Welding, drilling and tapping

I am currently writing this blog sitting in the hotel in New Mexico. We have just finished playing against UNM, and can I just say-wow. What a great place to play! It was an amazing environment to experience! Even if a majority of the fans were yelling against us, it was a fun and exciting place to play.

The trip itself was glorious in that it finally allowed me to catch up on some MUCH needed sleep. After two weeks of cramming and practice, I am more than a little sleep deprived.

Although, fortunately I think finals went pretty well. During dead and finals week, I spent a majority of the time trying to catch up on a project I was making for ME203-Engineering Manufacturing and Design. I had to create my own product from scratch, and I chose to make a basketball shooting aide. The basic concept was a guard that was raised about 3” above the rim that made you shoot with higher arc. The manufacturing was an interesting process. I had to bend steel using a torch and pliers into an 18” diameter ring (for those of you that don’t know- that is the size of the rim). It also included milling pieces from aluminum, heat forming poly-carb, welding, and drilling and tapping. If you don’t understand any of what this entails-before this class neither did I.

It’s amazing how much you can learn in 9 weeks! I am extremely glad to be done with that class. Although it was a fun experience, it was extremely stressful. After all, I can make up problem sets, missed lectures and readings on the road, but it is impossible to make up shop time. But I guess that is what I get for undertaking an engineering major.

But I’m hoping it will all pay off in the end. I want to be sure to get the best education I can-after all that’s why we go to Stanford.

Anyway, to conclude I’ll just say COME OUT AND WATCH US BEAT TENNESSEE!! We’ve been working our tails off, and you should definitely come see our efforts at work.