A couple members of the CUAUV project team were kind enough to lend a few of us a tour of their team’s lab space. In Upson there is space, tools, and equipment allocated to many project teams including CUAUV. I honestly expected the tour to be a little uncomfortable and intrusive. I mean, we were going to walk around a place where people had competitions to prepare for, machines and systems to build, and of course final exams to study for. I didn’t expect to see any welcoming or smiling faces there. But I was wrong. As our CUAUV guides described their work and showed us their space, the rest of their teammates were hard at work, but they seemed so passionate about what they were doing. Some people were fine-tuning circuit boards, some were analyzing data, and some were putting machine parts together. All of them gave us intruders kind gestures as they continued to do what they had been doing. There was so much friendly, collaborative energy, and I could tell that for them it’s more of a family than it is a team. There was a massive whiteboard with all sorts of notes – thoughts, supplies to order, problems to solve, and funny messages alike. As stressful as it may be for them to spend hours on end working on their project, it was clear to me that they truly enjoy it. As the guides talked about the culmination of all their work, I realized how diverse of a learning experience they get. Sure, building an autonomous underwater vehicle does involve circuits, gears, nuts, bolts, all that typical stuff. But they emphasized that there is all sorts of cost and marketing analysis behind the vehicle. Not only is it expensive to build, but it is also expensive to test. They bring the vehicle to Teagle Pool for testing and analysis. If there’s anything broken, wrong, or inefficient, then they will have to incur the cost of replacing it. So they have to balance the efficiency and functionality of what they build with the costs of doing so. As someone who is considering the path of a tech entrepreneur, I found it very interesting when the guides talked about their team from this angle. It was a pleasure to talk to the members of CUAUV, and I’m sure that at their competition this summer they will be tough to beat.