THANKSgiving

I got to go home to Oregon this past weekend for the Thanksgiving holiday.  When I landed in Portland at almost midnight, it was a crisp 18 degrees outside.  Nice.  Since Portland and Eugene were forecasted to have freezing rain on Thursday, my dad and I drove down to Roseburg Wednesday night right after I stepped off the plane.  We got in about 3:15A.M. local time, which was actually 5:15A.M. for me!  So, you can imagine how tired I was!  I didn’t even get to sleep in.  We woke up at about 8:00 to get everything ready to head up to the snow.  My family and our good friends, the Smiths, go up to the snow every year to get a Christmas Tree.  We decided to go on Thursday instead of Friday because of the weather.

So we head up towards Diamond Lake—elevation 5200 ft—to find our perfect Noble Fir Christmas Trees.  There was so much snow [and ice].  We had a party of 5 vehicles – a Jeep Liberty, a Ford F150, a Dodge Ram 2500, a Ford Expedition, a Nissan Xterra, and a little piece of junk pickup.  So we were all driving pretty slowly as the roads had not yet been rocked.  All of a sudden, the third car in line (Xterra) started fish tailing.  The rest of us held back waiting for her to get it together.  Alas, the car did a 180 and rolled down the hill, landing on its side.  The rest of the cars stopped as carefully as we could so as to prevent another wreck.  My best friend Morgan and I raced down to the car to see if everyone was all right.  Inside was my best friend’s sister Nikki, her husband, and their two babies.  To everyone’s shock, nobody was hurt!  The oldest baby, who would turn 4 in three days, was crying not because of the wreck, but because she thought they couldn’t get a Christmas tree anymore.  So we pulled everyone out of the car, and planned the next move.  The guys decided they could tip the car over and assess the damage.  Another surprise – the car had one dent above the front fender and the passenger mirror was broken off.  We could not believe there wasn’t more damage!

However, my best friend’s little brother Danny couldn’t find his brand new iPhone.  He had dropped it in the snow while tipping the car over, and it was, in fact, protected in a white cover.  Perfect.  The whole party of us [about 20 people] searched for the phone for at least an hour, but couldn’t find it.  So we continued up the road in search of our Christmas trees.  Everyone was so shaken up by the wreck, that we didn’t have much luck finding a tree for everyone.  My family found two, and Morgan found one for her house.  Of course we had to walk 50 yards in waist-deep snow to get to them, saw them with a saw that was about as sharp as a butter knife, and then pull them back out through the waist-deep snow.  Trust me, it’s much harder than it sounds.

By the time we had cut down a few trees, sledded down the hill, and eaten hot dogs, it was getting late.  We all piled back in our cars and headed down the mountain.  Danny wanted to stop one more time to look for his phone.  Everyone was walking around kicking the snow hoping the phone would turn up.  Danny was so frustrated and decided to give up looking.  He walked back to the car and kicked the snow in anger.  Turns out he kicked in just the right spot; his iPhone was kicked loose!  And it still worked perfectly.

Looking back, there are so many things that could have gone horribly wrong that day, but we got very lucky.  There is so much to be thankful for in life, and that Thanksgiving in the snow opened my eyes a little wider to really seek out all of the blessings in my life.

Random Fact:  A 747-400 has six million parts, half of which are fasteners.

Texas BEST 2010

This weekend was the annual Texas BEST Robotics competition. It was absolutely crazy. Schools from all over Texas (and even New Mexico) made their way to UNT's College of Engineering for the event. My first duty as an Engineering Ambassador was to give tours of the campus. The first was to a group of about 25 students from an all girls private school. The second was a group of around 15 home-schooled students. I got, let's say "lucky," with the size of my tour groups. I saw other tour guides walked around with near 60 ELEMENTARY school students. Elementary school students can program robots? When I was that age, I couldn't even figure out how to use Kid Pix (please tell me that someone remembers Kid Pix)!

Once the shock of 9-year-olds programming robots wore off, --well, no, that still hasn't quite wore off yet. I am still light years beyond amazed. Later that night, the whole lot of participants, mentors, drivers, chaperons, judges, and volunteers made their way to the Coliseum.

The teams had set up presentations for attendees to view. These things were huge; I saw one come out of the back of a U-Haul! A few of them even had big screen TVs with presentations playing on them.

The Friday Night Mixer was a blast.

