1-13-16
After a not so early morning, Mary, Siddhartan and I started out for Bangalore. I say it that way because we wanted to go at 7, were told 8 and not picked up until 8:30. We were then shuttled to the dining hall for breakfast which, although delicious, delayed our trip more. The car ride was quite fun, as Siddhartan gave Mary and I a history lesson on India or really anything that came up in conversation. I also love driving through the back roads. You see so much of rural India, including temples and shops, from the safety of the car. I saw people painting, cows strolling down the road, a bulldozer building company and much more. The Agastya employee that joined us became our sudo tour guide and pointed out different sites as we passed.
We are going to Bangalore for a few reasons. We have to pick up supplies so we can finish the Brightboxes that we are building to leave at Agastya. We also have a meeting with Kuppaswamy. Kuppaswamy is Agastya’s employee in charge of manufacturing. He has 35 years of experience in manufacturing and will be helping us communicate with a manufacturing company to build the Brightboxes. Our meeting with him was incredible. He was very impressed by the Brightbox (great work Mary!) and made some aesthetic and functional suggestions. We discussed different materials, which could be sourced in India. We also went through each step of the process for how this would be manufactured. Finally, we went through an example of how the costs would be broken down and what we need to consider and how to reduce the bulk cost. While the numbers he gave us were random, understanding how it would be broken down was incredibly helpful. By the end of the meeting, we’d decided that he would work with a manufacturer to build a sample Brightbox in the manner which we would do the 500. When it is finished it would be shipped to America so that we could evaluate it. This was thrilling, as this meeting alone is bringing us giant steps closer to producing the Brightbox.
After the meeting, we had lunch in the office before heading out to the markets. Our first stop was a technology store to look for electronics supplies. Bangalore is a huge tech hub in India and has a ton of engineers and technology development. While we got some of the things that we were looking for, we didn’t get everything, so we went to SP road to get the last things. Well, SP road was INCREDIBLE! There was shop after shop of electronics. Everything from soldering irons (which we bought one for under $2) to barrels of crimps to chips and components. Since the shops are all open (basically they have a counter that you go to and the back of the shop is displaying the merchandise, you can see everything just by walking down the street. After finding what we needed, we navigated the streets towards a market for plastic boxes. To get there, we wandered more through SP Road. The electronics shops faded out and the mechanical shops started appearing. Shops had everything from motors (yes, they were selling 2 cylinder motors), huge chains (there was this big pink chain just in the road) and tools. We saw tools being sold on the sidewalk and pipes in a shop. Basically anything you could possibly think of. We were amazed and as a computer engineer, mechanical engineer and an electrical engineer, we had a blast just walking down the street and seeing the sites. We made it to a market, which was a crazy endeavor of weaving through people, fruit stands on the sidewalk and motorcycles and cars racing down the street. I didn’t have time to shop, but from the quick things that I saw, prices were insanely cheap, especially for clothing. We had to walk a bit to meet our car. To do this, we crossed huge street intersections in the middle. So busses, cars, motorbikes were just the start of things we had to dodge. Cows randomly wandered the street and sat on the sidewalks. It was so different and shocking. I was a combination of amazed and terrified. I’m looking forward to coming back in a day to do more shopping and experience it as a tourist.
On the way back, we had lots of fun conversation. These moments are really when the faculty/student boundary has passed and you are learning about a range of topics from the other’s perspective. While the traffic was annoying, the car ride wasn’t nearly as bad as one would expect.
When we returned AppaSahab had dinner ready for us. After another delicious meal, there was a lot of work to be done. Mary, Subhash, Anna, Siddhartan and I went to the workshop to finish building the last of the Brightboxes for the trip. I soldered on the connectors and screwed in the PCBs. By midnight, we were ready to call it a night and had completed enough work to get us far enough for the next day.
After a not so early morning, Mary, Siddhartan and I started out for Bangalore. I say it that way because we wanted to go at 7, were told 8 and not picked up until 8:30. We were then shuttled to the dining hall for breakfast which, although delicious, delayed our trip more. The car ride was quite fun, as Siddhartan gave Mary and I a history lesson on India or really anything that came up in conversation. I also love driving through the back roads. You see so much of rural India, including temples and shops, from the safety of the car. I saw people painting, cows strolling down the road, a bulldozer building company and much more. The Agastya employee that joined us became our sudo tour guide and pointed out different sites as we passed.
We are going to Bangalore for a few reasons. We have to pick up supplies so we can finish the Brightboxes that we are building to leave at Agastya. We also have a meeting with Kuppaswamy. Kuppaswamy is Agastya’s employee in charge of manufacturing. He has 35 years of experience in manufacturing and will be helping us communicate with a manufacturing company to build the Brightboxes. Our meeting with him was incredible. He was very impressed by the Brightbox (great work Mary!) and made some aesthetic and functional suggestions. We discussed different materials, which could be sourced in India. We also went through each step of the process for how this would be manufactured. Finally, we went through an example of how the costs would be broken down and what we need to consider and how to reduce the bulk cost. While the numbers he gave us were random, understanding how it would be broken down was incredibly helpful. By the end of the meeting, we’d decided that he would work with a manufacturer to build a sample Brightbox in the manner which we would do the 500. When it is finished it would be shipped to America so that we could evaluate it. This was thrilling, as this meeting alone is bringing us giant steps closer to producing the Brightbox.
After the meeting, we had lunch in the office before heading out to the markets. Our first stop was a technology store to look for electronics supplies. Bangalore is a huge tech hub in India and has a ton of engineers and technology development. While we got some of the things that we were looking for, we didn’t get everything, so we went to SP road to get the last things. Well, SP road was INCREDIBLE! There was shop after shop of electronics. Everything from soldering irons (which we bought one for under $2) to barrels of crimps to chips and components. Since the shops are all open (basically they have a counter that you go to and the back of the shop is displaying the merchandise, you can see everything just by walking down the street. After finding what we needed, we navigated the streets towards a market for plastic boxes. To get there, we wandered more through SP Road. The electronics shops faded out and the mechanical shops started appearing. Shops had everything from motors (yes, they were selling 2 cylinder motors), huge chains (there was this big pink chain just in the road) and tools. We saw tools being sold on the sidewalk and pipes in a shop. Basically anything you could possibly think of. We were amazed and as a computer engineer, mechanical engineer and an electrical engineer, we had a blast just walking down the street and seeing the sites. We made it to a market, which was a crazy endeavor of weaving through people, fruit stands on the sidewalk and motorcycles and cars racing down the street. I didn’t have time to shop, but from the quick things that I saw, prices were insanely cheap, especially for clothing. We had to walk a bit to meet our car. To do this, we crossed huge street intersections in the middle. So busses, cars, motorbikes were just the start of things we had to dodge. Cows randomly wandered the street and sat on the sidewalks. It was so different and shocking. I was a combination of amazed and terrified. I’m looking forward to coming back in a day to do more shopping and experience it as a tourist.
On the way back, we had lots of fun conversation. These moments are really when the faculty/student boundary has passed and you are learning about a range of topics from the other’s perspective. While the traffic was annoying, the car ride wasn’t nearly as bad as one would expect.
When we returned AppaSahab had dinner ready for us. After another delicious meal, there was a lot of work to be done. Mary, Subhash, Anna, Siddhartan and I went to the workshop to finish building the last of the Brightboxes for the trip. I soldered on the connectors and screwed in the PCBs. By midnight, we were ready to call it a night and had completed enough work to get us far enough for the next day.