you are amazing =)

I haven't blogged in 3 days because I've been working on my group project. That is, however, basically all I've done for the past 3 days of classes. On Wednesday, we spent the morning building our model of an actin protofilament. We started off with a 24 story 5-bar tower, but it ended up being way too soft. In the end, we used a 9 story 4-bar tower. Obviously it was stiffer just because it was shorter, but the rubber bands used were also doubled up to make the structure even stiffer. In the afternoon, we tested the stiffness of the structure. That night, I entered our data into Excel, did our calculations, and graphed the results. I spent all of Thursday's class doing the poster. Last night we went over our presentation and then I did the archival PowerPoint slide. And today in the afternoon we have our presentations for the cluster faculty.

So, activities for the past few days. Wednesday night was the last COSMOS dance, a black-and-white themed one. Half my suite basically stood outside and just talked. They had nice refreshments there: mocktails (I liked the margaritas, but they were a bit too icy), rolls, pretzels, and three huge cakes. After the dance, we went back to our suites, where we had a 12:00 light's out. (The dance went until 10:30.) Most of us continued working on our projects. Yesterday night was the fashion show, which never materialized, and the haunted campus tour, which I again missed signing up for. Activity time was optional, though, and I was grateful in the end that I got the extra time to work on my archival slide instead of going on the tour.

It's so sad to think that today is our last day of COSMOS. These four weeks have gone by faster than I could ever have imagined, but they have also been some of the most fun and amazing ones of my life. I'll miss everyone I got to know here from our floor, our cluster, and everywhere else! I'd like to thank all of our professors (Dr. Vera, Dr. Oliveira, Dr. Skelton), TA's (Ms. Green, Daniel), and Teacher Fellow (Ms. Nicely) for providing such an interesting yet challenging academic experience. For giving us such an incredibly enjoyable and fun time outside of the classroom, I want to thank all of the Residential Life staff, especially my floor RA's, Ami and Cristina, and my cluster RA's, Amanda and Matt. And thank you to all of the COSMOS administrators who made the program possible. COSMOS has been such a wonderful experience for me, and just thank you to everyone who made it possible!!!!

~CS

Sow the Seed

Yes, it's an epic title. Please, sow the seed of wisdom. Or, sow the seed of discord. But whatever you do, start sowing, because there are only 3 days left of Cosmos!

Been a long ride, and I hope Min had fun, because in the beginning, he sure was quiet(er).

Glad my roommate changed; he was a little on the shy side, but he got into the groove of things (and now jokes at my Chinese side *Sniff*).

And Mrs. Nicely stayed the same nice teacher. Weird.

Anyhow, thanks to all the people. I would like to dedicate my Emmy to the people that have been with me this entire time, roomy and science partner. Also, would like to give a shoutout to Amanda and Dylan, you incorrigible crooks.

Also Chantal and Amy, you artistes.

And I also GAF, out to Josh, Evan, and Jorge.

We just got back from our evening activities. Tonight there was a basketball tournament, a fashion show, journal decorating, and ice cream making. I first got my journal and then chose and glued on my letters. After that, I went to make ice cream. The mixture was pretty easy (sugar, half-and-half, and vanilla extract), but when it came to shake it in the ice, I wasn't very good with it. It was supposed to take about 5 minutes to shake it solid, but it took me over 20 minutes. After about 20 minutes, I switched bags, and it finally worked. So apparently there was no salt in my first one. It was really good though. I liked the ice cream a lot. Too bad there wasn't more...

So, now I guess I'm waiting for the food. We're getting Mexican food tonight from Roberto's. Carne asada fries and burritos, I think. There's a TapEx trip tomorrow (Tapioca Express) during free time, but I'm not sure if I'll go or not. Still, the food should be good. Hmmm, it'll be coming soon. Good night!

~CS

This morning we had our last Discovery Lecture. Today, Dr. Mark A. Brosmer spoke to us about space launches and launch vehicles. He started off with a history of man's space explorations and observations and then proceeded to talk about the basics of rocket functions and their various uses. Next, he discussed the launch vehicles used in the past and their inefficiencies (very specific and therefore inefficient in terms of infrastructure required) as well as today's launch vehicles and their improvements (more cost-efficient in being able to launch many different types of structures). Last, he talked about the planned space and launch vehicle programs for the future, such as NASA's Constellation program. I found his lecture very interesting. I had never known very much about space exploration and space launches, so I was glad to learn more about them, especially with his down-to-earth emphasis on the importance of reducing costs in building them.

