Nerds Building Stuff!

Remember "Engineering Week" back in high school and college? They'd usually have some sort of neat demonstration, and there was ALWAYS a building competition (usually bridges of some sort). I never participated in school and recently got depressed when I realized that I'd never have another chance. Then came along GE.

GE celebrates "Engineering Week"
and has a building competition.

When I saw the posters up announcing the event I was stoked. I don't know if I was more excited to find out what we would be building, or to see how badly mine compared to everyone else's! After all, I'm a software engineer, and we have all sorts of mechanical and electrical engineers that can build any kind of contraption you can think of! Luckily they let us form into teams - ideally we'd have one of each type of engineer on a team to be able to tackle any sort of problem, but instead I joined a team with 2 other software engineers. We were determined to show up the other engineers!

Here are the basic rules we had for the competition:

• Our challenge was to build a wind powered vehicle that would transport a small plastic duck along a set course
• The vehicle could consist only of materials purchased at Wal-mart with a supplied $20 gift card
• Nothing can be donated to (or by) the team
• The vehicle must be wind-propelled (there were 3 fans along the course to power the vehicle - as shown below)
• No part of the vehicle may be left behind (i.e. no launching the duck)

The Course

At first our designs were WAY too complicated. We were going to do some sort of tricycle-sailboat-thing with the front axle attached to the sails which would turn the vehicle in whatever direction the wind was blowing. Then we remembered we only had a week to build, test, and compete so we turned to a more simplistic idea - what if we could put the duck inside some sort of ball? Then we'd just have to make sure it was big enough to catch the wind, and light enough to move really fast!

Here's what we made:

Meet pac-man

The duck fits right into his mouth for safe-keeping!

We wanted to do a bigger ball with lighter styrofoam, but when we looked online we found that a styrofoam ball around 12" to be about $65! So we had to go with this denser (but cheaper) nerf foam.

There were 10 different teams that competed in the challenge. I have video of all of the runs (each team was allowed 2 runs), but it was too messy to put them all up here. Instead I have the TOP 5 Building Competition Runs over at my TOP 5 blog if you are interested in checking them out. For now I'll show you our best run (we ended up taking 2nd place - we lost by 0.2 seconds) and the winning run. Sorry for the bad quality!

My Team - 2nd Place

1st Place run

Ironically the winners had a design that was actually pretty close to our original tricycle-sailboat idea; just without the movable axle. Unfortunately, in competitive times like these, there are no prizes for 2nd place, but we're already looking forward to next year's building competition to try for the coveted 1st place spot.

To the East!

A couple of weeks ago I flew out to Wilmington, NC for some work training. I've never been to the East Coast, and Wilmington is pretty much right on the coast, so I was excited for the opportunity to be in a beach town and experience their unique food. Typically when you hear about the water from the Atlantic you always hear that it is "so warm", and I was excited to try it out because the water in the Pacific is always so cold! Unfortunately I guess that doesn't hold true in February - the water was frigid! I talked to some of the locals though, and they said it has been colder than usual because of some unusually-cold weather down in the Gulf. Just my luck! It was fun being at the beach though, and of course I had to take the opportunity to send a message to my wife (who didn't miss me fortunately since we're already apart):

Aww... How sweet!

The best part of the trip (besides the training of course... heh heh...) was the FOOD! Check out the awesome cuisine I tried!

A Mexican sushi-roll! Avocados, rice, cheese, tomatoes and shrimp!
And instead of Wasabi they had chipotle/BBQ dressing. So good.

A crab cake INSIDE of a crab! I wasn't expecting this on my seafood platter -
it was more of a WTF moment - but it too was delicious!

Raw Oysters - I always have been curious about them and never sure if I would actually do it, but the opportunity presented itself and I just went for it.
They were saltier than I expected, but overall not too bad.

I also was told by some locals to try out a place called "Smithfield's Chicken 'N Bar-B-Q" and to get the "Chicken and Barbecue" platter. So I went into the restaurant and asked for the "BBQ Chicken" and the lady looked at me like I was a little slow. She replied "You mean the Chicken and Bar-B-Q?" I was a little confused at this point - was "Barbecue" a food here or something? Turns out it was! Barbecue in North Carolina mean pulled-pork in a vinegar- & pepper-based barbecue sauce. It definitely was different, but it was really good! And they even have a mail-order service where you can have "Bar-B-Q" shipped to you front door anywhere in the United States!

