Presentation at Murdock Science Conference

I'll be giving a presentation this coming weekend at the Murdock Science conference at Whitman College. The conference brings together more than 400 students and faculty from Northwest region colleges to present results from research projects they have worked on at their home institutions or elsewhere. About 20 Whitman students will present their research in the disciplines of biology, geology, chemistry, physics and mathematics. Faculty members do not present their own research, but the conference provides an opportunity to meet faculty from other institutions and discuss common concerns. It was a little difficult to get into the conference since my presentation does not have any actual research results, but the director consented to let me present so this coming weekend should be pretty interesting. Looking forward to it.

First Exam Coming Up

My first exam is coming up this week so I'm hard at work studying in the library. I was able to make a couple connections as far as giving a presentation here at the school and it looks as though I might be able to give a presentation to freshman to get them excited about physics. There was also some talk about a conference in Portland with some engineers who were looking for a student presentation. Notice they were looking for a student. This is just a simple example of what an REU can do for you when you suddenly become someone other people are looking for to give presentations. I'm not altogether sure my presentation is up to task for a conference presentation but I will certainly look into it.

Whitman College Starts Again

After a month break between my internship at the University of Arlington I have now just begun classes again at Whitman College. Today was the first day of classes which went smoothly enough. I'm getting the ball rolling on a presentation of my work in Arlington and it looks as though I will be presenting with a couple other of summer interns who did work elsewhere to freshmen at my college. The idea being to spark some physics nerds. My classes for this semester are twentieth century physics, linear algebra, differential equations, and a literary study on the works of Edgar Allen Poe and Nathanial Hawthorne. Even as a junior I still have distribution credits to get out of the way. I'm very excited about this year and cut down the number classes and freed up some time so that I can really give these classes the best I can. I also have two campus jobs. And on top of everything else I'm taking a fly-fishing course. Live large and boisterous.

Final Day presentation/Thankyous

All the presentation went very well. I enjoyed the soil expansion presentation the most seeing as how they had some very interesting data and there was a substantial amount of research done in their project. More so than the other projects. All the videos worked well in my powerpoint so it all went by smooth. I hope I kept the audience well entertained with my antics. This has been a very useful REU and I can definitely foresee everything I learned being very useful in my up coming classes. I only wish that there had  been more hands on. In my project in particular I believe that learning the concepts took too much precedence over hands on research. For me the REU felt a bit to much like attending class for my liking. However, I'm still pleased with my summer and am looking forward to continue my exploration of this field. After taking the architecture class I feel as though I might look into graduate studies in architecture, and if that ends up not being to my liking then a straight engineering pathway will be an excellent option as well. The people I would like to especially thank is Dr. Yazdani and Md Istiaque Hasan. They have been very instrumental in guiding my learning in the REU and I very much all the time they have spent with my partner and I in the project. Thank you as well to the University of Texas at Arlington for the excellent resources and accommodations.

Final Touches on PowerPoint Presentation

Spent the majority of the day going over my powerpoint over and over and over until I could repeat it by memory. I feel pretty comfortable about the presentation tomorrow, especially since I have had so much time to prepare for it. My only worry is in the videos, hopefully they all load correctly. My powerpoint is also 3 gigs which is incredibly large, though it's smaller than what it was before (5 gigs). All in all I hope it will go smooth and am very excited to get it all done and over with.

Poster Printing

This took a little longer than I expected, about four hours total of printing mishaps, waiting for our turn, and making last minute revisions. Not fun but at least it's now done. Only two days left before final presentation. Pretty excited to get back home, it was ridiculously hot today and I definitely don't want to be here during August. For the poster there are a lot of templates on Power Point, most of them won't help you but at least its a start. The dimensions are supposed to be 36 width by 24 heights. It'll help a lot if you know this before starting your poster. Learned about zero member forces as well in my statics class. Last day of that so that's nice to know. If I keep on this track I guess that won't be the last of that class that I see but then again who knows what's up ahead. Maybe I'll just go tour the world for the rest of my life, ever think about doing that? Sometimes you have to give these things serious thought.

