Almost to the end of the semester. I’m done with classes. Finals are next week. I have two real test finals, one Tuesday (Physics) and one Wednesday (Calculus). I have take-home essay finals due Wednesday afternoon (Philosophy), and Thursday morning (History). Or, in place of the History essay, I can come to class and take a real essay final Thursday.

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Last week, I mentioned the Design competition. On to the results.

Our team did pretty well, the paddle wheel worked good, and we had about 30 points worth of whiffle balls. Then disaster struck. Well, it wasn’t that bad, but it was the end of the competition for us.

Our device used two motors, one for each of the rear wheels. This was the drive system, but it also was the steering. Bu going forward on the right wheel, adn backward on the left, the device would turn to the left. By manipulating the power to the two wheels, the device was very maneuverable. However, about 30 seconds before the end of the competition, the small set screw in the right motor fell out. (Left) The screw holds the spinning gear in the motor to the axle. After it was gone, the motor still turned, but the wheel didn’t turn with it.

That meant that the motion our device could make was a bog circle. We were close to out area, and Martin, the guy driving, almost got it arround the barrier infront setup area, where we were trying to get. If we’d had anohter 15 seconds or so, we might have gotten back. As it was, time ran out, and we, having returned 0 balls to the startup area, got 0 points.

Other teams did better, although some did worse. One team had their frame built entirely of balsa wood, and it was basically a jail cell without a bottom. That is, all the supports were vertical, with no cross bracing. They bumped into someone else, which kind of damaged their device, and then were accidentally rammed by another team–the picture is of their device after the competition. Surprisingly, after their device was destroyed, another device accidentally knocked a ball into their startup area, and they got a score of 2 points.

Another device was built to stand up, about 12 or so feet tall, and then fall down over the arena. It has two towers, and a cross bar between them at the top. After it fell, the cross-member would be pulled towards them, sweeping up all the balls that were inside the device. If it worked, it would have been a major point scorrer. However, as i said several times before the competition, it will either work perfectly, or not at all. There were so many things that could go wrong, all of them vital to the success of the deveice.

Did I mention that the device was probably 12 feet tall, when standing? And that the room where the practice board was set up had only about 10 foot ceilings? They never had tested a start from vertical. And did I mention that you only had two minutes to set up? THIS is what got them. When properly set up, the posts should be vertical, and parallel. This is so when it falls, they are the same distance apart the whole way back, rather like a train track. Imagine a train track where all of a sudden, it got narrower. The train would get stuck. They set it up with the bottoms of the posts too close together. I could instantly see that they would get stuck on the way back. However, their failure was more spectacular than that.

They had two lengths of 50# fishing line running to the top of the device, to stabilize it. Each length ran to one of the two posts. You may recall, the rules stated that once the time started, you could not touch teh device, and before the time started, the device had to be within the startup area (which had no upper limit). This meant that they had to use a remotely controlled mechanism to cut the strings. When they set up the device wrong, it caused the strings to not have as much tension on them as they should have. When they went to cut them, it took a bit longer than they epected, and then it cut one of the strings. I was talking with one of the team members afterwards, and he said “As soon as if cut only one string, I knew what was going to happen.”

The side that had had the sting cut started to fall, but was still supported on the other side. This caused the device to start twisting, and then the whole thing fell down, with the rails twisted, across each other. It had been a bit controversial if this group should be allowed to compete at the same time as other groups, and had been decided that as there was one extra goup, they would compete solo. So after their device collapsed, they decided to use the remainder of their time to give a demostration to the audience of how it would have worked. Unfortunately, the twisting had damaged the device, and it would no longer pull all the way in. Another score of 0.

If you want to see further results (just numbers, not pictures or commentary), see the course website. My team was E1, the team with the tower was E2, and the destroyed device was Team E7. All were in my section of the class, hence the E.

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I happened across a quiz, today:

Which File Extension are You?

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Got to run if I’m going to make it to lunch before it closes.

–Nathan

I was intending to get out a post earlier this week, but it’s not going to happen. Competition results, finals week gripes, and much mouch more coming eventually. I even have a post drafted, about half done. Too much to do to elaborate–I’ll try to get to this this weekend, or else next Thursday.

–Nathan

I really need to go to bed soon. I was up until late Wednesday night, in part due to the fact that Nik and a few others came in and started playing Halo at 1:30. In all fairness, he asked if I minded, and I said no. I really didn’t think they,d still be going at 3, though. I went to bed a few minutes after 3, and I guess they quit about 3:40. None of them had classes until after 11, though. (My first class Thurs is at 9:45, not terribly early, but enough that 3 is a bit late.)

