Happy Friday everybody! As we come to the close of another great week, I realize I haven’t updated in a while on how things are going here in our Ann Arbor lab. I wanted to write something last Friday, but I was in a rush to get to the post office before they closed. Why was my trip to the post office something you care about? Because it means I GOT TO SHIP! We sent out our first batch of finished reflectometers and I’m super proud of the quality of all of them 
They went to 9 US states and 6 international provinces. The closest was only about 50 miles but some of them went more than 9,000 miles. That’s the good news. The bad news is that 18 units over the course of 5 weeks puts the total time each at ~11 hours (and that’s not even counting @gbathree’s time, which was substantial, especially in the beginning), which is way too much.
Of course, this is a pretty basic calculation and includes time spent rebuilding the 3d printers, going to the hardware store for supplies, cleaning and moving components to clear our work space, and just general tasks that need to get done. This week is looking better in terms of timing, (maybe closer to 9 hours each) but since I haven’t shipped anything today, there’s not really an official number to share.
This weekend, I’m taking a class at our local makerspace to officially be able to use their ShopBot CNC router, which will help us moving along with building @ryanfobel’s DropBots next week. We’ll see where next week takes us into the land of being a two-device shop. I’ll keep y’all updated!
Nick