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