Monthly Archive for April, 2006

In the "yay" department, I was notified today that my research poster tied for second place in the engineering and computer science category at the symposium I presented at last week. In addition to granting a little prestige to my resume, this honor carries a monetary award, though the amount may be rather small as three posters tied for 2nd. In the "how-the-fuck-did-we-not-notice-this-before" department, I discovered this afternoon that the orbits we had worked out for the Titan Orbiter Project, which we'll be presenting to NASA Glenn researchers on Monday, were completely and totally unfeasible because they required exorbitant amounts of fuel. After flipping out, rechecking calculations, and spending hours bent over notebooks and my keyboard, I have a solution that, though it doesn't make me happy, is better than nothing. I suppose that it's also better than having discovered this mistake right about the time one of the NASA engineers brought it up. I shudder even to think of it. As it is, I feel like I've cobbled things back together with duct tape, and I have no idea whether duct tape works at cryogenic temperatures. Nerve-wrecking. Monday is technically the last day of classes, but I'm basically through with lectures now. I've got a couple of days of going to senior project presentations and then it's nothing but the gigantic load of work hanging over me until I can get it packed away so that I can enjoy graduation. Last Sunday my grandfather called me from Cornell, which, though it made me smile, also reminded me just how much I cannot wait to start that adventure. At the same time, I don't want my time at Case to end either. There are too many great people here that I fear I'll lose touch with after we head off into the world. Let's face it: I've done this too many times to delude myself into thinking that things will ever be the same between us again.