Day 0: Travel to Alamos

- Packing hurricane frenzy, or like an octopus that fits itself through a tiny hole. We did it, trust in each other. Left house at 3:15am, caught 5:25am flight

- Boston -> Detroit -> Mexico City -> Cuidad Obregon -> then drive to Alamos

- Free cart waiting for us in Boston Logan, thanks universe! Helped immensely for leisurely pushing 66lb 27gal home depot bucket through bag check lines while sleep deprived and over caffeinated.

- Mexico City security to board Aero Mexico plane to Cuidad Obregon: One of the most thorough and strict security checks I've ever gone through. They were about to take all our batteries! Saying it should have been checked? They hung up a call Dana made to Dr. David to help with translation, and almost didn't allow google translate. No pics. I can feel the hangry coming on. Dana kept cool and calm, we managed to back track and coordinate with a safety officer outside security checkpoint to approve and sign off carrying two 9000mAh LiPos on board. Went through security twice... Sacrificed our zippy tie cutters the second time. BUT GRATEFUL WE HAVE BATTERIES. Pulling each other across the finish line.

- Good travel rule: get all the way to departure gate first thing and confirm flight details before resting and getting food. We may have missed the plane if we had eaten first and encountered such security troubles. (We were both famished, surviving on protein bars).

- packed everything into David's little red bug during sunset at Cuidad Obregon Airport for 2 hour drive to Alamos

- seatbelt facade for toll gate checkpoints

- Spotted a Heron trying to cross the road right after turning onto the highway from the airport. Our first plane of the new Model X Series is titled "Blue Heron" after the recent Miyazaki film, Boy and the Blue Heron. Another signal from the universe? Sparkles on the fringes.

- New type of hazard signal for broken down truck on the side of the road, bonfire.

- 60km/hr on the intestate: semi truck cage full of pigs passes us, pickup truck with guy sitting in truck bed texting passes us, two full grown men on dirt bike passes us

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Day 1: Settling Objectives and Basic Needs

- Awaken to the sound of having accidentally locked out Chilo, the elderly gardner, who comes early to feed Kumo, the cat, and tend the beautiful courtyard garden

- Sleeping in, recover from travel day

- Hungry, no groceries yet. Use toe nail clippers to cut zippy ties and open big box for more protein bars

- Carbon fiber PETG test 3D print wing segments from Cambridge made it safely!

- Basic needs/objectives planning day, starting with a trip to our favorite coffee shop. Not open, Dana casts a spell, inquires what time they open, smooth exchange completely in Spanish

- Project is at a moment, either scale up or wind down.

- Two coffees in, start feeling the flow, spinning a story, "imagine it and it will happen"

- Objectives/Visions: just throw Model X and it auto takes-off into the distance cut, interview with Sonoran State News again during annual music festival "local students build planes that Clinica Almas use to deliver medicine to neighboring indigenous communities", special allowance in FAA regulation for medical delivery drones, blueprint kit + program with national budget for educational institutions around Mexico to build fleets

- Setup shop in the clinic or at David's school?

- Groceries on way back

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Friday

Day 2: Almost All David's Students, 50, Join Club

EARLY START

- Wake at 6am, like clockwork, our month pause from a year of morning coffees habit starts right up.

- "Catfood" for breakfast, oatmeal peanut butter and banana, Jonathan's classic breakfast from Moonshot days in 北京大学附属中学

- Incredibly fascinating/complex dreams

- Brainstem print de-adhered :/ troubleshooting to do

- Arrive to school gate by 7:15am, unlocked, never too early for loud truck music

- David shares his formal letter to superiors for club permissions with Dana for feedback while I arrange table and stuff for assembly with students

JOIN DAVID'S CLASSES AND PITCH PROJECT

- Brainstorm three main takeaways to present to students: 1 What's the problem? 2 Why are they the reason this project is possible? 3 Telemedicine system that is 99.99% reliable on moments notice

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Saturday, Day 3:

Blue Heron Airframe Done!

"GOOD BOARDED"

- 6am

- No water, no dish washing

- Drafting outline for brief history of project over coffee and catfood (oatmeal)

- Planning items to discuss with Betsy

BETSY CALL #2

- Supplying chronic illness medications to prove reliability and be ready for sensing supplies for acute cases anytime.

