Busy Busy Busy

Aloha,

Lets see I went to the beach and got a longboard (a type of skateboard) to use to get around instead of walking all the time plus it will be my souvenir from Hawaii so it doubles as both to me. I went to two malls and Waikiki beach it was beautiful and really nice! I picked up a few things for home and that was my weekend.

Monday and Tuesday I had some meetings and such and worked on putting different things together really random odds and ends that needed to get done.

These past few days have been very productive. Yesterday I spent the day using GIMP (a free version of Adobe Photoshop) to put together a cover page for the sponsorship package that I am working on, in order to upgrade their current package. I spent the day looking through photo files and piecing together images for the cover page. While doing that I drew up some rough sketches of what I wanted the information packages for sponsors to look like. Corrie and Lenny ended up taking me out to eat at this place called 3 Stars, it was very delicious and it was a good change of pace instead of just grabbing lunch from a place near the office and eating lunch at my desk or outside.

Today I started off putting together the first page of the information packet for sponsors and then I realized I needed some data and needed some past files from the companies history to put together some graphs and numbers in the package. Corrie was busy at the time so I went to working on some upgrades for the homepage for hawaiiroc.org that Lenny and I had talked about. The idea he came up with was having a notebook page on the homepage with a question for visitors of the page for submission. I worked with GIMP to make an image of a notebook page with a pen and pencil on it (no shadows yet as I am still teaching myself how to do that!) and over the image I edited the html code to make a comments box for answers to the question How would you use robotics to improve our world? to be submitted to our email. The comments box works and all the coding works just fine the problem I ran into is although the image showed up in the editing section for the webpage when you go to view the real page the image is invisible. I tried a few other tricks to try to get the image to appear but nothing worked so after a few hours searching for answers on google I gave up for the day and emailed their webmaster to ask him for some help. So hopefully that all gets figured out I have some other plans for updated to the webpage so if you check it out at hawaiiroc.org be sure to look for the minor updates I'll be applying! When Corrie was free later in the day I talked to her about getting past data and she found where the files were stored and had me copy them to my computer to be able to search through and find. I also delivered some things that needed to be signed in the afternoon. A bit later I helped Lenny set up some apps on his phone for later use, as I have become the IT guy, and then I imported some contacts into their newsletter system and that was about it for the day.

Tomorrow I will be working on the news letter with Corrie again like last friday to be sent out to over a thousand contacts. While last week I wrote all of the articles and had her do some checks to make sure everything was ok before Lenny check over it and gave his go ahead for the email to be sent. This week I'll be writing the weekly news letter again but this time Corrie is going to walk me through the last few steps of how to send it out and send the link to their twitter all at the same time because next Friday she will be gone so I'll be doing all on my lonesome. Well its probably going to be a early quitting day tomorrow in the office to get a head start on the three day weekend!

I wish everyone a happy Memorials Day! and a Long and Happy Weekend!

Mahalo,
Travis

Here are some pictures to enjoy as well!

Robotics Work

Sorry I haven't updated in a while I have been busy and then I forgot to update yesterday. Friday I met with both Corrie and Lenny to go over some ideas that I came up with and plans for what I will do for the rest of my time with them. My suggestions for advertisement for themselves and as a way to get more recognition for their sponsors was to get one inch arm bands and have some saying of the sort with their webpage typed on the inside of the band. Corrie and I came up with the fraise I <3 Robots. Lenny liked the tag line so much that they are going to start a new marketing campaign all around I <3 Robots to raise awareness of the program and hopefully as a pitch to get more sponsors on board. My other idea came up with all the safety classes that all of the kids wear in every single one of the competitions for safety reasons. I noticed that the safety glasses are very plan and rather boring. I remembered how St. Jude put their name on the side of the free glasses that we got for Up 'til Dawn and brought up the idea for them to use some of the space on the glasses them selves for sponsorship and to put their name on them. I thought it would make the glasses more useful and look a cooler as well. Lenny and Corrie liked both ideas that I came up with and we even decided we want to make a cool graphic tee with a robot that says I <3 Robots for the volunteers instead of just the bland shirts they get now. Lots of exciting things. I'll be working on making their sponsorship packages more flashy and professional. I'll be designing a new presentation to walk people through the six robotics programs with graphs. I might try to find a way to get a robot animation give the presentation. I will also be helping to come up with a presentation to sell to the board to get them to go for the bands and the I <3 Robots campaign. Well thats all for now.

I <3 Robots,
Travis

Working Man

Yesterday was my first day working in the office. I figured out the bus system very easily thanks to the handy dandy map that Natalie had given me before I left school. I got their and finally met Corrie in person she excitedly began to tell me all about Robotics Organizing Committee and Friends of Hawaii Robotics. We talked for a bit and it seems that I will be helping with sponsorship while I am here. After that I was given my own coffee mug and a desk at the front of the office so if any body came into the office I could let Corrie or her partner Lenny know. Corrie gave me lots of reading material about ROC and I quickly read through all that she gave me. While I read through the material Corrie gave me some information about Northrop Grumman Company and told me to write a letter of request to them and I gladly did. After a few revisions and finishing the letter and setting up my computer on the network printers without calling their computer tech guy, I also got assigned some of the IT responsibilities around the office. Also I mentioned to Corrie that I noticed that the website doesn't have any video of any of the robotics competitions and I found that rather odd. No sooner had I mentioned it to her had she pulled up a bunch of discs with video from dozens of robotics competitions and asked me if I would be able to work on putting together a video for the web page for them.

Off to another day!

-Travis

A day in the airport

Hey,

I was able to make a blog page, nothing on it yet, while I was trying to catch a flight out today.
Unfortunately I will be in Pheonix tonight with some old family friends but I will be leaving tomorrow for Honolulu.

I have had two hours of sleep since nine last night so hopefully I can catch up on some sleep before the flight tomorrow unfortunately all of my clothes are already in Honolulu. Should be an interesting night but now I got a great story to tell people!

Extremely tired,

Travis

Trains, planes, and automobiles

Made my flight in Chicago and now waiting in Phoenix to catch a flight to Hawaii! Here goes nothing!