Robotics by committee

To my complete and utter happiness, I am now developing ideas for a
robot. Transferring them to an actual metal structure, is sadly a much
different process.

Our first task was brainstorming. Once the rush of ideas had stampeded
past, there was not much left to do, so we wanted to build. Our mentor
(in all his wisdom and machine development) got us to slow down and
think things through, averting mad chaos. Once we had some good ideas,
we again decided that we wanted to build. Three-quarters of the team
(as well as our mentor) weren’t there. That wasn’t a problem…. So we
built a model of an arm.

The second task was actually developing ideas and finding workable
compromises. However, by this time, three-quarters of the members on
BOTH our own and our sister team had to attend meetings for the LEGO
robot team they were also on. Much to my chagrin, the VEX and the LEGO
teams met simultaneously. What was left of our two teams merged and
talked, in essence getting both entire teams prepared for the task of
building.

Afterwards, I took left of the arm we had first built home to improve
upon it. (The rest of the arm had gotten destroyed in the mad rush of
building.) I began to work on it. I suddenly had a mad desire for a
degree in machine development. (It looked so pretty on paper.)
Suddenly I understood that this would be hard work.

Due to the fact my parents had to go out of state the next meeting and
I had all the parts as well as the engineering notebook, the next
meeting must have been one of immense unproductively. However, Slowly
as it may be, we do make progress.

Revenge of the Grinder

For my birthday a few weeks ago I got some cookbooks. As might be expected, the promise of cookies made me very happy. However, to get the cookies, I had to actually make them first, and to make the cookies, I had to go shopping for ingredients. That wasn’t a problem; I like Whole Foods. Something about the smells of fish, odd spices, and the weird tacky aqua river tiles that wind haphazardly through the store intrigue me. The first thing we did was to get supplies for an unconnected marmalade project. We weighed grapefruits in our hands for fifteen minutes. Never mind that there’s a scale twenty feet away.

Than we wandered the aisles for a while trying to find all the special gluten-free flours I needed. We finally found them right under our noses; worse, we had also been bypassing one of them under a different brand because it had two names. Even worse, when we got home, I discovered that we did not even need that particular kind of flour. I found it rather funny.

The next step was grinding the grain we had into flour. Some kind soul had given me a grinder. The first step was emblazoned on the side of the grinder. “Read Instruction Manual.” When we finally found the manual on the net, it began like this.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN PLEASE READ THESE IMPORTANT SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS.

1. Read all instructions.

The rest of the numbered instructions dealt with common sense, ending with the admonition:

10. SAVE THESE INSTRUCTIONS.

Well, I could do that. I turned on my Wonder Mill (™) and discovered why it was, as the website said, only, “formerly the Whisper Mill.” It ran along the lines of “Whisper Mill” only in the sense that you had forgotten to whisper and woken the baby who happened to have an enormous lung capacity. Even that was fine because my mom has a mill which is also loud. The real problem came when the mill turned malevolent. It started with a gentle, almost undetectable steam of escaping flour from underneath the lid of holding container. The lid was on securely and the flour was very fine anyway so it didn’t worry me too much. That is, until it popped its lid and taught me why I should always wear an apron.

We finally had the flour and a baking mix made. I was ready to make bread. Than I discovered that I had to grind some millet flour too. By that time I was already deep into rearranging the pantry to make space for the flour and had no prospects of having enough time for grinding or baking until Saturday. Oh well, the pound of chocolate I also got for my birthday might last me until then.

Philmont Trek

*Due to procrastination and laziness, this post went unwritten for over a week. We now give it to you not yet in progress.*

Philmont was nothing less than amazing. The reason I put off talking about it for so long is, (a) my inability to describe it with words other than, “It was good.” and, (b)The pure coolness factor which I could go on for pages about;–but I’m too lazy. Here is a brief (comparatively) overview.

The plane ride was cool. I loved the plane ride. All the different kinds and layers of clouds were just like in my science book. As always, I wrote extensive descriptions of the plane rides but less as each day wore on. As result, I have a little more than two (notebook) pages of description of the first plane ride, a little less than two pages of the second, 1/2 a page of the actual five days I was out there, and nothing of the plane ride back. To make up for this, I will give you a good description of all.

The plane ride was my very first. It was in a rickety, swaying plane which had only two seats on each side of the narrow isle. I was glued to the window. Unfortunately, my row-mate was between me and the window, and she was staring intently at her book. It was pretty funny; I think I made her sort of nervous and afraid that I was trying to read her book over her shoulder. I could have. Then we got to talking; she seemed slightly enlightened (and relieved) by the fact I was fascinated by the window and not her book. She gave me much advice about surviving in airports. A plane is rather like a car on a bumpy road or a ship trying to balance in the water. Having ridden in the back of cars all my life I was fine…sort of. It is rather uncomfortable to look down and see that you are going almost directly vertical.