- Story highlighting difficulty of proper healthcare to remote areas and need for telemedicine with material delivery. Farmer with TB traveling 14 hours from mountains to get a dose of 6-9 month medical treatment in the city, hospital didn't have them when he arrived, they blame him, had to travel back. Betsy flew 7 hours in ultralight lands in river bed, then borrowed mule to travel rest of way up in mountains to get a sample. Returned it to the lab in the city, they lost the sample...

- Professional coming to film documentary of clinic's audiology care and whatever we want to highlight with drones on Thursday, to be translated into Spanish, indigenous languages, Guarijío

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Sunday (Domingo)

Day 4

Blue Heron and Togo Test Flight Worthy

- 6am up and sharp

- Kumo, the cat, gets spoiled, tiny pack 88 peso wet catfood

- Dana doing jumping jacks to prep for cold shower

- Drive to school, wait at gate for a while, work on writing log from Day 3, compiling pics, uploading to Google Photos

- Search for coffees in a can from nearby gas station for afternoon re-up

- David apologetic, hectic morning, one of those days everything goes wrong

- Goal to be ready to fly at 3pm today. Togo first to relearn how to fly (with package but no autopilot mission), then Blue Heron with Manual and Fly-By-Wire A (no autopilot)

- Testing avionics from Boston Husky, Fritz, that was gutted and brought to be transplanted into Blue Heron

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Monday, January 15th

Day 5

Flight Day 1

Students! First Official Club Meeting

FLIGHT MORNING

- 5:30am wake

- Morning breakfast oatmeal coffee prep flow streamlined, big batch of oatmeal

- Tried inviting Ted and Ana the night before but no response, invite them to fly Blue Heron Tuesday

- Arrive to field at dusk, woman comes to walk around the track, learning to blurt Beunos Dias like a local, we scare off the curious dogs

- Field has shin high bushes growing everywhere, not ideal for runways but can make it work. Must not be used for soccer practices anymore

- Plan to fly Togo first, then go through Blue Heron pre-flight checklist up until ready to throw and fly, but not fly so we could show students in the afternoon (confident in my flying skills to not start with yellow plane)

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Martes, January 16th

Day 6

Flight Day 2

Howl Airframe, Strategy Talks, Plane #3 Color Scheme

- 5:30am, breakfast and out the door, earliest we've been to the field

- Days are starting to blur together

- Super glueing the gold wingtips down before they peel off and ruin the whole print

- Ted, Pasante Ana, Ana's Mom, David and Kati come out to the field. David just in time for Togo's successful package drop flight, went off without a hitch

- Blue Heron final checks, challenging to CG balance even with big battery, need ballast box, autopilot rudder stabilizer needs reversal

- Rest mornings after flights, long nap, make Dana a cheese melted tuna sandwich

- Truck engine sputtering, plan to get it fixed up nicely for Betsy, head back for 3D printer finishing last few Howl parts

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Miercoles, January 17th

Students Intro to Flying, Leaders Appointed

DEMO FLYING

- 6am, water day!

- Collecting thoughts and preparing talking points for next call with Betsy over breakfast

- Agenda/lesson plan bullets for morning flight with students

- Fabi got approval for using baseball field yesterday, after our in the moment planning on Monday to invite students to fly Wednesday at 7am.

- Building the runway as we takeoff, stumbling but sprinting

- Flying with students, intro to control surfaces, controller knobs, stress propeller/throttle awareness and safety, Husky preflight checklist run through, pilot basics

- David! Let Rosa translate

- Fabi takes a picture in front of plane when armed, we freak out to teach a lesson

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Jueves, January 18th

Leadership Team Begins Leading, Documentary Filming

- 6am

- Oatmeal banana coffee

- No water, water days seem to only have water from 9am to 7pm, times we are out of the house. "its part of the charm" - Betsy

- Rest morning, Dana naps most of the morning, recovery

- I try splicing a big wing print for Aguila Real, 2 day print?? Forgot to make it single layer perimeter, new appreciation for how fast Dana does the tip stickers

- Dana mentally prepares for call with Betsy

- I focus on Logs and photos

- Call with Betsy, Dana explains his feelings about including 3D printers in documentary, predictable tension, resolved

- No need to spend a day to visit Grameen Bank Robotics contact, email connection is fine

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Viernes, January 19th

Flight Simulator, Blue Heron Flight Ready

- Wake up at 3:20am to put on hairy carbon fiber fuselage print, interrupts REM and awesome dream :/ not an overall benefit, "stop optimizing" is so hard, I sleep until 7am

- Compile list of modifications needed for Blue Heron to be flight ready

- Water day! :) WE GOT HOT WATER!! "Just read the instructions"...

