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amanda quotes

Amanda’s Quotes #21

[106-111] As far as senior design, last semester we were trying to develop a prototype for an ankle brace that’s supposed to prevent ankle sprains. And then this semester it’s more trying to perform testing to validate the product. So, I try to look first and improve our design on the brace because we got a prototype, but we still wanted to improve our prototype. Currently, we are conducting the testing which is basically building ankle which can do inversion and eversion. Then we will see if the brace is preventing it to rotate.

[115-122] We have three different tests in mind. The other test was a tensile test so you basically take the brace, put it in a tensile machine and the machine like drags it out and then it can get the formation curve. Also, we’re thinking about doing a fatigue test to see how many times the brace can rotate or perform before it’s going to break. That information is good to know how long would it last before the customer has to buy a new brace. But we knew we weren’t going to have time to do all three of the tests, so we decided to do the tensile testing and the first test I was talking about. That’s been a plan the whole time. We got maybe halfway or something with both of the tests.

[124-127] Maybe a bit more like 65%. But then this virus happened so now we’re not allowed to be at school or be at the lab so we’re not going to be able to perform the tensile test because that’s with a machine that was at our university. So now we’re only doing the test to test the brace itself. The one I was explaining first about where the ankle is rotating.

[132-135] Yeah, so I’m proving the design we’re doing all the time like we’re doing currently similar testing. We hope to have a prototype that we think will work in May when we’re graduating. The testing has to be complete this semester even though we’re testing when our product is not working because that’s a part of the curriculum that we had to perform some testing.

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josh quotes

Josh’s Quotes #20

[162-182] Unfortunately, we were getting towards the final stages of modeling right when I had to go home because of COVID-19. Basically, what we had done is, I want to say, counting from the first design I was given, I think there were probably one, two, three, maybe four more designs before we landed on the final design. Some of them were my designs, some of them were my co-workers design. But a lot of it was, we sat down together, and we said, “Would this be a good idea? Yes or no, maybe. Let’s try it.”

I made what’s called an involute profile, which is usually the profile of a gear tooth. To do that, it takes some complicated geometry and it’s not something that I could do by hand, it’s not something you can calculate. It took us a while to figure out how to do this because we were basically designing a gear from scratch. A lot of complex curves and faces and we weren’t really sure where to go. It took about two or three weeks to get that figured out. I should add, this wasn’t a priority project, so it didn’t get a lot of time. I had a lot of projects they were giving me and said, “We need this this week.” This is what’s called modularization, so it’s desired to make our lives easier. But after the design, like I said, we were coming close to finishing the modeling. We had figured out, “All right, this model is good. Everything should work the way we wanted it to. Let’s double check a few things and then we can start putting it on a drawing.”

Then once we have a drawing, we send it out to a company that’s going manufacture it for us and send it right to us. Like I said, unfortunately we didn’t get to actually finish it. But the co-worker that I was working with it on, I’m close to and he did tell me, we had a conversation before I left and I told him, I said, “If you guys figure out what you need here and you’re going to finish it, just do it. Don’t wait for me because I don’t know when I’ll be back.” But they did express their thanks with the project. It felt like my input was appreciated and my time.

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josh quotes

Josh’s Quotes #23

[25-41] Prior to COVID, I went to a conference, I think it about a month ago now, for a weekend. This was my first time. Then after that, that week was when my school decided to close campus. We have the option to request to stay. I didn’t request it because I had some stuff at home to take care of and they were closing everything on campus. Which means I wouldn’t have anywhere to go for food and there’s no library if I want to go, anything like that. I decided that I was going to […] I guess I should have mentioned, they closed for two weeks. That was the original plan. That they were going to close campus for two weeks. I said, I’ll take two weeks and then I’ll come back. I made the request so that I would be able to come back on March 31st, the current at the time date. I came home and then the next week the governor decided to shut down everything. That meant I couldn’t go back to school. In the past week and a half, two weeks, however long it’s been since then, the school, they first extended the shutdown through the 14th of April. Then they have now extended it indefinitely through the end of the spring semester.

