Hello!

So I thought I should share what my schedule will look like this Fall. (There may be a few changes since I just got my Calculus AP exam back and I passed!!! So that will be less math 😀  )

(Ok, i may be wrong on the course name exactly, so bare with me. And I do not know all the Instructors, since I am a Freshman.)

Mon., Wed., Fri.- Aeronautical Science from 8-9am with Rehbach. Then Math 9:10-10:10 Jacobs. And another Aeronautical Science course at 4:30-6pm Mr. Roy.

Tues. and Thurs.-Communications 9:10-10:25 with Dr. Nordbrock. (that’s all!! yay.)

And for flight time Mon., Wed., Fri. 12pm-4:30pm and Tues., Thurs. 12pm-6pm both with Testa.

If anyone has gone through these classes or know these instructors I would definetely love some feedback, that will help me with this transfer to a new state and school.

Well that is the latest news I have. Besides that, I’m just working and saving money to put money down for an apartment and looking into some new clothes for the winter days in Prescott. I’m also trying to find some good deals on furniture for my new apartment, if anyone knows of a good furniture store please let me know! Hope everyone is having a great summer!!!

As much as I want to write about cool summer vacations all over the world to different continents (including Atlantis), discovering a new species of frog in the Amazon rain forest, exploring caves and finding ancient alien robots, or teaching the Aborigine people of Australia to dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, I can’t.  I can’t write about these things because all summer long I’ve been pretty much limited to Pinetop.  And Flagstaff.  Pinetop because it is where my house is (where I’ve been confined to) and Flagstaff because my family and I went to yet another softball tournament (Flagstaff was the host).  So all of you who are expecting some great story about how I went to Africa and somehow cured AIDs, I’m sorry to disappoint.  All I’ve done this summer is play sports, clean my room, and drive my siblings around to wherever they need to go.  I’ll work on it though.

I was basically forced to drive to Flagstaff to get “practice” for college.  By forced, I mean physically shoved into the driver’s seat with the keys thrown at me through the slightly rolled down she’s-gonna-explode-if-I-open-the-door window.  Not that I don’t like driving…I drive all the time.  Just not two and a half hours worth where I can’t look anywhere but the dizzying yellow and white lines on the road in fear that a semi will suddenly tip over and fall on me.  I-40?  Not fun.  Too many big trucks with too little mirrors.  Wow…I’m gonna have conniptions on my trips to and from ERAU!  But back to our trips.  We always arrived just in time to get roast beef sandwiches from Arby’s (which, according to my sister, were the magic keys to winning games.  We had to stop there every day after that.  Which was just fine with me).  We would proceed to drop Lexie (my sis), my dad and my brothers off at the ballfield while my mom and I went to Target or Michael’s or JoAnn, none of which are available in Pinetop.  My mom was like a kid in a candy shop!

In Flagstaff,  Lexie and her team played many games to advance in the bracket while I sat in a lawn chair, with my sunglasses and iPod, watching.  Let me tell you – watching is WAY more difficult emotionally than is playing the game!  When you’re playing, of course it is difficult to have the mindset you need to win and to get the job done, but there is always the option of being able to act, to DO something about how the game is going.  When you’re sitting there, in your lawn chair with your waterbottle in your hand observing, you’re powerless.  And that powerlessness settles in your stomach when something in the game goes wrong, like a big rock just sitting in your gut.  I always teased my mom about having to leave in the middle of my State Championship game due to the pressure, but I never guessed that I would have to do the same thing in my sister’s Little League game!!  Karma, I guess.  Stupid karma. 

