Entries for August 2005
Redesigning the Space Shuttle's External Tank
Senior year is already shaping up to be crazy. I have a feeling that I'll be having a hard time keeping up with everything. Recounting all of that, however, is not the purpose of today's entry. I plan to use this entry to keep track of resources, both for myself and my classmates, that I've found for a particular class project.
Our first project in EMAE 360, formerly Engineering Design (now heaven only knows what), involves redesigning the external fuel tank of the space shuttle to prevent insulating foam from detaching and damaging the shuttle during launch. The project itself is an individual project, but I imagine that it will require the combined efforts of many students in order to track down much of the information that we are expected to have. My goal is to use this entry as a repository of relevent information for the project. If anyone has anything to contribute, please feel free to comment or send me an e-mail. I'll update this entry with whatever I get.
Continue reading "Redesigning the Space Shuttle's External Tank"
In The News
I opened up Thunderbird this morning and checked my BBC news feed only to find a headline that caught my eye: Spy Craft Take Gull Flight Lesson.
Okay, so the headline didn't grab my attention, but the first lines did:
Aviation researchers at the University of Florida have copied the wing action of seagulls to develop spy drones that can morph shape mid-flight. [...] By watching how seagulls alter their wing shape, and using morphing techniques, the agile craft can squeeze through confined spaces, such as alleyways, and change direction rapidly.
This is the same group who works with some of the guys in the biorobotics lab on the Micro Air and Land Vehicles (MALVs) that I worked with last spring. Sadly, the article never mentions Case or the work we're doing. The focus of the article is on the purely aerial MAVs. Case has added Whegs™ that allow the craft to move on the ground as well as in the air. There is also work on a version that can move its wings to ease obstacle transition, very much the way the gull-inspired MAV in the article does.
This has been my "Hey, that's cool!" moment of the day.
A Most Exciting Day
Today has been quite a busy and exciting day. I started out by presenting with others at the Second Year Institute this morning. Afterwards, I stuck around for the keynote address from Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, Cleveland's congressional representative. I'm very happy that I did, actually. Her address was enjoyable, and it was refreshing to hear from a politician I don't despise. (As she pointed out, it's only the politicians who misuse politics that anyone hears about in the media.) I didn't know that she was a Case alum. Next time I feel the need to write her a letter, I'll be sure to mention that I'm a Case student. Maybe that will help it get noticed, ha!
When I made it to the Quad, I found most of the biorobotics lab outside for robot filming. The last couple of days have been hectic around there because a crew from Discovery's Animal Planet has been filming between there and Dr. Ritzmann's lab. So I stopped to watch a few minutes of extraordinarily staged shots of Quinn and Ritzmann carrying Whegs II out of Bingham (a building neither works in) and talking. I won't be anywhere in the final show because I had to leave about the time the film crew showed up yesterday, but I'm still looking forward to seeing the final project. Ideally, I think I'd like to watch it with my mother. As a middle school science teacher, there might be something of interest to her there.
When I got home today, I had a couple of important tasks. I wrote a draft of my first letter of recommendation today. A professor asked me to write one for him as a part of a grant for which he's applying. That was a bit intimidating, to be honest, but I think I've got a strong start on it. I'll polish it some in the next few days.
The other important task hanging over my head is an investigation of costs and options for replacing some of the RoboMoth equipment I've been working on all summer with SOURCE. The graduate student who usually works on RoboMoth is back now, and, seeing the problems I faced all summer in person, I think he may be a little surprised at how far I got. A meeting with all of the important parties happened earlier this week, and I was charged with getting cost estimates for upgrading the system. It's a little scary for me, actually, because I know I'm going to end up being asked for a recommendation, and anything we do at this point is going to have a price tag in the 10^3 range at minimum.
And, finally, the last and possibly most exciting aspect of today is this: a friend that I've known for two-and-a-half years online is arriving this evening. Picking her up at the airport tonight will be our first real meeting, even though we've been pretty close since the end of my freshman year. This constitutes the first time that I've met one of my blogger friends that I haven't already known in "real life" as we say in the blogosphere. To say that I'm excited is an understatement. I just hope that we don't make too frightening a scene in the airport tonight!
2005 Common Summer Reading
I picked up a copy of Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains today and started in on it. As most people at Case know, this book was selected as the summer reading for this year's freshman class. I actually have a tradition going here: I've read the freshmen summer reading books every year. (For reference, that means I've read Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, Oliver Sacks's An Anthropologist on Mars, and Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi.) I'm about two-fifths of the way through Mountains Beyond Mountains so far, and the first thing I can say about it is that it reminds me of Tanzania. In fact, the title alone reminds me of the month I spent in East Africa. Kidder took his title from a Haitian saying: "Beyond mountains there are mountains."
