The eleventh hour

Only two days remain of Shad Valley.  I can't believe this month has gone by so quickly; summer is almost half over, and soon I'll have to say goodbye to all these incredible people that I have had the amazing opportunity to live with this July.  It'll be a long time before I ever see these people again... everyone is from all over, be it British Columbia or Ontario or Manitoba or Newfoundland.  Here's a graphical representation I did up for monthbook:

So much has happened in such a short period of time; it's hard to put it all to words.  Not to mention the fact that our schedule is always jam-packed full of amazing things -- the only reason I have a moment to type now is because my workshop instructor wasn't feeling well and she dismissed our session early.  In any case, there is so much to talk about!

Our synchrotron experiment changed a bit since my last post.  We ended up deciding to apply lubricants to bike chains, then soak them in nitric acid for a period of a few days to simulate the long term effects of acid rain.  Then we removed the chain pieces from our sample bottles using chopsticks (something that requires a surprising amount of finesse), and placed the chains in mineral oil.  We then prepared samples out of the remaining acid which contained corroded metal to discern which lubricant better protected the chain from the corrosion.  It was a lot of fun, and working with the synchrotron was extraordinary.  More than ever I want to be a researcher; I have never felt more at home than working in that synchrotron lab.

Attaching a sample to the apparatus

In which I prepare the aforementioned samples

The hour-long rec times we have every day have also been a blast.  From kickboxing to zumba to quidditch, I've got to try out so many incredible things that I would never have conceived of otherwise.

Kickboxing!

And then there's our overall project.  My group decided to create heating insoles to keep feet warm during the winter.  Not only are they heated, but they are powered by piezoelectricity, thereby never having to be plugged in or have batteries changed; they merely siphon off waste energy as you walk.  As I wrote for our product's facebook page:

 

Our company is named Lioness (an anagram for insoles -- we're pretty clever), and all and all our project was a lot of fun.  We had some rough patches and disagreements, and we were right down to the wire finishing our business plan and presentation, but everything worked out in the end, to some extent.

The inSol logo, designed by me

Yesterday marked our final product pitches in front of all our fellow Shads, the program staff, and a panel of six judges.  As I mentioned, we hadn't finished preparing our presentation until an hour before, but we managed to not completely embarrass ourselves.  Still, by the time we sat down we were just glad that it was over and we had done it.  We were the second group to present, and after us came four more.  After everyone had presented, our program director announced awards.  There were three -- best prototype, best presentation, and most marketable idea.  We instantly knew we hadn't won any, but we were okay with that.  We'd had fun and tried our best, and we had actually finished!  Then we won best presentation.  I don't think I've ever felt so ecstatic in my life -- none of us had expected it at all.  The judges said they were extremely impressed with how we spoke and answered questions.  I couldn't even remember a word we'd said by that point, I was so overwhelmed.  It was a great way to end of our project experience, that's for sure.

My amazing teammates of Lioness Corporation (and me!)

But Shad is not over yet!  The other groups should be getting back from workshops about now, and there are still a few more days left of amazing experiences to be had.  I wouldn't want to miss a minute of it.

Of the essence

These past ten days have been so incredibly intensely busy, perhaps today most of all, so I suppose it is fitting that it is today that I am going to give up a big chunk of my time to write these words.  So much has happened since my first entry; I don't know quite where to start.  First off, everything is incredible.  The people, the events, the everything.  Maybe a bit more sleep would be nice, but seeing as I choose to wake up every morning at six to shower and read before the 7:30 breakfast, I guess lack of sleep is partially my own fault.

I suppose that going by idea is better than trying to cover the last week and a half chronologically, so I think I should start with our main project.  Every year, all the Shads at all the campuses across Canada work to solve the same problem in small groups.  There are six teams here at USask (I'm on team F).  Our problem:  How might we improve the comfort, efficiency and safety of year round, human-powered transport?  Our group has been off to a bit of a rocky start, and we don't gel as much as our house group, but despite that we're well on our way, and I think things may be looking up (not to jinx it, of course).  We're currently working on three separate ideas under what we decided was our umbrella problem of improving walking:  either piezoelectric shoes, massage insoles, or a commuter encouragement program.  Our team has nine members, so three of us were assigned to research each one and report on our progress at tomorrow's meeting.  I've been working on the third, and I'm actually pretty happy with what I've come up with.  I hope the rest of the group likes my ideas.

Every day we have organized rec from 11:30 to 12:30, and for the first week of the program my legs were in a perpetual state of soreness.  I could barely force myself to walk across campus to the engineering building where our lectures are held, but I'm feeling much better now.  I guess that's what the ringette off-season does to you, but I'm glad to be getting back in shape.  Our rec activities are always something new and fun, be it dodgeball, kickball, ultimate frisbee, a zombie adventure across campus, or basketball.  I forgot just how awesome games like basketball can be, seeing as I haven't played for years, and I'm having a great time experiencing new things and re-experiencing old ones.

Every morning from 8:30 until rec we're at the engineering building for lectures of some kind.  They all revolve around this year's Shad theme of human powered transportation, which is a little disappointing seeing as it's not my favourite field to end all fields, but there are still so many interesting things to learn about.  Our schedule is also dotted with things like workshops and projects, like the marble one I mentioned in my earlier entry.  Over the first few days we worked on this project in our house groups to design an eco-hotel, which was a lot of fun.  We split pretty naturally into a business and an engineering group with no one really having to act as leader, and it was such a remarkable experience.  I wish our main group project went as smoothly as that.  We also made a device to transport an egg 10m without human intervention -- ours was a car of sorts that had a stringed arm with an elastic band attached, and when the elastic was let go the string unraveled and the arm moved forward, propelling the car.  Our design ended up placing second, although that project was in our main groups and wasn't exactly the most phenomenal experience for that reason.  Still, we're beginning to work better together, and I think that despite these rocky starts we are going to end the project and the program strong.

