Catapult: End of Days

As an engineering project, Dylan and I had to build a catapult, and we decided on a Scoop-A-pult. Our report is here. But, since our project ended a couple of weeks ago, we had to get rid of our catapult, otherwise we'd lose points based on how long it remained in the classroom. Have I mentioned that our catapult weighed 80 pounds?



SO, after school one day, Dylan and I took our catapult to get rid of it. We couldn't figure out what to do with it because neither of our parents wanted it at home and we didn't have cars, so we just took it into our school's auditorium (known as the Pantheon) and set it on center stage, facing towards the audience. We stripped all the pulleys, ropes, and metal parts off of it because they were expensive, but we left the majority of the catapult just sitting there. Mission Accomplished!

The next day after school we walked by the auditorium and saw the catapult sitting in the hall. Mission Not-So-Much-Accomplished. Oh well, we figured we could just leave it in the hall and nobody would mind.

Wrong.

The next day I was hunted down by the theater teacher and told to get rid of the catapult . . . or else.

Fine.

Dylan and I took the catapult, went outside, and carried it down a flight of stairs towards a courtyard that our school has. We set it near the middle of the courtyard and left it there, figuring that somebody was bound to take it. The next morning, sure enough, we looked outside and it was gone. Mission Accomplished.

Two days ago I walked into my engineering class and the catapult was sitting there.

Mission Not-So-Accomplished v2.0

I couldn't believe it! To use Dylan's analogy, it was like The Mask! It just kept coming back! Apparently, from the courtyard it was taken into the gym (which is nearby). The junior class had a recess the other day (don't ask) and found the catapult to be quite amusing, so they started shooting stuff in the gym. The administration didn't like that, so they hauled it all the way back to the engineering class.

At this point we realized that we couldn't get rid of it. Our teacher told us to rip it apart and throw it away. We decided that that'd be the best course of action, so we whipped out the drill and started taking the screws out, only to find that all the screws were stripped.

Hm.

CROWBARS! It took 45 minutes, a lot of noise, and some yelling, but in the end, here's what our catapult looked like:



Carnage! It was so fun tearing it apart though! A nice stress reliever, because the end of senior year is stressfull (not academically, more of in a dealing with underclassmen way). We did keep one part of the catapult, the swing arm, which Trevor played with.



Our catapult is now a bunch of wood chunks in a dumpster. God rest its soul.

Sprague Wind Ensemble State Recordings

Ok, I promised recordings of our state performance, so here it is. Enjoy!

La Fiesta Pacifico

Homage to Machaut

Giannini

Research Paper Pile

Yesterday my College Writing class turned in our research papers. What I've discovered about research papers is that no matter how miserable the students were when writing them, it's nothing compared to how miserable the teacher must feel when she sees the stack of papers she has to grade. The following is just the pile from our class, there are two other piles that look exactly like it. She has until June 14th, do you think she'll be able to grade them all?



I'm just glad I don't have to ever see mine again. I like my topic (Scientology), don't get me wrong, it was just a long drawn-out process that is finally over. I may post my paper here, but I'll have to figure out how much danger I'll be in from Scientologists if I do. No sense putting my self in danger! (and no, I'm not kidding about the danger thing)

My Stapler

I decided to make a stapler the other day in CAD. Not sure why, figured that I could, so I should. Here's a quick video of it rotating, letting you see all the details.

Story from Long Ago

The following is a story from Sophomore year during All-City:

Ok, so it was sophomore year during All-City. Towards the end of All-City (leading up to the concert) we have several all-day rehearsals. These rehearsals can get a bit long, but luckily we get breaks every so often. Well, during one of those breaks, a friend of mine (named Ian) went down into the commons of the school we were in to buy some water. We bought our water and left, passing another fellow clarinet player going the opposite way. Just as we were about to exit the commons we heard a thud, followed by a blood-curdling "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!, subtended with severe beating of a vending machine. Ian and I run back over to the machine to see what happened. You're not going to believe it.

Our friend was simply trying to buy a bottle of milk. This is what the milk machine looked like.



This particular milk machine was empty on the bottom row because obviously milk on the bottom row tastes so much better and people bought it first. The bottom row is indicated here.



