February Extra Post

This month I've been very busy working with my mentor on testing two new units that are eventually going to determine if my mentor goes ahead with a deal in New Orleans. 

Here you can see my mentor installing a SIM chip in one of the units. 

This here is one of the units when we first pulled it out of box. We opened it up to install a SIM chip and to begin programming it and charging its internal battery.

Blog 16: Answer 2

1.) Who benefits most from vehicle tracking software?

2.) Commercial truck drivers; they benefit from reduced fuel consumption due to more efficient routes that they learn to take after reviewing their driving history. Along with efficient driving, drivers also learn how to be responsible when out on the road with someone else's property. Having a productive and safe employee driving a vehicle will not only make the customer happy when they arrive on time with the delivery but it will also benefit the vehicle owner's wallet with reduced operating costs and a solid customer base.

3.) Teen drivers will benefit greatly by having a tracking system in their car because it will make them better drivers. First of all teens are known for being distracted while they drive, whether it be with their friends in the car or with their cell phones. With a tracking system installed, parents will know immediately if their child is performing dangerous tasks such as speeding, braking abruptly, or texting while driving and will be able to take action accordingly. 

4.) My mentor has actually experienced his system have a bus driver fired for recording excessive amounts of driving hours. A company called Odyssey Tours located in Orange has been using my mentor's tracking software and units for many years. They have also had to relieve many of their drivers due to cheating on driving hours, speeding while on tours and excessive idling while waiting for passengers to return to the bus at a stop.

By having one of my mentor's tracking units in my own car, I have been able to improve my driving significantly by learning the spots where I speed on my daily commute to school and by being more conscious about when I sit in my car and run the a/c for too long.

5.) 

- "Why Track Your Commercial Vehicle" by Tag Guard

- "GPS Tracking- Talking to Employees" by How to introduce GPS Tracking to Employees

- "Hey, why did you floor it?" " Tracking junior behind the wheel" by Edmunds

- "Truvolo- A new device to keep teen drivers safe" by Blogcritics.org

6.) One of my mentor's friends that also works with GPS told me back in October that the most important factor that parents are looking for is peace of mind, knowing that their teen driver has arrived at their destination safely.

7.) Whether it be for commercial use or for personal use, GPS tracking benefits everyone from parents to teens to truck drivers. These people will begin to realize that they need to be responsible while driving and not put themselves or others out on the road in danger. A tracking system will keep a truck driver focused on his job while a teen will think twice about racing the guy next to him at a stop light. Nobody goes home empty handed with a tracking system.

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

Carl La Russa

North 

2/11/2015

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

1.) For my Independent Component 2, I plan on working with my mentor on securing a deal with Bendix, a company that sells safety cameras for commercial vehicles. By securing this deal, my mentor will be able to purchase fifteen cameras, install them into his client's mini-buses and connect them to Sygmatech's tracking units so that they can stream video data to my mentor's computer server and ultimately to the client. Currently, my mentor and I are awaiting approval from the client in San Diego, but once my mentor's client gives us the go ahead, we will order the cameras and schedule a time to go down to San Diego and install them into the min-buses. Along with the camera deal, I will also be helping my mentor order components for one of his clients in Louisiana that is starting up a fleet business who wants tracking units in his vehicles that will have an independent power source but still be able to track the vehicle's location and speed. Although my mentor isn't planning on traveling to Louisiana to install the units himself, it leaves him with more responsibility in terms of providing detailed installation instructions and other critical information to the people who will be working with the units that will be needed in order for the units to work properly. This project will require my mentor and I to create charts and/or diagrams that illustrate the installation process and make sure that all the components needed for the installation will arrive on time and in one piece. 

2.) While I'm completing my hours for Independent Component 2, I will be documenting everything that I'm doing by taking pictures and posting those pictures along with my Extra Posts every month. The pictures included in the Extra Posts will come with detailed explanations of what is going on in the picture and what I was doing at the time the picture was taken.