While we were in Flagstaff, I was able to meet up with one of my close friends from high school who moved to Flagstaff a few days after graduation so she could get a head start for NAU this fall.  Ever since we took both classes of Sign Language together we’ve been close friends, who would sometimes, in other classes like Math and English, even sign to each other so no one else could see what we were saying!  Only a real friend would talk to you in another language in front of everyone else in the class and not be embarrassed. 🙂 Facebook chatting just wasn’t cutting it, so we got a hold of each other and were able to hang out!  I was so happy to finally see her.  It’s only been a month, but in my opinion that is way too long.  In the dog park next to the softball field, Robin and I watched her dog run around with my eight year old brother and filled each other in with the events that occurred since the summer started.  It was great.  I got to see her house and we went to dinner at Coco’s after the game. 

This is Robin and I in math being baffled at a Rubic’s Cube that one of our friends fixed after five minutes.  After much effort, frustration, yelling at the cube, and a good twenty seconds, we gave up.  Good times. 

Prescott isn’t all that far from Flagstaff, so hopefully there will be many more visits to come. 🙂

“Today was good.  Today was fun.  Tomorrow is another one.” – Dr. Seuss

I know you are probably wondering why the quotation marks on home, well before I explain let me start off by saying hi! I know it has been a few weeks, I have just been away like the other students bloggers 🙂   So the reason why I put quotations on home is because it depends on how a person would describe home. Would you describe home where your parents live and where you lived during your childhood years, or would you describe it being where your heart actually lies, where your new life is heading towards? I do consider this house being my home, but my heart does lie in Arizona, not only because my boyfriend and his family live there, but also since that is where I will be living and where I’ll be attending my dream college at.  So in a sense I left “Home” to go “Home” since I was actually in Arizona these past two weeks.

I was visiting with my boyfriend and my second family (his family). I also went up to Prescott to look at apartments. I really wish I took pictures, but it just slipped my mind. My boyfriend and I looked at about 5 different ones. We found two really good ones I would enjoy to live in. Both are in Prescott Valley, but they are only about ten minutes from ERAU! Pretty exciting! One of our favorite apartment choices has a little backyard, I’m thinking I could use it to plant my own garden or maybe some grass. It’s kind of nice to be able to have at least a little yard to yourself  😀

Also when I was in Arizona, we went to this big water park. It was awesome! Located in Mesa, I believe it was called Sunsplash. It was so much fun. I went with Wyatt, my boyfriend, and his family. There was laser tag at the water park too, so that was AMAZING! I had a lot of fun going to all these different places and watching all these different movies. (Could you believe I have never seen any Terminators until this last week, and my Governor is “The Terminator”-Arnold lol.) We took lots of pictures, but too bad they are all on HIS camera. lol. Sorry, I really wanted to decorate this page up. he he.

Well, thank you for taking your time in reading our blogs, I hope they provide entertainment and maybe even help and encouragement. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I’ll write more tomorrow when I remember what else I wanted to blog about. Talk to you soon! 😀

Hi all, I know that I’m getting up and running later than the rest of the student bloggers, but for some reason I have had issues with my log in information. But that’s all changed now, thanks to the amazing Doug Dickey. ^^ Anywho, my name is Brianna and I have just graduated from Dallas High School, a small school in the town of Dallas, OR. How original, yeah? Life after high school has been great, with more freedom, more time, and since I have a summer job (thank goodness) I have money to fund my last summer at home before college. I”ll be honest, it’s a little scary thinking that in about a month and a half the place where my pillow resides will be over a thousand miles from the family and friends that I grew up with.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely excited, but still. I am very much a home oriented person. I always have been and probably always will be. But that is not going to stop me from taking to opportunity of a lifetime! Anyway thats all I have time for for now but I’ll be back I promise you that!