Worked on Presentation

My projects presentation was to big due to the number of videos I inserted. I found it very handy to present things from RISA using a program that recorded whatever was on my screen. Macs have a built in ability to do this but for Windows you need to download a free program from online. There are several options but I used CamStudio. This worked very well, a couple glitches but at least I haven't received a virus. I brought RISA up on my labtop, got the portable version from my grad student teacher incredibly handy, and simply recorded my screen on RISA as I demonstrated the various functions of the program. This did create large videos though and in the end we had a powerpoint of almost five gigs. Powerpoint when it gets to this size has a very difficult time running and since you have to be able to fit your powerpoint on a flash drive, it wasn't really practical. So I thinned down the videos and it works pretty well. Hope this was useful to someone. 

No Tour

No tour today, class was canceled. I attended the Statics course again. While this course has been helpful it hasn't at all furthered my desire to be an engineer. That was supposed to be left to this REU but sometimes this REU has flaked out. I am, to say the least very bummed out the tour didn't happen. All I have left at this point is the final presentation day and I'm curious as to what results I am supposed to supply. I have learned a fair amount but no actual research was conducted.

Austin

Austin was excellent. This was the second time I've been there during this REU. I highly suggest going to Amys Icecream if you ever find one in your travels since it is most delicious. It was nice to have this break before the rest of this week which I assume will be pretty busy with creating a stellar power point presentation. Also there is supposed to be a Truss Factory tour which I think will be very exciting. I am very much looking forward to this because I would never get a chance like to this at my college.

Finished my Poster

I'm well ahead of schedual having finished my reflection paper last week, and now done with my poster. Aside from my partners corrections the process is done. All I have left is the power point presentation which I don't foresee being a problem at all. I will certainly have the time next week to complete it. So since not much is going on I think I'll take a trip to Austin for the weekend and see a bit more of Texas.

Wood Structures

Today was actually incredibly interesting. I appreciate Dr. Yazdanis ability to connect the listeners beyond the PowerPoint lecture.  Questioning students about what is actually going on within the concepts. The PowerPoint lecture, in my experience, will kill an educational experience in the class room. It quite simply makes the job too easy for the teacher, who often rush the process because the next concept is only a click away. No longer does the teacher have to take the time to erase the chalkboard and I think we forget that this was the prime time for questions from the students. With the PowerPoint students simply don't have the time to voice a question. Even if the teacher does give time or offers up the old favorite, "Just stop me if you have any questions or if I'm going too fast."...yeah like that opens up the students mind to questioning. So I appreciate Dr. Yazdanies ability to engage us a little more than other Professors might have done with this lecture.

Integration is pretty dry

There wasn't much to do today except for the statics class again. We moved into some pretty complicated stuff today though such as Moment of Inertia. Its a concept that it helps having some calc 2 experience and I found the integration method was easier to understand then a similar triangles method that we also went over. All in all I was pretty confused during the class since usually I need to read up on lectures before if I want it to stick in my head. For example the questions involved where as follows, use integration to find moments of inertia with respect to x and y. Not exactly the most entertaining and especially since I did really know what was going on it would have been nice be taught a little of these concepts in our actual lecture. It seems right now as thought the other groups are coming up with actual research findings whereas my group seems to be struggling to come up with something to learn every week. 

Today's statics class went over forces of friction. I had already learned this at least twice but seeing in the like of just statics, instead of dynamics, was interesting. The problems where slightly more difficult than what I've learned before but the same concept still applied though in these examples everything was static which made the calculations even easier. Beyond that there is no longer any assigned homework and our remaining lectures will be on wood structures taught by Dr. Yazdani. I have started to work on my reflection paper, since to do a quality job on the rest of the presentations I'll need some extra time, plus there is not that much else to work on at the moment.