After we got off the plane, we ran down the the gate where we met two of our crew: Ms. Gerry, who initiated the whole thing; and Ms. Linda. Sad to say, I can no longer talk about sneaking into Roy Williams office and getting foiled by pencil holders; Ms. Gerry had gotten my sign-up form into the bureaucracy herself and gave me an official-looking card. Alas, Mr. Williams is not even available to track me down for crossing him by finally getting my form in, because they changed Chief Scout Execs. We then got on the plane; it was much cooler than the other one with three seats on each side of the aisle and nice cushy upholstery; and, unlike the other plane, it didn’t smell funny. Unfortunately, the devious employee at the desk lied to us and instead of seeing “Pirates of the Caribbean: at World’s End,” they showed us “Next.” I like Pirates better. The least they could do would have been to turn subtitles on. Then we landed in Denver where it was two hours earlier and everyone was chipper and smiling (probably amusedly, I was in too much of a stupor to tell.) At the baggage claim we met the sixth of our group: Ms. Beverly. We left without trying to ride the baggage carousel for skis, much to Ms. Linda’s chagrin.

The next day we drove out to Cimarron NM. Our first sighting of mountains was very exciting. “Look, look, a mountain! That’s so cool! Just like a post card!” Three hours later, however, there was nothing but mountains. We side-tracked to see Capulin Volcano. Initially, I didn’t want to waste the time, but I’m glad we went. Imagine seeing across an open field. That perspective multiplied by two hundred and seen from a helicopter is pretty much what I saw. Pictures don’t do justice.

The next day we met our guide and got ready. I got my first sense of foreboding when I was running back and forth getting stuff and I realized I couldn’t breath. Cimarron is several hundred feet higher than than where I’m from, and I planned to go even higher. Uh oh…… It turned out that the special food I’d brought for my allergies didn’t correspond to the meals they’d picked as I thought. Lesson 1: food is food. As Ben, the guide, went over our stuff, I received my second note of foreboding. I could carry little of the crew equipment aside from my own. No worries, I’m the youngest…..

They dropped us off a few miles into our itinerary because we got a late start. A note of reassurance came when the guide assured me I was setting too fast a pace; good thing too, not five minutes in and my shins hurt. Day 1 had a planned itinerary of up the mountain, down through the valley, and through the woods. Up the mountain was very bad. I could not, in fact, deal with the altitude and dragged myself up the slope trusting to the navigator and the guide’s assurances of “just a little further”. I’m going to have reservations about that phrase in the future, but more on that later. We ate lunch and started across Cathedral Rock, which is a tall cliff whose constituting rocks look like they could fall at any second. It slightly resembles organ pipes from below. Eventually, we reached Hidden Valley, the same as on the dressing and my granola bars–probably not; this was way cooler. The field of at the bottom grass was literally golden and the pines surrounding it resembled redwoods. I was amazing. When at last we reached camp, quite suddenly, it was in a grove of trees. Foreboding note 3: We were instructed by the guide to “not place the tents very far apart” due to bear attacks. We also discovered that Christina and I had a pup tent–the largest tent for the youngest people. Problematic note four: the water purifiers spat at you. You would be innocently pumping away when quiet suddenly “shkkkaaattt”; it squirted cold water over your front.

Day 2 I got to navigate and was quite conscientious as we gained and lost ground to see exactly where we were. However, they insisted on waiting until we reached camp to eat lunch. The terrain, where it was revealed, might have been rocky, but the plant life was like a jungle-forest with lots of Aspens and foliage. We reached camp at last in a grove of trees with interspersed fields of grass. As always, it was a pre-made campground: this time rather large to accommodate all the troops they got through there. We picked a campsite in which some rather zealous Boy Scouts had erected walls of logs, and, at one point, a shelter (now ruined.) The latrine sat open in a large field; and here we encounter the character of Philmont’s bathrooms. Is everyone too lazy to erect walls about them?!! Especially the ones with many campsites around? And here, I am sad to say, I got sick. I felt like throwing-up in the act of eating. Since I couldn’t eat, I did, as the guide predicted, spend a miserable cold night. One upside of this spot was the deer. Lots and lots of mule deer in the meadow. They let you get right up close. It was neat.