[300-310] Given the nature of the issues, I lean on my family a lot. Like I said, when I got sick, I came home, I laid on my couch all day for a week because that’s all I could do. My family was nice enough to take care of me and give me what I needed to feel better. Then of course, grandmother passed away, so I went home. Now that I can’t be at school working, I’m at home. My family has really been, I guess, the contact point there. Of course, I mean, I do talk to my friends a lot at school or the friends that I still have from home. I keep daily conversations with them. That was also helpful. Another thing is, since I don’t have schoolwork to do in the evenings and on the weekends, it gives me time to focus on when I want to go to the gym. It also gives me time to go on hikes, something that I enjoy doing. That was also helpful to clear my head in those times when maybe my family was busy and I needed to do something for myself.

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joy quotes

Joy’s Quotes #30

[31-37] Around mid-semester, I was finally getting the hang of things and got into a groove and was doing well in my classes and then the week before spring break our school decided to send everyone home early and now we’re not coming back at all. So, it’s been a little bit of a struggle to adjust to online classes despite being homeschooled, when I was, like all through K through 12. But this is week two, and I think it’s finally settling down. Penciled out the career map last week, which was the first week.

[38-45] My professors are having a hard time recording lectures. The engineering professors specifically, are having a hard time figuring out what they’re supposed to do because we have labs. For example, one of my classes is junior project that will go into senior project and we’re building a mobile 3D printer that will print house-like structures on Mars. Or, that’s the research we’re doing. And that’s a really hard thing to do when you can’t build it. So all of our papers and prototypes are all simulated. A budget that we’re supposed to spend by the end of the month. So, that’s been a little bit stressful. But, I think we have a game plan for going forward.

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joy quotes

Joy’s Quotes #31

[433-442] Thermodynamics is probably going not as smoothly as the other ones. He already had a hard time teaching. This is his second year or third year. I’m in the middle of a take home exam at the moment and it’s seven pages long, and I’m going on 10 hours of work. I’m not done yet. His teaching style is not conducive with most people’s learning styles. This is my third class with him, so you just get used to it, and you understand what he means and he’s very kind. He’s trying. But it’s like, for example, thankfully we’re not in the classroom setting anymore, so we’re just doing lectures online. But that means that he goes through his PowerPoint and he just reads it, word for word, and it’s an engineering PowerPoint, so there’s not very many words.

[443-454] So, he’s just reading equations, like Delta X over Delta Y equals Lambda, over Lambda this, and just reads it. No pauses, nothing. He gets on the call, he says hello and then just starts reading, and there’s no inflection of the voice, it’s just straight reading for 30 minutes, because that’s how long it takes him to read the lecture. As opposed to […] Say, in the lecture we’re taking the full hour, because there’s back and forth. And even though it’s a Zoom call, nobody talks because that’s just not the way he runs his class. So, it’s a little weird. You just teach yourself and then you ask him questions via email if you need help. I guess he technically wrote the slides, maybe. I don’t know if he got them from the textbook, I don’t know if the textbook also publishes slides to go with it or not. So, he still meets with the criteria of interacting with students, but that class is a stretch. But so far so good. I don’t have an F or anything close to it.

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joy quotes

Joy’s Quotes #32

[46-51] Despite the difficulties associated with transitioning online, I like that this is stretching me in new ways because I am a very hands on person and I don’t have a lot of experience in that area, and I don’t have as much experience using online modeling tools. Not just online, but electronic modeling tools like CAD and LTspice for circuits and that kind of stuff. I think it’s a good stretch. It will benefit me sometime later in life. Not sure when, but hopefully it will. And I think that’s caught up until now.

