What about last month?!
OK so that last update didn’t say a whole lot. I know, I
know. Well here is an update on what's been going on in Grantland
since I talked to you last.
I took the Mathematical Contest in Modeling with Kathy. The
MCM is a mathematical modeling competition in which you get a few
days more than a weekend to research, create a mathematical
model, and write a paper about some system. This year we did
Problem A, in which a motorcycle stuntman jumps over an
elephant for a movie and lands in cardboard boxes. Our mission
was to describe how cardboard would cushion his fall, although I
would say our paper's strength was less in answering that
question and more in considering a lot of different external
factors that other groups may not have considered. Like, for
instance, how to set up the shot so that it looks interesting in
a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio frame.
A week later was St. Valentine's Day and I started it off
right by losing the ability to run Windows. I then ran off to Hillside
Elementary and taught some fourth-graders about electricity
and shocked them with a Van de Graaff
generator. Sometime I might go visit the world's largest Van de
Graaff at the Boston Museum of
Science.
Speaking of Van de Graaff generators, my current project for
my Project class is to build one. Que Anh, Sharon, Sutee, and I
have almost finished making a clear handheld Van de Graaff that
aims to make it more apparent to kids what is going on inside. It
looks really swanky. We ordered our sphere from a
backyard/pool decoration
company, of all places, so ours looks the best in my
opinion.
Well anyway after all that mess it was time to go to the
Valentine dance. Beforehand my two dates, Clara and Janet, and I
went with Dan and Frances to a pretty good Italian restaurant,
Appetito, in
Newton Center. From there we returned to Olin and the dining
hall where a multiple-story cardboard Eiffel Tower had been
constructed. The dance was somewhat fun and now Clara is my
girlfriend. You might be asking, “What about poor Janet,
your other date?” Well it turns out that now she is
Dan’s girlfriend, creating the odd situation where one pair
of roommates is dating another pair of roommates. Strange.
As if that wasn't enough, the next weekend I went to the 2003 Stanford Graduate School
of Business Entrepreneurship Conference in Palo Alto, CA. We
made some good connections and hopefully I’ll be emailing
one of the graduate students I met that was helping to run the
show so that Stanford and
Olin can have some sort of
officalized relationship. This is the strange stuff that goes on
when you attend a brand new college.
Fast forward another weekend, and it’s once again time
for an Olin College Candidates Weekend. This year we held two
weekends, each with about seventy-five students. I must admit I
wasn’t so involved this time around. Candidate weekends are
quite impressive. The concept is that you apply to Olin, and then
a certain number of students are invited to interview and
interact with the students, faculty, staff, and administration of
Olin. Out of those who attend, the entire class is selected with
no regard given to the test scores, essays, or anything in the
submitted applications. In other words, the admission staff wants
to meet everyone and make sure they are Olin material and also
that Olin is the right place for them. Candidate Weekend I ended
with the Franklin W. Olin Players performing “The
Foreigner”, which received a standing ovation. I wonder how
much easier it is to get a standing ovation when your audience is
filled with candidates who really want to get in? The
second weekend ended yesterday with ExpressO, which was an
open-mic talent show event culminating in a little
mini-dance-party involving us, the faculty, prospective students,
their parents, and the staff and adminstration. I don't know of
any other school where this might happen.