At breakfast, Day 3, the guide had the most brilliant idea, I think, of the entire trip. They made up the annoying, extra packets of Gatorade, in my canteen. By the time we hiked down to Hunting Lodge, I felt well enough to not be sick and make an itinerary decision. We could either hike the rest of the day, and the day after, (about 12 miles or so) or we could cut across a rough bit of only four miles to day 4’s camp. I was assured that if I relapsed we could go back. Thus, we decided to hike through what I mentally refer to as “the Chinese swamp forest” because there was lots of yellow bamboo-ish stuff because it was swampy on the path next to a stream. All this time, the amount of aspens around grew and grew until we trudged up a little wooded path and into the camp ground. Christina, Ms. Lisa, Ms. Gerry, and the guide shed their packs with new energy and charged off to find the best campsite. I sank to the ground and stared at the aspens. Here I will introduce you to the bear-muda triangle. You have the sump (where you drain dishwater), the bear line, and the campground. They form a bear-triangle. Do NOT put your tent inside the triangle. As always, the latrine was in full view of everyone, so we found a little path that wound up a hill to another with a fantastic view. That was the other problem with the latrines. There were either no walls, they were in plain sight, or they were impossible to find at night. (Or as on Day 5, all of the above) The aspens were everywhere. I call the Lambert’s Mine camp Rivendell because it is so similar to it in the book. Unlike in the book, it wasn’t warm, but I spent a comfortable night because I was so tired and because I can sleep through a fire alarm. Lol, few others slept well (except maybe the guide; he lives out there pretty much non-stop).

Day 4 “The living mountain” Foreboding 5: Ms. Beverly twisted her ankle. I felt better and took some of her food. Normally, I would be afraid to hike on a two foot wide path around the edge of a cliff, but somehow having a pack on weighted me and made me feel better. Besides, trekking poles are the on of the greatest inventions for hikers. I have a wise father who made my mother bring them. Foreboding 6: the jerky made me feel slightly ill. Highest elevation reached, 10,000. And down. In Phoenix, Arizona, on the way back, we saw these shirts, “Got O²? (5,ooo ft.)” As my mother puts it, “Wimps.” In the valley at the bottom of the mountain, it started to rain; but it let up for lunch at a re-enactment site, deserted this time of year. It was neat. Once we finally go past the creek (which we did cross thirty times) we found our flat, muddy campsite just off the creek. My “rain jacket” wasn’t a rain jacket and it was shivery. The dining fly also ranks high on my list of hikers’ inventions. It was quite welcome as we sat there under it, and I ate one of the best meals of recently, scalding instant potatoes. Water tablets are also amazing. We slept. As a side note, the latrine was amusing. set high atop the hill, you could ski down the muddied slope.

The next day: 5. We hiked up the bare slopes in the sunshine. There were purple and red and yellow flowers everywhere. Today’s trek was 12 miles, but that wasn’t going to be a problem because we were going home to go shopping! We could get there on time….right? We hiked over Mount Baldy and the Tooth of Time. These names won’t mean anything to you unless you’ve been there, but they have a great view. I got sick again on the last two miles. “We’re almost there.” “But I can see the stupid thing from here, and we’re miles away!” I would’ve quit it I could. We finally made it home and after five minutes with a canteen of water, I was fine. There was no water the last day.

The twist. A group of guides was setting up a betting pool about the time we’d be back; they wouldn’t even start betting until seven. After all, Ben’s last group had taken until 7 pm. This was girls! No way could they be back on time. Five-seventeen we come back, and encounter a group of guys looking at us rather strangely before they all troop away. Ha! So there.

The trip back was uneventful. We watched a slightly better movie, The Fantastic Four: the Rise of the Silver Surfer. The stewardess was swayed by my scout uniform and the fact we didn’t force her to make Bloody Marys; she gave us double the amount of pretzels as usual. Happy was I to see my family. Surprised was I when we got home and found they’d gone ahead of schedule and moved Christina’s room so that, that trip is the last time we will share close quarters for a while; and I now have only one room-mate

Providence

With less than 24 hours before departure, I have much to worry over. However, I am mostly packed, so I can put it off awhile. Instead, I have reflections. Some of the stuff that has put us on this trip is just providential.

Firstly, our Venturing crew wanted to go to a camp sponsored by the army Rangers last year. To tell the truth, I wasn’t physically wholly ready, but had eagerness to make up for it. The night before we paid, two people going broke or strained their ankles. We decided against going, much to my loudly voiced chagrin. This April, we are approached, months in advance, by someone asking if our all-female crew would like to go with them to this awesome high-adventure base.