After the Discovery Lecture, we went back to the computer lab where we spend our Tuesdays and Thursdays. We spent all of today working on our final projects. After working on a preliminary version of our final project PowerPoint, I went to lunch. Chantal and I went to a Japanese restaurant and then met Tiffany, Shannon, and Lily downstairs in Price Center. Afterward we went to the bookstore, and then Shannon and Chantal went to Jamba Juice. When we got back to the computer lab for the afternoon, we continued work. My group went up to EBU2 for a little bit to try to build a model for our experiment and then came back down. Hopefully Dr. Vera will come soon to help us a bit with our projects.

With nothing but final project work, the day was pretty uneventful (although much needed). Our biggest event of the day was the earthquake in the morning. We just felt a mild shaking. I wonder where the epicenter was and how strong it was... Hope everyone's fine!

~CS

This week has been a fun one. The Sunday night BBQ (which I forgot to mention) was very tasty. The desserts were excellent. Yesterday night, I ended up going to yoga. It was an enjoyable and relaxing workout. I heard that the roommate trivia game had everyone answering very strange questions, so in a way I'm glad I wasn't answering the questions. Anyway, I liked the yoga workout, although I wished that they would play some of the more advanced videos with possibly more challenging poses. Maybe that wouldn't have been possible for some things like a headstand, because the floor in Middle Earth wasn't very suitable for such things.

On a lower note, the game of Gotchya is over with no winners. Apparently, some or all of the 6 people left in the game as of yesterday showed such poor sportsmanship last night that the RA's decided to discontinue the game. I haven't heard the details, but I do know that the game became a bit too intense yesterday.

I'm going to go back to work on my final project PowerPoint, so good day!

~CS

Yesterday's labs were fun. In the morning our group fixed our tensegrity plate of 3-bar units, and then we constructed a tensegrity plate of 4 4-bar units. We didn't make a tensegrity plate for 6-bar units though. Daniel connected the entire cluster's 3-bar tensegrity plates, and we took turns lying on the "bed." It was fairly comfortable, but eventually one of the sticks snapped because the person hadn't distributed her weight well (she sat down on it instead of immediately lying down and distributing weight over the whole thing).

Afterwards, we worked on connectivity diagrams for the 3-bar Snelson prism and a tensegrity tower. In the afternoon, we learned how to actually build a tensegrity tower, which was pretty fun. One of our attempts failed. We were trying to build a 2-story 4-bar tower, and we accidentally used 9 sticks instead of 8. So we got a pentagon instead of a square on top. We successfully fixed it, though.

So those were our labs for the day. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to finish building and performing our tests. If not, I suppose we'll have to settle for just making a model instead of experimenting with our model. Have a nice day!

~CS

Less than A Week Left

I can't believe how fast it's gone by. I thought the month would feel a lot longer. I have to say I've really come to enjoy every aspect of COSMOS from the class labs to the programming time to discovery lectures. You have to give the RA's and everyone else planning this program credit for all their hard work.

In class, we are closing out the tensegrity unit while preparing for the final project. Tensegrity is a concept that really interests me, but I am really bad at constructing tensegrity models and it's driving me nuts. I can't visualize 3-d objects very well, and I'm terrible with my hands. Still I'm sorta glad I had the experience. Now I know for sure I can't go into a career that involves visualizing 3-d objects or using my hands.

What I've enjoyed most about cluster 7 is being challenged. There have been a number of assignments that force me to come up with something original or bring my own fresh perspective to an old topic. They are difficult and require a lot of thinking, but I've enjoyed them. I am a very logical and methodical person but also have creativity, and I think science needs both. Currently our group is trying to design a new mechanical test for RBC's, and I hope we can pull it off.

Min Lee

The Last Weekend...

