Driving Back to School

How time flies. It seems like only yesterday I was making this drive for the first time. Now I've driven it for the last time. Somewhere on a lonely northbound stretch of interstate I found myself thinking back to that drive, a few years and a lifetime ago. I was in the same car, driving on the same roads, the back seat and trunk filled to the brim with boxes. Both times I found myself looking to the future with excitement and anticipation for the opportunities that would await me in the place I would spend the next several years. Both times I experienced the melancholy of leaving the familiar behind and facing the great unknown.

Of course, my first drive up to Tech was quite different from this one. With my bachelors degree almost behind me, I'm now making plans for graduate school. The familiar town I'll now be leaving this time is not the town where I grew up. Most importantly, this time there's someone in the passenger seat who's coming with me.

Summertime in Houghton

On a trip with visitors (cousin Alex and his girlfriend Kaylin) to see the local sights.

I've spent the last seven weeks in Houghton taking classes and working for Michigan Tech's Summer Youth Programs. It's been a fairly busy time, with several groups of visitors coming to enjoy the summer weather here. It was nice to have visitors on some of the weekends since Ashby has been in Ann Arbor for the summer. For classes, I took a total of 6 credits which is close to a full-time load when it's condensed into seven weeks. I took 'Mechanical Vibrations' and 'Statistics for Engineers', both of which will likely prove useful in the future.

My job with the Summer Youth Program fit in very well with taking classes. I was responsible for chaperoning the students to and from Houghton on the weekends. Several times this meant driving a Michigan Tech van to a nearby town and picking up or dropping off a handful of students. Most often it meant riding a charter bus through the night two nights in a row on the weekend running down to Lower Michigan to trade the students who had finished their programs for ones on their way up to Houghton. A few times I was able to meet up with friends and family during the bus layover. Thrown into the mix were a few around town van trips for field trips as well. It was quite an enjoyable job and it kept me from excessive boredom on the weekends as a side benefit!

Now I'm in the process of preparing for final exams at the end of this week, after which I head home to Erie for about a week before coming back up. It should be a fun week, with a family reunion and canoeing trip in the works. I know it will go my much too quickly, but when Ashby and I return to Houghton, we plan to make a trip to Wisconsin and Minnesota to a 'mystery destination' that I'm sure we will both enjoy along with some state parks on the way. That will make the trip back more fun. Then it's back to school in the fall. I'm excited to be the leader of the powertrain ("engine") sub-team for the Supermileage team this year. I have some new ideas, and the whole team seems fired up to make more improvements after our impressive performance this summer.

Supermileage

Last week was the annual Supermileage competition hosted by SAE and Eaton in Marshall, MI.  I joined Michigan Tech's Supermileage Systems Enterprise (SSE) last fall, and have been working on our vehicle for most of the school year.  I decided to join the powertrain sub-team, and cut my teeth by helping to design a new rear end frame for our car.  I also designed and built an engine mount that is both adjustable and makes it (relatively) fast and easy to remove and replace the engine, along with a device for properly tensioning the drive chain.  As a final project before summer break I reconfigured the fuel system to take up less space and fit the new layout better.  The fuel system also incorporated quick-disconnects to facilitate simple and fast engine removal, a major goal of the design this year.

Needless to say I was quite anxious to see this vehicle in action.  During the year we almost never have the whole vehicle in one piece because we are making so many modifications.  Competition was the first time I saw the whole thing working the way it was intended to.  This was my first time being at a supermileage competition, and I got the swing of things fairly quickly.  The team's first goal is to pass the technical inspection.  We had to make some changes to our electrical system, because the officials were concerned about the safety of a few of our more advanced features.  Luckily we could function without those systems working and quickly made it through that stage of technical inspection.  We then had to pass some basic handling tests.  That's when our starter broke.

Our team in line for technical inspection.

