4/24/17 Perseverance
It's the home stretch of the Expo project. We have less than two weeks until the online presence, and all the comes with it, is due. The research and development phase is perhaps the most important of my project, and has become far and away my main priority right now. On Friday I stayed up until 2:00 AM working on business infographics and social media, taking short breaks to continue my reading of billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk's biography.
Over the few days since, I have taken the themes of that book to heart. Musk was working well out of his element when he started SpaceX, in an attempt to revolutionize the aerospace industry. The first 3 launches attempted all failed, leaving him and his team beaten down and demoralized, and Musk himself nearly depleted of funds. And yet, 6 years after the founding of the company, against all odds, Musk's incredible determination, growing knowledge and skillset, and unwavering optimism in the face of monumental adversity allowed them to send the first ever privately owned rocket into orbit.
I am obviously working on a much smaller scale, but I take great inspiration from the themes. Wiggling the wires and making minor adjustments to even turn on the equipment, not to mention the many frustrations that come with fixing code when you don't really know how to write code, has been very taxing. Ultimately though, I've made slow but steady progress throughout the year.
Sunday though, that almost all came to a crashing halt. The serial monitor that I had been using to test the various strings of code suddenly stopped working. I redownloaded the program, I switched cables, and I moved to a new computer, to no avail. Worst case scenario was that certain pins on the Adafruit or Arduino had been broken somehow, which would've been catastrophic. Furthermore, we were unsure whether or not the switch I had purchased was compatible with the voltage we were using. I was running out of time and places to turn.
This happened all over the course of about 20 minutes, but I dug in, making the decision that we would move forward with the current Arduino and switch despite the confusion, gambling on the fact that we could make it work. I painstakingly rewired various connections, and ultimately got the serial monitor up and working again. In that fervor of energy, I continued working and ultimately was able to get a text to send to my phone displaying the latitude and longitude of my house, based off one command in the serial monitor, (Previously this had required me to manually input all the information step by step) proving to myself that this could indeed all come together.
Another distinct aspect of Elon Musk's companies is the incredibly optimistic deadlines he sets. One longtime employee said that, "If Elon tells you something should take a couple hours or a day, you should probably section off a weeks worth of time." I am, out of necessity, making those same promises, so this post is as much for me as it is for those reading. Come hell or high water, the SafeVest prototype will be unveiled to the world by the 1st of May.
-MSF