- Climb up on roof to check the water storage tank, empty, get it filling up, writing logs in shade on roof

- Police presence increased for music festival

- David advises we go straight to where we intend and nothing else, hesitate to do laundry, stay inside today

- Dana researches changing flights earlier

- Discuss folder organization scheme for managing plane parts printing, "printed" contains parts "to do" but tested and works

- Get flight simulator working on Big Mac computer Windows Bootcamp, glad I brought it. Running into trouble with steam account setup, two factor authentication, rather buy simulator for team than on my account

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Sabado, January 20th

Flight Day 3

Blue Heron Flight #1

- 6am wake

- 10 minutes to pack and get to field

- lots of buses for the festival

- Karim joins us at 7am! David too. Exactly as we had imagined it, and it happened

- Husky preflight checklist with Karim, quick and professional but educational

- Karim spinning the propeller with allen wrench stationary to remove the nose cone on husky for prop tightness check, Dana and I both looking at each other like "I never thought to do it that way!"

- Successful flight, despite Husky feeling tail heavy and slow to climb, should have had Karim stand by me and explain to him what I'm doing as I pilot Togo

- Nice cloud cover, made up for the slower than usual preflight checklist, Universe Sparkles

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Domingo, January 21st

Red Cross Contact Visits Club

- 4am wake up to pee, can still hear the music festival going in background

- 6am wake, plan to meet 9am at school

- Discussing modifications to make Blue Heron take-off over oatmeal and coffee

- Organizing log notes, feeling motivated to write logs again after proper Saturday rest

- cutup the honey pineapple

- debugging the water system, water tank full of water, "has to be a leak somewhere" - Dana, nervous about climbing down off the roof without ladder

Blue Heron Dev Plan

- York prop

- Throwing technique

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Lunes, January 22nd

Peak Trip, Club Synergy, Meta Talks

- 6am, the usual

- No water after all..

- Morning giggles

- Plan to plan last half of trip over La Purisma coffee after mid-way point

- Betsy's birthday on 1/23

- Easier logins, avoid hot corner lockout

- Editing togo package drop flight videos

- Sending day 5 log

STRATEGIZING

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Martes (Tuesday), January 23rd

Karim's First Flight

- 6am, water day!

- Eggs on toast with soy sauce

- 7am, baseball fields locked, head to original football track field where the lights turned off right as we finished the pre flight checklist for swiss miss. Now a turf field instead of dirt.

- Karim flies yellow plane, loops around twice, and lands on his first try!

- Rest in courtyard, nap

CLINIC

- "Excuse me, does madam have box give me" Dana deciphering why old woman in the market was so pleased to help him find boxes for David's stuff at the clinic

- Bachocos?

- Pickup David's shelf and stuff from the clinic, find the very first package prototype designed while in quarantine that first trip in Dec 2021

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Miercoles, January 24th

Flight Day 4

New York Blue Heron Flight #2

- 4am Dana gets up to finish NY Blue Heron preflight calibration details

- No safety glasses, no fpv either

- Dana's back hurting

- David drives up to the house with Abi right as we're leaving, this guy knows us

- Quick trip back to school to pickup glasses and fpv

- Run into Karim on his bike on our way to the field, he turns around and bikes as fast as we drive (turns out he had already gone to the field, but we were late.. This guy is dedicated)

- Karim, Abi, David, Ana, Ana's Mom all join us at the field to help prep FPV and NY Blue Heron for flight, snacks for everyone

- Broken accelerator cap, Karim feels bad and glues it together

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Jueves, January 25th

Celebration Cookout (Last Official Club Day)

- 6am, sore throat, covid test negative

- THE MOON!! SOooo BEAUTIFUL! Absolutely beautiful moon rise

- Fabi helps unlock baseball field, wait 10 minutes for friend of police officer

- Karim comes to fly yellow plane at the baseball field, already prepared the plane to fly night before

- Prop screws hitting nose cover during throttle up. Carbon fiber prop is left handed, throw and flop, was blowing air backwards, need to reverse motor wires, important to check thrust direction. Spent 50 minutes debugging

- "He said yellow plane doesn't need a preflight checklist" - Karim, "Jaguar isn't always right" - Dana

- Ready to fly just in time. Karim nails it, two landings in 10 minutes before classes at 8am, check off milestones on his pilots certificate

- David and Dana talking fundraising and financial management strategies for the club

- Trunk finance as large scale funding/scaling by spinning out new instances of the organization so no particular org has a pile of cash, endowment as trickle funding

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Viernes, January 26th

Flight Day 5

Karim Earns His Wings

- 5am wake, put on gold propeller prints

- car packed already, head to field at 6am

- Oxxo open! Stop for pinguinos celebration snack for Karim anticipating his becoming a pilot

- Karim on bike right outside Oxxo, follow him to the field

- Intense three plane flights in 1 hour sprint planned before his semester finals at 8am.