Without a starter our car was dead on the road, and we brought it back to our pit area and dug into the problem.  It turned out that our starter bracket had cracked and broken at a weld.  Unfortunately we didn't have a welder we could bring with us.  Luckily our neighbors from South Dakota owed us a favor for borrowing our generator earlier, and they had a welder.  It took a while for them to get used to welding on our aluminum bracket but they got it fixed before the end of the day.  In our rush to try the newly welded bracket we plugged some wires into the wrong ports and got a surprise when our engine flooded with fuel in quite a spectacular manner!  Luckily we discovered our careless mistake fairly quickly and got the car running a few minutes before we had to leave for the day.

Working on our car in our pit area.

The next morning we arrived early and got ready to finish the handling tests.  As it turned out, our car ended up being one of the best handling vehicles in the competition.  In every test the judges reaction was something like "Wow, I've never seen anyone do that so fast!"  Once we cleared all the tests, we were able to get out on the test track and compete for mileage.  We had predicted a performance of 55o mpg based on our 456 the year before and the improvements we made.  On the first run an access panel flew open and stayed that way for most of the run, so we were flabbergasted when our result of 950 mpg was posted.  Our vehicle managed to complete three more runs without incident (which is quite rare for the competition).  We continued to tweak our settings and achieved ever improving mileages of 960, 1063 and a final 1140.  That last performance was enough to put us in 2nd place overall, which was a very pleasant surprise for this being only our second year competing.  I guess we're on the right track!  I, along with the other new members on the team, am now very excited to get back to work and make more improvements before we come back to Marshall next year.  Hopefully we will outperform our wildest hopes again!

Our car being rolled out to the track to begin a 9.6 mile run.

Settling In

Ashby and I at the Copper Harbor lighthouse, the 

northernmost point in our weekend road trip.

I've been in Houghton or about two weeks now, and am beginning to settle into the routines of going to class and living off campus.  I've found that living off campus has been the right decision for me.  It's been much quieter and I have my own room that's only slightly smaller than the one I shared last year!  The cost is much less here as well, which more than offsets the necessity of commuting to campus (about 3 miles).

Classes have gone fairly well so far, with none that I'm too worried about.  I've also decided to join the Automotive Systems Enterprise team, which is a student group which competes to design and build the most fuel-efficient vehicle.  This will be a great way for me to gain experience while having fun.  I look forward to working on this project in the coming years.

Ashby and I took advantage of the time before classes started to take a trip up the Keweenaw peninsula.  We also made it to a few of the events put on for freshman orientation week.  This weekend we went to K (Keweenaw) Day, held at McLain State Park by the university.  We are trying to enjoy outdoor activities as much as possible before the weather turns cold.  It's nice to go to school in an area where there are so many opportunities for outdoor activities.

Back to School

Yesterday morning, I saw my girlfriend, Ashby, off on her way back to school at Michigan Tech.  As I drove home from her house, I realized that this was the first time since we've known each other that we've made the 600 mile trek to Houghton separately.  I love driving (I get it from my dad.) and have always driven on the way home and back when we are on break.  This time, however, Ashby had to be up north two weeks earlier than I do, because of her job training.  Her parents are driving her up this time.  The upside to the situation is that I will be able to take my car instead of driving the truck to move both of us.  The way gas prices are looking that will be quite a relief.  

I find that I'm much more excited about going back to school this year.  Having experienced one year of college has made a huge difference for my anxiety level.  Even so, I've started the 'to take' pile in the spare bedroom.  I plan to leave a week early to settle in and spend some time with Ashby before classes start.  That gives me a little more than a week to get everything ready.  I'm looking forward to being back.

Spring Fling

Michigan Tech's annual Spring Fling was today. The main festivity is mud volleyball known as "Ooze Ball." Unfortunately, I was only able to enjoy the events for a short time, as the festivities were drawing to a close by the time my classes ended for the day.

Ooze Ball

The snowmobile club was feeling a little down on their luck.

A friendly reminder to all the Ooze Ball players.