GSA in Indiana and City Museum in St. Louis.


Lord I'm beat. What a week we had. A short summary of Thursday and Friday: Jesse went with Andrew Podoll (who's also done some other interesting things), Harvey Henson and some SIUC Geology grad students to a regional GSA meeting in Evansville, Indiana. They invited us to join them with an Emriver model because we're collaborating on some grants using the models.

The Emriver was very popular. A lot of what we suspected was confirmed. University labs try to build their own small movable bed models with universally bad outcomes. And more confirmation that the Emriver is well designed and superbly optimized for what it does; big enough to do serious work, small enough to be storable and portable, extremely durable, maintenance free, and reasonably priced.

And this was our first brush with Armfield, a UK-based company that makes educational models and large research flumes. We don't consider them competition because our markets and products are so different, but they were very interested in our Emriver, and we got a look at them.

Very interesting stories, and a funny one about how Jesse went to check out Armfield's booth, supposing he was incognito but forgetting his was wearing his LRRD hat.

On to Friday, Cara, Jesse, and I, with significant others, went to fund raising party for the New City School at the City Museum in St. Louis on Friday night.

The City Museum is wonderful beyond description. If you have kids, you must take them there.

Cara and Jesse did a great job of supervising the Emriver as hundreds of candy-stoked middle schoolers attacked it. Their wasn't much premise of education, this was a wild party to raise money for Riverkids, a river conservation program.

We learned and confirmed a few things. Yes, snot, chewing gum, and many other things go into the model when kids this age use it. They go berserk with a big waist level mud pie. It's maybe even better than mud, because even dirt-averse kids love it. Cara pulled a shoe out of the reservoir at some point.

But the wild New City School kids could not break the Emriver or clog its media filter, even with their candy, boogers, and shoes.

The good things are coming faster than I can blog them. Thanks to Cara and Jesse (and their SO's) for a wonderful time Friday night.


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