Entry 04: It's Bedtime Again

October 16, 2007

Entry 04 - Homestay, Salt Lake City, UT

The good news is that Internet is now at the hangers where we’re working with the teams. The bad news for you reading this now is that we’ve been busy (when we’re not eating) and haven’t had a chance to do any writing during the day. Once again, this is going to be short as bedtime was a while ago and we have to be up early for a multi-team meeting tomorrow.

The main challenge that we’re running into is finding a suitable space for us to light and shoot formal interviews with people. The main problem is that the hangers are all lit with sodium-based lights (which SUCK to shoot under). Plus the rooms are huge (i.e. they echo a lot) and they’re more often than not filled with teams using power tools, welding, hammering, sawing … it’s not a great place to try and get interview footage. The thought right now is to try and light the inside of one of the empty trucks. We shall see.

We’ve been working on some clips to put up on the website; hopefully they’ll be up in a day or two and you can actually see what we’ve been up to. On the bright side, we met with a guy named Ken Davidian today. Ken is the Program Manager of the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate of NASA. He’s in charge of NASA’s “Centennial Challenges” and was more than receptive to having us shoot video at their other events … provided that we pay our own way, of course. They have enough time finding funding for crazy events like this. But it’s potential fodder for a series television show. We’ll see.

The main highlight today was hearing the story from the McGill University team (one of the three Canadian teams this year). We were told that they were going to be late because they had a car accident. What we didn't realize was what they told us upon their arrival.

While in the middle of Iowa, the huge trailer they were towing (the one that was packed to the brim with ALL of their equipment) either got a flat or popped a ball bearing … or something. It ended up first vibrating heavily, then swerving, then swinging back and forth across three lanes of traffic. The trailer flipped on its side and was then hit by a semi. The semi ended up in a ditch and the trailer was totaled (the reason they don’t know exactly what caused the crash). Now you have to understand that the contents of a team’s trailer represents one full year’s worth of work and lots and lots and lots of money. This was a huge deal. In the end, however, no one was hurt and the only material lost for good was all of the tools that McGill has brought - a setback, but not the end of the world. So, with their tools scattered across Iowa, they began to take an inventory. Amazingly, their climber was completely in-tact. The trailer was packed so tight that most everything remained unharmed -- they just needed to get it all into a U-Haul and make it to Utah. If it weren’t for some local Iowans with a fork-lift, the McGill team would still be stuck and would have had to bail. Even their huge panels of solar cells were ok. Then it began to rain. And while they were able to throw tarps over the cells, they’re not sure how many would still work. The day today was spent with them testing all their gear.

Needless to say, the McGill guys looked tired and a bit stressed.