The Right Decision

Read this article

It's times like these that I'm glad I didn't choose Goldman Sachs.

What the Future Holds in Store

I graduate in less than a month! Because of the current economy and resulting job market, many of my friends don't know what they are doing after college. Fortunately for us I was able to secure a job after I graduate. A few months ago I wrote this post while in Chicago for a job interview. X also wrote this post about my week of interviews. Here is a breakdown of where I was and what I was doing:

Thursday, November 5, 2009

GE Energy - Minden (Reno), NV

GE Energy is associated with all sorts of green energy projects, ranging from wind-, water-, and solar-powered energy, to the Smart Grid projects across the country. The GE Energy division I interviewed with deals with condition monitoring of instrumentation and services, to ensure that all of the turbines are working correctly and smoothly. I would be programming the software for the monitoring equipment, and other projects they are working on.

My interview with GE Energy was about 5 hours long. My favorite part was after the interview I was able to drive out to Lake Tahoe (about 25 minutes away) before my flight. The view was breathtaking, even in November!

Friday, November 6, 2009

Goldman Sachs - SLC, UT

This was my final (of 3) interviews with Goldman Sachs. All of Goldman Sachs' trading software is developed in-house, so I would be creating the software to allow people to trade their assets in the stock market, specifically with Private Wealth Management. Besides corrupt management and high bonuses, other things I would have to look forward to are work hours starting at 7am (to work the same hours as New York), and a free BlackBerry phone. Yipee!

My interview with Goldman Sachs was about 3 hours long. My favorite part was when this Chinese interviewee told one of the interviewers that he was surprised that she could do the job when she was a woman. I don't think he got offered a job...

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

GE Healthcare - Barrington (Chicago), IL

GE Healthcare has a range of products and services that include medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies. The GE Healthcare division I interviewed with deals with the software for all of the above projects. For example, when you used to get X-Rays the doctor would print out the X-Ray onto film and look at it under a light. The new software and technologies that GE Healthcare is creating allows doctors to receive and manage the X-Ray images directly on their computer.

My interview with GE Healthcare was about 3 hours long, however I was doing stuff with the other 25 interviewees all day and the previous evening. My favorite part was the "Dinner & Cocktails" that we had the night before where everyone got slammed except for me.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Clearwater Analytics - Boise, ID

Clearwater Analytics focuses on investment strategy and reporting. It allows a company to get an immediate snapshot of their financial reports & portfolios to let them know if they have any risks or transparencies.

My interview with Clearwater Analytics was about 3 hours long. This was probably my most difficult interview, mostly because everyone was really arrogant. Every time I came up with a right answer they would say something like "That's really good! But that's not how I would've done it..." My favorite part was when I left to go home.

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All I can say is that was definitely a tiring week! All the interviews kind of get mixed up together, but I can honestly say like I felt like I did a pretty good job in all of them. I ended up getting offers from every company except the one in Boise! (so no real biggie, right?) But now you are probably wondering which job did I pick? Drum-roll please?
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This is where we are headed at the end of May!

I took the job at GE Energy as a Software Test Engineer. I officially start the end of May, but we'll be in Salt Lake from May 7th - 14th to say goodbye to everyone before we head out to Nevada (about 8 hours away from Salt Lake). If you want to see us before we leave you should call or text us so we can do something.

Interviews

HELLOOO from Chicago!

I'm in the middle of my week of busy interviews and wanted to take a minute of my relaxation time here in the hotel to sit down and say hello to everyone. I know you are all probably anxiously sitting around wanting to hear from me (right...) but I think busy is good thing to be.

I have a number of good posts planned to update you on some things we've been doing since we got married, so I know I've said it before, but stay tuned! Finals are approaching so I can't promise anything for sure, but we're taking pictures, so you'll get it all eventually. Its like waiting for a new book or movie to come out. Sometimes the release date changes, but you always end up getting to see it (except in some circumstances, like the movies that were planned, then canceled, for Halo, or Ender's Game... but that won't happen here! hopefully...)

