[Rhodes22-list] The Nerd May Survive Another Semester At College!

[Steve]

Excellent Job, Roger.  That away to show Dr. Shilen. 
Good luck on your test this week.  You'll do great. 
Hope you catch a break on your dock situation.  
Steve

--- Roger Pihlaja <cen09402 at centurytel.net> wrote:
> Hi Everybody,
> 
> It's Roger.  I haven't been contributing much lately
> & I thought I just drop the list a line to let
> everyone know what's been going on in my life.  My
> last regular week of classes for the Winter
> Semester, 2004 at SVSU is over.  Dr. Schilling told
> me I have an A in ME497, Special Research Project.  
> 
> Last Friday 04/23/2004, Kevin VanSickle, my partner
> in ME480, Senior Design 1; & I had a really big day.
>  Our final assignments for ME480 were due.  On
> Friday, we had to turn in 2 bound copies of the
> final report, the project notebook, give a poster
> presentation, and give an oral presentation.  All of
> that together was worth 50% of the grade in the
> class.  I had an A in ME480 going into Friday & I
> think everything went pretty well that day; but, I
> won't really know for certain until the grades are
> posted.  Kevin & I had to be at SVSU by 8:00 AM on
> Friday dressed in suit & tie, have our poster set up
> by 9:00 AM, the press & other VIP's toured the
> displays from 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM, and the displays
> were open to the public from 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM. 
> From 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM, we had a catered lunch. 
> From 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM, we had the oral
> presentations, which were also open to the public. 
> My group gave the 1st oral presentation at 1:00 PM. 
> The presentations had to be 30 minutes long, all the
> team members had to speak, the presentation had to
> be done electronically using MS Powerpoint, & there
> was a 5 minute Q&A period after each presentation. 
> Each person in the audience had a score sheet for
> each presentation.  Part of our grade was based upon
> how the nontechnical public scored our
> presentations.  As I said, I think Friday went
> pretty well & I should end up with an A in ME480;
> but, who knows?
> 
> There is a professor at SVSU, Dr. Shlien, that
> teaches ME356, Fluid Mechanics.  Chemical engineers
> get lots of fluid mechanics in their undergraduate
> curriculum.  ME356 was one of the classes I was able
> to petition out of taking based upon my academic
> transcript from Michigan Tech University.  So, I've
> never had to take a class from Dr. Shlien.  But, Dr.
> Shlien has a reputation for being a really tough
> professor that likes to put down his students in
> public.  During my poster presentation in the
> morning, Dr. Shlien cornered me & asked me a
> question about how much force was going to generated
> against a particular structural panel by the airflow
> inside the machine.  I admitted I hadn't calculated
> that particular number; but, speculated that 50
> cubic feet/min airflow at a few inches of water
> column pressure wasn't likely to generate very much
> force at that spot.  Dr. Shlien got this big smirk
> on his face & said, "If he was correct; then, our
> entire senior project design would have to
> reworked."  If he were correct, that would be true &
> I felt pretty bad about missing something so
> important.  I kept looking at our design & wondering
> what this PhD expert in fluid mechanics was seeing
> that I had missed.  Well, I tried to do the
> calculation in my head.  But, in the middle of the
> poster presentation, with dozens of people milling
> about & me trying to greet people & give my
> presentation, I just couldn't concentrate.  So,
> after the poster session was finished at noon, I
> went up to my office where it was quiet & I could
> concentrate.  I pulled out a pencil & paper, derived
> the defining equations from 1st principles, & worked
> out an upper limit for the force at only 0.018 lbs,
> which is negligible, just as I had suspected.  Then,
> I went & found Dr. Shlien in the lunch line & showed
> him the calculation.  After looking at for a few
> minutes & asking me a few more questions, he agreed
> with my result.  He said, "I was lucky we were
> dealing with air flow & not water."  I just replied,
> "I have to admit I hadn't considered the issue
> because my 26 years of experience dealing with fluid
> flow gave me a pretty good engineering intuition re
> such things."  "We'd have done something different
> if the apparatus had been designed to handle water
> instead of air."  Dr. Shlien then said, "It was too
> bad I showed him this because he wanted to ask the
> question during the Q&A session after our oral
> presentation."  I just shrugged my shoulders & said,
> "Oh well, I'm sure you will think of something else
> to ask us."  This exchange took place in the lunch
> line right in front of the entire senior engineering
> class.  Well, with this challenge, of course Dr.
> Shlien wasn't going to let it go at that!  So after
> our oral presentation, Dr. Shlien asked a question
> regarding how certain tuning parameters in the
> control system of our project were calculated.  As
> soon as I heard the question I replied, "I have some
> supplemental slides in another MS Powerpoint file
> that address that issue.  Would you like to see
> them?"  As soon as he said, "Yes", I thought to
> myself, "Excellent!  There won't be any more
> questions after this!"  It took a minute or so to
> pull up the supplemental slides off the hard disk on
> the PC driving the projector.  As soon as I started,
> Dr. Shlien knew he'd been had.  There were 6 slides
> that described a theoretical heat & mass transfer
> model.  We're talking heavy duty differential
> equations & calculus here!  Remember, I did my MS
> thesis on heat & mass transfer!  After the 2nd
> slide, Dr. Shlien interrupted me in mid sentence &
> said he didn't want to use up all the Q&A time.  I
> said, "OK"  "To make a long story short, we use this
> geometry, (flip to next slide) apply Fourier's Law
> of Heat Conduction & Fick's 1st Law of Diffusion to
> get these coupled simultaneous differential
> equations, (flip to next slide) here's the solution
> in equation form, (flip to next slide) here's the
> solution plotted graphically, (flip to next slide)
