Karl Valten
Apr 14th, 2009, 12:49:04 PM
Soooo, I just may actually be alive. I apologize for disappearing without much of any word to the last...eh...month and a half is it? Anywho, I guess for a while there I just lost the drive to do any writing and with things picking up at the University and work I just haven't had too much time to stop by online.
But as things start transitioning to the summer, I'm looking to get back in the mix here....provided that those darn, dirty rebels haven't gone and overrun the galaxy.
So a bit of an update here, I managed to find a menial tech position at the University where I fix whatever any professor or idiot TA decide to break....and for some reason they give me a 15-passenger van to drive for the purpose. I really have no idea why....especially let 'let Josh drive it' bit. Eh, I guess it makes it easier to push the hordes of students crowding every square inch of the University out of the way.
Also been picking up a lot of slack with the Fraternity. Somehow I managed to rope myself into the Social Chairman position as well as help found the a 'Real World Engineering' committee of sorts. This responsibility stuff is actually starting to grow on me so I may actually suck it up and try to run for president of the fraternity in the next 2-3 weeks.
Joined up with the University Nanosatellite Program that is sponsored by NASA and the Air Force. Kinda cool deal, its a two-year competition where we design, build, and program a satellite to conduct an experiment we come up with. The winning University then gets their satellite launched into space. :dance My part at the moment is the simulation and data analysis guy for the Attitude Determination, Navigation, and Control Systems (ADNCS) team.
Also been helping out one of the local high schools with the FIRST Robotics Competition. They were part of a Science and Engineering awareness program that my fraternity is volunteering for and I managed to talk with one of the team coaches and find out they were desperate for help. Hell, it sounded cool, so I grabbed a few of the brothers and we spent a good 10-15 hours a week with the high school students for the last 6 weeks helping them with the bot. It was a complete train-wreck when we came onboard, but we managed to point em in the right direction without taking over.
The managed to compete in a tournament in Chicago and make it to the Minnesota Regional Championships here in Minneapolis. And holy-flying-batshit they managed be one of the winning teams. So now they are heading to Atlanta where they will be competing at the National Championships. And I shall be going with them on the team as a 'technical design adviser' (or whatever title it is they came up with for me :cool: )
Even managed to get myself into the University newspaper (article isn't the best written one out there, but it's still cool)
http://www.mndaily.com/2009/04/05/u-mentored-robotics-team-winner
An added bonus is that I can also go and harass Lockheed-Martin about my internship applications there as well as harass GA Tech about a research position.
Still haven't found a fucking job for the summer even with about 40 internship/REU job applications turned in.
Anywho, that's what I've been up to as of late. Any of you nutcases living near Atlanta should definitely stop by for a sweet robotics competition. We'll be there Wednesday through Sunday this week.
But as things start transitioning to the summer, I'm looking to get back in the mix here....provided that those darn, dirty rebels haven't gone and overrun the galaxy.
So a bit of an update here, I managed to find a menial tech position at the University where I fix whatever any professor or idiot TA decide to break....and for some reason they give me a 15-passenger van to drive for the purpose. I really have no idea why....especially let 'let Josh drive it' bit. Eh, I guess it makes it easier to push the hordes of students crowding every square inch of the University out of the way.
Also been picking up a lot of slack with the Fraternity. Somehow I managed to rope myself into the Social Chairman position as well as help found the a 'Real World Engineering' committee of sorts. This responsibility stuff is actually starting to grow on me so I may actually suck it up and try to run for president of the fraternity in the next 2-3 weeks.
Joined up with the University Nanosatellite Program that is sponsored by NASA and the Air Force. Kinda cool deal, its a two-year competition where we design, build, and program a satellite to conduct an experiment we come up with. The winning University then gets their satellite launched into space. :dance My part at the moment is the simulation and data analysis guy for the Attitude Determination, Navigation, and Control Systems (ADNCS) team.
Also been helping out one of the local high schools with the FIRST Robotics Competition. They were part of a Science and Engineering awareness program that my fraternity is volunteering for and I managed to talk with one of the team coaches and find out they were desperate for help. Hell, it sounded cool, so I grabbed a few of the brothers and we spent a good 10-15 hours a week with the high school students for the last 6 weeks helping them with the bot. It was a complete train-wreck when we came onboard, but we managed to point em in the right direction without taking over.
The managed to compete in a tournament in Chicago and make it to the Minnesota Regional Championships here in Minneapolis. And holy-flying-batshit they managed be one of the winning teams. So now they are heading to Atlanta where they will be competing at the National Championships. And I shall be going with them on the team as a 'technical design adviser' (or whatever title it is they came up with for me :cool: )
Even managed to get myself into the University newspaper (article isn't the best written one out there, but it's still cool)
http://www.mndaily.com/2009/04/05/u-mentored-robotics-team-winner
An added bonus is that I can also go and harass Lockheed-Martin about my internship applications there as well as harass GA Tech about a research position.
Still haven't found a fucking job for the summer even with about 40 internship/REU job applications turned in.
Anywho, that's what I've been up to as of late. Any of you nutcases living near Atlanta should definitely stop by for a sweet robotics competition. We'll be there Wednesday through Sunday this week.