Super Mega Earthquake Swarm Team GO!
I know I've said several times that I'd never use post what's going on in my life on LJ, but the last few days have been so incredibly awesome that I have to write it down before I forget. So here goes. This should be pretty long.
Wednesday
Got to the airport, on the plane, and to Boston without any trouble. Josh (the coordinator of the InvenTeams program) was already there waiting for us, as was our luggage. Apparently it had been sent over on an earlier flight (we checked luggage at National at ~9AM and didn't leave until 11:45). Then, at 3, an event occurred that changed our team's lives for the next 3 days. We met Richard, our archnemesis! Richard's one of those guys you absolutely love to hate. We were sitting in lobby of Baker Dorm, waiting for the official InvenTeam welcome when Richard walked over and saw, from our nametags, that we had worked on microbial fuel cells. "Ah, micro-bile fuel cells," he said, "We worked on kinetic fuel cells"
Rant about definition of fuel cells
Richard kept calling his project kinetic fuel cells. It had NOTHING to do with fuel cells. I spent a month researching fuel cells in general before moving into microbial fuel cells specifically. A fuel cell is classified by the type of fuel it uses, whether it be hydrogen, solid oxide, microbes, etc. Kinetics is in no way fuel. This wouldn't have been so annoying if Richard wasn't such an ass.
End Rant
Richard went on to show us one of his nifty toys and talk about Physics. Then he told us what we should have done: "I read all the reports and..." *blah blah use physics blah blah*. Anyway, being the first person we'd met, we all started to freak out, wondering if EVERYONE there would be like him, so we agreed answers to certain questions. For example - Q: Does your project work? A: Yes. Fortunately, everyone else was really cool.
Following the welcome, we went on a tour of the campus. Sadly, it was the exact same tour they give to prospective students, so it was full of MIT propaganda. Then we went to the BBQ dinner at the dorm. We met some other groups for the first time and discussed our projects. After dinner, we went off to the Stata center for some showcase we were to participate in (not the InvenTeams showcase, that was Thursday morning).
We unpacked the box we'd sent to MIT a few weeks ago and I started mixing the solutions to put in the fuel cell. I pulled everything I needed out of the box and, after searching through the packaging material for about 5 minutes, realized that there the graduated cylinder I thought we'd packed was not there. Since I couldn't really do anything else, I then got to have fun trying to guess at how much water I was supposed to mix with the powders and hope everything worked properly. The result was a fuel cell that was producing only ~1/10 the voltage it was supposed to. Oh well.
The entire experience was far better than the science fair. There was no grilling of people standing in front of the posters; everyone was very impressed and we all felt good about ourselves. Some of the other teams had nifty robots running around the floor. Of course, as this was the ONLY time the entire trip I didn't have an umbrella with me, it was the only time it rained. We all had to walk back in the rain, and were soaked by the time we reached the dorm.
Thursday
Thursday morning started with the InvenTeams showcase immediately after breakfast. This was pretty much the same as Wednesday night, but one woman was impressed enough by our project that she asked me and Kristen Berberich (the two presenting at the time) for contact info so she could send us some info about internships and stuff. That was pretty cool.
Around 11, the showcase was moving pretty slowly. There weren't many people walking around, so most of the team didn't have anything to do. Eric Martin (soon to be called "Crutches" by the entire team) had been saying since the night before how he wanted to draw DNA on the big 12 foot tall blackboards around Stata. So he did. I was busy manning our booth, but the rest of the team had great fun drawing the chemical structure of DNA on the board. Some of the girls got on each other's shoulders so they could reach high enough to continue. Some MIT people took pictures of it while they were drawing. It was awesome. I took a picture of the completed project if anyone wants to see it.
Presentations began after lunch and the big group picture. All the presentations were pretty good, and some of the projects were surprisingly well done. The speaker following the last of the day's presentations, however, was incredible. This woman had only recently graduated from MIT, but her resume was unbelievable. Miss Massachusetts 2004, founder of TWO companies, winner of half a dozen or so awards (at the age of 12, she wanted to see if cells committed suicide when infected with a virus. This was recently proven to be true). It made us feel kind of inadequate in comparison, but I liked her statement about how we shouldn't lower standards if people aren't meeting them; we should find out WHY they're failing and fix that. If only more people would figure that out.
Dinner was hilarious. We had lobster, and had to crack open the shells and everything. Kaelin was having some difficulty getting to the meat, so Mr. Gaudreault walked over and did it for her, squirting her in the face in the process. Everyone was squirting everyone else and laughing. You really had to be there. After dinner was a trip to the MIT museum. They had some cool holograms and statue-gadget things.
Friday
We started the day with more presentations. We went second. Mary, Sharon, and Kristen did an excellent job, even though it ran long and they had to get cut off. Kristen was awesome during the Q&A. During our presentation, our favorite person Richard had been using a laptop and had apparently pulled up a research article on microbial fuel cells published a few months ago and gave its full title and what had been presented in it. Kristen responded by saying that we'd been collaborating with Dr. Logan, the guy who wrote the article. He'd been helping us all year with our questions. She also listed a few of the differences between our project and the article, and ending with "And I'd also like to point out that its his JOB to do research. He has the resources of Penn State, we have a high school lab." The audience exploded with applause.