3.) By completing thirty hours for my Independent Component 2, I will have learned how my mentor's tracking system can be configured to support other devices such as surveillance cameras. It also allows me to experience how clients work with tracking systems and how they are able to fit it into their businesses to maybe save them money or identify a problem with their fleet. By working alongside my mentor, I can observe how he explains the different functions and uses of a tracking system to other people or companies that are interested. Using these observations, I can make my presentations in class better and I make sure I have the right information that will answer everyone's questions. 

Blog 14: Independent Component 1

Carl La Russa

North

2/5/2015

Blog 14 Independent Component 1

Literal

a.) "I, Carl La Russa, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of my work."

b and d.) For most of my independent component, I worked with my mentor, installing tracking units into vehicles such as cars and buses and setting up accounts so that clients can track their vehicles. I also worked on finding people that worked within my topic area that I could interview such as Mr. Hans Molin, a sales manager at Bendix Inc., a company that builds and sells cameras that cooperate with tracking systems to record accidents that occur with commercial vehicle such as buses and eighteen-wheelers. An achievement that I am proud over is when I was able to get my mentor to meet Mr. Molin and have them reach a deal on cameras that would be installed in fifteen buses that my mentor tracks.

c.) I've updated my hours log.

Interpretive

       Over the past couple months, I've been working feverishly to find contacts for interviews and I've installed many units along with my mentor. In October my mentor and I installed one of the larger units into his personal car, just to show me how an installation works and what needs to be done afterwards to make sure the unit works properly. By knowing how to properly install and setup one of the tracking units I learned a whole lot in terms of how a unit communicates with satellites and cell towers to send its location data to a computer server and how people, specifically commercial vehicle drivers might benefit from having such a unit installed in their vehicle. In November, I contacted the finance manager at Mark Christopher Auto Center who wanted twenty units to be installed in the dealership's rental car fleet. The week after I talked to her, my mentor and I visited the dealership where we spent hours in car trunks making sure each unit was installed correctly and testing each and every one to see if they transmitted the correct information every thirty seconds. During the month of January I was able to land an interview with Mr. Molin who I had contacted back in December. I was also given a tour of his office building where all of the company's products are designed. The past couple of weeks though have been the busiest though. First of all I went with my mentor down to San Diego to supervise the installation of seven units into some vans. While in San Diego, my mentor also checked up on some other units to make sure they were running properly. Secondly, I took a tour of Odyssey Coach's new bus facility in Orange, CA along with my mentor. Shortly thereafter we did an inspection of Bus 42, one of the buses that was having issues with its unit. Thirdly, my mentor and I drove down to Santa Ana to meet with Mr. Molin and to discuss a potential deal with cameras that would be installed on the inside of some buses in San Diego to record what is happening and to have the camera hooked up with the tracking unit so it could send this data to my mentor's company servers. On the way back from that meeting we stopped of at the Odyssey Bus Yard to get an update on the situation with Bus 42. 

Applied

    By completing my independent component, I've learned quite a bit more than I would've by just researching my topic online or looking through books. For instance, when I worked with my mentor at the Odyssey Bus Yard, I learned how the actual units are installed, how they function, and the reaction from actual drivers who work for Odyssey. I have also spent countless hours with my mentor at his house just learning how to work the tracking website, the tracking iPhone application and how to repair malfunctioning units. The best part about this project so far is that I actually get to use one of the units in my car. I know exactly where my car is at all times, what the battery voltage is, and if the car is on or not. So far I have gained a lot of experience and knowledge about my topic just by shadowing my mentor and tagging along with him when he needs to go visit bus yards or car dealerships.

 Here is my mentor inspecting one of the buses at the Odyssey Bus Yard.

Here is Bus 42 being repaired by the yard's head mechanic.

This is Odyssey's official logo on the side of one of its buses.

Here is my mentor inspecting the work done by the lead mechanic at the Odyssey Yard.

Here is a stripped down trunk of one the cars my mentor and I were installing one of the tracking units in.

Here is Mr. Molin discussing with my mentor how his cameras work.

This is my mentor attaching the ground terminal from the unit to the car's battery.

In this picture, my mentor and I trying to solve a problem with one of the malfunctioning bus units.

Here is where my mentor runs tests on all of the units he purchases.

Here my mentor is inspecting the car's battery.