This weekend's activities were fun. First, on Saturday afternoon, we went to the San Diego Zoo. Our group ended up seeing most of the zoo. My favorite animals were probably the pandas. The line was, surprisingly, a lot shorter than I remembered seeing it on past visits, and the pandas, also surprisingly, were a lot more active than I remembered. One was sleeping on its rock, another was ambling about, and the baby one (Zhen Zhen, who shares part of her name with me) was climbing around. The baby one was so cute!

We also saw basically everything else, except that the big cats (leopards, jaguars, etc.) were all hiding and we didn't get to see the elephants and giraffes until after nightfall (a good thing, apparently, I found out later). So the zoo was a fun trip.

Yesterday we went to the beach. The beach isn't my favorite place to be, but it was pretty relaxing. It was a little cooler, but I'd much rather have that weather than the heat back home. =D

Afterwards, Family Feud was fun. Our suite was the first to start off a Latin America winning streak. We lost in a close battle to North America, but in the end the RA's named us the winners for having good sportsmanship. Ultimate bragging rights, yay!

Tonight's activities are roommate trivia, yoga, guacamole making, and COSMOS murder mystery. Isabella and Rachel are representing our suite for roommate trivia. (I wouldn't have minded, but Shannon wanted to try yoga). I'll probably end up walking around to all of them and seeing what they're like. Gotcha is getting pretty intense. Only 6 people left now. Shannon and Michelle both died yesterday though... =(

Well, I'd better go start researching for our final project PowerPoint. Good night!

~CS

A few other things:

Thursday night's activities were fun. I was sad I missed the haunted campus tour, but Twister and fondue were fun too. I ended up winning Twister three times in a row for a few smaller games (4-5 people) on the second mat. The fondue was really good too. The chocolate fountain was soooo cool! And it was very delicious too. =D

Yesterday night's talent show was fun. It went for longer than I expected, actually. Everyone did really well. An added bonus was that we got extended lights-out time (12:00) for the weekend! Our suite played a game of Mao and just talked. A lot of people were trying to get ready for the roommate trivia activity, a test of how well the COSMOS students knew their roommates.

In yesterday's morning class, Dr. Skelton came to give us a lecture. It was fun learning a bit more about tensegrity's practical applications as well as ways to maximize its efficiency. Afterwards, in the morning lab, we tested the pretension and stiffness of each individual string in a Snelson prism (three bars, six strings). After lunch, we had another twenty-minute lecture and then went back to the lab. We built some more Snelson prisms. I finally really learned how, and I also found out that using rubber bands makes building the structures a lot easier as well as adjusting the structures once you know how. We investigated the twist angle of the prisms (how much the top nodes are rotated compared to the bottom ones in order for the structure to achieve equilibrium). Finally, we practiced building plates out of three-bar Snelson prisms. Our group tried to connect three, but we faced several problems. First, our prisms were a bit too tall and irregular for easy connection, and one of them was also rotated incorrectly (clockwise vs. counterclockwise rotation). We did manage to get them connected, although the plate was a bit wobbly and not level. We'll fix it on Monday.

So, that pretty much sums up our activities in the last few days. I'm going to go get some stuff ready for our zoo trip. Good day!

~CS

It's the weekend! On one hand, I'm glad to be able to sleep in a little, but I'm also sad that the third week is coming to an end. We're starting to work on our final projects. The presentations are coming up so quickly...

Well, today we're going to the San Diego Zoo! It's going to be really fun. We get a good amount of time to wander around the zoo. I'm hoping to see the pandas, if the line isn't too long. Anyway, the San Diego Zoo is always nice to see, and I like going to the zoo.

Tomorrow is more fun activities. The beach in the afternoon, and then a barbecue and Family Feud! I'll have to start researching and working on our presentation PowerPoint though... and doing my summer assignments, which I've been procrastinating on...

Anyway, our last weekend is going to be a very fun one. I'd better go work on my PowerPoint a bit, though...

~CS

On academic matters...

Our tensegrity labs for yesterday morning and yesterday afternoon (and tomorrow morning, too, I think) involved learning about force and stiffness. In lecture, Daniel and Dr. Oliveira taught us about Hooke's Law (Force=ks where k is the stiffness constant of the material and s is the amount of displacement under the force).

During the first test of the lab, we clamped strings of different materials to a square rod using a C-clamp and then added weight to the other end (bags of marbles). We used a yardstick to measure the resting length (before the weight was added) and the stretched length (after the weight was added).

