Well readers, I have officially seen the HPA!!! Yesterday night, me and my group (the class is split into groups that focus on specific parts of the plane) went to recover a section of the wing. The HPA (Human Powered Aircraft) is stored out at Mid State Airport, which is about 30 minutes away from State College. So for this week’s blog, I’d thought I’d tell you the exciting events of my first HPA visit.
On Wednesday, my group leader, one other student, and I planned to go out to the airfield at 4:30. We all met up at the Sailplane Lab and gathered our materials. This was the first obstacle of the evening, as we sound found that we were completely out of packing tape, which was needed to cover the gap between the top and bottom panels of foam covering the wing. Luckily, the other student that was with us remembered that he had tape in his car, which now brings us to obstacle two for the night: surviving the trip to Mid State. Considering the fact that not everyone in the Sailplane class has a car, different students that do have cars on campus have to drive us out. Unfortunately for me and my group leader, my fellow student had to be one of the worst drivers on the entire Penn State Campus. You know it’s never a good thing if the person driving a car that you’re in says, “Sorry guys, I suck at driving.” Let’s just say that I almost lost the Chocolate Lover’s Cookies I had for a snack, and my life flashed before my eyes at least 12 times. After finally making it out to Mid State (in one piece, thank god), we walked into the hangar and quickly discovered our third obstacle of the evening. The section of wing that we wanted to work on was about eight feet up in the air, instead of detached from the fuselage like we had expected. No problem, we’re engineers, we think of solutions. We went and gathered a couple of fold-out chairs to stand on. Obstacle Numero 4: The three of us are probably the shortest people in the Sailplane Class. So even with the added height of the chair, we were still to short to see the top of the wing. Now this is where it got interesting. Kids, do not try this at home. We got foam blocks, rather unsteady foam blocks, put them on top of the already rickety chairs and climbed up. We could finally reach and see the top of the wing, but one wrong step and we’d have a rather unpleasant evening. Thankfully, none of us took any spills and we were able to get the job done. Four hours later, we began to make our way back to Penn State. Let’s just say at this point I was terrified for the trip back, because not only was it the same driver as before taking us back, it was now 8:30 at night and completely dark outside. However, the student driver (see what I did there?) was more cautious on the way back, and we managed to make it back by about 8:55. Now here comes the next obstacle: I was starving and almost all of the dinning commons are closed (this may not be related to the HPA, but when food is as important in your life as it is in mine, it maters). So I, being the stupid freshman that I am, thought that Redifer had dinner until 9, and that Late Night didn’t start until 10:30. Looking at the time on my phone, I decided to track star it to Redifer so I could finally get something to eat before it closed. When I got to the commons (fairly quickly, if I do say so myself), I saw the line waiting for Late Night to open, and realized that my previous assumptions had been wrong. All’s well that ends well, I suppose, because I did enjoy working on the HPA, and I especially enjoyed the yummy roast turkey meal I had at Late Night.
Every single major in every single college at every single university requires a unique and specific set of skills to be successful in that field. So when you think of these skills, what comes to mind when you think engineering? Most people would say math, science, and hands-on skills, or any combination or subset of these concepts. But have you ever thought about the creative side of engineering? Or have you perhaps noticed the lack in creativity in college engineering students? Well this deficiency of creativity is because my fellow engineers and I are, as my sailplane professor says, left-brained creatures. In the human brain, the left side is responsible for controlling analytical thoughts, meaning it takes care of the math, science, and other skills you would relate to engineering. However the right side of the brain controls things such as emotions, creativity, and artistic expression. Now considering these two categories of the brain, it is obvious why engineers are considered left-brained. However, as my sailplane professor recently told us in class, engineers, or at least good engineers, need to be a little bit of both. And so, in the next few classes my nightmare began. . .
t all of the speeches were very well (with the exception of mine, perhaps!), but there were definitely some things that worked better than others.
g into this speech I was terrified, not only for me, but for my fellow classmates. After watching monday’s speeches, I only got more nervous, however, because they were all so well-presented. I especially think that having a powerpoint with pictures and captions worked well. I have to say, I didn’t originally think to do that, but after seeing a few, I decided it would be a good idea. Another thing that I did notice was that everyones’ volume, for the most part, was pretty good. I didn’t really have to strain to hear anyone’s speech. Furthermore, I thought that two common problems were nervous fidgeting and filler words (“like,” “um”). In addition, I thought the content of the speeches were all very good, especially for this being the first project of the year. I believe that all of the errors in the speaking were all easily fixable, and I think everyone in the class definitely came in as good speakers. Well, one down lots to go fellow classmates!
pped in the middle of typing and told her counterpart that she believed their email was too vague regarding club eligibility. She thought that they should be firm when explaining club dues and the requirements of the club, however her fellow club officer believed that the writing sounded too harsh, and that they would scare people away from the group. They talked back and forth about the best way to inform their new members about the club, while still being polite about their demands. In the end, they agreed on a compromise: a statement that said that even though dues were to be handed in by a certain date, they would be lenient with people who needed a little extra time due to financial or personal reasons. In the end, this argument was resolved through the exchange of carefully worded rhetoric, an important tool to have when communicating with our peers.
dered to be civic behavior. Following the reading of this question, I began to think that perhaps being civic isn’t necessarily all about doing charity work and things of the sort, but that perhaps being civic is doing what is morally right. These two concepts may seem very similar, and I confess there is a slight overlap between the two (it could be said that doing charity work is something that is morally right). However, there is also a distinct difference between the two. For example, if civic responsibility were simply linked to charity, than cheating on a test would not be considered a lapse in civic duty. I’m sure we can all agree that one would not be being a civic citizen if they were cheating in any form, but on the other hand, the situation would have nothing to do with charity, or “giving back to the community.” The situation would have to do with being an honest and just member of society. This is where I believe there is an error in society’s idea of citizenship. Being civic doesn’t just mean being a benevolent, charitable person, it means promoting and living by an idea of justice in your everyday life and in your community. Overall, while the concept of being civic may seem like an obvious definition, the idea often raises more question than it answers. I encourage you to respond and put what you believe to be your own ideas of civic duty!