Today, we went over the grades, and then we worked on cardbaord cars. All I had to do to finish the car was to cut out properly sized axles. I made my cardboard car so well that I didn't even need glue to hold it together, but Dr. Neato told me to just put glue on anyways, so I did.
Today, we had another quick overview of the most recent grades. For some reason, the number of failing students had increased from the previous grading period. Afterwards, we started working on our respective tasks. At 1:30, we started the second set of cardbaord car tests, and I was allowed to test my second cardboard car. For once, the cardbaord car went all the way down every single time, including during the actual recorded run. Afterwards, I started the first step to making the actual longboards. Dr. Neato had me make a sketchup of Ian's longboard that he had made last year. Since I had already done this last year, I just copied what I had done last year. I measured the length of the longboard, and measured the width every couple of inches across. When I got home, I drew everything out onto Sketcup, and afterwards, I roughly connected the ends of the lines with a couple of arcs, and used the follow me tool to make the entire longboard have a chamfer on the edges. All in all, it only took about 10 minutes to complete the task.
Today we started the Potato Chip Wednesday Challenge. This is a bit of an important one, as it is the alst Wednesday Challenge of the quarter, and the ones who win the Wednesday Challenge will get an A for the quarter. All of us veterans were placed individually because we have all done this Wednesday Challenge in the past, while the new people were placed into pairs. My idea is to get a 1 quart ziplock bag and fill it with fiberfill as to minimize weight and volume. In addition, as the the package will have such a low density due to it basically being a bag of loose cotton, the 3 story drop will likely do nothing to the chip. I tested this theory by inflating a 1quart plastic bag and placing a potato chip iinto it, and even when I threw the bag onto the floor as hard as i could, the potato chip wasn't damaged in the slightest.
Wednesday Challenge 9: Potato Chip ShipToday we continued to work on the Potato Chip Wednesday Challenge. However, Dr. neato told me that I could skip the Wednesday Challenge and work on my longboard instead. I didn't get much work done for the longbaords because I didn't bring the sketchup template that I had made last year with me. Afterschool, I went to CV Park with my friednd Matt to have a HEMA session on the longsword with an instructor from CalTech named Joe Santore. We sarted with a brief overview about the longsword, then worked on the basics--the main guards and strikes--and then transitioned to learning a simple tempo/form drill. Matt was interesteed in the sword and buckler combination, which Joe was the instructor for at CalTech. Furthermore, Joe told us that the sponsor for the HEMA functions at CalTech was the Vice President of some high-up commitee at CalTech, and we might be able to meet him if we went. When I got home, I messed around with my paper dao that I had finished making a couple of weeks ago. The dao is made of paper and popsicle sticks, and has a traditional chinese grip wrap done with white gutted paracord. Although the weight isn't anywhere near what an actual one would weigh, it still goes through cardboard like a boss.
Guide for Traditional Grip Wrapping for Chinese Swords
Today was a minimum day, and as such, we didn't have a lot of time to do much of anything. To start off, the results of the Boattail Wednesday Challenge were released, and as expected, our group won. However, I was a bit surprised because we were tied for first place with Sam's group. I realized that I actually did have my longboard template on Google Drive, but when I tried to print it out, the printer wasn't working, so I just printed it out at home.