Intro: Flash Forest Interns!

Hello VHS!

We are Francesca and Maira, UBC Engineering students currently on a co-op/internship term with Flash Forest, a startup that uses drone technologies to rapidly plant trees.

Firstly, we want to thank you very much for allowing us to have keyholder access to your space and equipment. We didn’t have any access to an indoor workspace with tools before this, so we really appreciate the opportunity.

We’re hoping to use this as our main workspace, so we expect to use 3D printing, some of the power/shop tools, the electrical lab occasionally, as well as the board room for online work. Right now, Marc, a FF co-worker, is helping us out with testing before Maira can join in later this week.

I’m sure you have many questions about what we’re doing, and we’re happy to answer them! In short, right now we’re performing some tests to see what the ideal seed pod will be to maximize germination rates. This involves using a paintball gun as a stand-in for a pneumatic system in order to accelerate pods to high speeds. If you see people with a ladder and a paintball gun mounted on it, that’s us!

Later on our tasks will change as we wrap up this testing, and it’s great to have access to these tools for when we will need them.

FYI: We currently have a bin in the Woodshop storage area where we keep our stuff, that we will label “Flash Forest”.

Here is a link to the Flash Forest site if you want to check it out: https://www.flashforest.ca (we’re in the ‘Who We Are’ section!)

Feel free to talk with us here or in person! We really like the spirit of the community and want to get involved as much as we can.

Thanks again, and looking forward to meeting more of you!

Francesca and Maira

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Awesome! Hey Francesca! Welcome to VHS. It’s great to have you here working on this project! Flash Forest looks like a really interesting company. I’m looking forward to meeting you and seeing what you are up to at the space. Cheers! Janet

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This sounds like an amazing project. I like it for a couple of reasons - I like to fly drones and mountains/lakes/forests are my happy place(s).
I planted around 70 pine & spruce seedlings at my parents property in the Interior this year. There was massive pine beetle kill in the area a few years ago so there has been plenty of logging and some replanting done in the area.

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Yes thank you all for allowing us into this wonderful space, so excited to get started and meet everyone!

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This sounds like a great initiative - Hope you guys can make something awesome for the all the makers of the future!