Some of the other workshops I've attended have been one on critical thinking (which involved a lot of debate and was a blast), one on prototype design, and - this is the big one - I managed to get into the workshop to use the synchrotron!  I was so excited, and still am!  Today was the first of our four workshop sessions there, with another tomorrow and a third and forth next week.  Today the ten of us just took a tour, got ID badges done, and learned about what our experiment must entail.  Tomorrow we'll begin preparations, and next Wednesday is our beamtime.  After our official Shad Valley day ended at ten o'clock, we had an informal meeting of the Synchrotron team to discuss our experiment, which we must have fully designed by tomorrow.  It had to involve either bike chain lubricant or bike tires, so what I believe we've decided to go with is to apply a variety of different types of lubricants to chain segments, then use the synchrotron to deduce the amount of iron converted to ferrous oxide, thereby being able to state that the "best" lubricant is the one that caused the least amount of ferrous oxide conversion.  Hopefully all goes as planned; some tensions are obvious amongst those ranks as well, and I can see trouble going down tomorrow if some of the others object.  But even that, and all the homework entailed, isn't enough to get me down.  I don't care what kind of experiment we do -- IT'S AN ACTUAL PARTICLE ACCELERATOR THAT WE ARE ALLOWED TO USE!  I AM ECSTATIC NO MATTER WHAT!

This is the view when you first walk past reception... it's breathtaking.

A few other things have happened as well.  Weekends are still extremely busy, but they're more focused on play than work.  We went "camping" this weekend past (note the quotation marks), which basically meant we stayed in a beautiful wood lodge called Shekinah.  It was wonderful -- there were quite a lot of mosquitoes (they were extremely bad on campus last week, although this one is a bit better), but with a bit of bug spray and some bulky clothes you were fine.  We played lots of card games... there was this one called Jungle Speed which was extremely violent (and extremely fun... basically you have to grab the totem whenever another player flips up a card that matches yours, and the two of you wrestle it out), and another called Set that was pretty great (and I'm not just saying that because for some reason I won every match).  We didn't just stay inside playing cards, either.  Despite the fact that I pictured Saskatchewan as Flatland, Shekinah was in a valley.  A beautiful, beautiful valley.  We climbed to the top of the hill for a picnic snack, and the view was just incredible.

It's already almost midnight curfew and I have to brush my teeth, so I guess that marks the end of today's update.  I'll try to report again when I can, but we'll see how time flies.

The adventure begins

Yesterday morning I woke up much-too-early and began my three-airport odyssey to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I was exhausted by the time I and the other Shads on my plane arrived, but due to the wonders of time zones, it wasn't even noon yet.  Thus began the second part of a long, long day, and despite the fact that all I really wanted to do was collapse in bed and become Rip Van Winkle, it was an amazing time.  First off, we had a photo scavenger hunt around the USask campus.  By the end I could add sore feet to my exhaustion, but I think I have a good feel for the campus thanks to that 3-hour hike.  My team ended up finding all the things on the list; here are some of our photos:

I'm taking this one... what a cool elevator.

We have a rocket in the Shad Cave.

Shads are strong as a raging fire.

Sitting on top of the Engineering E for Excellence

Rocking out in the Shad Pad.

U of S in front of flowers that say U of S.

Right when I'd arrived we'd had lunch, and after the scavenger hunt a group of us watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.  After that, it was dinner, and the food here is amazing.

Yum.

Our next activity was this design project.  Everyone was divided into eleven groups, and each group was tasked to make a 25cm by 25cm by 16cm box with a hole in the top and in the centre of the bottom of one of the sides, with the goal being to delay the passage of a marble from the top hole to the bottom by as much time as possible.  However, one could only use a single sheet of bristol board, a sharpie, a role of masking tape, and work with scissors and a ruler.  We made our box by cutting two slightly larger than 50 by 16 pieces, folding them in half, and then taping them into the sides of a box by folding the excess as tabs.  On the inside, a track ran along the sides of the box, forcing the marble to follow down along the perimeter before coming out through the hole in the bottom.  We then made a lid that slanted downwards towards the upper hole, to assure that wherever the marble was placed on the lid, it would end up entering the box.  Afterwards, all eleven boxes were set up on eleven consecutive steps on a staircase, with the bottom hole of each one leading out to the top of the next box.  Out of all the boxes, only two worked without requiring any outside intervention, and ours was one!

My team's is the top one with the squiggle.

After that, we wrote letters to our future selves, and lit candles and made introductions to the group.  I'll admit, by that point I was pretty dead due to it feeling like it was past midnight to me, and so by the time we went back to the Shad Pad to meet with our houses (House 6, represent), I was fairly out of it.  Then this morning I woke up at the tender time of 5:50, because my jetlagged internal clock told me it was almost nine.  Add to that the fact that at 5:50 here it is just as bright outside as it is at home at 9am, and you get a rough first couple of days.  Hopefully I'm not as completely worn out by the end of the day today... it's hard to enjoy the evening activities when you're just hoping they'd end so you can collapse into bed!

All in all, though, today was a blast!  I've met some really cool people so far, and I can't wait to get to know everyone better over the course of the month.  I think this July is going to be one to remember.