I volunteered at the Illinois State Science Olympiad tournament last weekend at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. I was the event supervisor for an event called Write It Do It for the middle school division. Basically the event consists of a pair of students, one the writer and one the doer, who get a structure provided by yours truly that they copy as closely as possible by having the writer look at the structure and write instructions on how to make it and the doer using those instructions to try to recreate the original. I brought a few of my friends down with me to Champaign for the competition and we all stayed with the grandparents, who were very gracious hosts. I've included some pictures below that Alpana took with her camera:
Kunal, Nikhil, and I the night before the competition getting everything assembled for the next day.
Me in Grandma James's basement, staging a picture to give to one of our friends to show how bad the living conditions were. The past few weeks have also been the start of the intramural frisbee season. I've got to say, Wednesday has been the worst day of the week to play games, but that is the day we have been assigned to play every week. Two weeks ago, it was snowing on a Wednesday. Last week, it was about 40 degrees and windy. This week it was about the same except it started to rain during our games. I have never played in such bad weather. In contrast, every Monday has been sunny with 70-80 degree weather, but I don't think anybody plays on Mondays. This upcoming Monday is supposed to have a high of 87 degrees, while Wednesday is supposed to be about 58. I smell a conspiracy. If this keeps up, I may not play next year.
Oh, I went to an informational session this week about a "Medical Innovations" course that is being offered for the first time this fall at Northwestern. Basically, it draws students from four different Northwestern schools (the med school, business school, law school, and engineering school) and about 10 teams are assembled consisting of students from each school. The goal of the course is for each team to develop a medical-related innovation based on shadowing doctors at Northwestern's hospital in Chicago, pitching the idea to get funding from the faculty and venture capitalists funding the course (~$15,000/group in actual money!), using that money to develop a working prototype, filing a preliminary patent application, and delivering a final presentation to market the idea to potential investors. It sounds like an awesome opportunity. The course is actually a two-quarter course, so it runs from September to March, but I'm seriously considering taking it for my PhD minor. It sounds like it may be a lot of work, but it's divided up into a group project, so my main contribution to the team as the engineer would be developing the idea and determining feasible ways to go about making a prototype. In principal, if I apply for the orthopedic research area, I could potentially use my own research as the motivation for artificial cartilage applications. Not a bad idea... The application is due by May 11, but I'll probably try to get it done this weekend.
Other than that, I can't think of much else I'm up to other than coursework and research. I'll be visiting North Carolina next weekend for my sister's graduation from Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. My birthday is also coming up in a few weeks. I'm thinking about having a broomball party, but more to come on that later.
Sorry for the long-delayed post. If it happens again, just leave me nasty comments or something. Hope everybody is doing well...
3 comments:
Hi Kevin,
A. Carlene and I just read your latest on the blog. I always thought hump day (Wed.) was bad enough without challenging Ma Nature. We couldn't decide if the picture setup from the basement would earn you some retribution in the way of your food expectations on the next visit or not. Knowing G. James, my guess is that you will pull it off OK.
I loved the idea for the artificial cartilage application to your course. I am assuming that one of the ideas behind the artificial cartilage is the lack of rejection problems. What all do you have to do to account for that possibility and prevent the problem? Is the lack of vascular supply to the cartilage sufficient to take care of it, and are there any purity issues with molecules that might act as haptens etc.?
Any way, love the information and events update every time you post. Look forward to seeing you this weekend.
Love - A. Carlene and U. Bob
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