Point two. We often have trouble finding female leaders to go on trips with us as required by regulations. This group already had four.

One requirement for this base is that at least two members of the group going are wilderness first aid certified. We got our invitation at first aid training and have double the amount of required people.

We got a good deal on plane tickets.

Even down to the last detail. Say, how many times can you go up to a scout and say, “Here’s your sleeping bag stuff sack. You left it on that camping trip. I hope you don’t mind; it went to Philmont without you.”?

Now that’s cool. Next week ~Joanna

Art and cleanliness

Having been sick in the last week, I look terrible; however, my room is pretty and with that I am happy. We have also been cleaning out our storage area and with much joy, I have received some of my mother’s old clothing which was buried there. I guess it should tell me something that what my mom made at fifteen fits me better than what I make. No matter, I have clothes.

I have discovered the joy of sketching and with much dismay, the fact that we have no working scanner. I’m unsure as to the methods of drawing people properly, and my drawings seem to express a corresponding lack of surety as they all try to decide whether or not they are contortionists. On the bright side, if I take long developing this ability, I will rid myself of the pencils cluttering up my holder, inadvertently using up all my precious papers and erasers and saddling myself with lots of doodles….”Ah well, if that’s the price of art then–”

“Then what? You aren’t artsy.”

“Hush (*mumble* stupid multiple voices)”

“This hobby will waste your time–”

“I waste it anyway.”

“Clutter your room!”

“We won’t get into that.”

“Destroy your small supply of erassssaaarssss!”

Can you tell I’m happy? A little non-consistent with the fact I leave for backpacking in a week and was sick for the preparation hike.

Siblings are strange. You can write complete trash (or draw) and give it to them. They make you feel so happy. Aside from encouraging you, you don’t have to keep anything because they file all of your junk and ask to keep it for life. I wonder how I got my side of the room so clean.

Bored with Much to Do

Things have been rather interesting lately. For one thing, I’m on a First Vex robotics team finally. And in a surprise turn of events, Christina will also be on the team. She came along to watch and was lured in by the promise of taking things apart and making towers from marshmellows and toothpicks at later meetings.

Also, I fall into sadness as the college term starts and my brother vanishes for 102 days. Not really, Christina makes really good cake. We also watched a movie last night to comfort ummm….our umm..depression. It was called Persuasion and Christina claims it is the ultimate girly movie. Unfortunately, it probably is; besides the fact my little brother looked bored out of his skin, you couldn’t know what was going on until the last half-hour of the movie unless you had read the book by Jane Austen. It did, however, have a nice ending. They sailed away into the sunset….literally.

Just as I really come to the realization I’m going backpacking, my body begins to mess up. Seriously, my wrists…..

Christina pulls me away from my preoccupation,

“Time me.”

“‘k”

*plays piano piece at breakneck speed* “How long?”

“49-15″

“49? Man! Glen Gould can play it in 25 seconds!”

“no, I said you played it in 34.”

“Oh, I’m good.”

This is my house. Can anyone guess what Christina’s major is going to be?

Extreme shopping

I had a post about a week ago….but the laptop ate it. “It wasn’t my fault!” *ahem*

We went shopping last night at Wal-Mart because my current hiking boots are several sizes too big. I discovered that as Wal-Mart only carries what the rest of my insane age group wears; boots are now a specialty item, as are one-piece swimsuits and sport sandals in my size. Wal-Mart caters to those who wear only nice shoes or insulated running shoes–and wear tacky tee shirts. In essence, what was past specialty and what was in the past regular have changed places. This gives truth to the phrase, “You’re so cool, you’re not cool!” Unfortunately, I just made that phrase up. But it does lend a ray of truth to dressing up. My siblings dress up like commandos, Zorro, spies, etc. However, what kids on Halloween do not realize, is that if you really want to be undercoverly cool, you don’t dress like a macho spy, (though it’s loads of fun), you dress undercover, like a nerd–like me! “Bwahahaha! No one has ever discovered–” *blank*

“–Und now for something, completely different.”

Trying to think up a title for this post gave me an awesome idea. What if they made a video game in the style of Halo involving a super center, shopping carts, power-ups, and lasers? It would be totally awesome I tell you! You could hide around corners and blast all the clueless salesclerks who ask you if you need help, but do not know how to help you. You could get points for blasting people who picked the pecans out of the mixed nut stands! Best of all, you could be employed by umm–someone important who thought it unfair that the people had to knock TVs on themselves to get a good excuse for suit.

I’m not anti-Wal-Mart….really

Photo I.D.