Crutches later drew a comic about Richard that we all found hilarious. I don't think I've ever laughed that hard in my life - I was actually starting to cry, I was laughing so hard. I can't really describe the comic, but I can try to reproduce it if anyone wants to see it.
After the presentations, the other teams went on tours while we stayed at the dorm to "study for finals". Mary and Sharon and Ed when to Blockbuster and picked up The Bourne Supremacy and Breakfast at Tiffany's, which we watched when we got back and that night before bed.
The banquet was excellent. The food was very good, and the speakers were just as good (possibly better). The second speaker was (I can't remember his first name) McLurkin. He'd created "The Swarm" (this post's title comes from his presentation). Basically, he communicated a goal to a command robot which would then send commands to as many as 150 other robots to complete the task. He was an excellent speaker and talked about an hour longer than he was supposed to, I think, but nobody cared cause he was cool. After the banquet we went back to the dorm to relax.
Saturday
We toured Fenway Park after breakfast. We got there a little early, so we went to the nearby souvenir shop. They were closed for another 10 minutes, though, so we sat on the stairs right next to a sign that said "do not sit on the stairs" and waited. I really wish I'd had my camera with me, because inside the souvenir shop was this big blue sign that said "NOT AN EXIT" hanging over what appeared to be an exit. Sorry Mike.
After the tour we went directly to the airport. We checked our luggage (once again, over 2 hours early) and went to get something to eat. Burger King is giving away Star Wars toys in their kids meals now, and Crutches, Mary, and Sharon entered into a "contract" to collect the entire set over the summer, hold them for ~30 years, then make "millions" selling them. To this end, Sharon went up the woman at the register and asked if she could buy individual toys. The woman just handed her one of every kind they had and told her to go away. Meanwhile, Mary was freaking out at the table and everyone else was laughing at the entire situation. We boarded the plane and got home without any problems.
Sorry for the length of that, but you were warned. If you want something shorter, look here.
Trip = Awesome. I probably spent 60% of the time laughing, most times REALLY hard.
Eric Martin's new name is Crutches, propagated by Sharon. The entire team calls him that now.
Everyone on the trip was cool, with the exception of a guy named Richard, who was an ass. After he tried to attack our project, we made fun of him behind his back every chance we got. I personally think he was jealous of how much better our project was than his. Crutches drew a comic that's hilarious, I can probably reproduce it if you want to see it.
Food = "mmmm...*drool*"
The entire trip was very well planned. Everything happened on time (with only one minor exception), the food was great, and everyone was really nice and supportive. An awesome experience.
And now I'm done.
Wednesday
Got to the airport, on the plane, and to Boston without any trouble. Josh (the coordinator of the InvenTeams program) was already there waiting for us, as was our luggage. Apparently it had been sent over on an earlier flight (we checked luggage at National at ~9AM and didn't leave until 11:45). Then, at 3, an event occurred that changed our team's lives for the next 3 days. We met Richard, our archnemesis! Richard's one of those guys you absolutely love to hate. We were sitting in lobby of Baker Dorm, waiting for the official InvenTeam welcome when Richard walked over and saw, from our nametags, that we had worked on microbial fuel cells. "Ah, micro-bile fuel cells," he said, "We worked on kinetic fuel cells"
Rant about definition of fuel cells
Richard kept calling his project kinetic fuel cells. It had NOTHING to do with fuel cells. I spent a month researching fuel cells in general before moving into microbial fuel cells specifically. A fuel cell is classified by the type of fuel it uses, whether it be hydrogen, solid oxide, microbes, etc. Kinetics is in no way fuel. This wouldn't have been so annoying if Richard wasn't such an ass.
End Rant
Richard went on to show us one of his nifty toys and talk about Physics. Then he told us what we should have done: "I read all the reports and..." *blah blah use physics blah blah*. Anyway, being the first person we'd met, we all started to freak out, wondering if EVERYONE there would be like him, so we agreed answers to certain questions. For example - Q: Does your project work? A: Yes. Fortunately, everyone else was really cool.
Following the welcome, we went on a tour of the campus. Sadly, it was the exact same tour they give to prospective students, so it was full of MIT propaganda. Then we went to the BBQ dinner at the dorm. We met some other groups for the first time and discussed our projects. After dinner, we went off to the Stata center for some showcase we were to participate in (not the InvenTeams showcase, that was Thursday morning).
We unpacked the box we'd sent to MIT a few weeks ago and I started mixing the solutions to put in the fuel cell. I pulled everything I needed out of the box and, after searching through the packaging material for about 5 minutes, realized that there the graduated cylinder I thought we'd packed was not there. Since I couldn't really do anything else, I then got to have fun trying to guess at how much water I was supposed to mix with the powders and hope everything worked properly. The result was a fuel cell that was producing only ~1/10 the voltage it was supposed to. Oh well.
The entire experience was far better than the science fair. There was no grilling of people standing in front of the posters; everyone was very impressed and we all felt good about ourselves. Some of the other teams had nifty robots running around the floor. Of course, as this was the ONLY time the entire trip I didn't have an umbrella with me, it was the only time it rained. We all had to walk back in the rain, and were soaked by the time we reached the dorm.