Hey everyone.  There’s a whole lot for me to talk about today.  Firstly, last Saturday I attended a car control clinic which was pretty cool.  People brought anything from BMWs to SUVs and everything in between. There were four evolutions: slalom, skid pad (cloverleaf onramp type thing), braking strip, and a lane change.  The first is self explanatory, but I’ll explain anyway.  The goal was to get to whatever speed you could swerve at comfortably and complete the slalom without hitting any of the bright orange cones.  I actually learned something valuable on that course.  Ordinarily, you would think to look at the cone in front of you to give you the best control, when in fact you are supposed to look at the very last cone and use your peripheral vision to go in and out of the cones.  It helps a lot with handling.  The cloverleaf skid pad was pretty complicated and basically what you do is leave the steering wheel at a certain angle and then just use the accelerator to control swinging outward or not.  When you accelerate, the car takes a wider turn and then when you let off the gas (but not braking), the car will grip the road and make a tighter turn, all without turning the steering wheel.  It’s pretty neat.  The braking strip was fun.  You floor the gas until the instructor (sitting next to you in every evolution) tells you to brake.  When they say that you slam on the brakes and stop as quickly as possible.  That evolution simulates both ABS and lets you know how much time your car actually takes to stop when you’re going at approximately 60 mph.  The last one was pretty intense…there was a line of cones in front of you and then several hundred feet down a guy with a flag.  Right before you hit the last cone, he would through the flag in a direction and you would have to swerve in the direction of the cone (as if making an emergency lane change), regain control and keep going straight.  Many people anticipated the direction of the flag and would end up going the wrong way, but it was tough.  The max speed anyone could get in the distance given was 45 mph which was nearly impossible to turn at.  So that’s first on my agenda for this post.

Second, I hadn’t gone to the beach a single day this summer until Friday.  I guess my story is out of order since the clinic was Saturday, but this was the day before that.  I went with a friend and the water was pretty cold, so we took a break.  After building a 5 foot mountain of sand (for no particular reason), I asked him if he wanted to play frisbee.  He said he was not good, but decided to give it a try anyway.  He through the frisbee to me and the very first step I took, I stepped on a bee.  The bee then proceeded to sting me until it died.  This was my first bee sting (yay), and I guess it wasn’t too bad, but I also didn’t know if I was allergic; luckily I’m not.  I tried hobbling to the lifeguard tower so he could pull out the stinger.  I got half way and then just dropped, so my friend got him and then after he pulled it out he made me sit by his tower for five minutes, which felt like an eternity.  The swelling went down two days ago and you can still see a mark of where the venom (or whatever it is bees sting you with) had spread throughout my foot.  So that was Friday’s excitement, which subsequently affected my hobbling for the following two days, including the car clinic.

I’m already getting tired from writing, which isn’t good since I’m just getting started.  Anyway, I’m in Cancun right now; we got here on Tuesday.  The first thing we noticed upon arrival was the heat and humidity.  You start sweating just standing still.  The upside to this is that, unlike San Diego, the water is amazing! It’s probably 75 degrees, and the same goes for the pool.  No wonder winter is the busy season here; where else can you go and warm up in the ocean in the winter?!

You can see all of my photos in my Flickr album that I’m updating daily: http://www.flickr.com/photos/soccerkingpilot/

I’ll talk about one last thing today.  Yesterday we visited a place called Chichenitza, which was a Mayan village…you will probably recognize the temple from this picture I took.

Chichenitza Mayan Temple

Well we took a four hour bus ride to get there and when we arrived, it was a scorching 98 degrees outside.  Add the humidity to that and it was painful.  On the tour, our guide would have us hop from shady area to shady area.  It was pretty interesting seeing their village being uncovered.  That’s also home to the world’s largest ball court.  They played this wierd game with their elbows, knees, hips, and shoulders to get a ball through a hoop about 20 feet up.  The Mayans were definitely the ultimate basketball players.  They were ingenious engineers though.  At the ball court on each end there were seats for the important people.  They could talk to people at the other end (300 feet away) at a normal tone and hear each other perfectly.  The catch is, however, that the players only ten feet below these bouncing sound waves couldn’t hear a thing.  We actually studied most of this particular village when we were looking at ancient civilizations in 6th grade.  Now it’s all coming together 🙂  I highly suggest you take a look at the link above for some of the other pictures of Chichenitza.  I’m sure I’ll be writing again in a few days before my Cancun trip is over.

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.