The 4^th day started off with Dr. Traub and Dr. Ashworth teaching the students the basics of aerodynamics and airplane construction. A wind tunnel lab followed in which the principles of wind tunnel and the theories behind its working were explained. The students also checked out the water tunnel and the various airplane models built by seniors for their ‘Detail’ Design class from previous semesters. After lunch, the same teachers continued their classes on Stability and Control. The students were introduced the four basic forces acting on an airplane and how each of them contributes to the stability of the airplane. Drag is not always a bad thing 😉 After all these classes were complete, the fun began. The students entered the machine shops and looked at a pile of balsa wood, stacks of glue, rubber-band packets, sets of rulers and pencils, lots of X-Acto knives and knew exactly how much fun they are going to have for the next 2.5 hours. Spilt in teams of four, the campers began the design process. A plethora of designs were made:highly tapered wings, high aspect ratio wings, stepped wings, unique empennage configurations and lots of unique construction ideas. The students were designing this airplane with an engineering aspect in mind. It was not a thumb-measured-airplane made at the backyard. Carefully measured cuts were made whenever possible and the weight was always an issue. Some groups got to complete the design before the allotted time and got to do some flight test in the corridors of the AxFab Building. The air conditioning vents created some air flow issues. Well, they had turbulent flow experiences 😉 After the Glider Design Lab, the students were taken to a movie, dinner and lots of mini golf. Pictures say it all. On the last day, they had their glider glying competition where the flew their airplanes at the Eagle Gym and the airplane that flew the farthest won. The maximum was to scale the length of the gym. They also had their truss bridges tested by the tensile strength testers at the Materials Lab. The bridge that could withstand the maximum force made it to the top. The luncheon marked the end of this great camp where the campers where once again reunited with their families and took home back their broken bridge and few intact pieces of their balsa wood glider. As usual, pictures follow:

So I just started working my summer job (not this one) and I was thinking what jobs you guys might have on top of this!  My job is to babysit flowers for the local fair haha!  I work in the floral department while the fair is in town, answering questions (if I can) and just helping out in my building.  It is fun, just like a summer job is supposed to be!  Is anyone else starting another summer job? 

P.S.  I just got back from Transformers 2 and it was AWESOME!!!  Muuuuch better than the first.

The 2^nd day started off with a class on Astrodynamics after the Breakfast. After that class, Space Lab class began and so did all the fun. The students were working on Simulink and STK. They could find orbits of different satellites, track the orbits and do all kind of fun stuff like putting an F-35 on the ISS Orbit.

However, they did 2 projects which involved created a spy satellite that could collect data from the Target City and transport it to the base. The 2^nd project involved creating a radar system that could detect a foreign enemy aircraft within a given time frame.

In Space Lab 2, Prof. Kim and Mr. Crabtree taught the class where the students worked on of the experimental space systems. They also contacted someone from New York using a HAM Radio. The satellite that relayed the signal was crossing Prescott on that day and thus the students were able to observe it clearly. All this was meant to give the students a clearer perspective on different uses of the satellites and their method of operation.

After the classes and dinner, all the campers went to play mini golf. The pictures that follow depicts how much fun they had.

On the 3^rd day, the students started their day with Prof. Helbling learning about Structures and Materials. After the Materials Lab and lunch at Chartwells, the students used the knowledge they gained in the class this morning to create a 3d model of a truss bridge using Solid Works. Randall Tolley assisted the professors and students to create the 3d models using the Rapid Prototyping Lab located at AxFab Building.

After dinner, the campers had a great session of Sand Volleyball and Dodgeball.

As usual, pictures follow:

This summer I have been working with the Events Management at Prescott Campus. We have been organizing summer camps and it has been lots of fun. In this blog post, I will talk about the Aerospace Engineering Summer Camp. This camp had 47 students!

The camp kicked off with the orientation in Building 51. After the orientation, in which the ground rules were laid out, we played some games with the campers in front of Student Union. It is where the campers and the coordinators learned that wet grass and a game where one needs to take the shoes off, don’t go along good.

