Fall Break Recap

I AM SO GLAD TO BE HOME! Okay, I've loved everything about college so far, but it is really awesome to be back at home for a while. I have wasted no time getting back out in the Forest Preserves...I never realized how much I missed them until I got back out there. I've run on the trails everyday since I've been home (what a difference from C-U!) and have been out to two workdays at Hidden Pond Prairie. On Saturday, I organized a big group from my high school to come out for service hours, and we were joined by two other groups for a RECORD TURNOUT of 67 people! This massive group initially posed some logistical problems, but the stewards were quickly able to split up the groups into manageable units and we had a great three hours of work. We cut a lot of brush, had a chainsaw running most of the time, and got 2 bigbrush piles burned. The weather was just perfect! Check out this video I took of the workday (my first ever YouTube video!). Stay tuned for a soon-to-be-released video of a long term project I have been working on at this same prairie!! Below are some stills as well. You can clearly see the brush I was attacking!

I also want to catch up on a few other things that have taken place in the last few weeks...

First, the Waddling Penguins (my Eng198 project group) has been making progress on our waddling arduino penguin. I'm not going to talk too much about this, because I don't want to stir up the crazy emotions that this project has brought forth already....let's just say that at our last get together I have never cried so hard AND laughed so hard AT THE SAME TIME before! It was quite the complex emotion...

Here is a picture of penguin at the moment:

Okay, and then the last big event of the last few weeks was Cross Country Nationals! The club team traveled up to Ann Arbor (Ypsilanti to be precise) Michigan to run against other club teams from all over the country, and we got second place! We had beautiful weather and I had an awesome time with all of my teammates. I really love our team and can't wait to continue with track in the spring. I also PRed for the 8k with a 29:03! I'm glad it happened at the last race, but I know I can still do better...next year will be great. However, I've been experiencing some cognitive dissonance lately between my priorities: I'm not sure exactly how summer base training will work next summer if my plans to study abroad in Costa Rica actually go through...running in the rainforest could be a problem. Anyway, I don't have too many pictures from Nationals, so here are some from Regionals weekend:

Thoughts on iFoundry

This blog will contain my personal thoughts on deep questions about iFoundry and respond to some points made by Islam Sharabash in his post "A Problem with iFoundry, or a problem with me?". I encourage everyone to read these intriguing thoughts first.

I will start by saying that I agree with several of Islam's points:

1) "I saw a communication problem." - Communication could definitely be better. I like your idea of a more centralized communication hub to foster increased conversation online. I think that iFoundry has slightly overstretched its arms in trying to make a presence in EVERY form of online media that exists (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, SlideShare, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogger, website, etc.) Each of these content centers serves an advantageous purpose individually, but when aggregated with all the others, it just turns into a complex web of links where you can never trace down the actual location of specific information. I have not thought enough about the actual form that a centralized forum would take, but I think that all communications could use the iFoundry website as a good base.

HOWEVER, I must point out that no matter what system of communication is employed, iFoundry will never achieve 100% participation. The strength of any communication network is primarily based on how many people actually use it. I believe that the blog medium is an excellent way to share thoughts and communicate between iTeams. I have learned A LOT about fellow iFoundry students as well as their thoughts by reading their blogs. Nevertheless, I feel that I am among the minority. I have taken much time to read through almost every blog posted by my iTeam members and members of other iTeams, and I have subscribed to them to ensure that I keep updated. That said, I have also put out a lot of information about my personal interests as well as my thought son iFoundry. I only have two subscribers out of over 100 people involved in iFoundry. The content is there. People just need to take the initiative.

2) "Just because someone else wants to serve society, and I want to be an entrepreneur, does not mean we can't work on the same project." - I wholeheartedly agree that the most meaningful projects are produced through collaboration between disciplines. In fact, this is one of the main facets of the underlying iFoundry mission. I also agree that the formation of iTeams does slightly hamper the interaction of students between the teams.

HOWEVER, I think that the current situation is as good as it can be, considering the information iFoundry had to work with in the beginning. I will explain this by examining "What [Islam] envisioned."

First, he says, "I saw iFoundry being a group of students who would pick things to do and have the support of all the iFoundry staff, as well as all the resources iFoundry has to offer." After viewing all of the iCheckpoint presentations, I think this is actually quite a good representation of the current situation. "Group[s] of students" (the iTeams) have "pick[ed] things to do" (solar panel project, State Farm project, digital movie drive project, learn about engineering design, etc.) "and have the support of all the iFoundry staff," (they will help you in just about any way if you just ASK) "as well as all of the resources iFoundry has to offer." I want to particularly examine the last point of this line. If by "resources" he means human resources or intellectual resources then iFoundry has a lot available. However, if he means capital resources or monetary resources then this is not the case. Students would be wrong to assume that iFoundry can pay for any and all interests that students have. This is not how the real world works and this is not how iFoundry works. For example, my iTeam has the grandiose goal of putting solar panels on the roof of a homeless shelter. We are interested in the social and environmental impacts of this project. We are NOT interested in financing it. Nevertheless, we know that in the real world the money must come from somewhere, and this project will be very educational for us in how to go about funding out own endeavors.

