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

[Michael Meltzer]

Good for you, I always nice to do good infrount of your peers. beside, finish up I have a Fluid Mechanics question about a prop
gruad on the new boat :-)

MJM

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roger Pihlaja" <cen09402 at centurytel.net>
To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2004 3:18 PM
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] The Nerd May Survive Another Semester At College!


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
__________________________________________________
Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list