So, I am legal. Meaning that I now have a cute little card crammed with information and a picture which I wasn’t ready for after waiting an hour and a half.

It turns out that now, for those of us who want licenses, you need a state or national (I forget) birth certificate. But if you are like a lot of people, you only have a hospital one. Well, no biggie, you can send a copy of your original in for an official one, but if the makers of the official ones accept your old one, why not the state people at the DDS?

No, have no fears of my flattening you in my moms nineteen-year-old Volvo,..I wrecked it on the way home. Actually, I don’t even have my learners. Fortunately for your convertible (or your twenty-year-old Volvo), it’s only an I.D. and I’m in no trouble. Unfortunately, for my Mom’s car, the side is still bashed in and the car is in effect, honorably wounded.

The very reason that I needed this photo I.D. was to confirm I’m underage so that I can go to this Philmont trip I’ve been raving about, via airline without the proper papers confirming that I’m not a terrorist. Though how they could even suspect someone like me…

Airport security 1: I don’t know, George, that one on the left looks like she’s an alkidea [I can not even spell it ] terrorist.

Airport security 2: Never can tell with seemingly teenage girls, Frank…Oh look, she’s packed a pocket knife and some toothpaste in her main bag…gonna have to see some photo I.D. please, miss…

Another thing I’ve been doing lately is writing a prolonged kids story. The goal was four pages….I am now on twenty-one…and counting. Did you know the Vikings spoke something very like Icelandic?

Look out for the flying biscuits!

Returned, and there were slight amounts of rejoicing. (yay!) (…over ice cream) Of course, from my posting habits, it would be a little hard to tell that I was ever gone.

I spend slightly more amounts of time on facebook however, and there I was missed, if only by one person. I threw a sucker at her to console her after the ordeal.

Mercifully, my attempts at making hardtack last week were glossed over by the trip. It wasn’t that it wasn’t real hardtack; on the contrary, I got an actual recipe from a circa WWI online cook book. The problem was that, my siblings , by their definition of the word, wanted good hardtack which, in my opinion, happens to be a contradiction of the word. For clarity, it is not a “cracker” but a hunk of hard biscuit whose formula I could probably beat when I was seven and playing around in the flour.

However, we will suppose that they actually did want good hardtack and not what my exact brain assigned to the word. If we assume that, I will readily admit I’m not up to the task, being that the experiment was the first baked good I’d made in months, I’m not used to wheat dough anymore, I wouldn’t be able to taste/feel the texture of the dough in my mouth, and all sorts of other lame excuses (etc.) BUT, after annoying my sister endlessly with my definition and refusal, I promise that for her next birthday, I’ll make it by her definition, if possible. (“Happy Birthday Christina : ) Guess what I got you…”)

Unfortunately, as Christina herself says, “hardened biscuits make good projectiles if kept long enough…”

In other news, Philmont is a go. Woot! I hear rumors of them only recently (ten years ago is, in my opinion) ceasing to make people drink their dish water. This tiding holds slight foreboding. However, the mere mention of the name brings images of military-fit people to the mind of the seasoned scouter and would be something really neat to tell about;….if I survive…..

Heart and Soul (die)

Now that I have discovered facebook, I spend vast amounts of time on it doing nothing (”Hey, look! I didn’t know our family had a crest”; “Wow, this group is awesome”–[Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya; you killed my father: prepare to die]; “And you can throw food at people…“)

However, I do spend enough time studying to observe the following: there is a magnetic attraction between, someone who cannot move the location of their studying and noisy siblings; furthermore, they are 90% more likely to practice their piano pieces wrong (loudly) during that time.

Have you ever looked up the words for “Heart and Soul”? Do so here. Why on earth would any fool teach a four-year-old to play that? Besides that, there is also the obvious. A while back, Readers Digest had this in their humor section, “A sign on a piano in a music store: If your child plays ‘Chopsticks’ or ‘Heart and Soul’ on this instrument, our employees will not be responsible for their actions.” Who, has not felt that way? (By the way, how many small people, can actually play the accompaniment?)

Besides that, it rained, twice. Let us all break out into cheers at the prospect of getting wet without all that chlorine (Thank you God.)

Of course, there would be isolated thunderstorms the place I’m going this week on vacation; and it would have almost the same weather as here. Knowing our history with these sorts of trips, though, that will not prevent us from going rafting in the rain, nor; if I know my cousin, will it prevent him from organizing a group for building and floating around on a waterlogged wood and styrofoam raft. For all the insanity that implies, I do not think I care. In fact, if I want to trust my dryness to this thing, I better go learn some knots.