After the games, the campers were taken to Wal-Mart in case they needed something that they forgot. Apparently, a lot of them forgot their Nerf Guns. On Monday, after a breakfast at the dining hall, classes began. After the Robotics class and Lab, in which they were taught by Dr. Nafziger about the various component that goes into machine designing, the campers met at Chartwells again for lunch. After the lunch, they attended a class by Prof. Bordignon and Prof. Kim on Controls. An aircraft simulation created by the teachers was available to the students. It was a Matlab program that took in the inputs from the pilot and the atmosphere and gave the output as the response of the aircraft. The required math and scientific theories were explained before the class and the students were supposed to change the value of one variable in order to achieve the minimum time required for the airplane to pitch up, level off and the pitch down and level off again. The theoretical minimum was 10 seconds and the closest time the team achieved was 11.6 seconds.

After the classes and dinner, the students played Capture the Flag till 9 pm and went to sleep at 10.

This ended the first day of the AE Camp. Pictures follow:

Hey guys, sorry I’ve been sitting around not writing anything in my blog recently, I have been kind of  busy for the last couple weeks with some good things and some not so fun things.

On the not awesome side, I went to Denver last week because my cousins mom died  ( in spite of what it sounds like, that’s not my aunt, because my uncle got remarried)
I really don’t mind funerals and I’ve been to quite a few, but it’s always worse when someone who’s barely over 50 just drops dead.

On a happier note things are starting to fall into place for this fall, I got my class schedule in the mail a few days ago, I have a morning flight block and I’m hoping I don’t have to fly at 5:30am too often,  I’m also going to get my class 1 medical done on July 3rd.
Another  fun thing that’s happening is that my softball team doesn’t totally suck this year, we have won the last two games and have another one tonight, so I’m really hoping we can keep this going.
Recently I’ve been resisting the urge to get a pet since I will be going to school so soon, I just really miss having animals around. I guess we still have a couple horses, but that’s not the same. Ever since I was four I’ve had at least a couple pets, some of my favorites have been…
Velcro the Hedgehog, my cat that got squished under the garage door when he was little and then recovered and became the nicest cat ever, and a lovebird I had that would spread his wings out and lay on his back on my chest while I watched movies.
My other favorite animal I’ve had, but that I can’t really call a pet, would be one of my raccoons.
A few years back a farmer I know brought a baby raccoon to us because his dog had killed the mother, so we raised it and then released him in the fall. for the last several years he’s come up every now and then and eaten the cat food.
That one’s name was Fuzzy, since then we’ve raised about 10 others. the one here is from last summer, her name is Lucy.

And while we’re on the animal photo thing, here’s one of my favorites of my sister’s old dog.

Moving on..
I just ordered A new joystick and throttle, and got a new copy of Microsoft flight simultor X, gold edition. I decided it was time to start that up again.

I remember reading a post a little while ago where someone was wondering about buying a mac or PC.  GET A MAC.
I just installed the parallels application on my macbook, you can get the software for $40 with a student discount (that’s 50% off) and it works like a dream, with parallels you can run windows easily at the same time that you are running OS X, and use any windows programs you may need (in my case pretty much just flight sim). If you get a mac, I recommend getting the iwork suite, it’s very useful.

That’s all for now, time to go finish moving my yard and getting ready for another softball game.

Hey all!  I just wanted to say how my trip to the Bahamas went!  So last Sunday (June 14th) I hopped on a plane and flew to Miami.  We got on the cruiseship and hung out around the boat all day.  Our first stop on the trip was Nassau, an island in the Bahamas.  That day, my family went to the largest waterpark in the world!  I also got to have some dolphin encounters (they made me kiss one >.<)  but overall it was a blast!  The next day we went to Royal Caribbean’s own private island.  I ended up sleeping in until noon then my mom made me get up and go to the beach  -.-  where I took a nap.  😀               

  that night I played basketball on the back of the ship until about…2 a.m.  and let me tell you, playing on a wooden deck with no shoes on is painful…I have the blisters and cuts to prove it.  Anyways, the third and final stop on the trip was Key West, Florida. We got off the boat at around 9 a.m. and went out parasailing for an hour or so!  

