On May 18th we completed the primary construction and retrofitting of the PoD.
On May 20th my wife Marian, our little terrier Tange, and I took the PoD on a 200-mile round trip “shakedown cruise” to a friend’s farm in a remote, mountainous region of our home state.
The PoD towed perfectly behind its current tow vehicle – a 2013 Honda Pilot. At one point we had to make a pit stop at a massive truck port. Can you find the PoD in the below photo?
It is very tiny compared to all the huge trucks.
Once we arrived at my friend Rusty’s house we set up camp similar to the way we would set things up at a multi-day festival event.
Over the several days the three of us lived in the PoD – I am very happy to say that all the PoD’s systems worked exactly as we engineered them. The heart of the PoD – the 1780 Watt solar array and Victron electronics/battery storage system – provided us with loads of clean energy without even a hiccup. The original and updated wiring, electronics, and plumbing also worked perfectly. We were also able to test the PoD’s waterproofing when we had almost a full day of soaking rains giving the PoD a good leak test – and I am very happy to report that it passed with almost zero leaks. The only leak we found was a small seep on one of the windows in the main bunk area. The leak stopped on its own but just to be safe I will seal up the frame of the window in question with a bit of silicone.
While on our adventure we were lucky to be able to experience one of Rusty’s Honeybee hives swarming – it was a truly amazing spectacle to behold (“beehold” – hmmm…holding bees is not recommended).
On the return trip, we stopped for lunch and parked the PoD (in the center of the next image) in a lot next to a building with its rooftop covered in solar and two electric vehicle charge points (not in the photo but just off to the right) – it is really nice to be a part of a clean energy-powered future.
The only hard part to take during the entire shakedown cruise was paying for the expensive petro-chemical fuel needed to pull the PoD over the mountains. One day soon, in the not-so-distant future – we will replace the gas-guzzling Honda tow vehicle with an all-electric truck of some design, and then this project will truly be complete.
While on the “shakedown cruise” we made a documentary of the PoD on its first adventure – enjoy.
With the success of our shakedown cruise, the PoD is mostly complete and functional so it is to a point where it is actually useable for the purpose it was intended.
To that end goal, our first official outreach program using the PoD will take place on June 5th, 2022!
THANK YOU to everyone who has supported and is continuing to support this most unique environmental outreach education project – we are eternally grateful for your most generous support. You are all the greatest of heroes!!!
This amazing outreach education project will serve to inspire and educate all the curiosity seekers who discover it. But to do this right – we do still need your support. The next steps in working toward the completion of the PoD are outlined below and will most likely occur in the following order:
- Installing the habitat pods.
- Attachment of the external flat screen monitor and its support arm structure.
- Installing the microscope station.*
- Stocking the field guide library.*
- Updating the curtains and cushions with an appropriate theme.
- Installing the 120/240 Volt “shore power” service.
- Painting the PoD.*
- Installing the composting toilet.*
*These are our remaining needs. If you are interested in assisting us with a donation of these final items and/or the support needed for us to be able to complete this project – please do contact us directly or feel free to donate via the links below.
Please consider supporting this project via the donate link on our website
or our GoFundMe page: www.gofundme.com/lets-build-a-mobile-outreach-classroom
If you do choose to assist us in making this project a reality, this unique mobile classroom will greatly benefit the nature, environment, and wildlife conservation education, evidence-supported science, reality, common sense, and renewable energy awareness education for all our outreach program participants in the WNC region as well as our wonderful students at Trails Carolina and Trails Momentum who will benefit from the unique wonders it will contain while they are in class and in the field on expedition.
We will be sure to share any and all updates in posts on this blog, in our end-of-year newsletter, and on our YouTube channel so please consider subscribing to stay up to date on this wonderful project.
The ENP NaSA PoD and the Mighty Bolt EV (our primary outreach vehicle) are owned by ENP (501c3) and used primarily as the ENP company outreach vehicle and mobile outreach classroom for ENP and our education partners Trails Carolina and Trails Momentum. They will be powered and fueled primarily with cleanly-generated electricity provided by the ENP/Trails student-built classroom solar array and the NaSA PoD’s rooftop solar array. They will both serve as outstanding teaching tools for our Trails students and ENP outreach program participants.
Please note: any/all ads that appear within or below this post are not provided, supported, or endorsed by ENP nor are we supported in any way by these ads – they are an automated feature of WordPress.com.
Earthshine Nature 