Then last night, I went out to Café Procrastiné about 10:40, and they were decorating the lounge. Well, Nick Zubach was, and maybe one other person. So I helped, and we quit decorating at 12:30, or so. We had Icicle lights all the way arround the room, at the top, and colored lights in various places. There is a tree, all decorated, and the mantle has garland arround it, as well as more lights. There’s even a train set arround the tree. After we finished, there were a few of us out in the lounge, just talking. The movie White Christmas was played, but by the middle of the movie, just Ryan and I were left. At 3, I decided that I was going to bed, and wasn’t going to bother the finish the movie.

After we decorated, while we were talking, several lights were starting to fall down. The duct tape just wasn’t enough, I guess. At one point, I had just turned the train on for one trip arround the track, adn then walked across the room to re-tape some lights. I heard the train get caught, and went back that way. I chose to go over the back of the couch. As near as I can tell, I put my foot on the top of the back, and pushed off, and my foot slipped back down towards the cushions. At any rate, I was going forward, and my foot was still on the top of the couch. I fell, and stopped myself with my arm. I was a bit sore after that. 😉 Actually, my arm still feels kinda funny. I don’t really think anything is wrong, but I have an appointment Monday at the health center, and I’ll have someone look at it if it still feels wierd. Otherwise, I’ll cancel. It kinda feels like a bit of growing pain, or something. I feel it ont he inside of my arm, though, and when I lift something with my palm up, I can really feel it. We’ll see how it goes.

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Starting at 1:00 tomorrow, and lasting til about 4ish, is the Design competition. My team is now in decent shape, we finished the device about 5:30 tonight. I don’t remember if I’ve blogged about the competition yet, so I’ll run over it briefly.

As part of my Intro to Engineering class, we have this competition. You are given limited parts, and you have to construct a device that will collect whiffle balls from a competiton arena. There will be four devices in the arena, at the same time, competing for the same balls. There are four balls the size of a softball, worth 10 points each, 8 balls the size of a baseball, worth 5 points, and 50 balls, worth 2 points each, the size of a golf ball. There is a 2 minute time limit. There are 4 prizes the easiest to explain are: one for most points, one for most ingenious. YOu have the option to stop collecting balls at any time, and so there is a prize for the most points per total time collecting. So if you aren’t going to get any more balls, you may as well quit, so you don’t run up your time.

As we built this, we were charged fake money for supplies. You got a basic kit, and then had the option to purchase additional supplies. There is no spending limit, and you have nfinite money to spend, but the fourth prize is for the most points per dollar spent. To my knowledge, very few people built their devices with an eye on this prize.

The competition is a pretty big event. Besides all teh freshman engineers, there will be a lot of parents, and they invite prospective students out too. I had the option of having invitations sent to some of my high school teachers, and sent ones to Mrs. Collins and Mrs. McAndie. I doubt either will come, but I thought they might be interested. Mrs. McAndie told my Dad a few weeks ago that she won’t be coming.

Here is what my device looks like:

We have a paddle wheel to scoop up the balls. This is a design shared with about 20 other devices. And to my knowledge, all of us thought we were the only ones that thought of a paddle wheel.

I have to show up at noon tomorrow, and we find out the order of competition at 12:30. I’ll try to take a few pictures, but we’ll see.

Until later

–Nathan

I have a lot of things to do, some more important than others. Since I can’t motivate myself to start anything, maybe listing them will help:
[EDITED 12/3 to try and cross off some stuff. Apparently, it doesn’t work right. Its not worth troubleshooting, so you may or may not see the crossed out stuff. It’s there, but I can’t see it.]

• Write Prayers of faithful for tonight
• finish calc
• pack for trip home tomorrow

• laundry

• include ace bandage
• towels

• overdue Clancy book
• Grammie’s coffee mug
• homework

• history texts, assignment
• physics book, assignment

• laptop, cords

• mouse batteries

• Palm
• church clothes

• pants need ironing

• toiletries

• bike lock
• prepare room for departure

• trash
• lock windows
• unplug everything

• remove clock battery (or take it home)

• leave fridge plugged in, if stuff in it

• choose core class, register (Kitty)
• see about time conflict

• write Philosophy paper (due next Wed)

• find good source on other side of argument (library?)