> from that we get a time constant for the system,
> (flip to last slide) & that's where these control
> system tuning parameters come from."  "Are there any
> other questions?"  That was the end of our Q&A time.
>  Kevin & I sat down, big smiles on our faces!
> 
> Dr. Shlien must have been somewhat pissed off,
> because he absolutely ripped up the next group's
> oral presentation!  The group had used a software
> package called computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to
> calculate the airflow & pressure drop across a
> certain complex nozzle shape they had designed.  Dr.
> Shlien asked them to explain how the airflow could
> reach sonic velocity at a certain pressure drop. 
> What he was looking for was Bernoulli's equation. 
> Bernoulli's equation is one of the 1st fundamental
> equations you learn about in fluid mechanics, almost
> everything else in the field of fluid mechanics is
> derived from it.  It would have taken about a minute
> to explain the concept of critical sonic flow on the
> white board with a few well chosen equations.  But,
> the whole group got rattled & just stood there like
> frightened whitetail deer in Dr. Shlien's glaring
> headlights!  He made it sound like all they knew how
> to do was punch numbers into a commercially produced
> modeling package; but, had no idea of how it worked.
>  Hopefully, that's not actually the case.  I felt
> really sorry for them.
> 
> Of course, the 2 weeks leading up to Friday were
> pretty hectic!  Both Kevin & I put in some really
> long hours getting ready for Friday.  We were ready
> to go at 9:30 PM on Thursday, the night before. 
> Believe me, when I left SVSU on Thursday night,
> there were lots of groups still working on some
> facet of their projects.  I got a pretty decent
> night's sleep; but, I think many of the other groups
> pulled all nighters.  Oh well, they're young &
> strong - builds character!
> 
> After the presentations were over & we helped clean
> up the debris left behind after the posters &
> presentations, nearly all the groups went over to
> TGI Fridays by Fashion Square Mall in Saginaw, MI to
> celebrate.  I just had a beer with the other groups
> and left after about 45 minutes.  However, some of
> the groups must have turned it into a real pub crawl
> because there were lots of hung over senior
> engineering students in Pioneer Hall on Saturday!  I
> was kind of a celebrity at the party at TGI Fridays
> because I guess nobody has ever put it to Dr. Shlien
> in an oral presentation before.  It was done in a
> very public forum & the entire senior engineering
> class just loved it!  I feel a little bit sorry for
> my partner, Kevin, because he still has to take Dr.
> Shlien's Fluid Mechanics class.  That guy must be a
> real SOB in front of a class, especially if you
> haven't done your homework!  I thank God for
> delivering me from this man.  There were dozens of
> things he might have asked that I wasn't prepared
> for & instead he asked one of the few questions I
> was well prepared for.
> 
> On Saturday, I went into SVSU to meet with my group
> for ME451, Machine Design.  Working together, we
> knocked off an entire design project report from
> start to finish in only 4 hours!  The project was to
> design a power screw actuator that had a 12 inch
> stroke & could move an 8000 lb load full stroke in
> 15 seconds or less.  This was our 4th design project
> as a team & we're functioning as a well-oiled
> machine.  I typed the entire report while Dan &
> Gary, my two partners, did the calculations.  Then,
> when they had finished the design calculations, we
> went back thru the report page by page & inserted
> the calculated values for the results in the
> appropriate spots.  The report was 9 single spaced
> typed pages long in 12 Arial font.  The typing of
> the text wasn't bad; but, there were a lot of heavy
> duty math equations, which are very time consuming
> to create using the MS Equation editor.  The 4th
> design report is due on Tuesday at 10:30 AM when the
> final exam in ME451 begins.  My team has a 95%
> average on the 3 design reports we've submitted so
> far this semester.
> 
> I have two actual final exams this week.  The final
> exam in ME451, Machine Design, will be Tuesday,
> 04/27/2004, from 10:30 AM - 12:20 PM.  The final
> exam in ME380, Manufacturing Processes & Systems,
> will be Wednesday, 04/28/2004, from 10:30 AM - 12:20
> PM.  Assuming my design team gets our average score
> of 95% on the 4th design project report, I will have
> a 90.5% average in ME451 going into the final.  I
> have a 94.2% average in ME380 going into the final. 
> So, A's or A-'s are possible in both classes, 
> depending upon how I do on the final exams.
> 
> Sunday & Monday, I will be finishing up my business
> plan & final oral presentation for MSTP531,
> Entrepreneurship Seminar.  On Wednesday, from 4:00
> PM - 5:50 PM, I have to give an oral presentation of
> my business plan.  This will be a formal affair;
> suit & tie, MS Powerpoint slides presented
> electronically, & turn in 2 bound copies of the
> business plan.  The oral presentation can only be 10
> minutes long & will be scored by a panel of 3
> judges, each with experience in start-up businesses.
>  It's supposed to simulate the amount of time a busy
> venture capitalist might give you to convince them
> to invest in your business.  The oral presentation &
> written business plan are the only grades I will get
> in the class.  So, I have no average going into the
> final MSTP531 session on Wednesday!  Hey, no
> pressure.
> 
> On Thursday morning, I will bring Dynamic
> Equilibrium home from winter storage at the Midland
> County Fairgrounds.  I have no idea when the boat
> will go in the water.  My dock is still a wreck from
> the ice damage in March, 2004.  So, I have no place
> to tie up.
> 
> Thursday afternoon, I will drive up to Northern
> Michigan University in Marquette, MI to pick up my
> older son Daniel.  The plan is to stay in the dorm
> with Daniel on Thursday night, clean up his room,
> pack, and checkout on Friday.  I'm hoping to be back
> home by Friday evening.
> 
> So, by this time next week, for better or worse,
> Winter Semester, 2004 will be history.  Wish me
> luck!
> 
> Roger Pihlaja
> S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
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