Unlike other vending machines which just drop the product into the bottom of the machine, the milk machine actually ejects the milk with quite a bit of force. Here's what prompted the screaming. Our friend paid his $2.00 and selected which bottle of milk he wanted. It was near the top. The machine ejected the milk, which fell to the bottom of the machine at a high velocity.



At the bottom it BOUNCED BACK UP and landed in one of the empty spots on the bottom row! In order for this to have happened, the milk would have had to stay perfectly aligned with the rows as it fell, and had to have been traveling so fast that it could bounce the 5 inches straight back up, and landed perfectly in the bottom row, ready to be sold again. Our friend was miserable. We, however, were laughing absolutely hysterically and to this day still tell this story (which is why I'm blogging it). He spent another $2.00 to get his milk, and this time it didn't bounce back up. I hope it was great milk, because it cost $4.00, but the story was priceless.

My New Laptop

Alright, it's official, I know which laptop I'll be getting. My grandma is coming to town on June 7th and we're ordering it then (she's helping pay for it). I'll have it about a week after that.

I'm getting a Dell Latitude D820 with my MIT 12% discount.





I decided to go all out and just put everything into it I could. I figured that I will only have this one chance to get my laptop with this discount and with my grandma's help, so I might as well make it as amazing as possible. Here are some specs (I bolded the important bits):

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7600 (2.33GHz) 4M L2 Cache, 667Mhz Dual Core

Genuine Windows Vista™ Ultimate, with media

15.4 inch Wide Screen WSXGA+ LCD Panel

2.0GB RAM, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 2 DIMMS

512MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 120M TurboCache™

60GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 7200RPM

Touchpad with UPEK® Fingerprint Reader

24X CD-RW/DVD for Vista Ultimate

Dell Wireless™ 1390 802.11g Mini Card

Dell Wireless® 350 Bluetooth Module for Vista

9 Cell Primary Battery

Additional 9 Cell Primary Battery

For the full list of specs, check out this website.

What it doesn't have is Microsoft Office for Students 2007, which has OneNote, Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. I'll be buying that separately, along with a 500 gb portable hard drive, BlueTooth mouse, and case. Know what that means? I need a lot of BestBuy gift cards, so if you're so-inclined to purchase me a graduation present (or just a present), make it a blue box with a yellow bow ;)

I'll download SolidWorks shortly after getting my laptop, and then with my new video camera, I will be a modeling and blogging king! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Jazz Cabaret

This last Friday (the 18th) Sprague High School hosted its 3rd annual Jazz Cabaret and Silent Auction. We had a new venue this year (as opposed to the commons at our school). Our local is known as the "Trinity Ballroom" and was amazing. Bamboo dance floor, brick walls, and chandeliers all around. I got there a bit early to help set up for the auction and get the sound equipment ready. After that it was an evening full of serving drinks and listening to live jazz.



There were three groups performing: The Sprague band, the local middle school band, and then a combo group made up of the directors from the two schools. Here's a nice shot of some of the Sprague band members. . .



And here are Dylan, Emily, and Ethan (my fellow drink servers) deep in thought. Not sure what they're thinking about.



Our director, Mr. Howard, was pressed into service for the Crossler Jazz Band because they were without a bass player. While he was warming up and tuning I took, in my opinion, an incredible picture. Perfect backdrop and everything. He even said that he wished he could go back in time and have it be his senior picture.



I also got a nice picture of Conner Plant playing a tenor sax solo.



And now for the "Michael Snively is a klutz" story. I was collecting empty plates and dirty dishes on my tray about halfway into the evening. As I turned to walk back to the kitchen I got bumped and one of the dessert cups from my tray fell off. It managed to fall in such a way that it poured desert all down the top of my leg in a perfect line of bright red strawberry goodness. I was wearing khakis. I looked down at my leg and sighed. I tried to wipe it off but it was really obvious that the syrup was going to be on my leg for the remainder of the night. Trying to avoid embarrassment, I entered problem solving mode. Soon enough, I got a brilliant idea. The centerpieces of the tables consisted of floating candles and glass sitting on a red square of fabric. I took the red fabric from one of the tables and folded it in half. Then. . .



Voila! Instant waiter attire! I was so proud of myself, you couldn't see the spill at all and I looked very official. I guess I'm just cool like that.

Overall, the evening went very well. A few of us went out afterwards to eat some french fries and pie before I went home and fell asleep almost instantly. I give the evening a 5/5 for coolness.