The Engineering Ambassadors had a few game booths where BEST participants could win prizes including: an iPod Touch, a PSP, a digital camera, and even an iPad! I was at the "Name That Tune" booth which was great. The music DJ would announce an eligible song, and participants would have to write down the title and artist of the song in order to be put into the drawing. We had so much fun dancing to Cupid Shuffle and the Cha Cha Slide!

Texas BEST was a great experience; I can't wait for next year!

Random Fact: Leonardo da Vinci drew up plans for an armored humanoid machine in 1495. Engineer Mark Rosheim has created a functional miniature version for NASA to help colonize Mars.

Here's Your Sign

I should have figured that engineering is my destiny.  When I was little, I hated getting out of bed to turn on/off the light.  I was always designing contraptions that reached from right above my headboard along the wall to my light switch.  They didn't always work, probably because I was 6 and had no access to money or Radio Shack.

People often ask me why I want to be an engineer.  Why on earth would I want to go through 4+ years of math, science, physics and engineering courses?  What is so great about knowing how long it will take a room at 50 degrees, Fahrenheit to reach 72 degrees; or the force it will take for a hammer to pound a nail into a board; or why an LED will blink rather than glow steadily when you add an IC 555 to a circuit? 

The answer is simple:  I want to change the world.  No, you don't necessarily have to be an engineer to change the world, but think back in the past few hundred years to those inventions that we can't seem to live without today--the light bulb, cars, airplanes, computers, the iPhone.  I could very well spend a couple of months walking in the dark across the country just to ask my mom for more money for school, if it weren't for engineers. 

There is such a broad spectrum of engineering opportunities, too.  Maybe I want to build the next space shuttle; maybe I want to program a robot that will make all of my meals for me; maybe I want to design turbines that rotate by means of ocean current and produce enough power for the whole country; maybe I want to develop a material that will sustain a trip down an active volcano.  There are no boundaries when it comes to innovation and ingenuity, which is perfect since I am a color-outside-the-lines type of girl.

Random Fact:  Australia was the first country to use postcards.

Rain, rain, go away!

Well the internet is currently down, so I figured now would be a great time to open Microsoft Word and write a blog!  What a day it’s been!  It feels like a whole week has gone by with the odd weather patterns we’ve had in the past 3 hours—clouds, sunshine, thunderstorm, blue sky, clouds, wind, mist.  Welcome to Texas! 

(…On a side note:  I’m sitting at a table at Discovery Park writing this blog when one of the academic advisors comes and sits down with me!  He just had a few extra minutes to talk about internships and scholarships.  It makes me feel so good when the staff and faculty actually know not only my name, but my whole story—where I’m from, my major, my goals, etc.) 

Back to the weather.  It doesn’t rain a whole lot in Texas, but when it rains, it POURS.  Since it’s such a flat area and the ground isn’t at all absorbent, my poor little car refuses to drive.  The tires will spin out when I accelerate, and the whole thing will fishtail when I drive over 30 mph. Come on, car, you’re a Tiburon.  Tiburon means shark.  Sharks are kind of awesome in the water.  I just don’t get it.

Luckily, UNT has an awesome bus system that will pick me up from my apartment and take me to school, so my little weenie car doesn’t have to worry about driving in the rain.  The bus fare is included in tuition, so I never have to search under the couch cushions for spare change at the last minute.  It runs pretty late, too, for those semesters when our only choice is to take a night class.

So a big “Thanks!” to the UNT bus system.

Now my only worry is what on earth I will make for dinner.

Random Fact:  When a fly lands, it will vomit 7 times.

Robots of the Future

You may remember (or own!) the Rumba—you know, those robots that will scoot around and clean the floor?!  Well robotics has come long way since then!  Another Engineering Ambassador from UNT and I have been mentoring high school kids in programming robots, so I have been doing some research.  Since the Rumba, engineers have developed a robot floor-waxer and lawn mower.  But that’s not even the most incredible invention.  Engineers in China and Japan have developed human-looking robots.  There’s actually a robot that can do yoga!  Japan recently unveiled their new Robot Nurse (Actroid-F).  She knows how to mimic facial expressions—everything from a pleasant smile to a concerned brow-frown.  These new realistic robots even respond to touch!  Check out the video…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7tYwnqot6M

The nurse robot will be such a big help for hospitals.  While they can’t perform surgery (yet!), they can talk to patients and try to make them feel better.  I’m still undecided as to whether I’d be delighted or frightened by a robot telling me my cut-off arm was looking better.  It’ll just take some getting used to!