- Plane assembly and preflight checks in the dark

- "The whole town is just screaming in the morning... animals are weird" - Dana

- Two pilots in training arrive at 7am, rock on!

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Sabado, January 27th

Officially Unpacked, Building Example Tool Storage

- Sleep in until 7am

- Toast, peanut butter and Obleas "not as good as each alone but better than only one of either" - Dana, Avocado and egg, comfort weekend relax food

- how to signify milestone achievement for printing plane part (like pilot cert signing and handshake)

- Pink planes, Rosa already mentioned shades of pink as a color scheme, get excited about reasons (mafia wouldn't want it, distinguished as a medical plane, recognizable as medical drone across different models, engage the women in drone engineering/production), Rosa gets Victor excited, superintendent gets excited, just deliver kilograms of pink PETG/light weight ASA for free, pink planes!

- Need to pivot a bit and help focus more attention on Logistics Team, support Fabi. Dana Technical, Jaguar Execution, David Logistics (but hes been busy teaching, learning what to teach, grading, preparing finals, being a father, helping us.. This guy is Iron).

- Refer to drones as toys until they deliver medicine, then they officially become a medical delivery service drone. Blue Heron died a toy.. Many more will too

- Catch a package drop by autopilot, "Wish we could have done an autopilot mission with Karim. His job after all is to train pilots that can pilot the autopilot to autopilot as a pilot" - Dana

- Logs writing catching up

CLUB

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Domingo, January 28th

Betsy Arrives

CAR WASH

- Blaring music right outside, 5am, music festival still going!?

- I sleep in until 7am again

- Dana gets me back and makes a beautiful breakfast! <3, mango, soy sauce over egg on toast, sliced apple tossed with pomelo juice

- One belt one road discussion on way to David's

- 8:30am car pressure wash at David's, returning to punctual habits, he has all the right towels and equipment ready, David's way of showing his appreciation to Betsy and the clinic

- "I guess Dads learn the properties of different types of spilled liquids" probably ice cream thrown splat against the car door, citrus goop cleaner

- Anna and Abi's cinnamon rolls and coffee #2 (so delicious!) after scrubbing and vacuuming the truck spotless

- Ask David what our friends would work on here if they came, where to stay

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Lunes, January 29th

Teaching Ingrid to CAD

SLOW MORNING

- 6:15 wake

- Betsy sharing stories

- Ayida stops by, authentic hot chocolate, she made the breakfast pozole

- Rest clean morning, dishes, laundry, water, found the pan dulces place, search for mole

- It feels so good to be clean with things in order

- Writing table at La Purisima

- Setting up ChatGPT 4 account for the club and sculpting a mentor profile to assist in context

- Day 7 Log writing, media compression and compilation, ship it

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Martes, January 30th

Sunset over Alamos

- 6am wake

- Cut up the cantelope, toast, peanut butter, banana

- Morning packing

- Starts raining, change plans coffee first then Blue Heron cleanup

- Pay water bill in the beautiful city hall opera theater

- Stops raining head to field

- Search for steam cards at OXXO to buy another flight trainer, only one, skip

- Watch out for scorpions, snakes, cows, tetanus, spiders

- Picking up big litter and bottles. It's actually good for the environment when we crash planes... We pick up more trash than we left.

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Miercoles, January 31st

Travel Day

- 4:30am wake

- Betsy makes us eggs on toast

- Pan dulces and coffee

- Pilot Training Videos, last minute compile and copy to jump drive

- The Iron Bart Mobile! Seatbelt fixed

- Atole in mugs to go, para llevar

- David making the 2hr trip to the airport adventurous, never certain we would make it in time, but total trust, made it with an hour to spare

- Only three items to keep track of on the plane this time (we brought 8)

- Blue Heron came in pieces, Blue Heron leaves in pieces

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