In the second test of the lab, we clamped increasingly large amounts of marbles (10, 20, 30, etc.) to a tensegritoy string and measured resting and stretched length in each case. For both tests, we used these data to calculate change in length and then converted that to an amount in meters. Next, we converted the weight of the marbles to kilograms and found the force (mass x gravity). Last, we divided the force by the displacement to find the stiffness constants for the various materials. After we had done all of these calculations by hand, Daniel taught us how to do it in Excel. In today's afternoon Science Communication class, in fact, we did the same thing on our own. We created a chart for all of our measurements in the second test and used Excel to do the calculations. Afterward, we created a scatter plot of the data and then found a line of best fit. The slope of the line was the stiffness constant.

Well, that basically sums up yesterday's classes and today's afternoon class. I haven't been exposed to much of this type of subject before, but it was a pretty interesting topic.

We're going to go over the structure of our final project now... the end of COSMOS is almost here... =(

~CS

So many fun recreational activities now! Gotcha is, of course, fun. Yesterday's safety was to hold two people's hands, so during the 8-10 activity time Sidra and I had to hold Michelle's hands almost the whole time. During one of the few times we let go, her killer almost got her except for Sidra's watchfulness. After that, his friends kept making some feeble attempts to get us to let go, like "Did you drop your phone?" and "Could you help me get these rubberbands off my hand?". It was pretty funny. During floor time, we spent some time making logos and headgear for Michelle and Shannon (the only two survivors in our suite), since today's safety is to dress as a superhero. It's fun seeing everyone's costumes.

Last night Sidra, Michelle, and I went to tie dye, which of course is almost impossible if you can only use one hand or no hands in Michelle's case. Cristina and Ami had to help us with a lot of it, and we took turns holding Michelle's hands. I wonder how our tie dye shirts turned out. We're supposed to get them today. I hope so!

Tonight's activities should be fun too. There's a haunted campus tour, which I can't go on because I didn't know there was a sign-up sheet. =( Oh well. There's also a dive-in movie (Surf's Up), a Twister tournament, and fondue making. I think I'll do Twister and fondue. There are too many fun activities to choose from, and I want to do all of them...

We have our presentation for the fantasy invention in half an hour. It'll be fun seeing everyone else's ideas. I'm sure they all came up with good ones.

I'd better get ready for the presentation. Good day!

~CS

If I could escape and recreate a place that's my own world

Hmm... Karaoke was okay. Not the best selection of songs (no decent Britney Spears or Nsync song and not even YMCA or Barbie Girl). I suppose most of us had a fun time overrall. I'm more used to karaoke parties where everyone gets to sing and not have to sign up. So, in the end, I only got to sing Sweet Escape with mah Cluster 7 peeps and I want Candy with my 1st floor. I totally forgot that I signed us up for those specific songs. =P Fun Fun Fun

Today there was a fire drill at the cafe. There was also baclava. Yum. Oh! And I found a dead mouse this morning at the cafe steps and alerted the staff about it. It's STILL there, and I hope they get rid of it. I don't care about the mouse personally, but you would think that a eating facility would be a tad more concerned.

We didn't work on sticks and bands at tensegrity lab today, so I'm overall content. I've been feeling unhappy lately ... =( It's probably the work load.

These two days have been pretty uneventful. Yesterday we went to our Tuesday Discovery Lecture as usual. The speaker was Professor Paul Linden, who spoke on Energy and Sustainability. It was an interesting topic, but most of the facts and information he shared were pretty familiar. His graphs and pictures were really nice, though, and he obviously knew his topic well. The end of his speech confused me. Oh well...

After that we had Scientific Communication class. For lunch we went to Price Center to eat. It was nice not having to walk all the way to and from Cafe Ventanas, but I prefer the free all-you-can-eat meals at Cafe V. Still, it was a nice experience. Tiffany, Lily, Shannon, and I had Rubio's; Chantal had Subway. Afterward, Lily ordered a milk tea while the other three had Jamba Juice. I decided not to get a drink. In the afternoon Scientific Communication class, we got our final project groups. I was happy to get one of the tensegrity projects; I was surprised that only two groups signed up for the tensegrity projects.

