Introducing Our New Intern: Luke Robinson

Luke graduated from Ukiah High School last Spring and will be starting at Johns Hopkins University in the fall. His expertise is in electronics. As a freshman there he will be studying computer engineering. For three summers as a high school student, he has offered a camp for middle-school students on basic robotics using the Arduino development platform. These programmable processors, and the sensors and other hardware that interface with them, enable automation and control of a multitude of operations. His expertise with these devices is being applied to an upgrade of our 1/6 scale pilot model controls. We are increasing the automation of the valving on our power system to take advantage of the vacuum or pressure remaining in the power tube as the thrust carriage passes by the blower stations. Sensors along the power tube will report position and velocity of the thrust carriage, as well as residual vacuum in the tube to a programmable controller which will actuate individual valves to optimize efficiency. Luke brings a fresh perspective and a keen intellect to our team, if only for the summer. In addition to his work on the train controls, he has also been helping with the design, construction, and installation of an improved control and monitoring system for our small private water district. It is a pleasure for all of us here at Flight Rail to work with Luke. We will certainly miss him when he leaves this fall!