Spring Quarter Recap

Since I haven't really been in touch with anyone for months, I'll start by doing a quick recap of spring quarter. I started the quarter off pretty ambitious, taking Math 51 (A multivariable calculus and linear algebra class), Mechanical Engineering 101, Chinese, e-Rhetoric (a part of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric requirement for undergrads), and Chinese Calligraphy. Plus the rugby team was going into national competition, meaning a lot of practice and travel.

In mid-April I went to Florida for a week to play in the rugby Sweet Sixteens. Not only did I miss a week of class (which is a big deal when there are only 9 weeks in the quarter), but I found out that my roommate, Julia, had had a stroke while I was gone. When I got back to school, I couldn't handle everything I had going on. My Math51 midterm was on the day after I got back to school, so I dropped the class. I also dropped Chinese Calligraphy because I didn't really need it for anything.

The rest of the quarter was spent pulling late nights on ME101 group projects, hanging out with Julia at the hospital, cramming for Chinese quizzes, scrambling to catch up on my e-Rhetoric research project, and rugby, rugby, rugby.

After a bumpy first few weeks in and out of urgent care, Julia recovered like a champ. After a couple of weeks in rehab she was walking around on her own and using her left hand. By the end of the quarter, she was (miraculously) pretty much back to normal; you wouldn't even be able to tell she had had a stroke at all. Now she's back home in Louisiana with her family for the summer.

As for rugby, after beating UC San Diego in the Sweet Sixteens and UVA in the Elite Eight during our week in Florida, we were moving on to the Final Four. The Final Four is held at Stanford because we pretty much have the best rugby field in the country. It has always been a goal of the team to win a national championship, but we have always underperformed in the national competition as we've been used to steamrolling teams in our own division no matter if we play particularly well or not. This happened last year when I was on the team, and older players tell me it has happened pretty much every year since 1999 when we last won the national championship. With a new coach and a lot of players determined not to let it happen again, we were working really hard to get ourselves ready and in the right mindset - we even stayed in a hotel off-campus for the weekend so that we couldn't get distracted before our games.

In the Final Four, we played Princeton. We were going really well in the first half, but in the second they came back. We barely held them, but we finally did and won by a couple of points. The next day was the championship match. We were playing Penn State, who had beaten us last year in the Sweet Sixteens and gone on to win the championship. With the close call from Princeton in mind, everyone was determined to get ahead early and stay ahead. It was a blowout; in the end we won 53-6. They didn't score a single try; all of their points were from kicks. I still don't think it's really sunk in that we won a national championship - even after all of the partying we did and the "national champions" t-shirts we all wear around.

[Action sequence of me tackling a Princeton girl that a photographer took at the Final Four]

Mechanical Engineering 101 (ME101) also took up a lot of my time. The class was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. We had two big group projects, and then a third solo project. Luckily I had a really good group both times, so that made things a lot easier and more enjoyable. In Design Project 1, there were 2 basketballs, 4 tennis balls, and 8 ping pong balls inside a triangle. Each type of ball was worth a different amount, and our job was to pick up all the balls and sort them into four boxes so that each box contained the same amount of money. We had to do this standing outside the perimeter of a 9ft x 9ft square around the triangle, using only foam core, hot glue, paperclips, string, rubber bands, and 3ft of dowel. We made a big net to pick up the balls and a sorting machine where each type of ball fell down to a different level and then followed tracks into a different box.

In Design Project 2 (called "Fetch"), we had to make a "pet" and a "human," each of which had to be smaller than 30" x 30" x 30". The pet and the human started out next to each other, then the pet had to go out 6ft, the human had to throw it a tennis ball or a Frisbee, and the pet had to catch the tennis ball or Frisbee and return to the human. This all had to be automated, and the only interaction we could have was to cut a string and set the whole thing in motion. My group made a tennis ball bazooka as the human; the pet was a rat trap racer triggered by catching the ball. Our group was one of the few groups who did the whole thing completely successfully, so that was really exciting. I don't think I've ever put so many hours into something that in the end only took 30 seconds to run. To see a video that one of our classmates took of the project, click here (and let me know if that link is down).

Design Project 3 didn't involve any building; all we had to do was use the design process that we'd learned in class to come up with and develop a product for some particular user group. Based on Julia's suggestion to make bigger, more comfortable wheelchair armrests, I designed a foldout table for wheelchairs that people could use to rest their arms, read, put food, or anything like that. Overall I really liked ME101 and it reaffirmed my decision to major in Product Design (a mix between mechanical engineering and art). I also like Product Design because of the anthropological aspect that comes into play when we have to study people and design things to meet their needs.

As for e-Rhetoric and Chinese, I was constantly behind. In e-Rhetoric we had to do a research project on something having to do with digital communication, and then make a website out of our research. Click here to see what I came up with in the end, after much delay and technical difficulties. Having taken Chinese for two years, I knew exactly what I could get away with and what I couldn't. I ended up getting a good grade, but I don't think I learned as much as I would have if I'd studied everything properly rather than always cramming.

The end of the quarter was extremely stressful as I was trying to catch up in everything. Once finals were over, I didn't really have time to chill because then I started working Grad Crew. Grad Crew is a job where students work long hours every day from the Thursday through Monday of graduation weekend, setting up and taking down all of the chairs, tables, umbrellas, and other various things that are needed for all of the different graduation ceremonies and functions. It pays really really well, but is also a lot of physical labor and very tiring. I also had a million little errands and things to get done, as that Tuesday I was leaving to go on tour with the rugby team. After tour, I would be in China for 6 months, so I had to have everything in order and packed for the next six months before I left for tour. It was close, but everything eventually got done, although I didn't get much sleep in the meanwhile. I was so relieved when it was all done.

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