After going parasailing, there was not much for an adult under 18 to do on the island, so I went back to the boat and just hung out with people I met!  I tried to stay up all night that night, but ended up getting tired and going to bed at about 6 a.m. (so I could sleep on the plane of course) and for some odd reason, our flight home ended up being flying to New York for our connection to Los Angeles…which makes completely no sense to me!

Just a quick update on what’s happening with my life.  Firstly, it’s several weeks into June and I haven’t been to the beach once, which is sad since I live less than 10 miles from the beach.  Our JROTC unit took two field trips this year: one to Hawaii and one to Pensacola.  The whole time we were at each of those places we were dying to go to the beach but in San Diego it seems like nothing special.  I guess I just have to wait for Arizona where the beach is slightly less accessible.  Well, right now I’m working at a flight school, which I believe I said earlier.  I go in from 8am to anywhere between 2 and 5pm working on their website, marketing presentations/brochures, and graphic design.  It’s a pretty fun job, but can be sort of confusing at times.  The previous webmaster seemed to have locked all the templates and not labeled them very well so sometimes I’m working in the dark.

It may seem random, but I figured I’d show you all a picture of my dog…he’s a 5 year old long hair german shepherd:

My dog Jetson...our last dog was named Astro

One last item.  Several weeks ago I was talking about the shipment I got from RHL (Residence Hall Linens).  I thought they seemed pretty good at first, but in the end decided to return them.  My biggest issue was the thread count of the sheets (180) compared to what I would normally buy (at least 250 or 300).  I think when target and walmart start having dorm sales we’ll go in and buy all of my sheets, towels, etc.  Anyway, I don’t think the product was horrible or anything, it was just that I think I can do better with the same amount of money.  For anyone who just wants to buy everything quickly and in one place, I think RHL is a great solution.

This week has been crazy!  It seems that since the summer started, I eat, sleep, and breathe volleyball, and I’m loving every minute of it.  This past week, I was able to be one of the coaches at a volleyball camp for little girls with my high school coach Tami Ellsworth.  My little sister was in my group, and I have  to say that it was an eye opener for me.  She is just like me when I was little, right down to the hands.  I had more than one of my teammates who were also helping tell me that she sets just like me!  Soon she’ll be playing seventh grade volleyball, and I’ll be watching her, remembering how thrilling and exciting and nervewracking junior high ball is.  The circle of life is an interesting thing!  The camp itself was a success.  Not only did the girls learn a lot, coaching really helped ME remember some things that I had forgotten.  Soon I’ll be going to ERAU to help with a little girl’s volleyball camp there as well, and I am so excited!

At the end of the week, (Thursday), Anna and I drove down to Thatcher for the Allstar volleyball game.  All of the seniors who got nominated played in the game, the North Allstars against the South Allstars.  Well, Blue Ridge is in the North, so Anna and I walked into the  hotel’s conference room where everyone met and started to embrace our North teammates.  That’s when the North coach notified us that we were being transferred to the South due to lack of players.  So that’s how the North girls got transferred to the “Dirty South” (I didn’t make up the name…our coaches did :-)).  It was kind of ironic, actually.  1.  Coach Ellsworth was one of the people in charge and she was the assistant coach for the North team.  2. We knew someone was going to be transferred and Anna and I were positive that we weren’t going to be the ones.  That proves how karma works its course, I guess.  After about five minutes with our team though we were STOKED that we were playing with the South!  The girls were so much fun and the coaches were AMAZING at volleyball!  These two big guys from florence are the hardest hitters I’ve ever seen in my life!  They were pretty rockin’.

We stayed at the Mariott Springhill Suites in Thatcher, and it was really nice.  The pool was a little on the small side (think glorified jacuzzi without the jets) but everything else was great.  We practiced as a team at Thatcher High School and got to know how the team played as a whole.  Even at dinner we played get-to-know-you games.  After shoving our faces with pizza, we were split up into groups and were given six items.   The girls had to create some kind of commercial for the items.  Our team (the short kids) got second place for creating a commercial for the BUSTOMATIC.  Don’t ask.  There were so many outgoing girls who weren’t afraid to wear, say, fake teeth and a witch’s nose, and it was so hilarious.  We, the short kids, got waterbottles and towels as prizes for our amazing commercial (ha).  Man, if I wasn’t going to Embry Riddle to get my degree in GSIS, I would probably be right up there with Audrey Hepburn, Mickey Rooney and Will Ferrell.  Well, you never know.