The aforementioned robots clearly have a purpose and function, but there are some that were created simply for entertainment purposes.  There is an annual competition called the Bacarobo, or stupid robot, contest.  The sole purpose of the robot is to make the audience laugh.  Check out this video…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQtwV0Atzdc

These new breakthroughs are so inspiring.  Right now I’m simply helping high school students program a Lego robot for a robotics competition, but maybe one day I’ll be programming a robot to program a robot!

Random Fact: Laughing can burn off 6 calories per minute!

Joke's On Me!

After waiting months on end, I finally got to watch the movie “Date Night” tonight. It was absolutely hilarious. Steve Carrel and Tina Fey always play these characters that are slightly nerdy but so clever and funny. Tonight, their nerd-tastic humor has inspired me to find some engineering jokes. Enjoy

Four Engineers and a Broken Car

There are four engineers travelling in a car; a mechanical engineer, a chemical engineer, an electrical engineer and a computer engineer. The car breaks down. "Sounds to me as if the pistons have seized. We'll have to strip down the engine before we can get the car working again", says the mechanical engineer. "Well", says the chemical engineer, "it sounded to me as if the fuel might be contaminated. I think we should clear out the fuel system." "I thought it might be a grounding problem", says the electrical engineer, "or maybe a faulty plug lead." They all turn to the computer engineer who has said nothing and say: "Well, what do you think?" "Ummm - perhaps if we all get out of the car and get back in again?"

The Guillotine

During the French revolution, hundreds of people were guillotined. One day, three men were led up to die. One was a lawyer, one was a doctor, and the third was an engineer. The lawyer was to die first. He was led to the guillotine, the attending priest blessed him, and he knelt with his head on the guillotine.

The blade was released, but stopped halfway down its path. The priest, seeing an opportunity, quickly said, "Gentlemen, God has spoken and said this man is to be spared; we cannot kill him." The executioner agreed, and the lawyer was set free. The doctor was next. He was blessed by the priest, then knelt and placed his head down. The blade was released, and again stopped halfway down. Again the priest intervened: "Gentlemen, God has again spoken; we cannot kill this man." The executioner agreed and the doctor was set free. At last it was the engineer's turn. He was blessed by the priest, and knelt, but before he placed his head on the guillotine he looked up. Suddenly, he leapt to his feet and cried, "Oh, I see the problem!"

Glass of Water

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Golfing

A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude! "The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him." [dramatic pause] "Hi, George. Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?" The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight." The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them." The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

Dilbert's "Salary Theorem" states that:

"Engineers and Scientists can never earn as much as Business Executives and Sales People."
This theorem can now be supported by a mathematical equation based on the following two postulates:
1. Knowledge is power.
2. Time is money
As every engineer knows: Power = Work/Time
Since:
Knowledge = Power
Time = Money
It follows that:
Knowledge = Work/Money
Solving for Money, we get:
Money = Work/Knowledge
Note that, as Knowledge approaches zero, Money approaches Infinity, regardless of the amount of work done.
Conclusion: The less you know, the more you make.

Random Fact: Texas’ native horny toad is actually a lizard and can shoot blood from its eyes

Embracing a DP Tour

I gave a tour of Discovery Park today unlike any tour I’ve given before. A prospective transfer student and his father came in to take a look at the College of Engineering. They were two of the most enthusiastic people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. They wanted to know every function, every purpose, and every spec of every machine in the building. And you know what?! I don’t blame them. There are some pretty awesome pieces of equipment at Discovery Park that many students aren’t aware of.

We asked people in different departments to explain to us what the various machines did. Materials Science and Engineering is easily one of the most incredible departments. They have an electron microscope worth over a million dollars! And this microscope is powerful—we’re talking 100,000 X magnification. To put it simply, that microscope is so powerful that you can actually see atoms of various materials! In the room next to the electron microscope they’ve got this machine that can engrave UNT’s logo at 10 microns—that’s about 1/8 the width of a strand of hair. It’s just amazing.

In Electrical Engineering we’ve got some robots being programmed to be Mars Rovers, which is equally as impressive. The department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering has an undergrad research group studying the possibility of a liquid nitrogen powered car. The Engineering Technology department even has their own wind tunnel!

Seeing people get so excited about the things we do at Discovery Park really makes me proud to be a student here. It would be really neat if we could set up a tour for current students so they, too, can see all of the remarkable things going on in each department.

Random Fact: One of the most popular forms of Halloween fortune-telling involved using a mirror to discover the identity of one's future husband. Although it had many variations, a typical method involved sitting before a mirror at midnight on Halloween, eating an apple and brushing one's hair; supposedly an image of your loved one would appear in the glass