari, so he's contagious and we can't really work this weekend. Shucks. We'll use this time to get ahead on homework so that when we do get the opportunity to work, we can get in a lot of hours. We really need to get the press finished and press the wood to make sure that the design will work so we can move ahead with the progress of Altus Boards as a company.

Some progress we've made in the past week is finding roarockit.com, which has the exact type and size of wood that we want, so no more hassles with lumber stores. Now that we have a guaranteed provider, we just need to get the press sorted out so that we can get out of the red and into the black. Only once we're in the black will donations to charity become feasible.

Here's a picture of Samir Kothari shaking off some styrofoam during a work session:

Winter Wonderland

Altus Boards is midway construction of the first press. Takaaki Sagawa and I are hard at work and precisely shaping the styrofoam into the correct shape. If all goes successfully, the styrofoam of the positive side will be shaped precisely enough that it will fit perfectly into the negative side, leaving no room for error when we press the wood.

One difficulty that we're encountering is the tediousness and inconvenience of shaping styrofoam. Fortunately, we're only using styrofoam in the prototype stage, because when we develop a final design, we will create a wood press. This is more advantageous for two main reasons. First, the wood press does not deteriorate and lose structure like a styrofoam press. Second, there are many wood shaping tools that will aid the shaping of the wood press.

Our plan is to try and work this weekend or next weekend to finish the press, because we would like to have prototype #1 (Altus Alpha) created by the end of November. When it is completed, I will take it up to the hills and try it myself along with other local skaters to make sure that the quality is sound. If I find flaws, or the board breaks/has low performance, we will know exactly what to improve.

Here's a picture of me hard at work on a section of the press:

Construction Underway!

Altus Boards has officially begun construction! We've begun to build the press. All of the materials are gathered, including the Baltic Birch that Samir picked up today. This Sunday we're gonna be finishing up the press and hopefully pressing the wood to make the first board. So far we have the plywood all ready to go, and we're just shaping the styrofoam to glue to the wood. After we finish glueing the styrofoam, the press will be complete.