Prescott Student Blog: Libin

The semester is reaching its end really soon. The topics in each class are almost over. A fun filled Thanksgiving break at Kevin’s place and a week filled with tension, confusion before the exams awaits me. I hope I start of this semester with a good GPA. We have a MATLAB Exam for which I have to actually start studying. I have been goofing around all weekend.
I have got 17 credits transferred and thus I might graduate in 3.5 years. This is how my schedule looks like for the next semester:

Technical Report Writing
Physics 3 with Lab
Calc 3
Statics
Computer Aided Design (CAD)
That is a total of 17 credits. I am pretty excited for the next semester for CAD and Statics. Physics 3 should be easy as I have done the course already in my high school. This semester I did make a considerable variety of things. I just hope the grades reflect the same. I got one of the most sought after job, The Machine Shop Lab Monitor, as a freshman. I would be a sophomore in my 2nd semester. I tested out of Physics 1 and Calc 1. Our team for the EGR 101 Robotic Competition did a really good job and we were asked specially to showcase our robot during the Open House. I will be starting off an independent study on airfoils with Dr. Traub. I have got a head start by procuring the required journals and have been reading them. I also managed to get into the Structures Team for the Jet Dragster project and I have been working on Solidworks to figure out a way to make weldments in it and create curved tubes so that we can a have a digital design of the chasis and the complete dragster so that we can run analysis tests on the computer to figure out the crush zones and work to improvise them.
I am leaving with Kevin to Utah on Tuesday evening for Thanksgiving. I am pretty sure that we are going to have a really good time. We are planning on the playlist for our 6 hour road trip to his home. After a really good time, we would be back at our dorms preparing for a lot of exams and tests that are scheduled for the first two weeks of December. I would be done with my exams on December 11 and would be off to Oklahoma City for a really good Christmas break with my cousins and would be back at the campus for my second semester on the 6th January. The classes begin on 7th December so I hope that my flights do not get delayed.
It’s really late right now. To be exact it’s 12.50 AM. I would need to wake up tomorrow early for church followed by rigorous MATLAB study.
Sayonara!

Posted by Libin at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Saturday was a lot of fun. I got up really late because I was exasperated with all the things that happened on Friday. Besides, I worked an additional 5 hours at the machine shop too. So, I woke up after a long good sleep at 10 AM. I went ahead and checked my planner and realized that the books I took from the library were to be returned yesterday. I ran to the Library and reissued the three books.
At the library, the thought struck me that I didn’t had MS Office because I had formatted my hard drive this week and was working with Open Office. So, I got a free copy of MS Office 2007 from the Library. Then, I made a sprint to check my mailbox. It was 11.30 AM by then, so I decided to stop by Chartwells to have my breakfast and lunch combo  By that time I reached back to the dorms, I got a call from Ram, a senior from India, asking if I could tag along with him, Praful and Sreyes, all upperclassmen from India, to Barnes & Noble’s. We ended up roaming around the Gateway Mall and making a stop at Walmart and got back to our dorms at 4.30 PM. Then, I decided to finally utilize my weekend by studying a bit for the MATLAB Exam this Monday. It’s Saturday and thus it’s a great day for a game of pool. I closed my MATLAB book and went along with Payton and Eric for a couple of games. I then came back to Chartwells at 6.30 PM for my dinner. I had a quick dinner and was at my room when Praful came in and asked me to go with them to Taj Mahal, an Indian Restaurant in town. I had been missing some good Indian food for a long time. I got along with them for a fun filled dinner at the Taj Mahal. I did get Indian food but it was not as good as I expected.
I am back at my dorms now. Today was Kevin’s last training day for Arnold Air Society, an elite society for the Air Force. He was very happy, excited, relived and enthusiastic that he is now a part of the Arnold Air Society. 14 hour training exasperated him but his enthusiasm kept him up. I am right now going through the notes for my MATLAB Exam and writing a blog because it has been a long time since I blogged.
I remember this time of the previous year as a time filled with confusions and impending decisions. I had almost wrote every single college application essay and was having a hard time getting all financial and transcript related documents ready. Just a suggestion: Apply to as many colleges as you can and never rate a college according to the Ranks available online. It is much better to talk to a student and get a feel of what school emphasizes. For example, if you are an engineering student, you have to make sure what engineering means to you. Does it mean designing things/machines with the assistance of the knowledge you acquire or does it mean to you a job that requires you to be involved with research and science topics throughout your life. Or does it mean both of those to you? There is a subtle difference and that is everything.