• write history paper (due the Tuesday after next)
• read Lincoln text

• read Douglass text

• read last few chapters in History Textbook
• update website

• humor

• create template

• add “last updated” script to all pages

• modify to use written month, like top of navbar

• update blog

• add pictures of college to website
  • take general around campus shots

• reply to post on Alooforum
• clean desk
• vacuum

• write letter to Grammie

• take a shower

• shave
• brush teeth

• engineering final report
• sketch

• work on project

• Martin, Peter RE tomorrow afternoon (probably not)
• fix paddle
• decide on drive for paddle
• build motor mount
• wire motor

• new linens (Mon/Tues)
• buy new watch/watchband

That’s a thouroughhy impressive list. Now to get started…

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Nik had an interesting experience with his debit card recently. He went downtown to pick up an amp that he had purchased before, and he also bought some strings. He paid for the strings with his debit card. Apparently, the machine at the store instructed the clerk to confiscate his card, as it thought it was stolen. He argued about that for a while, but there was nothing to do short of jumping the counter to get the card back, as I understand. So they asked if he had another way to pay for it, and he used the card for the other account, the one he got through Washington Mutual so he could use the ATM here. That went just fine, and he ended up with the strings. So he called his bank later that day, and learned that there was a temporary glitch in Visa’s computers that caused his card to come up that way. Either the card was already locked, or his bank locked it then. The bank will send him a new card in the mail. So this was the state of things when I first learned of the situation (that afternoon).

At some point, in the next few days, he noticed that the initial charge had gone through, before the card was confiscated, and he had been double charged. He called the guitar shop, and the guy checked his records, and could not find a record of the first card having been charged. He then told Nik that “I bet your bank is trying to screw you.” If one stops and thinks about that, however, you realize that the bank is in trouble if anyone finds out that they are stealing money, and what is the motivation for a bank where he has his whole savings to steal $20 from his account?

He called his bank back, and last I heard, they were planning on calling the guitar shop the next day and informing him that the charge had indeed gone through.

I have no idea why I thought of this, as this actually happened about a month ago, and I haven’t yet asked Nik how it went. He got some mail from a bank the other day, though. I’ll have to ask him.

All for now
–Nathan

This is coming slower than I’d planned. Apparently, uni.cc is not working now, so if you follow that link to my new site, all you’ll get is an error page. I want to use a re-direct so that I can move hosts again if necessary, and not have to change all my links and stuff. For now, just use my Sitesled Address. I will update when I get a better handle on it. I have until Dec 15 bef ore my other host closes down, but I want to get the new address up and running so I can link to it for a month or so.

Okay, I decided to do another week.

I have other stuff to post, but don’t feel like it right now, so here goes:

1. Small Talk::chater
2. Evidence::crime
3. Drifting::river
4. Hostage::plane
5. Beauty::makeup
6. Automatic::car
7. Asking for it::trouble
8. Visene::vaseline
9. No strings attached::falling
10. Frizz::hair

List provided by :

I just found out that my free webhost will be closing down on December 15. I’ve known that they were not making a profit for a while now, and so the news was not a terrible surprise, but it is really dissapointing. With the webhost goes the forum, which I will miss most of all. There are several regualar posters who I have come to be good friends with, and we won’ t be able to hang out anymore.

Now I will have to find another place to host my website, but that doesn’t even bother me as much as the closing of the forum. It’s strange, they were almost like family. I knew their names, where they lived, where they worked, what their interests were, and much more.

For those wanting to keep up with my website, www.nathanoliver.uni.cc will always link to the home page of my site, wherever I move it to. For those of you who access my site through my Blogger profile, I will update that link to my new site, too. If you have a link bookmarked that has “Aloofhosting” in the URL, that link won’t work after December 15.

–Nathan

It’ s WAY too early. Today, Nov 1, I saw a Christmas Commercial. On the first of November! Christmas has already taken over Thanksgiving, but Nov 1! Next thing you know, we’ll be telling kids to be good, or the neighbors won’t give them any Halloween Candy (which they are collecting in a stocking). AArgh!

I got my Physics quiz back today. The quiz had only one problem on it, and it happened to be the problem from the homework that I hadn’t understood very well, but hadn’t yet bothered to worry about. So I spent the first part of the time alloted trying to solve it in a way that I realized wasn’t working. About the time I got on the right track, (as it turns out) she announced” “5 minutes left, you should be well on your way to finishing.” So I rushed though one or two parts, and then wrote down the rest of the process I would have followed. But I was actually stuck, and even if I had another hour, that was all I could have done. I had an equation with the Normal Force, the coefficient of Static friction, and the Friction Force, but couldn’t solve it becaue of too many variables. I finished, thinking I’d failed it, or maybe gotten 6/10.

I got the quiz back, and realized she gives more partial credit than I was aware of. I ended up with a 9/10. The only comment that she made on the test was that I needed the equation max static Friction=coefficient of Static friction*Normal force. (It’s really hard to write it out, so I’ve tried to draw it. See it to the left.) It’s a really good feeling to see that you’ve gotten 90% on a quiz you thought you’d failed. It’s an experience I hope never to repeat, though. That is, i hope I never have a reason to think I failed a quiz.