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joy quotes

Joy’s Quotes #33

[520-536] In addition to managing coursework, I’ve been applying to internships. Now that I’ve been home for awhile, it’s given me time to apply. My dad is a computer science major and has helped me with resumes, and has lots of connections. So, we applied to a place […] We applied to a place last night and he had connections there. So, hopefully that one will work out, and I just need to find an apartment in a nice neighborhood and hope that this whole coronavirus thing will allow me to have a job in two months. Because if I don’t get my practicum this summer, technically you’re not allowed to graduate, because my engineering program requires that you have one internship. Your academic advisor has to meet with your employer and ask them questions about how capable a student is and their verbal communication skills, communication skills, work ethic, ability to problem solve, that kind of stuff. So, I need that before I graduate. I graduate next year, which means this is my last summer. But on the other hand, I understand that there are so many people in the same situation that the university may just have to adjust something. And it may be that my job that I get, after I graduate, they will count that as a practicum for the first two months.

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lauren quotes

Lauren’s Quotes #21

[14-19] Then after spring break, that’s when everything went down. My classes, they all got canceled and moved online because of the pandemic. My apartment got hit by a tree recently, so now I’m staying with my boyfriend’s family right now. And then my family has been exposed to the virus, and that’s kind of sucky, because my father’s immunocompromised.

[300-301] I mean, it’s also kind of sucky not being able to go and see my friends on campus anymore, because of everything happening.

[362-364] So, this semester, I’ve only really interacted with my teachers. I had a meeting with my advisor. You have to do one once a year. Teachers and my advisor are all I’ve really interacted with this semester.

[370-377; 383-385; 395-397] As far as my peers, I definitely had been interacting with other students a lot more. Three of us were in a little group together. So, I had the most knowledge about magnetism out of the three of us, but when the teacher started talking about chemistry terms or something, all three of us were sitting there like, “What’s chemistry?” However, since we transitioned online, I haven’t really worked with my peers online all that much. Or at all.

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lauren quotes

Lauren’s Quotes #22

[292-298] Since we transitioned to online course, I absolutely hate it. I concentrate so much better when they’re actually there in front of me. So, I’ve had to really work hard at not being distracted by a video game, or a good book on my desk that’s sitting there. And I’m ready to go back to normal classes when it hopefully, you know, that I’ll be back for the fall. On my phone, I had to set up a productivity app that would stop me from my going onto social media during class, because it so much easier when the teacher wasn’t there in front of me. So, I kept on going, being like, “Oh, it won’t matter if I just scroll a little bit,” and then it’ll be like, “Oh no, I missed like half the class.”

[306-312] In addition to coursework, I have to conduct research remotely as well. During spring break, I had to help him set the lab up to be totally remote work. I had already tested all of my samples. I was just working on pulling data from everything and helping write the paper. So, all of my work was already on a computer. It was just making it so that I could access it from anywhere and help the other people in the lab access it from anywhere. So, I mean, for me, it’s going on as it does normally, just like I’m not in the lab working on the computer. Which again, productivity issues, it’s so much easier to get distracted when you’re in the comfort of your own home.

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lauren quotes

Lauren’s Quotes #23

[444-447] Once classes end, I plan to continue doing research. Hopefully I can go to the lab this summer, you know, depending it’s not canceled. If it is canceled, I’ve already worked it out with my boss. I can still work in the lab over the summer. So, I can continue doing research, just, it won’t be at a really cool lab.

[452-458] The more I do research, the more I want to do it for a living, because it is really fun figuring something out, and like, in the works I’m trusting. And typically, there’s more than one project going on, so if I get annoyed and not making any progress with the thing I’m working on, I can go and help someone else with their thing. Or sit there and be the rubber duck as they explain how it works to me. So, if they can figure something out themselves. You know, there’s just always something going on, so it’s less likely to be bored. And I enjoy it, and I think I would want to do it for the future.

[462-464] It’s not set in stone yet, but I do think I would like to go to grad school so that I could do research for a living. Maybe not in magnetism forever. Maybe I’ll find something else that I really like to do, but I am enjoying the research, and I think I want to continue doing that during my career.

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