Interview Day

Today we had interviews with Stephanie Daza. The interview was harmless enough, being informal and simply questioning interns on their experience thus far and what brought them to engineering in the first place. Stephanie was very kind and the only fault was that she made conversation so easy that the appointments were nearly an hour off by lunchtime. The lecture was awesome considering it was about tornadoes and with a topic like that it could hardly fail. This time I finally felt as though I was learning something outside the books. Its true that this REU has been hands-on, which has helped me learn the material, but I have still felt as though I could have taken a semester class and learned the same amount. But with such a specialization as tornado force winds I feel as though that is something you can't learn in your everyday class.

Postal Service in this REU. Mailing and recieving Mail.

I hope to provide a little info on how the mailing system works for REU students at the university. Ive been on the hunt now for packages with some pretty valuable items (camera, climbing shoes, cookies from home) for about a month now. I haven't found the UTA postal service that helpful and the Arlington one even less so. My teacher of all people a couple days ago gave me a package that turned out to have been mailed to me. I figured if I can trace this one package back  I could find the others. After much investigation I found myself at the Civil Engineering office on the fourth floor. When you come out of the elevators take two rights and you will be in it. I asked about the package and they said they unfortunately didn't have anything in my name. Just as i was leaving though someone shouted from an office down the hall "Isaac Reister!" A woman came and magical retrieved my missing package from behind a couple boxes in the corner of the room. I don't know here name but I am incredibly grateful to here. Apparently that is were the packages end up. I would urge this REU to make that fact a little more widely known considering people are coming here from all over the country and contact with their homes is extremely important. To reiterate, if your reading this and in hunt for a missing package go to the Civil Engineering Office and ask for Ava Chapman. She runs the office. If your trying to send a package to this REU send it to the address of the UTA post office. I believe it is 300 West street, Arlington Texas. AND also include: Civil Engineering Office, Dr. Yazdani. With any luck this might work. It worked for me at least. And check the office often, my cookies were moldy.

RISA

We were actually able to create a structure today using RISA and evaluate the wind loads on it. I was even able to get a copy of the program for my lab top so I will have it for when I do Statics later in my course work. Its also good to know that I could do these calculations on truss diagrams without the RISA program, but it can certainly do them far faster than I will ever be able. I feel as though this will go a long ways in my future and getting this introduction out of the way now will be incredibly useful.

Homework and RISA!!

Spent a lot of the day puzzling over trusses.I was able to get a PDF file from someone in my Statics class, so looking through that has been helpful. I also attended another lecture in statics that introduced shear and moment diagrams. The similar triangles method confused me and I actually felt more comfortable understanding the calculus integration method. We were also introduced to RISA today which was awesome. Ive been very much looking forward to it. Its an extremely useful program that is relatively simple to learn. You can make structures of any kind and put all sorts of loads on it. Had you told me that three weeks ago I would have been fascinated. Now I'm ecstatic about the prospects of this program.

Cowboy Stadium Tour

Its a pretty big place. Enough room for the worlds biggest television for starters. The engineering to hold a place like that up would be extremely fascinating to take a closer look at, unfortunately that was not exactly the tour guide's specialty but it was still a very grand time. I'm not even a Cowboys fan but I could definitely see how this sports franchise was the second biggest in the world. Plenty of record breaking statistics to go around. Most of the time I was in awe at the sheer number of flat sceen tvs they had in the stadium. I don't even remember the number but it was certainly excessive. I'm not even sure if the majority of the people who go to that stadium even watch the real live game, as fascinating as it can be to watch it live on television...  

Finishing up Truss. Statics Class

Attended a Statics class today. This was helpful since the lecture that day was in solving truss diagrams using the section method, which is what we are learning in the REU program as well. The class wasn't as interesting as the architecture class, but then again the architecture class had been taught by a graduate studies professor. I feel like I'm getting the hang of solving truss diagrams and I am very excited to move onto figuring out RISA later this week.

Weekend Rangers ball Game

Did some of the usual studying during the weekend by going over truss diagrams. I get turned around often when doing those problems but eventually with a couple questions I can get everything cleared up. On the side I also took a break and number of the REU students took a trip the ball park. It had been ten years since I've been to a baseball game, but this one was certainly worth it. A rousing come back by the Texas Rangers in the bottom of the nineth from a 3-0 deficit which allowed them to eventually win the game in the bottom of the 13th. Exciting stuff this quintessential American sport. Plus there was the lightening storm going on during the game which definitely added to the excitement factor. Seeing a ball hit with a resounding peal of thunder was  something I never thought to see except in Hollywood. An excellent weekend with plenty of laughs shared with my REU friends.