Anyways, good talkin' with ya!

Finally!

Finals are over!
It's been a long week and it ended today with 2 finals (including one in accounting - yuck!). Now that it is all over, let's take a look back at what happened during the semester, but I was too busy to write about!


Donating Plasma

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That's right. I've joined the ranks of the strung-out junkies selling my body for cash. It was an interesting experience, to say the least, going in my first time not really knowing what to expect. I'd heard all the rumors - "they use the BIGGEST needles you've ever seen!", "It hurts the entire time!", and "It takes like 5 hours!" - but none of them were true. The one thing that did surprise me was the color of the plasma. It looks like pee!



The donation itself wasn't actually even that bad though. Yeah, they stick you with a needle, but aside from the small pinch at the beginning and having to put pressure on your little wound at the end, the whole process is practically painless. It did take me about 3 and 1/2 hours my first time, but that was just because they had to explain to me what was going on and do some tests to make sure I wasn't really a strung-out junkie. Every time since has been less than 2 hours. If I go twice a week I can get $55 for the week. If I can do that every week will earn me an extra $220 a month, and if I can convince X to come with me that often that is $440 a month! Talk about a side-income! With the wedding approaching quickly and looking forward to paying for insurance, rent, and other "fun" aspects of responsibility, we need every dollar we can manage!


GUI Project

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This semester in my GUI (Graphical User Interface) class I was assigned a project to design a functioning traffic-simulation program. I decided to tackle the analysis portion of the program where I had to design the section where someone could analyze difference data sets on multiple graphs. It was a very interesting project, and I really enjoyed the class. I'm so glad that I've found something that I'm good at and that I enjoy doing so much!






Advent Creative

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This is the company that I started working for last September doing web development. I working for them throughout this semester and will start working full-time for them during the summer. Here are some of the websites I have helped build while working for them: Vooray, California Home Trading, Ascend Auto, and Mountain West Anesthesia. It has been great working for them and I've gained a lot of experience!


Planning a Wedding

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This has probably made up the most stressful part of the semester for me. All the planning, looking at options, and talking about the countless options (none of which really interest any guy...) has worn me out. I'm just glad it'll all be over soon. I can't believe this much planning can go into one day! (well, 2 for us. We're having our reception the night before). Hope to see you all at the reception. May 19th from 6 - 8:30!

Software Development Isn't A Cakewalk

So I read this blog entry forwarded by a friend to me. It thought it was interesting because I think it highlights the mentality that many people have about computer science. How many time have you said to yourself, "This isn't rocket science, all we need is a programmer to do [insert complicated feature here]". Anyway, I thought it was an interesting and wanted to share it with you to hopefully change your mentality if you ever find yourself in need of someone like me in your future.

Here's the link: http://codeclimber.blogspot.com/2008/04/all-i-need-is-programmer.html

The article rings true to me because I have had several people just over the last semester talk to me about helping them or someone they know to build a website or application. Even my roommate approached me to ask about building a website for his dad to sell something online. I told them it would be a lot of work and that I didn't have time, and they all seemed stunned.

Computer Science is hard work. My boss at work told me that he read an article about how software development was compared in difficulty to physics and rocket science. I haven't read it so I don't know what exactly was said, but if I can get that article from him or if I find it online, I'll post it on here.

Anyways, thanks for listening to my rant. That is all.

MasterControl

I know it seems like it was forever ago, but I thought I should post something about the internship I had this past summer. I was hired by MasterControl, Inc. as a software engineer to work on their document control software. Now I know what you are thinking... "What kind of a name is MasterControl?" I was thinking the same thing when I applied for a job. It just sounded like some big, robotic machine that would walk around and say "I am MasterControl" over and over again in a big robotic voice. I imagined that it would probably look something like this:


Anyways, it turned out that MasterControl was a lot more than just that, but unfortunately I am signed to secrecy about what exactly it was that we worked on while employed there. But we had a whole lot of fun and I learned that I never want to test software for bugs! They had us work in a couple of different departments and everyone's least favorite was verification. That department is in charge of making sure the fix that a programmer made actually fixed the problem and didn't make new problems. It was pretty boring those 2 weeks!