So, I would actually say that iFoundry currently follows Islam’s vision very well. He argues otherwise when going into more detail: “My vision was for someone to say "hey, lets do this!" and anyone who was interested in joining in would join in. I didn't imagine that they would have to convince twenty other students and compromise what they wanted to accomplish. “ In my opinion, this is a highly idealistic vision. “Convincing” other people and “compromising” to form a cohesive decision is HOW THE WORLD WORKS. Every economic, intellectual, and political argument follows this procedure, and it is a prime motive that iFoundry foster this understanding in its students.

I am sure that iFoundry acknowledges Islam’s vision as the ideal situation, and in order to come as close to that as possible they took several steps to minimize the “convincing” and “compromising” that would need occur. Their first step was to have all applicants write about their interests and passions in application essays. Then, after reviewing all the essays, common themes were developed among the provided interests. These common themes served as the basis for the iTeams. So in a way, the essays served as the “‘Hey let’s do this!’” expression of interest, and the aggregation into themes and allowance to join the iTeam of your choice served as the “anyone who was interested in joining in would join in.” It is definitely true that this procedure resulted in less specific and unique teams than portrayed in the example of “programming for Android,” but are such unique interests really the goal of an engineering freshmen program? I would argue that unique interests such as these would be better suited to a smaller group of students in an RSO setting, or an academic upper level class. Wouldn’t very specific sub-groups lack a strong need for the communication, collaboration, and soft-skill sets that iFoundry is trying to emphasize? If everyone agreed on everything the group was supposed to do, what kind of learning would come out of that situation?

Therefore, I would argue that iFoundry should not attempt to split up its 100 or so students into very small and unique groups. I believe it would be counterproductive towards the iFoundry vision. NEVERTHELESS, there IS undoubtedly a place for these unique and specialized interest groups, and iFoundry can surely help students find this place if only the students were to ask. The UofI has an immense number of RSOs on campus that facilitate student’s unique pursuits, and even if there isn’t one specific enough for you, there are readily available resources for you to start your own! These organizations provide the perfect foundation where a student can “enjoy the entrepreneurial side of engineering, while working with someone who enjoys the serving society aspect,” or more generally, collaborate between disciplines. Islam acknowledges this possibility when saying: “Could I contact Roman and the others and start a group to do that? Sure I could.” So the option clearly exists. However, he then goes on to say, “Does iFoundry facilitate that? Not at all.” I would beg to differ here, and would simply like to point out that these students would never have met and interacted had it not been for the communication the iFoundry fostered. I would further argue that I have no doubt that iFoundry could help these students collaborate by providing faculty contact information, access to rooms, and information on how to start a student group.

To summarize, I will just say that I believe iFoundry has done a good job in splitting up students into the iTeams. The iTeams provide a common enough interest that serves as a good starting ground for collaboration. The lessons learned while collaborated within these groups can then go on to serve the students as they pursue their own unique interests with other groups on campus.

I apologize for such a lengthy post (especially after my last one was just a picture), but I am very interested in this discussion and look forward to continuing the reflection in order to continue improving iFoundry. Until a more conducive forum is set up, I would encourage people with thoughts on this topic to POST ON YOUR BLOGS, COMMENT ON THIS BLOG, OR EMAIL SOMEONE TO CONTINUE THE COVERSATION.

Can we do it?

A Lesson from iFoundry

Goal: Plan the next three and a half years of my college life ... hour by hour.

Intimidating right? Not when the missing basics are on your side!

Okay, in more accurate works, my goal was to plan my class schedule for the next seven semesters. This may seem a little premature, but as I recently began planning for just next semester, I quickly realized that my double major, endless lists of prerequisites, 4 hour biology labs, classes only offered at one time of day, and classes only offered during certain semesters make a more comprehensive approach vital if I actually want to finish this in four years.

I started this task with simple paper and pencil, making lists of of courses and the times they were offered. I then tried to order the classes and list them per semester, but then when I tried to actually schedule them NOTHING WORKED. I quickly realized that I was approaching this task from completely the wrong angle. I could not just keep listing classes and hoping tha

t I would eventually find a combination that meshed.

This is where iFoundry and the visual lessons taught in Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin came in. I didn't need lists of classes, I needed to SEE the classes. So ... I got out my white board calenders and transformed them in to massive weekly planners. Using different colors to represent different requirements and prerequisites, and shading to represent blocks of time, my goal was now within sight. There is no doubt that there was still plenty of erasing, but the white board made the changes easy to do and schedule shifts much

easier to visualize.

Solution: Use my eyes, not my brain.

Now, if only I didn't have to use my brain when I actually get around to taking these classes....