Thursday
Thursday morning started with the InvenTeams showcase immediately after breakfast. This was pretty much the same as Wednesday night, but one woman was impressed enough by our project that she asked me and Kristen Berberich (the two presenting at the time) for contact info so she could send us some info about internships and stuff. That was pretty cool.
Around 11, the showcase was moving pretty slowly. There weren't many people walking around, so most of the team didn't have anything to do. Eric Martin (soon to be called "Crutches" by the entire team) had been saying since the night before how he wanted to draw DNA on the big 12 foot tall blackboards around Stata. So he did. I was busy manning our booth, but the rest of the team had great fun drawing the chemical structure of DNA on the board. Some of the girls got on each other's shoulders so they could reach high enough to continue. Some MIT people took pictures of it while they were drawing. It was awesome. I took a picture of the completed project if anyone wants to see it.
Presentations began after lunch and the big group picture. All the presentations were pretty good, and some of the projects were surprisingly well done. The speaker following the last of the day's presentations, however, was incredible. This woman had only recently graduated from MIT, but her resume was unbelievable. Miss Massachusetts 2004, founder of TWO companies, winner of half a dozen or so awards (at the age of 12, she wanted to see if cells committed suicide when infected with a virus. This was recently proven to be true). It made us feel kind of inadequate in comparison, but I liked her statement about how we shouldn't lower standards if people aren't meeting them; we should find out WHY they're failing and fix that. If only more people would figure that out.
Dinner was hilarious. We had lobster, and had to crack open the shells and everything. Kaelin was having some difficulty getting to the meat, so Mr. Gaudreault walked over and did it for her, squirting her in the face in the process. Everyone was squirting everyone else and laughing. You really had to be there. After dinner was a trip to the MIT museum. They had some cool holograms and statue-gadget things.
Friday
We started the day with more presentations. We went second. Mary, Sharon, and Kristen did an excellent job, even though it ran long and they had to get cut off. Kristen was awesome during the Q&A. During our presentation, our favorite person Richard had been using a laptop and had apparently pulled up a research article on microbial fuel cells published a few months ago and gave its full title and what had been presented in it. Kristen responded by saying that we'd been collaborating with Dr. Logan, the guy who wrote the article. He'd been helping us all year with our questions. She also listed a few of the differences between our project and the article, and ending with "And I'd also like to point out that its his JOB to do research. He has the resources of Penn State, we have a high school lab." The audience exploded with applause.
Crutches later drew a comic about Richard that we all found hilarious. I don't think I've ever laughed that hard in my life - I was actually starting to cry, I was laughing so hard. I can't really describe the comic, but I can try to reproduce it if anyone wants to see it.
After the presentations, the other teams went on tours while we stayed at the dorm to "study for finals". Mary and Sharon and Ed when to Blockbuster and picked up The Bourne Supremacy and Breakfast at Tiffany's, which we watched when we got back and that night before bed.
The banquet was excellent. The food was very good, and the speakers were just as good (possibly better). The second speaker was (I can't remember his first name) McLurkin. He'd created "The Swarm" (this post's title comes from his presentation). Basically, he communicated a goal to a command robot which would then send commands to as many as 150 other robots to complete the task. He was an excellent speaker and talked about an hour longer than he was supposed to, I think, but nobody cared cause he was cool. After the banquet we went back to the dorm to relax.
Saturday
We toured Fenway Park after breakfast. We got there a little early, so we went to the nearby souvenir shop. They were closed for another 10 minutes, though, so we sat on the stairs right next to a sign that said "do not sit on the stairs" and waited. I really wish I'd had my camera with me, because inside the souvenir shop was this big blue sign that said "NOT AN EXIT" hanging over what appeared to be an exit. Sorry Mike.
After the tour we went directly to the airport. We checked our luggage (once again, over 2 hours early) and went to get something to eat. Burger King is giving away Star Wars toys in their kids meals now, and Crutches, Mary, and Sharon entered into a "contract" to collect the entire set over the summer, hold them for ~30 years, then make "millions" selling them. To this end, Sharon went up the woman at the register and asked if she could buy individual toys. The woman just handed her one of every kind they had and told her to go away. Meanwhile, Mary was freaking out at the table and everyone else was laughing at the entire situation. We boarded the plane and got home without any problems.
Sorry for the length of that, but you were warned. If you want something shorter, look here.
Trip = Awesome. I probably spent 60% of the time laughing, most times REALLY hard.
Eric Martin's new name is Crutches, propagated by Sharon. The entire team calls him that now.
Everyone on the trip was cool, with the exception of a guy named Richard, who was an ass. After he tried to attack our project, we made fun of him behind his back every chance we got. I personally think he was jealous of how much better our project was than his. Crutches drew a comic that's hilarious, I can probably reproduce it if you want to see it.
Food = "mmmm...*drool*"
The entire trip was very well planned. Everything happened on time (with only one minor exception), the food was great, and everyone was really nice and supportive. An awesome experience.
And now I'm done.