Status update

Hello all. There have been some interesting developments lately.

Contracts/Liability/Money
WPI does not want us to build the wall ourselves; they instead want us to give plans to the official WPI contractor who will build it with his team. We've talked to the contractor, and it does not seem realistic that he could build it within our budget constraints. In light of this, we've contacted RockWerx, the construction company that built Central Rock and MetroRock. Their prices are significantly more reasonable, and the hope is that we could have them do the construction.

Tech Wall
We never quite had the heart to give up on our high-tech bouldering wall idea. Instead of trying to integrate electronics into the wall we're building on campus, we've decided to build a prototype for the tech wall elsewhere. Because it's unlikely that we will be doing the construction work for the on-campus wall ourselves, we will have time to create this prototype high-tech wall.

We would like to prove that our concept is scalable, so our current design is to build two independent modules. Each module will be a 4x10 wall, with a light and sensor in every grid space. The electronics will be modular as well, so that more wall-pieces could be added on with minimal extra effort. Our proof of concept will be an 8x10 wall with adjustable angle for each of the two 4x10 wall-pieces.

We have some sketches and more design ideas, they will be up soon.