Insight on the Future

Well, as to keep my word, I'm posting everything I did at the MTU Summer Youth Programs, in the Computer Engineering Class. Note that I am 1 hour away from my deadline :D.

MTU SYP 2005

Monday- Morning began with a long EE powerpoint, then we went on some tours of some of the rooms in the EERC building, which is where my class is. Immediately I discovered that I had one of the teachers that I had last year, and I was also in the same room too. We then went to lunch. After lunch a computer-engineering professor came and did a presentation on how the hardware in a computer works. It was interesting but after awhile it got boring. Then he had us all get into groups of three and each group got a computer and took it apart, which is always the easy part.

Putting everything back into the computer was a little tricky but my partner did this before so we were able to get it working. It seems like in every class I take at MTU about two kids always seem to know as much as the professors and three are always Linux obsessives. All this pretty much lasted until the end of the day. Back at the hotel I went swimming with my brother for a while and used my dad’s laptop with the wireless network the hotel provides. And that’s just about it.

Tuesday- My alarm went off at 6:30 but then l fell back to sleep until 8. I had to eat and shower very quickly to make it to the building I'm in by 9:00. We started out by running power through our circuits we made with a breadboard and two resistors. We measured the resistance and voltage through the resistors with multimeters. Then we got to use the oscilloscopes, which display the wavelength of the electricity flowing through the circuits. I adjusted mine so that it looked exactly like a heart monitor screen.

After this we got a tour of the room where they etch patterns into silicon wafers. Then we got a tour of the room where they use plasma to do something to the wafers. From here we went to lunch, where I saw alex eppert. We talked for two seconds then I went and ate. Before class started again I went to the campus store but didn't buy anything. Once class started, we started working on soldering our own circuits with some LEDs and stuff, and they taught us binary and hexadecimal number systems, which I already knew. I failed to properly solder one of my pieces on correctly and had to de-solder all 8 prongs. We worked on this for a while until a professor came in and demonstrated what happens when a capacitor blows up. The first one burst into flames and the second one popped and split apart. This was all done in a plastic box of course.

At 4:30 class got done and my mom and brother picked me up and we went to DQ to eat. I got a mocha Moolatte which is almost a good as Starbuck's Frappucino. At 6:30 I played tennis with some ppl from SYP for an hour, then with Jeremy until my blood sugar dropped and I had to eat food. I'm not diabetic though I just get these weird drops in blood sugar sometimes. Then I came back to the hotel and swam in the pool then watched Napoleon Dynamite on our oprtable DVD player. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get some pictures ad video, which I’ll post on Friday.

Wednesday- Today didn’t start out the greatest, because I spent one hour finishing my soldering project and then two hours I spent troubleshooting and de-soldering, until I finally realized that a prong on one of the transistors and on the processor were bent back and were not making any connection at all. Then I went to lunch. The food actually isn’t all that bad, a lot better then some of the places I’ve eaten at. After lunch the teachers explained logic gates and Boolean algebra and that kind of stuff. Then we went on some more tours of some rooms. One was where we got to see how the processing chips can be programmed by ultraviolet light with a computer. When we came back we worked on the computer using PSPICE, which is software that you can use to build virtual circuits then simulate them. We also worked with the oscilloscopes and function generators a little bit. The kid that sits next to me told me that his motor skills are so low that he almost qualifies for being handicap lol. I don’t know if I feel safe being by him when he solders. The other kid that sits next to me is annoying and he slapped me three times because that is the only method he uses to get my attention. After SYP I ate at Subway then we went to see our dog at a kennel in Hancock.

Thursday- Today it was very boring and monotonous in the morning. All we did was use the function generator and oscilloscopes for two hours. I was ready to do something else after one hour had passed. Then we made a small circuit with a diode, capacitor and resistor, and got a tour of a some rooms filled with some high-powered servers and a massive Cray supercomputer. The professor said that when they install a supercomputer like that they have to have a Cray technician come in and connect every single wire and cut them to exact length because the computer needs to know the time it will take for an electron to get from one part to another part for it to run at maximum performance. During lunch I had an allergic reaction and my lip got all puffy lol it was weird. After lunch we went to one of the rooms and a professor showed us a $2000 machine that makes circuit boards by milling paths in the thin copper layer. Then we went to another room where there was some cool stuff that delt with electric motors and some demonstrations with radio waves. Then we came back to the room and I started a project soldering together a small solar powered car which I should have done by tomorrow morning if everything goes smoothly, (whatever can go wrong, will). After that I ate at Subway and we drove home.