One Month Reflection

Whew!!!! One month of college down...and only...well pretty much 4 years left! And how was it? Everything I expected and more?? Exactly!! There are just SO MANY opportunities on campus, and I feel like I taken advantage of everything I can. My schedule has been consistently filled for all hours of the day (and many of the night), but I love it. I've made a ton of friends so far and am excited about how many people are interested in the same things as I am! I'm also making some great connections with professors, and I can't wait to develop those relationships and possibly join them in research at some point. Classes, however, have been okay so far. Statistics seems to be just a bunch of formulas, E&M is just too abstract, and Engineering Graphics is...well let's just say we're working on drawing boxes right now.

The Cross Country Club is awesome! There are a ton of great guys on the team and it's a great time, even though I've missed a lot of practice lately because I was so busy. Daily runs still resemble a quest to find soft surfaces, but overall I'm not minding the C-U running atmosphere too much yet. Training is going pretty well, and I'm looking forward to proving myself in the races coming up.

iFoundry is...oh iFoundry is so many things! Eng 198 has provided a few good insights, and the design project is very fun, but overall, the lectures are....well let me put it this way: I've been thinking a lot about a paradox that I am starting to see in the program. This is that it seems to me that the students who applied for iFoundry, already have the soft skills that are being taught in class; it's the rest of the engineers that don't. Now, at the same time I understand that there is really no way to prevent this right now, and that the overall mission of iFoundry is to eventually expand this curriculum to ALL engineering students. So, even though it may be a little rough right now, I think it will be well worth it once the results reach fruition in the future.

On the iTeam front, this week will be a big week. ESS WILL finally be deciding on a project (I hope). It's easy to see that many members are getting itchy to actually do something and stop just talking about it. I am also looking forward to working with everyone on something meaningful, but I have also been thinking a lot lately about the future of ESS and our iFoundry class in general. The overarching and long-term iFoundry mission is clear and legitimate. But the vision of OUR future in the program and the logistics of the next semester, let alone the next few years, is almost completely absent. I am very worried about this, as it will have a crucial impact on many of the decisions we make.

So overall this first month has just been amazing. I'm thriving in the independence and just love the college atmosphere. Nevertheless, I am definitely starting to things from home: family, friends, my dog, the forest preserves, food, ice buckets, my bed....

Biomimicry

Biomimicry is: "learning from and then emulating natural forms, processes, and ecosystems to create more sustainable and healthier human technologies and designs."

This is what modern engineers NEED to do!

Check out these websites for some great information and examples:

The Biomimicry Institute

Ask Nature

15 Coolest Cases of Biomimicry

Here's another way I have thought about it:

On the Origin of Species, written in 1859 by Charles Darwin, shook the very foundations of human thought across the world. The book presents the unparalleled theory of natural selection. This scientific theory explains the mechanism by which life adapts to its surroundings. In other words, the fittest individuals survive to carry on their knowledge and skills.

As I examine the world through Darwin’s theory, I see an especially stubborn and overconfident species that is terribly unfit to survive in the world that it is creating. As humans continue to pollute the air, water, and land, as well as crank up the global average temperature, the species’ supposed superior intelligence is quite hard to pick out.

This is where I see myself fitting into the picture. I believe that the best way to live in harmony with the natural is to emulate the natural world itself. Rather than running out of time as humans try to devise every environmental solution themselves, I propose that each of these ideas can already be found in the many natural systems and complex organisms found around the world. Plants, for example, have been evolving through Darwin’s mechanism for over 600 million years. Humans, on the other hand, have been learning for barely 6 million. Plants know how to remove carbon dioxide from the air. Humans don’t. Plants know how to store energy directly from the sun with amazing efficiency. Humans don’t. I see my role as examining the secrets of the natural world for ideas and then adapting these ideas to solve our problems. Darwin’s theory of natural selection proves that by looking to and mimicking our world’s natural engineers, the environment and all of its inhabitants can be saved.

ESS and the iFoundry Purpose

ESS is really starting to come together as a group after our first few meetings. We have laid some groundwork, elected leaders, and brainstormed ideas for future projects. Plans are in progress to attend some educational conferences and bring in some speakers.

As everything is moving so fast and becoming so productive, I have thought a lot about how iFoundry is affecting me in ways much beyond my academic curriculum.....a more complete engineer is surely being made.

That said, I wanted to share some of my previous words in response to the question:

“What would you say to someone who thinks education doesn't matter, or that college is a waste of time and money?”

"Education is so much more than just the forced memorization of random facts, formulas, and categorized lists. Education fosters the development of morals, habits, personalities, and life skills. When placing a value on education, you cannot solely consider the trigonometry that has never come to your aid or the history lectures that you can’t even remember anyway. Instead, you must consider the organizational habits and strategic problem solving abilities that you gained while studying for chemistry. You must consider how much easier it became to analyze and comprehend a new idea after that thought provoking English class. You must consider the new morals and ethics that were fostered by those psychology and philosophy classes. You must consider the practical skills you developed while living on your own at college or dealing with that impenetrable roommate. You must consider who you are now and ask not what you remember from college, but whether or not you are a different person than when you went in. Your education was not intended to teach you everything you need to know about life; your education was intended to teach you how to deal with life and how to build upon yourself for years to come."

I think iFoundry is setting us all up for a future and career that encompasses these very ideas.