Pictured top to bottom left to right: Jessica Queen (JQ), Daniella Serrano (Dani), Ashley McCracken, Anna Martin, Ahsaki LaFrance (Sakie), Stephanie Johnson, and me!  Not pictured: Sabrina Blanco.  We think she was talking on the phone somewhere.

Overall, the entire experience was a BLAST!  A group of girls from all around the southern state became friends and teammates somewhere between practices, accidentally locking our middle hitter out of our room for three hours (oops), and walking to Denny’s where our other middle HAD to get hot wings because it was her tradition to eat them the night before the game.  She also carried around a mini volleyball in her bag for good luck and had to take a shower the night before, that morning, and right before the game, so she would keep to her traditions.  Well, those crazy traditions definitely didn’t fail her!  The South ended up beating the North in three games (we play three out of five) and the bonding during the game was incredible.  Everyone had the same passion for volleyball as I did, and we played like a team that had been together for years.  The feeling was absolutely incredible.  Eight teammates became eight friends.  Go Dirty South!

“Life is partly what we make it and partly what is made by the friends whom we choose.”

-Tehyi Hsieh

First off, I would like to apologize for taking a while to write. I have been extremely busy this last week. Not only did I have graduation, but my boyfriend came out from Arizona to see me and all my family from across California came to see me this past week. I have a lot to cover!!! 😀 

So graduation was June 10th, 2009! Last Wednesday! It was a great  night, unfortunately it was extremely windy, but for the first time it was not hot!! That was the plus 😉  I was one of the first to walk and graduate since I was a distinguished scholar and top 2% of class. It felt good to be one of the first, but then again I had to wait for all the other four hundred graduates to walk across that same stage. lol. It was a LONG wait. But I’m so proud of my friends and of myself for making it this far and accomplishing such an amazing task! And congrats go out to all the graduating seniors of 2009! WE DID IT!!! 😀

Next news, Last week I also had two scholarship award banquets to go to. I got to meet the Mayor at one and our Congresswoman at the other. They were both for $1,000 each. One was from “The Gas Company” and the other was from “Mission Lakes Women’s Luncheon Club”. Both scholarships were community. The Mission Lakes Women’s Luncheon Club was a group of women who devote their time to hold luncheons to receive donation money in order to give them to their chosen scholarship recipients. I was one of four to receive such award. I was also very fortunate to get the Gas Company scholarship since only 9 of us got this award (5 for $500 and 4 for $1,000), out of the many applications that were submitted. And I already told you about the $10,000 scholarship that I won. $5,000 for the first year and $5,000 for the second. This award insured my full payment for my freshman year, it is a huge relief now! Trust me when I say work your booty off for as many scholarships, because I promise it will pay off, and you will be thanking yourself in the future when your debt is at the minimum!

And the last bit of info…Last days of high school were exciting, stressful, and fun. I just could not believe I was getting ready to leave all my friends that I have known for years. But I was so excited to know that all my hard work payed off and now I was able to be the adult in the real world. I now get to live my dream of becoming a pilot! On the last day of school we had a senior party, it was so much fun. We had bouncers, rock wall, hula dance, hula hoop, face painting, sooooo much food!!! And of course, a DJ!!! There was also contests and prizes, but it was all fun. It was a great way to celebrate the end of our high school year.

So I guess this wraps up the last two weeks, at least the important stuff. Like I said the week of graduation just consisted of scholarships, family, friends, and boyfriend. I also got to go to Six Flags Magic Mountain all day the Thursday after Graduation! That was AMAZING! Wish I had more pictures up, but all my pictures are on my cell and I’m just in the middle of switching companies. So maybe I can fit them into my blog next time 😉

Take care. 😀

Man things have been busy around here! I guess I might as well go in order. I think I left off right before graduation day, which was last Thursday. It was the first time in the history of the school where graduation wasn’t scorching hot. Our school wears all black gowns and caps, so needless to say it can get very warm with little effort from the weather. This year we had a nice cloud cover and breeze (although that didn’t help us keep our cords on). I was happy that my cousin and good friend who I’ve known for 7 years (he’s also a teacher at another school) were able to make it to my graduation along with my parents. Right after graduation, I went and got my diploma and then proceeded straight to a friend’s graduation party.

