Wow... I never thought I'd enjoy school

The Pentium Guy

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2005
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Wow. I never thought I'd enjoy school. But guess waht? Guess the hell what?

IM TAKING ROBOTICS! This term I'm doing the engineering theories behind robots. Ex: the motors in robots (horsepowers, rotors, torque), mechanics behind robotics (pulleys, levers, etc), cooling the robot (radiators, etc)

-Next term I'm taking Robot Machine Shop where you physically create the robot.
-Next term is programming the robot using C++ (oh boy I'm going to have a hard time with this one , hard, but FUN!).

Then after that we do a "FIRST" competition (I forgot what it stands for) - where we build a Robot for a specific task. Ex: I saw a video of some kids in our school building a robot that swung on monkey bars!

Hmm...... let's see. Other courses?

The Good:
-Physics sounds fun. The majority of the wor dwill be hands on, not much textbook work, not many tests becuase my teacher feels they're a waste of time (she gives us end-of-term tests, midterms and finals, and a few assessments - but nothing else relaly).
-Math is all computerized (we do it all in Mathematica 5, a program designed by a physicist who hated math so he made his own program) and it's hands on. French
-French is fun as usual. I have a lot of fun attempting to speak the language (and our teacher insults us in french and we have to insult him back, the entire course is spoken in french, no english at all (some, but not a lot )).
-Engineering (Bridge construction, motion, thermaldynamics, etc)! One project (out of MANY) that we do is build a shopping cart that goes "up" (the bottom of the cart goes up) so that as you empty the cart, you don't have to bend your back reaching over for the items.
-Research Seminar - the majority of us will be going to the science fair so we'll be doing a large science project (I'm doing something that will cool your CPU, perhaps a new type of heatsink or something or another - I haven't figured it out yet). A few years in the past a few kids invented soap that changed color when al lthe dirt from your hand was gone and got patents. One kid made a device that could delay the "Walk" signal so that old people (ex: her grandpa) could get across in time and won a patent for that. In this course we'll have to contact some companies for more information and stuff (like the aformentioned person had to contact the FCC and the government) - so we'll be doign a Technical writing (see below) course to be able to talk to them.

Some electives that I might take
-"Drawing on the other side of the brain" is a cool elective. Kids that can't draw take this course, it teaches you how to use the right side of the brain (more mechanical, practical, and "straight" really) instead of the left side, which is more creative. Blah - it's just a blowoff elective just to make the year go by quicker.
-Robotics stuff mentioned above
-Electronics and Microchips - Insane eh?
-Cooking (Again, blowoff course to get a good grade, eat food, and have fun at the same time)

Our school has a reputation for .. erm ... hacking o_O. Too many computer geeks there --> Some kid put a smileyface on the president's webpage. Holy crap.

Hmm, we get our own Linux computer, they give us an ASSLOAD of software:
-Putty (to access our linux machines at home)
-AutoCAD (I had a ton of fun with this one at school)
-Visual Studio .NET 2003
-J2SDK with Netbeans IDE
-MATLab
-Mathematica 5
-Other stuff I can't remember.
-photoshop, macrimedia studio, the usual blahblah

The Bad
-English is boring. Sucks. Blah.
-Technical writing (to be used with Research Seminar, see above)
-Only 50 kids, BUT some nice girls there though.

The Ugly:
-US History sucks.

I look forward to having a fun year, but I know there'll be some MAJOR downhills along the road with an assload of work and such.
-The Pentium Guy
 

The Pentium Guy

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2005
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Eh.... Let's just say its a Math, Science and Technology school. I hate the idea of EVERYONE knowing where I go and all. But I'll PM you if you really want to know.

Oh and by the way? I get XP, Office, and .NET for $5. DAMN!
 

mAdMaLuDaWg

Platinum Member
Feb 15, 2003
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Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
Eh.... Let's just say its a Math, Science and Technology school. I hate the idea of EVERYONE knowing where I go and all. But I'll PM you if you really want to know.

Oh and by the way? I get XP, Office, and .NET for $5. DAMN!

Heh, I get all that software for free... legally too!
 

The Pentium Guy

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2005
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Luck you. It's free for download for us, and that's a network transfer (54mbps) so that'll be super fast. I'd rather have the CD and the Box just to be cool. $5 is nothing to cough up. And now that MS is doing that DRM crap eh....I'll get XP for $5.
 

The Pentium Guy

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2005
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Originally posted by: dds14u
What school is this?

Btw, it's a highschool for 11th and 12th graders, 50 got selected for 11th, but you can't join in 12th grade without going through 11th at my school first, as my school is sponsored by a collage (hint: Engineering collage) and you take courses at that colage in 12th, just like a regular collage freshman would.