Today was another pretty routine day. Breakfast (waffles and hot chocolate), then class. Today we made a lot of measurements and did quite a bit of math. At lunch at Cafe Ventanas, though, the fire alarm went off and everyone had to be evacuated from the building. In the end, though, it turned out to be a minor alarm since we were allowed to go back in and finish our food. Afternoon was more measurement and math.

Well, I've pretty much finished most of my homework for tomorrow. I wrote my abstract yesterday and just have to proofread it tonight, and I did a preliminary version of our group PowerPoint for the fantasy invention presentation tomorrow.

It's dinnertime now (or has been for five minutes already), so I'd better go. Good night!

~CS

Computer Lab . . . once again

Sitting at a Computer. (period and end of story)!

Today's Discovery Lecture

As usual, we discussed the lecture today. Our outcome was - even through his glory through his status - was not as decent as the last few. His voice often trailed off in his monotone manner, for example, as it also often trailed off onto different, sometimes irrelevant. More so, he even contradicted himself in the end (for those of you who could read it, for it was not tested well and many images, words, and graphs ran off of the page) by telling us to use airplanes because they are safer, which is against the "leave a smaller carbon footprint" speech he gave us.

However, the information and completed/relevant graphs he showed to us were superb. If the graphs were made from his own work, then this guy is a genius. His work gives us - or maybe just me - some more hope to Earth's future, if that does not sound corny enough.

Back to COSMOS, I went to the price center today with a few friends as well as another friend from my school who happens to be at UC San Diego for a different science program. That was (spectacular) my first time there. I cannot wait to go back again and buy some things.

Even more about what I have gained from COSMOS, I am now getting fairly decent at spinning poi, which is great. I love the things I can do now =)

We must go now, I will return later.

Swing, Swing from the tangles of my heart

I had an emotional break-down yesterday. Yes, tensegritophobia is the fear of building giant geometric shapes out of sticks and rubber bands.

I have it.

And I was just upset that this was what we would be doing for two weeks under Dr. Oliveira. He's nice, however, and really enthusiastic.
Last night I won 1st prize at bingo. Hooray! Price Center money! I'm splitting it 50-50 with Tiffany because we both called out the numbers. XD. Then we thought the day was well accomplished so we stowed away in a dark corner and finished our anime.
This morning we watched a presentation about global warming. I popped the "global dimming" question, HA~!

*wonders what Dr. Oliveira looks like with his hair down*

Hopefully we can all be mature adults and learn to grow a pair of manners and be considerate to each other. What do you think is the point of Cosmos? We must extrapolate our intellectual creativity.

Anyhow, I loved the dance. Had the chance to dance with some nice ladies, including an RA (it was dark). She ditched me though because I had bad teeth.

Basketball is getting better. We're starting to learn how to do tensegrity structures (basically origami with sticks and string.

Peace.

J.M.

Today was the first day of Cluster 7's second part of the course: Tensegrity and Modeling of the Red Blood Cell Membrane. Mainly we were just playing around with sticks (with holes and slots), elastic cords, and caps. In the morning session we did some basic work with one stick and a few strings and then later tried to build a Snelson prism (three sticks with the strings attached in such a way that the structure was self-stabilizing yet the sticks did not touch). Our group (Chantal, Amna, and I) was unable to successfully complete the Snelson prism, so in the end Dr. Oliveira had to help us learn how. After that Amna and I continued to make prisms with four, five, and six sticks based on the same principle.

In the afternoon session we were given the manual for the Tensegritoys set and allowed to build anything we wanted from it. Amna and I both failed in successfully completing the tetrahedron, but we did build a nice icosahedron. Afterwards Amy and Rachel attached 6 icosahedrons together for a really cool structure.

So, tomorrow is our next Discovery Lecture. It should be pretty interesting, just like the past two.

Well, tonight's activities will start in half an hour. I know there's dodgeball and cookie making/decorating, but I don't know the rest of the activities. I hope I find out soon whether I'm in Gotcha or not. I don't mind either way (it would be fun to either watch other people tag and get tagged or to actually be involved in the game), but I want to know...

Anyway, I'm sure this week will be a lot of fun, with Karaoke Night tomorrow and Talent Show on Friday. Good night!

~CS