Inspiration

My post about LEGOs inspired me to stop by the LEGO store that had recently opened at the mall near my apartment in Houston. They have a wall of bricks there that you can select different pieces from and then put into a cup. Once the cup is full you pay a set price for all of the bricks in the cup. Being the engineering student I am I couldn't help but think of the most efficient method of packing bricks into the cup, but I gave up about half way through and just started trying to fill the thing up with bricks I thought looked interesting. Long story short ....

Meet Frank the duck and his remote cotrolled propellor powered car.

I have no idea how often I'm going to have time to play with LEGOs this semester (judging from my first two days, not too much), but it is still fun to have them on my desk.

Excuse me while I go add wings to that car....

Learning me some knowledge

Classes began today at Baylor University. For the first time in three years I feel like I really have a good idea of what to expect out of most of my classes and professors. My schedule is far from what I would really like it to be, (too spread out) but I'm sure I'll make due and figure out a way to use my breaks productively.

Another first for me is the feeling that Baylor's Engineering school is growing too much. I came to this school precisely because of the fact that it was small and I had a good chance of getting to know all of my professors. This fall, our department has somewhere around 216 freshmen and I have to wonder if we can really support that number of students. We don't have to facilities for that many people, much less the professors to make small class sizes a reality. It seems that our department's strengths have suddenly become our weaknesses. I'm worried that there are going to be a lot of growing pains for the department in the next several years, but hopefully my class won't have to be the one that ends up getting the short end of the stick.

Getting down with the sickness

Today is the first day of my last weekend before school starts... and I'm sick. I'm not really sure what I have, but for some reason my sinuses have all gone crazy and I'm going back and forth between being congested and draining like crazy. Maybe it's the pollen in Waco, or maybe I'm just tired from a long, fun, and exhausting summer, but whatever the reason I am totally out of it. Hopefully I'll still be able to get a few things done today.

Thoughts on engineering (Part 1)

Tonight I took a break from unpacking all of my worldly possessions to have dinner with one of my friends and his dad. (I'll call him Mr. S) Mr. S is an engineer who works with the military on a number of various projects. I really enjoy getting to talk to professional engineers about their jobs, and during dinner Mr. S talked about how the military had started trying to get design input from former aerospace engineers from Boeing in an effort to gain a fresh perspective on some of the problems that have come up in Afghanistan and Iraq. At one point during the conversation we talked about how even though some of the solutions that had been thought up were great by aerospace standards they did not even come close to being viable answers to the problems that the soldiers were having on the ground.

I think it is fascinating that even though there are tons of similarities across all of the engineering related industries there are still such large differences. It can be intimidating at times to think that I might get stuck in some branch of engineering that I am not particularly interested in, but in the end I really just look forward to diving in head first and finding out what makes me tick.

Rainy Car Wash

My car has been through a bit of trauma in the last few days, so this afternoon when my younger sister asked me if I wanted to wash my car with her I figured it was a pretty good idea. We started out on the right track with our bucket full of soapy water, a few rags, a brush to clean my wheels, and the hose. Even the weather seemed like it was going to cooperate with us as we started working. Then, after we had finished up the passenger side of the car it started to drizzle. A few moments later it started to rain a tad harder. By that time I felt like we might as well finish the job since the car would look better once we were done even if it did keep on raining.

My car. Clean but still wet from the rain.

Throughout the rest of the job I could not help but think about how so much of life is just like that car wash. Often times I find myself working toward a goal for a long time only to take a step back and feel like my work was all for nothing. I've had this expereince with things as big as sin issues in my life to as small as studying for a quiz in a class. In the end things usually tend to work out if I persevere though. I'm so thankful that I serve a God who is able to break through my feelings of inadequacy, and I know that with Him life does not have to be like washing a car in the rain.

My little sister is watching the Olympics on TV here at home in Arlington. I've always enjoyed the Olympics, especially the summer games. I feel like they are a much more inclusive event than the winter games. I suppose that is rather inevitable though, since not every country can have snow for skiing or frozen lakes for curling. (You gotta love curling.) By the same token, not every country can afford the kind of infrastructure that it takes to train athletes for winter games (ski jumps can be a tad pricey). Realistically it is probably impossible for a small country that only sends one or two athletes to the summer games to somehow pull off a surprise victory in today's world of NASA funded swimwear and shoes designed to shave hundredths of seconds off of runner's times, but part of me hopes that there is still a chance. I guess I just can't resist rooting for an underdog sometimes.

