another project finished (nearly).

My project this quarter for EDC (Engineering Design and Communication) was to help a 22 year old girl with her use of the Kindle. She has a disease called Friedrich's Ataxia, where she does not have fine motor control in her hands and uses a wheelchair. Before, as a graduate student, when she reads all of her textbooks on the Kindle, her mom has to press the "Next Page" button for her. You can imagine how tedious this is, reading textbooks alongside with your daughter.

So, the project was to allow her to use the Kindle independently. The final project, which still looks really ugly, took probably over 30 hours of shoptime within the past 4 days. It really gives me a new appreciation for...EVERYTHING made. Machines are awesome...

Sure humans have the creativity and smarts, but machines have precision and repeatability. Anyway, maybe I'll post a picture of our design here. It's pretty ugly, and I'm not even sure if it works though, but I really hope it does.

 another quarter gone...2 more finals, 1 presentation, and back to the East Coast. I'll be in NJ from Mar 17-19, then in Delaware from Mar 19-27.

I need a haircut badly.

I texted Google this morning for the weather. I thought I had changed the default location from Wilmington to Evanston, but I didn't. I flipped out when I saw "52 degrees with 4mph." I was ready to go out in tshirts and shorts, until I smartly double checked with my iPod. 32, feels like 21. That's more like it.

I do love Northwestern, and the people I've met here, but I do wish it was a little warmer, and the campus was a more square then rectangular (although I shouldn't be complaining. From one corner to another is about 20min walking).

The word "texted" is underlined red. Webster needs to update their dictionary to this generation.