Graduate Studies workshop

I've never really considered graduate studies, figuring if I did take that path it would be after I'd been in out in the world for while. Today did present some excellent arguments for starting grad school after receiving B.A. I'm not sure I can agree with money as being a primary reason, if I were to go to grad school I would have to do it believing that those four or five years couldn't be used making me a happier and more wholesome world. There is only so much you can learn from education. Not everything can be taught. I do however like the idea of grad school opening up my abilities to another level, I'm just not convinced that that next level is a necessity so soon in my life.

Sit in on a ARCH Sturctures 1

I finally got my wish today by being allowed to attend the last lecture of one of the professors who teaches at the architecture building. The college of architecture has fascinated me ever since I realized it was on campus, and I have been there several times for my own personal enjoyment and in my attempt to audit one of the classes. The 1st term for summer is nearly ended but I was at last allowed to attend a lecture by Dr. Mehta. He was very gracious in allowing me to attend his 2 hour lecture and I was extremely impressed by his passion for the subject and his superb teaching style. Here was a man who was certainly one of the top in his league. I was fascinated by the lecture which was, in fact, on some of the very same subjects I had been studying in my project and proved useful in clearing up a couple questions I had. More importantly, I was able to experience a bit of the architectural standpoint and this was very important to me since that is a field I would like to pursue further. It was only a taste, but it has been enough to pique my interest. I talked with Dr. Mehta after the class about my project and about engineering and architecture in general. I thoroughly enjoyed making use of a day that would have otherwise been wasted as I have no project meetings today. I believe if this REU were to continue it would be enormously beneficial for advisers to set up an easier way for students to attend lectures that the student chooses, instead of just those the advisers deem are necessary for the project. It can only enrich the projects that much more and make more efficient use of the resources of this excellent university. Since not everyone in all the projects is at the same level, allowing students who are ahead of the project the ability to explore deeper into related fields would cut down on idleness and keep student enthused about the REU program as a whole. Many participants I have talked to grow bored, which is absurd considering they are on a university in session and have thousands of learning outlets at their fingertips. They doubtlessly have the desire to learn, given that they are in this REU in the first place, but simply lack the means. If these outlets were made more apparent, the end result could be fantastically productive and I strong urge the advisers of this REU to make this possible. 

Fourth of July

Woken by a man on a mega phone asking me to sing the star spangled banner. Presently my goggy head emerged from my covers and I glanced out my window to see a parade occurring not but 25 feet from my bed. Since there was hardly anything else to do, I certainly could not go back to bed, I watched the parade. All around an excellent 4th of July.

Statics Problems and the like.

Today's lecture was probably the most interesting so far. The calculations required some substitution so I felt as though I skills I had learned previously were coming becoming useful. Still very very basic, but it's better than simply number plugging into equations and looking at charts. I enjoy doing problems in class, this generates questions and focuses on fixing the misunderstandings. I am certainly experiencing at this point the issues that can arise from an a liberal arts 3-2 program. My general physics class did cover statics extensively and I know how to do these problems. However, little missing bits in my education appear every now and again, for example not knowing what a Moment its (Force*Distance), that prove to be hangups in my education. Therefore I am forced to start anew relearning what I have already learned twice before in order to fill in these small holes.

Some respite

I never thought I would consider it a blessing to have an overcast day, but a respite from the blazing sun today was a welcome relief. Today's lecture was excellent though it only reiterated what we had been going over in past two weeks and I am definitely ready to move onto something else. We went over a little on how to solve a truss and since I've already done a fair amount of work in statics I don't foresee this next week being that difficult. I've been trying to make myself more busy with this project but since I already know the concepts I don't have much to do. I have done my best to contact professors about additional classes but so far I haven't gotten a response. I wish this process of contacting professors was easier.

