Prescott Student Blog: Libin

The semester is going to end pretty soon and so a lot of my friends are not going to be here next semester because they are graduating! On Thursday, the space Department gave their Detail Presentation. It was presided over by 4 judges. 2 of them were the faculty advisors and the remaining two were from the Industry itself. One of them was from NASA Dryden Research center, I believe. It was a great experience. You get to learn a lot of stuff and realize what freshmen have to expect. The scientific detail they go into in these presentations is amazing. I believe, it was a 100+ slide presentation. The questions asked by the judges were surely challenging. The seniors always used to say that the time the slides take is almost always less than the time taken during the question and answers sessions.
The Prelim & Detail Presentations of the Aero Department were conducted the next day. I couldn’t go for the Prelim presentations because I had an Economics Exam on Saturday. Adam’s team gave their Detail presentation today. It was a 170+ slide presentation and was surely exhaustive in detail. I liked their presentation and am pretty happy and excited that I too would get to do all of this in 3 years. They might fly their aircraft on Dec 11. They were required to make an aircraft equivalent of DC-10 because the DC-10 has been in the industry for a really long time now and a replacement was more than required. The Q&A Session was surely challenging and tough. Every small mistake was taken into consideration by the panel and they asked the team all kind of questions. It was fun to watch as well!
The panel included the same ratio of faculty members and people from the industry. All the people from the industry were actually graduates from the campus. It just says more than enough of how popular our school is in the aviation industry. I believe that one of them was from Boeing.
The semester is about to end and my finals start tomorrow. They should go fine. I am looking forward to work on CATIA and all fun stuff next semester. A lot of stuff has to be done in the Jet Car Project. I really want to get something done during the break. Then, I am also looking forward a lot for the study in airfoils that I will do with Dr. Traub. It is going to be pretty exciting. I have already started with the journals. It is pretty exciting. Modifying and testing airfoils, running wind tunnel tests, observing the trend, collecting data and results…sounds interesting? Of course, it does 
All right, back to serious studying for finals ;)

Posted by Libin at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The finals ended this Wednesday and it is high time for studies. I am pretty sure that I will have an A in Economics, MATLAB and Calculus. The two classes that are worrying me are Intro to Engineering and Physics 2. After a bad performance in the LTAV Competition, my grade just went down badly. I can make it up to an A but I will have to do really good in the finals. Everyone in my physics class has been striving real hard to get a good grade in this class. Since homework assignments count to 52% of the final grade each and everything counts to the final grade. A great final would change the tides, though. The final, itself, is 25% of the final grade.
I had the Economics Exam this Saturday, Calculus on Monday, Physics and Intro to Engineering on Tuesday  and MATLAB on Wednesday. Tuesday was a long day. I think I aced both the exams. Calculus exam was a really easy one. Almost everyone got it done before time. Half of the class got it done in an hour instead of two. The shortest exam was Intro to Engineering which lasted only 20 minutes. It was a total of 25 multiple questions. MATLAB exam on Wednesday was a tricky one. Though the written part (Part 1) was easy, the programming was not that easy. There was an extensive use of programs that we made in our class and it did take a long time. However, I did get it done before time and I did really well. The MATLAB results are out and I am pretty happy that I got 107 out of 100 all thanks to extra credits and curves.
I am right now at the Denver Airport en route to Oklahoma City. I am awaiting grades of the remaining classes and am making up plans of what is to be done during the break. I will try my best to get my driving license. That will also help me in the summer job that I got at the Events Management. We, my suitemates, friends and I, ended the semester is style. We had a great lunch at the Olive Gardens and then had a fun filled dinner at the Buffalo Wild Wings. I tried Mango Habanero Suace and I am pretty sure that I will never ever try for anything more sizzlin’. The Blazing Competition is surely out of question now !! Whatever is the case, it was a great break from Chartwells!
I am also looking for some amazing Indian food, a lot of sleep and fun back at Oklahoma City. Nonetheless, I am highly pumped up for my next semester as well. The only thing I could have asked for right now is to be back home at India with my friends and family. It would have been amazing if I could meet them this Christmas.  

Posted by Libin at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This was my first Thanksgiving ever and I should say that it was fantastic! Kevin’s parents invited me to their home for Thanksgiving. I was pretty excited about it. We got done with our classes on Tuesday and left for St. George, Utah at 5.15 PM. It was a long drive to Utah. So, we decided to stay at his uncle’s place for the night and continue with our drive to Utah in the morning. His uncle stays at Boulder City, right at the boundary of Las Vegas. I got to see Vegas as well! The city never sleeps for sure. It was amazing beyond words. I surely plan to make a trip down to Vegas later during the next year. We had a fun time at Kevin’s uncle’s place cracking up jokes all the time.
On Wednesday,After a sumptuous breakfast, we started our trip to Utah. First, we went to Kevin’s school, met his mentors, teachers and ROTC Officers. They were really proud of him and happy to see him again. Then, we headed to his home where we good some really good food. Shortly after having food, Kevin’s friend TJ came and we decided to go offroading. It was my first time on an ATV and I was scared and excited at the same time. It didn’t go too bad except that I almost broke my hand while making some huge air. Lesson learned: Watch Kevin and then do stuff..lol. It was an amazing experience. I think we went offroading for at least an hour. We came back home all muddy. I was in a complete mess. However, after a good shower and some more great food, everything was fine, good and amazing! Nothing else to do, we spent a lot of time playing ping-pong. Kevin did beat us all individually. However, when teamed up with Kevin’s Dad, we did beat him…badly .Finally, we all came around to play Aggravation! I was teamed up with Kevin’s Mom. We were too hard for all of them. We started with slightly annoying TJ and persistently annoying Kevin. The game was amazing. Later in the evening, TJ, Kevin and I went for a movie: The Transporter 3.
On Thursday, it was Thanksgiving. We woke up at 0900 since we were tired after the late movie. Kevin’s uncle, aunt and grandparents came for the huge, amazing and sumptuous lunch. Obviously, leftover was coming back with us to the college! We had a great lunch and the best desserts ever. We, then, played some classics NES Games and watched Ratatouille. Sporadic games of ping-pong was all day through. We did play basketball as well. Finally, we all came around to play Aggravation! I was teamed up with Kevin’s Mom. We were too hard for all of them. We started with slightly annoying everyone and persistently annoying Kevin. It was a close game and we won again. Yet again, we won and Kevin was aggravated. It was really hilarious! No wonder, I love that game.
On Friday, we went to his family ranch and got some Christmas trees. On the way back, we rode the ATV for at least an hour again. I splashed Kevin with mud twice. It was hilarious. We were too tired to anything. So, we went to sleep.
Saturday was the best day of all. We started off with go-karting, Mini Golf and video games. Kevin’s Dad and Jen, Kevin’s young sister, were flying. And then there was mini-golf. I still have the score card with me. It was my first time and I did beat everyone by 11 strokes. Ha ha, Kevin was aggravated this time as well. Then, we went to the Ultimate Pizza Factory and had some amazing food. Then, we went to play racquetball (squash). It was a great game. I didn’t knew we had this game on campus as well.
On Sunday, we went to the Mass and then drove back to college. Kevin’s Mom gave me a Christmas Gift and it was possibly the best gift I could. It was Aggravation! Ha ha. It was really a funny moment to observe the look at Kevin’s face. She also gave us a box of cashews . It was the best Thanksgiving I had. I brought back so many happy memories. It was great!

Posted by Libin at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)