The Senior Project

Since the school year started I've been down right scared of the up coming senior project. Just the thought of it weighed me down and it seemed like this endless mountain looming ahead with no way around. In fact, at first, the senior project scared me so much I couldn't focus on much. 

This continued over the last few months until about three weeks ago. My parents had been particularly busy over the duration of the week leaving me home alone with a huge pile of chores to do around the house. As much as I did not want to do them I knew I had to or my parents would get pissed at me. Of all the chores the ones that bothered me the most were the ones that made me go outside into the cold to feed the horse, sheep (which I usually do anyway) and open and shut the chicken coop door. The coop is just so far away from the house, my shoes always get wet from the moisture soaked grass, I have to put on  a jacket so I don't freeze, then I have to walk all the way back. Okay, okay so it's not that far but it's no fun anyway. I wished there was a way that I could take care of this task without actually having to go outside in the cold. As I was walking back to the house and pealed off my wet socks, I remembered that for my senior project we had to make a product. Perfect! I could make an automated chicken coop door opener! It wasn't the most original idea, and yes my dad may have suggested it the day before but until this point I thought it was a stupid idea. 

Later my dad and I thought of all the cool ideas we could do for it. We could use a hydraulics system to ensure that no chicken-eating critters could get it, we could make it solar powered so there would be no need to even set up a bunch of annoying electrical cords. The best part was that we could put it on a timer so that the chickens could get out in the afternoon and then after they were all inside at dusk it would close itself keeping safe during the night. I talked to Dr Immel about this idea and he thought it was pretty cool. He suggested the use of a remote control so that the door could also be operated from afar if someone did not want to use the timer. 

Now that the idea of the project is out of the way and now that I have some experience working with electronics at school, my mind is much more at ease than it was. I guess this project is not as bad as I thought it was