James: Engineering

Blackwater Creek Koi Farms in Eustis, FL.

Image taken by Mr. Pendergast.

Hello readers,

My name is James. This is my first year in Edge, and I'm hoping to accomplish a lot. There are a few topics that I am extremely interested in:  engineering, construction, and design. I'm trying to keep it in touch with engineering mainly. I’ve always liked the idea of group projects, so some of the contraptions that I may make throughout the year will hopefully help others within the community.

So far this year I’ve done a lot of research on Koi ponds and the fish with Ian (we are basically spearheading the project). In doing so we’ve done a lot of presenting to our school's Admin and to the whole school on Parents’ Day. The project relies on donations, so we asked for help from the community and came up with the idea to auction off the fish during the Fall Ball. In total we’ve raised over $1550. That is much more than we were expecting.  The money will allow us to get better equipment and materials. We can also expand the pond's size.

Breeding barrels at Blackwater.

Image taken by James.

As we look forward in the year, I'd like to do several projects, including building a snow-gun to help Ben with his project and (hypothetically, at least) redesigning the NYC subway. There are many things wrong with the subway and NYC’s infrastructure. From bridges to tunnels, there are a lot of problems. I have been consumed by research about them. Let's take a lot at NYC’s transit:

Map of the NYC subway system.

Image located at nextcity.org.

How many people have taken the subway? Many of you, I'm sure. What if I told you that the system could be nice, instead of grimy, cold, dark and dirty? What if we could start over and reinvent it so that it could be nice and reliable? The bridges and tunnels also need some work. Can anyone think of a traffic jam or a closed tunnel? I sure can, and I don’t even live in NYC. Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to deal with the chaos? What I want to do is redesign everything, but before this I need to learn some more trade skills (and get some short-term internship with an outside builder). The best way that I learn is with hands-on experience, so I am looking for some type of off-campus learning and to establish a relationship with future job partners.

This year is going to be great!

- James