The weekend

Two weeks have now passed. On whole I think the only thing I could ask out of this internship would be more work. I enjoy what I learn I simply wish I could learn more of it. This weekend I spend some time studying trusses which was not a difficult concept. I certainly feel as though this project is easier than the other projects so far. I look forward with great anticipation to the modeling. Besides the usual humdrum affair of work I thought it would be inspiring and healthy to the purposes of a creative mind to get out and see a bit of country. I visited Austin, which was an invigoratingly weird and liberal landscape. A beautiful city on the whole and I encourage anyone with a free weekend to find a way to make the 3 hour trip down there. South Congress is particularly nice as is the live music scene. Texas has some good cattle stompin hoot'n hollerin good time old fashion music down there. Also the broad swath of the Colorado drifts on through the city and seems like a pleasant enough place to swim.

Civil Engineering Lab

We visited the civil engineering lab today. I found it incredibly fascinating that everyday cement withstood loads of around 6 kip and yet here in this lab they were developing cement that could withstand 26 kip. That is an incredible increase in how much the cement is able to withstand. Imagine what could be built on a foundation that could be that strong. It was truly very interesting to see the going-ons in such an incredible facility, and makes me wish that these sort of lab experiences where available at my college. Our labs consisted mainly of rolling balls down hills. On another note, I believe the group has become fairly familiar within itself. I like to see that we are generally smiling more, laughing easier, and organizing our dinner times so that we all eat together. The more of this the better.

Analytical method

The analytical method was a slight variation to the simplified method, adding only a couple equations for when the structure is irregular. Still much of the work is in interpreting charts. I'm somewhat baffled by how simple the procedures have been so far. Its interesting just how much is accomplished by technology these days, especially when you consider how much MORE will be accomplished by technology on a day to day basis fifty years from now. I'm not entirely sure if I want to claim that this will result in an enormous decrease in overall human understanding. If history has been an example the loss of a previously manual labor has always benefited the human experience, thinking of the printing press. However, it certainly is stunning how much is learned and how much becomes obsolete by the time you learn it.

Studying

Today I worked on understanding shear force, shear stress, and bending moment. My professor mentioned that these would be essentials to structural engineering and I did my best to teach myself the basics. This was helpful since at the very least I was able to understand the terminology used in class. It would have been nice to have had some experience with structural analysis before this REU but I have yet to be seriously handicapped by it. Most of what we do still just concerns interpreting charts correctly.

Simplified Analysis

Today was our second lecture by Md Istiaque Hasan. He began with a short lecture on civil engineering as a whole and the different careers that this broad field can contain. He then described the academic path of becoming a structural engineer which was extremely useful to hear his description since he had been through it personally. Then began the real part of the lecture where we learned about simplified analysis. The concepts where interesting because it put such a huge array of variable into readily available charts. The ideas where simple enough and I didn't find the process difficult to follow. Also Istiaque was exceptionally clear at explaining, often reiterating ideas so we could follow with ease. It also helped that the subject he was cover in particular was Loads, in particular Wind Loads, which I had familiarized myself with earlier that morning. On the whole I thought the topics covered far more interesting than the previous lecture and thoroughly enjoyed learning the new material. 

First Weekend

With my homework done and no social events I had a lot of the weekend free. I felt as though the group grew a little more used to each other after playing cards and a couple visits to the pool. The temperature is increasing a little so the pool was a wonderful alternative to the fiery sun. I think that the group participating in things together is essential considering we are often split into our separate projects for the majority of the time. We are all pretty new to internships so it important to hang together. Tomorrow I look forward to the next stage in my project.

Homework

I met with my professor today to clear up the confusions about the homework. The exact reasoning being statistical analysis still escapes me, but I feel as though I have grasped the concept well enough that I can continue with the rest of the REU. The amount of work I'm doing is still relatively small, so I am hoping the REU will pick up in its activity next week. I certainly do not feel like I am earning the 3000 dollars by honest work. Likely the instructors are trying to bring everyone up to speed, even so I feel as though me and my partner in the wind project would not mind a little more academic rigor to occupy our time. I don't want this REU to end with simply a fancy thing to put in on my resume and some cash, I definitely want to have gained something more substantial then what I have experienced within the last week.