Adventure on I-45

Today my younger brother, my dad and, I packed up my apartment and hopped onto I-45 to make the long, but usually mundane, drive from Houston to Arlington. Little did I know that soon I would be in for the adventure of a lifetime... or at least a few seconds of terror followed by some sweat and dirt.

I was driving along, minding my own business when suddenly the back end of my car started making a lot of noise and shaking. At first I thought I was just on a rough section of 45, but then I saw smoke out of my rear view mirror. I realized that this was not simply a rough section of road, but in fact an especially rough section of road and decided to pull over and see what kind of groves the department of transportation had put in the pavement. Low and behold when I pulled over to inspect the roadway I found out that the highway was actually pretty normal; I had just blown a tire. (Maybe that's what that tire-looking object was that I saw in my rear view mirror a second before pulling over...)

My tire (or lack thereof)

I've had a few flats before, but nothing has ever even come close to this one. I'm really thankful that I was in the right lane and had a fairly easy time pulling off of the highway and onto the shoulder.

My younger brother Connor was with me in the car and he managed to take the above photo and the video below once we got off of the highway. It seems that his habit of picture taking and movie making has payed off for my blog. Thanks bro! (Just to address the question before it gets asked, the purple bean-bag chair in the front seat belongs to my girlfriend. She left it at her house and I'm bringing it to her on Monday when I get back to school.)

On the bright side of things, I found out that I have a really cool jack in the trunk of my car. I also discovered that my spare tire is a real tire and not just a doughnut. How cool is that? I'm definitely buying another VW when I get a new car. Now if only they would find a way to keep the tires from exploding...

The Business of Engineering

As previously mentioned, today is my last day at Lockheed Martin this summer. I have really enjoyed this job, and one thing that has made it really interesting is the number of on-site lectures that I have had the chance to attend over at Johnson Space Center. The lecture that I went to this morning was probably the most thought provoking of any of the talks that I have been to this year. Interestingly enough, the topic being discussed wasn’t engineering, but business. It was given by Karim R. Lakhani from the Harvard School of Business over the topic of innovation and techniques for managing distributed and open innovation.

Before going to the lecture I looked over a business case study that had been provided to attendees. The case study dealt with a t-shirt company called Threadless that uses a business model where customers submit t-shirt designs to the website and then other people vote on the best designs. The winning designs are then selected and made into shirts. A national retailer approached the company and offered to sell their shirts in their stores, and the study dealt with whether doing business with that store would be a good idea for the company. The ultimate goal of the talk was to see how NASA, and perhaps the rest of the aerospace industry, could benefit from this kind of model. I had to leave before a conclusion was reached, but everything that was said got me thinking about a different topic than what I normally stew over and I found it quite enjoyable.

I know that engineers are not supposed to enjoy business (I’ll be the first to admit that most of us equate business major with partying and slacking off), but I think that there are a lot of really fascinating aspects of the business world. Maybe this stems from my propensity to try and understand the big picture of what is going on with a situation whenever I am confronted with something new. Who knows? All I know is that I can see myself getting into management someday and really enjoying trying to work all of the kinks out of a big project. Maybe I’ll look into getting an MBA once I’ve spent some time in industry after I’m done with my master’s degree in engineering.

Or maybe I’ll just be sick of school at that point.

LEGOs (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love engineering)

Despite what my previous post might suggest, I have not always been fascinated by the space program, NASA, or even engineering in general. I’m pretty sure I’ve always been a nerd though.

A large portion of my childhood was spent playing with LEGOs. I would build lots of different things out of LEGOs, but I mostly focused on putting together houses with my little square blocks. Once I discovered that there were people who did this kind of thing in real life and that those people were called architects I more or less decided on what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I started reading books about architecture and quickly learned that you needed to be able to draw to become an architect. This was a rather depressing development for me, mainly because I had a lot of trouble drawing anything that was even remotely…not horrible.