-The Pentium Guy
 

pancho619

Platinum Member
Feb 4, 2000
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The FIRST competition rocks. I was in the competition back in 1997 when our high school went for the first time, it was amazing, we had a blast from the robot build to the competition itself. Where is the competition being held this time? We had it at Epcot Center in Disney World and all the participants from our group got the whole trip sponsored by TRW (now Northrop I think). You're in for fun times. Congrats.
 

The Pentium Guy

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2005
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Originally posted by: pancho619
The FIRST competition rocks. I was in the competition back in 1997 when our high school went for the first time, it was amazing, we had a blast from the robot build to the competition itself. Where is the competition being held this time? We had it at Epcot Center in Disney World and all the participants from our group got the whole trip sponsored by TRW (now Northrop I think). You're in for fun times. Congrats.

I'm not sure where it's being held - it's my 2nd day at school ;). But all I know is that next week we're building a submarine robot. They haven't told us anything yet, we're given 3 days to figure it out, so they don't want to give us that much details...YET. So I don't know anything. I'll let you know though, about the details of that robot next week once we build it :p
 

acemcmac

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
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there's always a catch. The begining of the year is always peaches and roses compared to midterms and finals :laugh:
 

The Pentium Guy

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2005
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Originally posted by: acemcmac
there's always a catch. The begining of the year is always peaches and roses compared to midterms and finals :laugh:

Haha. True. But still I've talked to the seniors and they said it's a great school if you're willing to work hard and have the drive to learn basically :p. And then they mentioned something about long nights where you do nothing but research and don't sleep .... but you don't finish whatever project but you realize it's time to go to school. THAT scared me. I'll get through it.
 

KingofCamelot

Golden Member
Aug 20, 2004
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Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
Originally posted by: acemcmac
there's always a catch. The begining of the year is always peaches and roses compared to midterms and finals :laugh:

Haha. True. But still I've talked to the seniors and they said it's a great school if you're willing to work hard and have the drive to learn basically :p. And then they mentioned something about long nights where you do nothing but research and don't sleep .... but you don't finish whatever project but you realize it's time to go to school. THAT scared me. I'll get through it.

:( I wish there was a school like this where I live. The only computer courses at my high school are basic tech classes(Excel, Microsoft Word, etc :roll: ), web design(the teacher knows very little), and graphic design(photoshop).

Anyways, looks like you're going to learn a lot. :thumbsup: Don't overwork your brain.
 

sciencewhiz

Diamond Member
Jun 30, 2000
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Originally posted by: pancho619
The FIRST competition rocks. I was in the competition back in 1997 when our high school went for the first time, it was amazing, we had a blast from the robot build to the competition itself. Where is the competition being held this time? We had it at Epcot Center in Disney World and all the participants from our group got the whole trip sponsored by TRW (now Northrop I think). You're in for fun times. Congrats.

The competition will be in the Georgia Dome for the next 2 years (at least). The last year in Disney was 2002. In '03 it was in the Astrodome and Reliant stadium in Houston.

PS, check your PMs, I think we were on the same team back in '97.



The Pentium Guy, you can read more about the FIRST competition at usfirst.org. There is also a message board for FIRST participants at chiefdelphi.com. There are a few MAST students who post as well as some of the WPI mentors.
 

The Pentium Guy

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2005
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The Pentium Guy, you can read more about the FIRST competition at usfirst.org. There is also a message board for FIRST participants at chiefdelphi.com. There are a few MAST students who post as well as some of the WPI mentors.
Wow. I'm overwhelmed, but this seems so cool though. God I've never had this much interest in something before.... especially when it's related to school.
 

zugzoog

Senior member
Jun 29, 2004
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Fantastic stuff. I did a Grad Dip. in Robotics around ten years ago and really enjoyed it. The programming of a robot and planning the tasks efficiently is awesome. The dynamics of a robot are hellishly complex, but if you enjoy higher level maths, just mind-blowingly awesome to work with.

Have fun!
 

hypn0tik

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2005
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I participated in the FIRST competition back in 2003. It was one of the best experiences I've ever had. Unfortunately, that was during grade 12 when my school decided to join it so I got to participate in it for only a year. I envy the gr. 11 kids at the time since they got to do it 2 years in a row. It was amazing.
 

The Pentium Guy

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Jan 15, 2005
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I was actually close to not being able to take robotics. Pretty much 90% of everyone wanted to take it, they had to cut about 8 people, but they get to take it 2nd term anyways.
 

The Pentium Guy

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2005
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#2? Excellent. Must be some close competition out there. Can't wait for my first robotics class tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully it's not all the boring orientation crap.