There were 5 interns that were hired on for the summer, but only 4 ended up showing up on the first day and we all made it through the entire summer. Here is a picture of us interns. My, don't we all look so happy?

From left to right we have Chris Derrick, Jonathan Mitchell, Brandon Johnson, and me!

INTERN BIOS
Chris Derrick: Chris is a student from the University of Utah. He and I didn't seem to get along very well from the start, but it probably had something to do with the fact that Brandon and I liked to pull pranks on him all the time. Some of my favorite ones include:
-Installing a program on his computer that allowed us to send custom error alerts to his computer and eventually ended up convincing him that his computer hated him.
-Causing his computer to shutdown anytime that he tried to open Internet Explorer.
Ahhh. Those were some good times.

Jonathan Mitchell: Jon (Yes its Jon, not John. Get it right!) is a student from Brigham Young University and is originally from Oregon. Jon liked to eat Hot & Spicy Cheez-Its and got me hooked on them over the summer. I didn't really get to know Jon very well over the summer as he spent most of his lunches playing video games, playing with his rubik's cube, or talking to his wife on the phone.

Brandon Johnson: Brandon is a fellow student from Utah State University and was probably the best part of MasterControl for me. Everyday I looked forward to hearing his sassy remarks and together we'd think of new ways to trick Chris into thinking his computer was possessed.

SUMMER ACTIVITIES
MasterControl had a lot of fun activities during the summer. Unfortunately (fortunately, really) I traveled a lot this summer so I ended up missing some of the events, but here are some highlights on what I was able to do this summer.


The MasterControl Summer Carnival - This was a family event where everyone from the company came and we had food and a water fight and such. My mom and X were the only family that wanted to come with me, but we still had fun (sorta). Probably the best part of the whole thing was the Christmas-colored t-shirts we now have and enjoy working out in. Thanks MasterControl! [Robotic Response: "You are welcome"]


Ping-Pong - MasterControl had a ping-pong table in their conference room, and us interns would take a break about once a week and go play ping-pong for 30 minutes or so to keep us sane. I won't lie and tell you that the occurence of these ping-pong breaks didn't increase as the end of summer neared.


"Dart-Man" - Whenever MasterControl hires a new employee they introduce them at the next company meeting and play a game where the employee can win some cash. Usually they play "2 truths and a lie" and for each person you fool you get $1, but for our meeting when we were introduced they decided to try a new game. Each intern was given 3 "Dart-man", which essentially are sticky darts shaped like little men, and we had to throw them at a wall with different prizes associated with different targets. Some of the prizes included Dinner for 2 at the steakhouse, an old company laptop, gift certificates, and such, but the big prize was a small target (about the size of a small sandwich plate) and it was worth $200! There was also a large picture of a $1 bill and if you hit that with your dart-man then all of the employees each received $1. Everyone who went before me all tried for the $200, and when it was my turn the boss said that he wanted to make things a little more tricky and decided to put the $200 target on top of the $1 target, so if you missed you would end up wasting your chance on the $1 prize. Here is a little diagram of what I am talking about:



<= This is what it looked like before my turn

This is what it looked like on my turn =>

Needless to say I wasn't thrilled that I suddenly felt like all chances for the $200 prize had gone down the drain. So my first two throws I tried in vain to get one of the other prizes, but on my third try I figured I had nothing to lose and so I might as well try for the $200, and if I miss everyone else gets a buck and they'll be happy. So I carefully took aim and made the throw. The dart-man went straight into the $200 target! I was thrilled and everyone was cheering for me. I ended up getting 200 $1 bills because they had so many of them just in case they needed to do a big payout. I thought that it would be funny to roll around in the money like Scrooge McDuck, but I decided not too cause I didn't want to smell like cash.

Overall, I enjoyed my experience at MasterControl. I had a lot of fun, I learned a lot, and felt like I added some value to myself as an employee. The major language I learned at MasterControl is called ColdFusion and having some experience in that helped me get a job up here in Logan so I am definitely happy about that. Look for a post in the future about my new job!