After the party, I headed over to grad nite, which has always been hosted at our school. They use the gym, lunch area, and surrounding walkway. Of course, to make sure no one “escaped’ they put up fences around the whole area and posted security guards. I can honestly say that was probably the most fun I’ve had in a very long time. The moment I walked in, I saw the gym had been split into three sections by 10 foot high walls. There was a massive dance area, followed by an arcade/video game section with pool and ping pong tables, and lastly a casino. They even had a barred dealer area where you cashed out chips. Outside were caricaturists, unlimited coffee and smoothies provided by Maui Wowi, a ton of food including a chocolate fountain, a massive 20′ highx80′ long obstacle course, an inflatable laser tag arena, and a massive palm tree climbing tower. They also had a tattoo and hair styling center outside next some other carnival games where you could win candy. Below is a photo of my “shamu underwater” hairdo. Some friends I was with told the person to make it like Elvis, but also a mohawk. I didn’t quite understand it, but you can see for yourself and let me know what you think in the comments.

Oh, I forgot to mention something else; in case anyone got tired, they had a room set up playing movies with a ton of pillows to sleep. I’ll admit I spent 20 minutes in there relaxing around 2am. I think my favorite part was the inflatable obstacle course, but I didn’t like getting burned by the synthetic material every time I went down the 20′ slide. I must have raced people at least 15 times, about the same number of pina colada’s (non-alcoholic) that I had. I got home around 5:30am and proceeded to sleep for approximately 3 hours; my friends tell me they slept until 4pm that day. I got up Friday morning and spent the entire day cleaning for my graduation party the next day.

On Saturday, I had my graduation party, where we hired taqueros (authentic taco makers who grill in your back yard) who made some awesome carne asada tacos. There must have been about 30 people at the party, all from San Diego or Temecula. I take that back, there was one person who I was very happy was able to make it. My ROTC Instructor from Freshman through Junior year came from LA because he lost his job here due to budget cuts. Being an former Navy SEAL, he always has plenty of stories to tell me and my friends; this visit was no exception. The following day we went on a hike on a mountain called Mt. Woodson in the area and caught up on what had happened in ROTC and life in general. Unexpectedly, I received quite a bit of money at the party which will be stored in my starving student fund for next year.

Moving on to Sunday…I believe most of you are now aware of the fact that I work at church every Sunday, and Saturdays when I can, as an A/V Tech. On Sunday, I started at church at 8:30am, went on the hike with my ROTC Instructor at 12:00 and was back at church again at 3:00pm for a special event. A very talented singer who is in our normal group of weekend singers, Kenny Turner, has a band but had never produced a CD. As a gospel singer, in the past 20 years he has performed on stage with artists including Justin Timberlake, Mariah Carey, and Michael Bolton.  The church staff offered to put on a live concert to produce a soundtrack and DVD for him to sell. It was a hit! We had a full house and after recording the clap track, he and his band blew us all away, literally. We were flying new speakers to test them out and it was a good thing we did because our normal ones would have been killed right away. My job that night was putting lyrics on the screen for both the band and audience. Because we were recording for sale, we had 5 cameras rolling at all times and put extra mics on the instruments to mix later. It was a great success and I’ll be sure to let you know when the CD is ready.

I’m almost done now, so just sit tight for a minute. Last summer I started as a webmaster for a local flight school who puts out some great pilots. After scrambling to put in job applications, I was pleased to find out that they would be taking me on full time again this summer. There’s always something to be done, so I should stay plenty busy throughout the summer and even doing updates during the school year at ERAU. Even though I have this job, I’m still hoping the Apple Store will call me in for an interview 🙂  Lastly, I received my course list this week which includes 17 credits: Military Forces, Leadership Lab (AFROTC), Intro to Engineering, Intro to Computing for Engineers, Honors Seminar, Calculus, Physics, and College Success.  Mondays seem like a pretty heavy day, but luckily Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays are light enough for me to catch up on work.