Posted by Libin at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our LTAV Competition was this Friday and our team royally sucked at it with a 84 where the maximum score was 180. It is still a B though. I expected much better and wanted much better score too  Well, the thing that went wrong was that 2 out of 4 propellers stopped working in the middle of the course. We had two vertical and horizontal propellers and by the time we ended we had just one of each. One was on the ground and the other was hanging on to the LTAV.
I was surprised how easily I was able to control it during the day of the competition. It was a real pain to control it on Thursday night. We got 2 runs on Friday. The main course was to rise above a table, slalom between three balloons, drop 10 ping pong balls in a basket and go beneath a pole. The total came to 180 and there were bonus points if we did it within 4 minutes.
In the first run, the LTAV crossed the table, slalomed between two of the balloons and it dropped the balls on the ground where the score range was a 5 point each. It was not a satisfactory run. We got a meager 80 points. I thought we would get a lot of time before the 2nd run. However, we were asked to do our 2nd run in 5 minutes of the first run. After we crossed the balloons, the vertical propeller started clicking and stopped working. So, we couldn’t good enough of thrust to place our balls in the basket.
In the 2nd run, we couldn’t cross the table as we lost the vertical propeller. So, we went around it and moved forward to slalom between the balloons. The ping pong ball bag was dragging along the ground all the time. So, this time to we had to release at the same spot. Then, after the balls were released due to reduction in weight the whole balloon started moving up. Since, I only had one vertical propeller, I had to give up. Before I could give up, one of the horizontal propellers also broke down thus preventing us from going forward or back.
It was kind of a disaster for our team but I did learn a lot of valuable lessons on teamwork and cooperation between team members. Everyone doesn’t share the same ideas and this is what we have to understand and reach to a compromise all the time.

Posted by Libin at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ERAU Jet Dragster Project had a lot of advancement this week. Larsen Motorsports is the main sponsor of the project. Mr. Larsen was here on Monday and Tuesday for preparing us to start working on the jet Dragster as soon as possible.
The meeting started on Monday with an introduction at 9 AM in the AC1 Executive Conference Room. Mr. Larsen emphasized that this Project’s main purpose is to educate and make students understand what drag racing is all about. It is not about making a dragster for Larsen Motorsports. The campus is going to get a lot of sponsors really quick just because the project is intense, fun, educative and impressive. Most of the members would also be taught how to do TIG welding as well. The campus is going to receive new TIG welding machines as well as Plasma cutters.
On Monday, we had meeting for the Aerodynamics and System Integration teams. I did attend all of the meeting on Monday though I was in the Structures meeting. Aerodynamics covered all the topics from the parachutes to the front wing. It is basically going to be opposite of what is needed in an aircraft because the dragster is supposed to stay on the ground, obviously. As a result, the centre of parachutes supposed to be aligned to the ground such that the line connecting it crosses the front tires. The front tires won’t be aligned in the longitudinal axis of car. Instead, it would have a small angle with the axis so that it is not tough to steer a little bit, when steering is needed. The front wing is obviously created to provide as much down force as possible.
System Integration had meetings that basically described how to get the whole dragster build while maintaining or improving on the basic standards for the safety of the driver. We are going to have a specific weld on all the joints. That is the standard of NHRA and IHRA, the governing bodies that lay down the laws for Dragster Racing.
Structures Team is the most amazing team. We would be getting a j-60 Engine for the dragster and we are also going to get a custom made afterburner. There is also going to be a hot streak. What it all means is that the dragster is going to be fast. When I say fast, it is going to run at 290 mph or more. The limit is 320 mph. It is crazy fast. If that afterburner and hot streak is attached to the same engine and used in a business jet, it is going to blow up the structural integrity of the aircraft. It is POWERFUL! With so much power, the Structures Team basically needs to come up with genuine, creative, new and great ideas to reduce weight, temperature and increase the life of the engine.
Propulsion team basically had a similar discussion as Structures but then we went more into depth just because the engine would be dealt much more by the Propulsion team than the Structures Team.
It is surely going to be a crazy and busy project. The teams have been created finally and I am in the structures team. It is going to keep me busy for a long time.

Posted by Libin at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am just surprised how fast things move in here. It feels like a month since I have been here, but it is already the last month of my semester. The realization that the semester is about to end struck my when I got the green booklet in my mailbox the other day. It was the Spring Class Schedule.
My classes have been pretty easy and fun throughout until this month. Things begin to pile up like anything during this month. The classes are still easy and fun, but there is way too much work now. The main thing that concerns me now is EGR 101. It has been my favorite subject throughout but the last project of LTAV is extremely challenging. Physics 2 is also going fine. I am striving for an A in that class, which seems to be another challenge. I hope this semester ends really well for me.
Anyways, I have decided what classes I will be taking the next semester. I will be taking 17 credits. The courses will be CAD, Statics, Calculus 3, Technical Report Writing and Digital Circuits with Lab. I will be a sophomore the next semester. I am extremely excited for my CAD and Statics classes. I am sure Technical Report Writing would take a lot of time. I also have decided to do a double major in AE and ME. It would be possible only if I am able to complete both the degrees in 4 years. So, the summers are going to be really busy for me, which is good.
According to the schedule I set up, I would have classes at a stretch from 0800 to 1500 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I will have two classes on Tuesdays which will include Calc 3 and Lab. On Tuesdays, I will have no classes at all. This is going to be pretty intense and fun too. I will have a completely free Tuesday in every week. This will help a lot in getting things done on time like homework and laundry.
I had my CDR ( Critical Design Review) on the LTAV on Friday. It was my first CDR. It went pretty good. Professor Romeiser went through our CDR. The only problems we bumped into were that the weight of the two wings were a bit different and since our release mechanism for the ping pong ball was completely mechanical, without any sensors or motors, it was imperative that we tested our whole LTAV properly on the Blimp to make sure the release system works. Overall, it turned out to be really good. Hope the grades speak a similar story.

Posted by Libin at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)