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

So, Family Weekend. As I said before, it's been very quiet and a little lonely around here with so many people gone, but it's nice to have the laundry room and dining hall so empty. Anyway, they'll all be back soon. I'm glad I got my laundry done already when there was almost no one.

Today was a really good day. Speaking of laundry, I was happy that I managed to get free drying for both of my loads. Yay! Plus the COSMOS residential life staff got extra tickets to Batman, so even though I was too late to sign up I still managed to go. Thanks Pat and everyone else! I'm really glad I got to go. The movie was very exciting and intense.

Well, now after a very relaxing weekend I have to restart on my work. My last assignment for the bioengineering part of the cluster. I'm happy to be starting the tensegrity part; it sounds really cool and really fun! We get to play around and build models of the cell membrane as a tensegrity structure.

It's sad that COSMOS is half over already... these two weeks have gone by so fast...

Halfway

So it's family weekend. It has been relaxing and stressful at the same time. I definitely got to catch up on sleep. However, I think computers hate my family. There's always problems with computers. Oh well. I cannot wait until I go back to COSMOS, I already miss the people and the learning (but definitely not the homework).

The dance was tons of fun. I had a great time, despite the technical difficulties. Hopefully the next dance will run a little more smoothly.

I cannot wait until we jump into our next topic, tensegrity. Building stuff is always fun. I do not know much about this topic either so it will be exciting to learn something I have not been exposed to before.

I cannot believe we are already halfway through COSMOS. I wish it could last longer, knowing after this is over I must go back to school soon. I plan to enjoy every minute of the next two weeks.

-Rachel Gurlin

Last night was the COSMOS dance. The food and drinks were very nice. Tiffany, Shannon, and I all didn't dance, so we sat at a table and played cards. It was still pretty fun, even without dancing.

So, this weekend is Parent Visitation Weekend. It was nice to go with my parents to Price Center just for a morning. We got a nice UCSD sweatshirt. =D It's kind of lonely now in the dorms, though. While everyone else was on the mall trip, for example, only Shannon and I were in our entire suite, probably floor, and quite possibly building. And right now we're the only two in our suite as well. In a way it's nice and relaxing, I suppose. No waiting for showers, at least. Still, I'll be glad once everyone comes back.

Mom and Dad, if you're reading this, thank you for all the food and the visit!!!

Good night!

Please don't stop the music

Whoot!!! Last night we had the Dance. It was crazy... except for the disfunctional music machine, grinding, and the monstrous B.O. Srsly boys... spare us...
But the dance scene is always fun if you have a bunch of friends. I couldn't drag Christina, Shannon, or Tiffany on to the dance floor (like teh Silver Bullet--*hem*hem I see a pattern here -_-). But at least I had fun >=D

I'll be home for the weekend so I hope the Cluster 7 people who stayed behind rock the boat.

Sayonara desuuuuuuuu~~!

Amazing Stuff

Today is the last lab with Dr. Vera, and I am very disappointed. He's a pure genius, and I've learned so much just by talking to him and asking him questions. He always answers my questions patiently and then points me to new questions, which is awesome. Today we learned something I thought was pretty incredible. I was aware that mRNA undergoes post-transcriptional processing which keeps the exons and removes the introns but I had not known the significance of this process. Dr. Vera explained to us that eukaryotic cells have an advantage because of this processing- it allows for specialization of cell functions and greater diversity of cell proteins by being selective. For instance, muscle cells may process their mRNA differently from brain cells to better fulfill their functions. Then this means a cell's DNA does not determine its destiny. Well, not directly. I think a cell's post-transcriptional processing is regulated by cell signals and chemicals... which are coded for by the cellular DNA. So the cell DNA regulates its own regulation... This is some amazing stuff. I am as excited as the time Lakers got Pau Gasol.

-Min Lee

Today is our last lab in the bioengineering part of this cluster, so it's our last day in the amazing high-tech lab with Ms. Green. We're running an agarose gel electrophoresis right now to analyze for wild type or heterozygous mice genotypes.

Yesterday was a good night. I ended up going to the Rubik's cube tutorial and helping out a few people. Later that night we got a nice warm Pizookie from BJ's and some good chicken burritos from Chipotle. Tonight we have a ton of fun activities. There's slip-n-slide, a picture scavenger hunt, and the COSMOS dance. And parent weekend is tomorrow. Lots of fun stuff... The activities the RA's have been planning this week have all been really good.

Have a good day!

~CS

Shoot for the Stars

I'm listening to Min do a Q&A with Dr. Vera. He's confirming everything I explained to him. I told him that the labs 8 and 9 weren't related. He seems intent on finding a link.

Anyways... water polo was fun. Rob G the RA dove in to "rescue" me and tipped me over. It was terrible, cuz' I had fallen, and I couldn't get up. Other notable events was that I threw the ball OVER the net, being extra excited to score.

Ice blocking didn't go as well. I had to scoot along like a dog after using the great outdoors.

Sincerely,
J.M.

Livin' la Vida Loca

Last day in lab with Ms. Green. It was funny watching her and Ms. Nicely argue. Ms. Green scolded a group for dropping their sample, but Ms. Nicely said that we were first-timers and mistakes happen.

Raizor Ramen: Positive attitude! HOOOooooo~!

Seeing parents tmrw. Wish I could go watch Batman. Looks epic.

Arrivederci