A day of homework

I began working on the homework assigned by my Wind Project today. While I was able to understand parts of it I found that despite vigorous note taking, pieces of the calculation escaped me. I paid my first visit to the civil engineering library in the bottom of Nedderman Hall and fully expect I will be back repeatedly. Especially since I wasn't able to check out the book I wanted because I have yet to obtain an UTA Id yet. I might insert a reflection of Abraham Lincoln at this point, "Get the books and read and study them till you understand them in their principal features; and that is the main thing."So while I have yet to understand all the concepts, I will heed his advice given the wealth of knowledge this enormous university can provide. My project has been a little slowly, I must wait for books and I have some free time, so I'm considering exploring the possibility of auditing a class in Architecture. When I went to registrar it turned out I might be able to simply email the professors and ask for a seat in their class, which surprised me since this is such a huge university. Some other participants in the REU have been attending some computer programming classes to sharpen their skills and I believe attending some architecture classes will be an excellent and entertaining supplement education to my Wind Project since both deal with the structures.  

Introduction to the Wind Project

The day began with a campus tour provided by the admissions office. This was pleasant enough and the questions I asked were well answered. The MAC, a recreation center here on campus, is very well provided with basically any activity a person might wish, even including video games which is a little absurd. I was glad to find that the tennis racquets, climbing harness, and climbing shoes are free for REU participants. This evening I attended my first lecture meeting about my Wind Project. The concepts were pretty simple and even though I hadn't learned them before I grasped how to use the equations properly. I would have liked to have a little more explanation behind the statistical equations but at the very least I can make the ends meet. I suppose rather than plow through logical proofs I would rather move onto the modelling with RISA. At this time I'm slightly worried about how conservative Civil Engineering looks to be. The ethics certainly strongly advise against forward thinking it seems and today's lecture on statistics definitely seemed to paint a very dull picture of Civil Engineering of following what has always worked basing the future on the past. However I remain confident that before getting to the exciting stuff we need to trudge through the gunk. You can't just hand fledgling physics student a laser gun without instructing first that it is a very dangerous tool capable of vaporizing people into smudges of carbon smeared on the sidewalk.

First Day of Study

First and foremost I would like to express my gratitude for being selected as a participant in this REU. I am a sophomore and this is my first research experience plus this is my first trip to Texas which so far has been excellent, humid, reminiscent of the tropics minus the ocean. People have a great personality down here and my suite mates, both Texans, have been absolutely awesome and incredibly friendly. Its incredibly green here on campus stunningly beautiful. Gigantic brick fountains are everywhere coupled with green parks, leafy trees, and tremendously tall buildings that rise like spires into blue skies. This is far different from my mountainous culture in Washington where we live in valleys surrounded by snowy peaks that trump any building built by man. I'm still trying to find my way around here and get lost regularly which is entertaining at times except I've missed two dinners. The orientation was straight forward and the group was very shy, not much conversation to be had. I would have appreciated a little more encouragement to engage with each other but I suppose in time that will come. The orientation was excellent and I was fairly impressed my particular project, the Wind Project, headed by Dr. Yazdani and Istiaque Hasan PhD Student. It looks like it will be challenging and hopefully stretch my understanding physics to the greatest potential. We were also encouraged to present at conferences with our project and publish our results. I would be astonished if my project drew that much attention but I will certainly give this project my all. Today we explored research and professional ethics. This was a little dry at times however on the whole I found it engaging, mostly due to the good humor and quick smile of Dr. Weatherton. I learned more about ethics than I thought possible. Before the lecture I understood ethics as principals governing right and wrong. By the end I had learned there are specific principals which frame the actions of researchers and professionals, depending on the setting. My personal reflection was that in the end we need to follow our own judgement and use the ethic rules as guidelines. Its too easy to follow a rule and justify actions by what is written down by authority. Remember always what principals guide the rules and you should be able to sail straight.