Friday-Weekend!

Today in my ISE lab we did Electric Discharge Machining. Lots of smoke and steam!

We used it to engrave squares into a plate.  We measured the roughness of each plate and will be writing a lab report on the results.

This one is pretty self explanatory.  I hope the actually manage to work out the bugs soon!

This is the result of the submarine fiberglassing from Tuesday.  It came out really well.  I got to go inside the submarine to epoxy the interior joints.  It was cramped and sticky, but it was fun all the same.

I don't have a picture for this one, but I've figured out my room/roommate for next year.  I'll be living with Todd Spurgeon, a third-year Galileo mentor.  Todd is an aerospace engineer and is also the unofficial head of the Nerf Coalition. I think we'll get along great.  My room is going to be facing the opposite direction of my current one, meaning I'll have an awesome view of the campus and the mountains!  I'm really looking forward to it!

Thursday-I've been stabbed!

Sorry about the lack of post yesterday.  I was distracted by a project I was working on.  I totally didn't forgot and then fall asleep.  That would just be ridiculous...*cough*...

Well onto today!  Today started out as a pretty good day.  I went to class and later I got some lunch, but when I was walking past Owens, some guy I'd never met before stabbed me in my arm.  I lost about a pint of blood! Look at the aftermath:

(Pink is the manliest color)

It wasn't all bad though.  Afterwards the guy bandaged me up, thanked me, and offered me snacks.  He also gave me a free t-shirt!

(If you can read this you are a life saver)

Tuesday-Back to our regulary scheduled content

I've been modifying my Barricade to fire farther, but due to the increased voltage, the motors sometimes overheat.  To prevent that problem I've added a cooling fan which circulates air over the motors.  Problem solved!

Of course, if I.m going to be modifying the electrical components of my gun, I might as well add some ultra-bright LEDs!  I can't wait for Friday, when I can show off my gun at the Nerf War!

On Sunday, I went to the Human Powered Submarine meeting.  We did some fiberglassing (top picture) and added a new hatch support(bottom picture).

Last night, I went to a presenentation on Peak Oil with Matt.  Its required for a course he is taking, but I thought it was very interesting information!

Monday-I didn't forget...

Umm, there are pictures coming.  And words to describe those pictures... But right now I'm having internet problems so they may have to wait... So I wrote you a poem instead:

An empty page, a vacant slate.
A place to write and to create.
A great potential unfulfilled
Waiting patiently to be filled.
So you must use your imagination,
To make this your own unique creation.
A blank sheet is an infinite possibility,
An open field of boundless fertility.
What comes next is up to you,
I only ask that you speak true.
True to strangers, to yourself, and to your friends,
And true until the very end.
For the very best works of art,
Are the ones which come from the heart.

Friday-Fun Stuff

In my Industrial Systems lab I got to use a robotic welder.  It turns out I'm much better at robotic welding than machine welding...

This is the finished product.  I made all of the parts for this and welded them myself.  The plate on the right was hand welded and the one on the left was machine welded.

After my lab I walked around the Duckpond for a bit.  You cant see it very well in this picture, but all of the weeping willows were blooming.

 The reason I was walking around the Duckpond is because I was waiting for Galapatia s'mores night to start! I helped light a fire and a big group of Galipatia members (about 30) made s'mores, played cornhole, and threw around frisbees.  It was a lot of fun.

Thursday-3D Printing Successful

I designed a little lightning bolt keychain in Autodesk Inventor. This afternoon I took it to Randolph and printed it out on the new 3D printers. It didn't come out perfectly but I like it.

This was just a test to see how well the printers worked and get some experience using them.  Now if I actually need to print something I can.

Wednesday-Not a lot actually!

I got my new SD card today, and I'm going to try to print something out at the 3-D Vending machine tommorrow if I have time.

The AA battery in my mouse died, and I didn't have any replacements so I replaced it with a AAA from my calculator and a piece of wire from one of my notebooks. It works surprisingly well!

I went to the submarine meeting today as well.  I worked on puuting in supports for the exit hatches, while other people attached the back of the shell to the rest of the sub.

Tuedsay-Random Pictures

It was a really nice day, so I decided to walk around a bit.  Here are some of the things I saw:

One of the places I ended up was the roof of the parking garage.  They were putting in these solar panels which will supposedly be used to power the lights in the garage.

From the top of the parking garage, I also got a close-up view of the construction of the Signature Engineering Building.  Its starting to look more and more like an actual building.

This was outside of the Civil and Industrial Engineering building. I think that they're chucks of concrete someone had tested and thrown away.  But now they're Art!

The DreamVendor 3-D Vending machine is up and running now.  I wanted to print something, but it turns out that you need an SD card 2gb or smaller and all of mine are too big.  I should be getting an good SD card soon, though.

And finally, the flowers outside Randolph, and all over campus, have started blooming.  Its not surprising considering the high today was 79 degrees.

Monday-Bridge Building Competition

As part of National Engineering Week, the Virginia Tech Student Engineering Council ran a popsicle stick bridge building competition tonight. I was going to compete with Matt, but he had something come up at the last minute, so I ended up working with a group of students form Students Helping Honduras.  This is our bridge,

It was very...well, random.  We only had Elmer's glue, so we had to keep gluing more sticks on to keep it from falling apart.  Here is what it looked like after it broke during testing:

My team didn't win, but we had a lot of fun and we got free food from Buffalo Wild Wings as well!  Here are some more bridges built by other teams:

And finally, the leftover bits from all of the bridges:

Monday-3D Vending Machine

The Mechanical Engineering department had a new display in Randolph Hall; a 3D vending machine. It holds for Maker-Bot 3D printers and the information posted said that anyone coils sign up to use them. It will be really great having the ability to easily create custom 3D parts. The display isn't finished yet, but it looks like it will be ready soon.