Friday- We drove to Houghton in the morning and I got to class on time. I finished soldering my “solar speeder” car, and it worked when it was in direct sunlight, but not inside because the fluorescent lights charged the capacitor at .02 Volts/minute hahaha and the motor needs 2.2 Volts just to run. Somehow, I poked my thumb with a very sharp wire and started bleeding profusely, but then 20 minutes later I poked my index finger on one of the prongs on a chip, and the same thing hapenned lol. Peter, the kid that sat next to me, hooked a small solar panel up to the power amplifier and put 20 Volts through it and it started emitting a ton of smoke and it melted all the wires inside of it lmao. When I finished that project I just used the computer and didn’t really do anything for the rest of the time.

Lunch wasn’t too bad. After lunch my brother and my mom and dad came to see me and we toured the newly renovated library and then went to the campus store and I bought some stuff. Back at class we didn’t do much until we went on some tours of what other classes were doing like the acting class, which did a play for everyone to watch. It definitely wasn’t the best play I’ve ever seen. Actually it was one of the worst plays I’ve ever seen. After that we went to the web design class but all we did was play games on the sweet Macs they had. Then we came back and once again we didn’t do much, except just talk, however a few ppl were soldering and typing C++ code, but I had enough of that from all week. Then we went downstairs and had ice cream and sat there for about an hour, and Grant told us a bunch of hilarious stories about when he was an undergraduate student at MTU. And then it was over just like that. Each year the summer youth programs seem to go by faster and faster. My family and me ate at The Ambassador, which is a popular restaurant in Houghton. Then we drove home. That is the conclusion of my experience at the 2005 SYP.

Volts Amps and Ohms

Today after my MTU class we drove back because we didn't get a hotel room for tonight, so we'll drive back there tomorrow morning. Remember that I'm keeping track of everything that goes on at the Summer Youth Programs so on Friday I will post everything for this week. However I will say that today was a bit overwhelming due to the large amount of imformation they tried to cram into our heads, but it still was fun. I got my schedule for school in the mail today but I won't post it unless anyone wants me to.

P.S. I think I was a little too negative on that last post, it really isn't as bad as it was on Monday!

Day 1

The reason I'm writing this is because the hotel has wi-fi and i'm in the pool room using my dad's laptop. Today was very boring, but I think tomorrow will be better. I don't really like the people in my class, or the teachers. That's all for now.

7

It happened without much surprise, but with an enormous amount of awe and respect and uncomprehensive accomplishment which will never be repeated in the same way again. Today marks the end of an era, but just the beginning to Lance Armstrong's life. Thank Lance for all he's done and for everyone he has inspired at ThankYouLance@olntv.com.



Tomorrow morning I leave for Houghton for the SYP class at MTU. It should be fun, I'll keep track of everythign that happens and update when I get home on Friday.

Clueless

It seems like I will never know what I want to do or be in life. There are so many career choices available but so few time. This coming week I am going to be at MTU Summer Youth Programs until Friday. The first year I went to this I took General Engineering, the second year Electrical Engineering, and this year Computer Engineering. Each year I go in hope of discovering my true calling but always leave more confused because it just presents more choices. Maybe this time it will be different. I'll post each day if I can, the library there has a wireless network and my hotel might also have one, if these are all unnavailable then I'll just keep track of it on my Palm and post it all on Friday when I get home.

This morning was my last time golfing in the MJGA for the year, because I have to miss the following weeks because I'll be busy. We golfed at Chocolay Downs and my score was 56. Here are some Fun Facts:

• Number of balls lost: 2
• Number of clubs thrown: 1
• Number of bunkers hit: 1
• Highest number of putts on one green: 4
• Lowest number of putts on one green: 2
• Number of people I hit: 1
• Times I tried to conceal my anger: 5
  
• Times I failed to coneal my anger: 5

Tomorrow morning me and my family are leaving for Escanaba for the Escanaba Lighthouse 5k Race. It was last year at this run that I set a PR for 5k, and tomorrow I intend to do the same once again. One of the biggest factors that help me run is Shaklee products, specifically the Active Nutrition products. Shaklee has helped Olympic gold-medalists perform at their best and so it is no surprise that I have seen such an improvement after using the products. If you want to know more about Shaklee and it's excellent line of products, visit my parent's website at http://www.shaklee.net/carlsonassoc .