Right around this same time period our family got our first computer. Like every other kid my age I found out that computer games were awesome and that I really, really, really enjoyed controlling little pixilated objects. Sometime around junior high school I decided to abandon my hopes of becoming an architect (all those video games sort of got in the way of teaching myself to draw) and decided instead to get a job working on computers someday. Now, at the time I didn’t know that “working on computers” was not actually a job description. I started reading up on computers, watching TechTv, and dreaming about what it would be like if I had enough money to build an awesome computer.

My definition of an aweosme computer.

By the time high school was about half way over I realized two important things that would forever change my life: 1) Jobs in the IT industry were about as interesting and fun as watching paint dry and 2) I was really, really good at physics. I got interested in the subject after reading a weird book that my chemistry teacher assigned one day for extra credit. I ended up reading through the entire Arlington Public Library collection on physics over the course of the next year or so and thus my path to complete geekdom was forever set in stone.

Once I had finished all of those books I decided that even tough I enjoyed the topic, physics itself was far too theoretical for me and I needed to find a career path that would allow me to be involved with more directly applicable principles. (I was probably 16 or 17 at the time.) Needless to say I wasn’t going to be one of those kids that went off to college trying to decide between majoring in anthropology or basket weaving. . (Not that there is anything wrong with that. I know a lot of great people who would major in basket weaving if my school offered it…).

During my college search I became involved with a program that NASA offered to high school kids who might be interested in engineering called “NASA Texas Highschool Aerospace Scholars” or HAS for short. (They do love their acronyms down at NASA) I got into the program in an effort to try and find out more about the engineering industry and ended up really enjoying the whole space flight thing. A few months into the program I participated in an online chat with a NASA employee who went to Baylor. I visited the campus with a friend that spring and fell in love with it.

Long story short (I know, I know, it is too late for that) in two weeks I will be entering my third year at Baylor University as a Mechanical Engineering student and I will be finishing my internship with Lockheed Martin’s Orion Crew Impact Attenuation (CIA) group tomorrow.

No really, I actually worked for Lockheed Martin this summer.

I’ve come a long way from those LEGOs. I wonder how many other engineers that company has a hand in creating over the years…

Nalgene and BPA

Doesn't look all that dangerous, does it? (Don't worry, I'm not going to be giving a chemistry lecture.) The above chemical is called Bisphenol A, or more commonly BPA. Normally I would find a chemical structure to be about as fascinating as a pencil box, but this one happens to be capable of "hormone-linked trends in human health such as...increases in neurodevelopmental diseases such as ADHD and autism, increased child obesity, decreased sperm count, and more breast and prostate cancers."( Web MD )

Even that wouldn't normally be enough to pique my interest, because let's face it, there are a lot of chemicals out there that have the potential to give me cancer and scar my children's mental development down the road. We live in a modern society after all, and I'm sure that I have been briefly exposed to things far worse at one point or another in my life. However, this nasty little guy just happens to be contained in the plastic that makes these:

Looking at this picture, you can figure out a couple of things about me. One, I am a nerd with NASA logos on my water bottles and two, I use my nalgenes a lot. By a lot I mean I-don't-think-I-have-gone-more-than-two-days-in-the-past-eight-months-without-using-one-of-those-two-bottles. You can see why I would be slightly concerned by this news...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a hypochondriac by any stretch of the imagination. If a cookie falls on the floor and that floor is even remotely clean I'll pick it up and eat it, but I'm not really into taking risks with man-made chemicals. (Heck, I use deodorant instead of anti-persperant because I don't want the aluminum in anti-persperants to increase my odds of getting male breast cancer.)

Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (D - CT) recently requested that the FDA begin an investigation of products that contain the chemical in order to determine what kinds of risks consumers might be exposed to while using one of those products. Nalgene has claimed that their products do not leech any BPA unless subjected to extreme temperatures outside of recommended levels. The jury is still out, but until they get back with a verdict I think I'm going to think about getting a couple of new water bottles.

Right after I get a drink of water. Where is that thing anyway?

Obligatory First Post

So, here I am writing the first post in my new blog. I don't particularly have a whole lot to say at the moment, but I'm sure I'll come up with something soon. I'm mainly writing this to give myself some content to mess around with in order to get the formatting right on here.

Here's a link for aforementioned test purposes: Baylor University