I went to Tacoma this weekend. Chris and I made what I guess you could call a rolling chassis.

Today I ordered a 12VDC Gearhead motor, two door lock actuators, a keychain laser pointer, two 12V strobe lights, two LED bars (for brakes), and for MOSFET transistors from All Electronics. The total price was $60.20.

I bought a cylinder for the LT230 engine on eBay for $41.

I also sent in a technical addenda to DARPA that gave some design changes we had made.

I went to Tacoma this weekend. Chris and I made progress on the frame.

I also sold an old set of handlebars that had been lying around in Chris's garage for $32. This was the beginning of a new era...

I came up with a new design for the "bump-o-meter". My old design had a potentiometer with a weight and a piece of elastic. When mounted on something that was bouncing up and down, the weight moved, and the potetiometer measured the movement.

My new design is much much simpler. It uses a piezo element. Piezo elements will bend slightly when electricity is applied to them - this makes them work well as speakers. However, it also works the other way around; if they are bent slightly, they will generate a tiny amount of electricity. I'm using this attribute to detect a weight pressing on a piezo speaker. The weight is the computer. Right now I'm using the OOPic to measure the voltage created by the piezo speaker.

Today I went up to Tacoma. Chris's friend's friend drove down and sold us his ATV for $500.

I also sent an email to DARPA requesting a site visit.