Entries in "Research"
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"
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!
Textbook Quotations
Every once in awhile textbooks manage to be amusing, but this is the first time I've seen a topic as dry as numeric methods manage to be amusing... or perhaps this is an indication of the sort of day I've had...
"There is a long story about why the denominator of [the varience equation] is N ? 1 instead of N. If you have never heard that story, you may consult any good statistics text. Here we will be content to note that the N ? 1 should be changed to N if you are ever in the situation of measuring the variance of a distribution whose mean is known a priori rather than being estimated from the data. (We might also comment that if the difference between N and N ? 1 ever matters to you, then you are probably up to no good anyway — e.g., trying to substantiate a questionable hypothesis with marginal data.) (emphasis in original)
SOURCE Week 3
I'm learning that getting an experiment ready is a long line of small successes that don't sound like much when you describe them to anyone else. All the same, things are moving along here in Glennan 809.