Military

Paying for college is quite a challenge, and with the amount of debt that most students accumulate, findign any source of income is helpful. I have recently taken the ASVAB recruitment test which demonstrates what military jobs and branches I'm applicable for. I need to start contacting recruiters to see who will offer me the best deal. My hope is that someone will ofer to pay for my entire college experience, regardless of where I decide to go, private college or not. Nowadays most schools are asking for about 200,000 for the whole college experience, and that's no low number. I'm looking at Roger Williams University and Worcester Polytechnical Institute, both of which are extremely nice. I cannot wait to see what I'm offered, and hopefully it will be a good deal!

Schoalrships

It has recently come to my attention that I can obtain a scholarship for simply demonstrating my work in Engineering class. This scholarship that Mr. Connors has showed me will offer me up to $5,000. If this is the case, and I obtain the money, it would greatly help me pay for some of the school debt I'm about to amass.  I'm going to send in my recommendations and some of the work I've done aling with a written description of my project. With help such asa this, I hopefully won't need to resort to other resources. However, if a branch of the military offers to pay for my entireschooling, I may have to take them up.

MIT Workshop

So, as of last weekend I decided to attend a workshop at MIT with professor Leah Buechley called Interactive Monsters. A few years ago, a group of computer science majors asked why their studies could not be literally implemented into every day life. They sought out a way to implement their projects in the every day occasion, usign technology as a way of fashion or status. They wanted a computer on your person that kept track of conversions you hve throughout the day, people you've talked to, places you've been; Take the simplicities and make them noteworthy. This sparked the revolution of tech being integrated into every day objects without technology and the creatio nof this MIT program, High/Low Tech.
Run by professor Buechley, this program focuses on integrating fashion and art with technology. By merging simple things like sewing and wiring, an electronic piece of clothing is accessible to all people. This also includes things like teddy bears that may have a circuit board in them that makes the eyes light when its hand is touched.

In this particular instance, we sewed together stuffed animals with arduino circuit boards in them based on a program called Modkit, designed by graduate students themselves. With only a few glitches, the program worked pretty smoothly as we wrote code that would light up, vibrate, or make our stuffed monsters speak or sing. A creative propostion to a 2 day work shop over the weekend, it was quite fun. Great people and great ideas. Check out the pictures below!

Pics of the Mercedes in Progress!

Leavign space for the wheels so i can implant an axle made out from a straw!

Steps for Slice Model plugin in Sketchup to Roland Cut Studio

The steps to cutting these objects out go like this

1)      Make a model in sketchup

2)      Use the SliceModel plugin to have the object cut into pieces determined by the interval between each slice. (The spacing between each slice really depended upon the object, its size, and whether it was sliced by X, Y, or Z)

3) Right click on the object and click export. A series of spacing options come up from which I just continue to click OK through.

4)      Once done, the file is saved and exported into GIMP.

5)      Once opened in GIMP, fill in the area with black, and save it as a .jpeg

6)      Then, your file should be verified within Roland Cut Studio and ready to cut!

Current project

As of right now, I'm continuing to work with Slice Modeler. I think the potential of transforming 3D designs into laser cut 3D objects is an ideal that will become very prevelent among architects and engineers alike. Anyways, my newest project is designing a car, that I hope to slice both X and Y. Then, designing a small axle system, making it rollable like a real car. I'm not just dedictaing this design to any cat though, it's a Mercedes SLR.
This car is the world's fastest automatic car to date. There are few truly amazing astonishign things in this world, but watching an absolutely beautiful car fly by like that is one of them. Hopefully, the Sketchup model I design is worthy of  recognition and identifiable as the SLR.

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=mercedes+slr&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1128&bih=571&tbm=isch&tbnid=Gtd9zjpcBGdYIM:&imgrefurl=http://www.automotivescycle.com/category/mercedes-benz-slr/&docid=9hB3BaYGKg8MHM&imgurl=http://www.automotivescycle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/mercedes-benz-slr%252520(2).jpg&w=1600&h=1067&ei=93nnTpilD6X40gGI-qCFCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=587&vpy=285&dur=967&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=140&ty=156&sig=106691367866645323918&page=4&tbnh=163&tbnw=238&start=24&ndsp=8&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:24

Kickstarter

After having this website brought to my attention, I checked it out and saw the incredible projects being done. The concept of the website is to post peoples' ideas and projects in hopes that other people viewing their ideas will literally donate money to fund production. Mnay projects are movie  concepts , but there are a multitude of cool ionventions that could really become big hit sellers among consumers.

Mr. Connors pointed out a simpler makerbot design that consisted of as base and platform, hence being capable of sellign for much less than current Makerbots. I also viewed a waterproof iPod nano case that served as a wristband as well. The inventions demonstrtaed on the website really make you think, and leave an utter feeling of wantign to develop an invention to post on there. Who knows, your product might just be the next best thing!

Check it all out at :kickstarter.com