I know where you live...

Wow it's been really long since I posted, so long that I can't even remember everything that I missed. I should really try harder to have a better blog. This one must be pretty blah and boring. Maybe I should read How Blogs Work again. I have found that once I discovered HowStuffWorks.com I visit it often because of how informative it is. Don't know how that fire extinguisher works?? Wondering how the pins get set up at the bowling alley??? get the answers instantly!

Recently I have noticed a big jump in satellite imagery accessibility for anyone, with the introduction of Google Earth, an amazing program that gives you the ability to view high-resolution images of almost any city in the world, and also high-resolution images of other popular areas, such as the Grand Canyon. An example of how good it works, when in a high-resolution area you can easily see cars. What's more, if you want to find something but don't know where it is, just type it in the Search area and it will locate and zoom in on it for you (providing the area exists and it is recognized by the program).

Last weekend was the Mickey-Johnson Tennis Tournament in Marquette. On saturday was the singles tournament. The first match I had was against a Marquette kid I think, and it went pretty good. I won the first set 6-4 and the second set 6-3. That moved me on to the second round. Again I played a kid from Marquette, and got killed (0-6, 0-6). Ouch. On Sunday I did the doubles tournament with Dan Stam (aka dan stam the tennis man). If you weren't in tennis you wouldn't get it lol. The first match we got killed because our opponents never lost a set all year. Anyways the score was 1-6, 0-6. This put us in the losers' bracket. Our second match we could have won easily, but I pretty much fell apart in the second half of the second set and choked. 7-6, 5-7, 4-6.

Right now I'm in DePere, WI at my cousin's house enjoying the nice weather, right now anyways. Oh btw I packed everything but my shirts that was real smart lol.

Hmm..

Sorry I am a little late on writing this post. I think I left off somewhere last week. Saturday was Pioneers' Day, that was fun. I was in the First National Bank Big Brothers Big Sisters 2-Mile/10k race, but I did the 2-mile one. I achieved a new PR of 13:56 and took 3rd overall and 2nd in my age group. After that we went to the parade which wasn't too bad, I got sprayed with water twice. I came home, didn't do much, then went to the beach. I brought along my Coleman inflatable kayak but only after I pumped it up did I notice a large hole on the side, so my mom drove to Gander Mountain to get special tape for it. After that we ate and went to the fireworks, which were probably better than Escanaba's. g2 eat.

(Enter appropriate title here)

Victory! Recently I have found out that my blog has had some visitors, while my competing blogger's blog has seemingly no visitors.


The Gladstone Firecracker 5-Mile Race (Monday, July 4th)

• Time: 38:41
• Place: 10th in 15-19 age group
• Temperature: 70s
• Comments: My best race ever, lots of fun, definetly doing it again next year

MJGA Week 4 (Thursday, July 7th)

• Score: 51
• Place: 3rd in my group
• Temperature: 60-75
• Comments: My best score ever from the Reds, however I had trouble off the tee and the greens were soo slow

Yes, this is a very unorthadox way of posting events, but it certainly does present the information in a direct way doesn't it!

Anyways tomorrow is the Neguanee Big Brothers Big Sisters 2-Mile/10k Race. I am doing 2-Mile race and will be looking to break 14 minutes!

Here are some pictures from the Beer Belly 2-Mile Race in Saucomo, WI:

a band that was playing by the start and finish line


me and my dad at aftreword

Number Seven

As some of you may know, tomorrow, July 2nd, marks the start of the Tour de France, where Lance Armstrong will be competing for his 7th and last victory. Jan Ulrich, who has taken second place in the Tour five times in a row, will be looking to finally succede his rival Armstong. If Lance wins one more time, it will engrave his name into history for a long time to come.