On July 31st, my REU departed Davis at quarter to 8 in the morning for an all day field trip to the Hitachi research center. The Hitachi corporation manufactures hard-drives, and they give us several interesting presentations on the current and future technologies in the industry. After treating us to lunch, they then showed us their many labs ( Read more... )

I saw the new Harry Potter movie on the 19th. Overall, I was impressed, it was better than the previous four movies. I haven't gotten the new book yet, I'll probably do that later today. There is a Borders Bookstore within biking distance ( Read more... )

Things are busy but mundane. During the week, I stay pretty busy with work. Which largely consist of manufacturing and assembling parts for our experimental setup (or "fridge", as we call it). A process that involves soldering, stripping, or cutting pieces of wire, copper, and epoxy. I also chill down the fridge for data collection, which ( Read more... )

I've been out in California for a week now. We were provided with bikes on the first day, as that's our primary means of transporation. Davis has the most sophisticated biking infrastructure I have ever seen, including bike signals and turning lanes at the traffic lights, and turning circles at bike path intersections ( Read more... )

I got back yesterday from a 5 day trip to Nashville. I was there visiting Matt, Jonathan, and Natalie, and I had really good time. While I was there, I also checked out Vanderbilt's graduate school. I was pretty impressed with both their Physics and Material Science departments, and I plan on applying to both when the time comes ( Read more... )

The school year is completely over. I got pretty good grades, and overall, I probably had more fun this year than any year past. The conclusion of the semester was pretty sad, as Nate MalComb, Tyler Moore, and Snope Miller graduated. I had met them all my freshman year at XC camp, before classes even began. They were my first friends at Wooster ( Read more... )

Yesterday was the last day of classes, so Junior IS is over, and I can't say I'll miss it. Total, I wrote over 85 pages in lab reports, including the 28 page report on my self-design I turned in on Friday. It was easily the most demanding science class I have ever taken. In addition to the writing, there was also an oral presentation that we had ( Read more... )

Things certainly are busy these days. I spend a lot of my time trying to finish up two semester projects (both are computer simulations), keeping up with Spanish, and going to track practice and meets. I think I have also been a little sick this week, my throat has felt scratchy since Tuesday. I'm eagerly awaiting the summer so I can get out to ( Read more... )

Spring break is over, and I'm back at Wooster. Overall, it was a good spring break. I slept a lot, got some school work done, and heard back from a lot of schools about summer jobs. I also finished watching the entire "Alias" series. Seasons 2 and 3 were decent, but it went downhill from there, and concluding episode was pretty weak. The ( Read more... )

On the Thursday before last, Danny Tremblay asked me if I wanted to go on Physics Outreach. I told him, "Sure, but I've never gone before". He went over all the E&M demos with me later that afternoon, and we discussed the division of labor. The next day, Danny, Kelly, and I went to a 5th grade class at a local elementary school around 1:30. It ( Read more... )