When my classmates and I arrived in the village of Monduli in rural Tanzania, life there was foreign, to say the least. It took time for us to adjust to the attitude of the Tanzanian students with whom we lived. One morning early in my stay, I stumbled out of bed and out to the lavatory to relieve myself and put my contacts in. Though I'd only been gone a few minutes and everyone else had been in bed when I left, I returned to find one of the Tanzanian girls I roomed with making my bed. After biting back my initial (and thoroughly Western) response of What is she doing touching my stuff?!, my thoughts were invaded by another flag of Western cultural ideas, namely: What did she want in return for making my bed? My initial reaction was one shared by my classmates; we needed time to recognize the sincerity of the Tanzanians' actions. They didn't make our beds or offer to wash our clothes for us because they expected anything in return. They did these things because their culture was one that stressed the community over the individual. I'd gone to Tanzania to help teach those students, but, in the end, I think they did a lot more in terms of teaching me.
Three weeks later, as we said goodbye to the students, no one wanted to leave. We felt like we'd been in Tanzania for ages. If anyone wanted to see his/her family back in Germany, it was to show them all the wonderful people we'd met and tell them about the experiences we'd had. On the last day, I passed my journal around to the Tanzanian students so that they could write a few words there. Many left their thanks and best wishes for my future; some left addresses where they could be reached by mail; but the most popular response was a Tanzanian proverb: Mountains never meet but people do.
Mountains Beyond Mountains whispers that to me each time I turn a page.
Home Sweet Huh? Part Two
The trip to North Carolina went smoothly on Tuesday. Some would say that it was uneventful, but I don't think that's quite true. There were lots of little events that I enjoyed noting. My baggage probably experienced a few more of those than I did; it got delayed a flight in Newark.
My mother, sister, and I arrived at the house around 20:30 or so, I think. We entered through the garage, where my attention was immediately caught by a set of drawers I had when I was little. My parents had painted rainbows and hearts on them, and at another point, I'd attached some photos to one set of drawers. They're still there: Salzburg, Holland, Girl Scouts... an eclectic mosaic of my life through early high school. We left my bags in the kitchen and started by going upstairs to the bonus room. I think this was a purposeful move on my mother's part because several of my posters and my bookshelf are right outside the room. Inside sits my old bed and chest of drawers. I had to spend a few moments examining my things: favorite books, notebooks with old stories, wooden brain teasers. Each brought a smile and memories.
The tour also hit the guest bedroom, where other assorted items of mine--a Greek statue of Artemis, my music box, and a fairy-like figurine I received to celebrate the completion of my first novel--reside. (My broadsword and archery equipment are on a shelf in the closet.) A long bathroom with two separate vanities connects the guest bedroom with my sister's, and one step into the guest side elicited a huge grin from me. My mother decorated the walls with some of my paintings and my collection of sunset photos. (As always, much of the house is filled with multi-photo frames I put together with memoirs from our travels.)
Some things, of course, are not as familiar. The home theater is almost entirely new to me, though I have helped move the leather recliners before. The sound and picture are incredible. It really does feel like a miniature theater. I get the urge to yell "Widescreen Stereo" sometimes. Missing Film Society much?
Dad asked last night if I was getting used to the new house. I replied that it was sort of difficult to get used to. "It's kind of like being a houseguest, except I recognize just about everything in the house," I told him. My parents' solution, of course, is that I should spend more time here. How they expect that to happen, I don't know.
Home Sweet Huh?
"I'm catching a flight to North Carolina tomorrow to visit my family. I'll be gone for a week." I've said that a few times today, always with the inevitable reply: "Going home for a week, then?" Um, not exactly.
When I came to Case as a freshman, my family was situated in Michigan, just outside of Detroit. It was a sizeable drive (three to four hours) between me and them, but it wasn't enough to prevent spending long weekends at home or even dragging a friend back with me every once in awhile. Sophomore year rolled around, and so did the moving truck. Midway through my third semester, my family relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, and I found myself booking a flight to a state I'd never been to for Thanksgiving break.
There's really no feeling quite as bizarre as walking into a house fully furnished with your furniture and having to ask where your room is.
The latest move, to a little place near Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has removed that burden from my shoulders. There is no bedroom for me (by joint decision between my parents and myself, I might add). But as logical as it might have been to say, "Hey, don't bother getting a room for me and my stuff," it's a lot more difficult to come to terms with that emotionally. I never felt that I belonged in Georgia--I spent perhaps eight weeks there over the course of a year-and-a-half--but at least I had a place I could call my own in it. I didn't set up my room there, true, but it was mine nonetheless, from the IB diploma on the wall to the little Dutch canal houses on the shelf.
I'll be staying someplace in the basement during my trip to North Carolina. The guest bedroom is being reserved for relatives who will be visiting next weekend. I expect this trip to be somewhat Twilight-Zonish; I've known for a long time that there's no going back to the way things once were, but now that I'm standing here, it seems like a huge step. At nearly twenty, I'm poised on a ledge where I cannot deny that adulthood is staring me in the face. I felt like I've matured a lot this past year, but I still don't know that I feel quite ready for this one.
Despite my misgivings, I feel sorrier for my little sister. She's pretty much been an only child the last three years, but, all the same, she did not take the news that I wouldn't have a bedroom in the new house well. Yesterday she told me she had a fight with Mom when she heard that I wouldn't be staying in the guest bedroom at all. Guess I should feel loved, right?
This week will be interesting, to say the least.