One Down... One Million To Go

Okay... So last semester did feel like the longest one of my life but this post title may have been a slight exaggeration. It was a slow adjustment process to life in the engineering fast lane. I have been a Mechanical Engineering major for a while now but in general I was able to take a comfortable amount of classes that were fairly difficult but doable. The time finally came to transfer to UofA and buckle down and just get finished as quickly as possible. It was a little like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hydrant. I had tough classes and a lot of them. Many of my teachers were, how should I say... different and challenging. However I can easily say I have never learned so much in school in such a short time. I owe a lot of my success to an awesome study group with some guys that have become great friends. We had many laughs and some intense discussions but we made a great team. After our last final we decided to dress up and go out to dinner to celebrate. The posted picture is at our dinner. We got sushi at a cool place here in Tucson called "Ra"and laughed about the good times.

Below is a video of an animation I had to make for a computer aided design class I took. We were required to do a project at the end of the semester demonstrating what we learned in the class. For the project I modeled my longboard. It was a challenging project. I took my longboard apart and measured and made sketches of each individual part. Every nut, bolt, wheel, etc was measured. I then took these sketches and measurements and went to the computer and drew each of them in the computer program. Once each part was drawn I applied the proper material (i.e. plastic, beech wood, etc). And then I took each part and assembled them together in the program. I told the computer how each part fit into each other. This information created an accurate representation of a longboard. The wheels could roll and you could adjust it to different rider's specifications. Hope that was not too boring. I just thought it was a lot of fun. Sorry it is small but if you look close you will see it take itself apart and reassemble.