The OLINformer

Remember my pics from Candidates’ Weekend?!? Well, here’s a little follow-up to one of those photos:

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/06/the_knex_computer.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/06/mechanical-calculation-childs-play.html

Also check out Matt, Jeff and Olek’s blog (in the blogroll to the right) - it even has video!

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/

I can’t believe it… Spring has finally sprung in Boston! So what if it’ll be in the 50’s again later this week?!? The past 3 days have been gorgeous and everyone has been trying to spend as much time as possible outside.

Example #1: ICB Lecture

So Profs John Geddes and Mark Somerville decided – rightfully so! - that ICB (Integrated Course Block) lecture should be held outside on Friday. Who needs a lecture hall when you’ve got “portable” white boards, a window and a dry-erase marker? (photos courtesy of Angela ‘09)

Yep, that’s pretty much the Class of 2010. (more…)

(Due to my recent travel, I was unable to post this immediately. However I still wanted to share it with you, in part, because I simply cannot find the words to express my own thoughts.)

April 17, 2007

We are all shocked and saddened by the events at Virginia Tech. President Rick Miller sent the following to the Olin Community this evening:

To All Members of the Olin Community-

All of us have been deeply touched by the senseless killings at Virginia Tech. Our thoughts and prayers go out, in particular, to everyone who has been directly affected by this tragedy.

Yesterday’s events remind us that a college campus is a special place where all kinds of people come together to live, learn, and work. Understandably, we expect to do so in a safe environment, which makes the tragedy at Virginia Tech even more shocking. We are fortunate that the Olin campus has been unusually safe. We have a strong record of vigilance in protecting our students and other members of our close community, and are committed to the highest levels of safety and security. Our small size and high-tech campus infrastructure allows for rapid communication in an emergency and, on an ongoing basis, we continue to review our campus security procedures.

The Council of Olin Representatives (CORe) plans to send a letter of sympathy and support to the student government at Virginia Tech. Olin students were invited to neighboring Babson College this afternoon for a vigil at the Glavin Chapel. And Olin students are planning a moment of silence tomorrow at 10 a.m., with candle lighting at the main staircase in the Campus Center.

The College has many resources available to those who might need support in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy. Resident Resources (R2s), the Student Life staff, off-campus mental health providers, and faculty advisers are available to students. The Employee Assistance Program provides similar services to faculty and staff.

Tragic events such as this can evoke strong feelings regarding seemingly unrelated issues in people’s lives, so please be especially aware of and sensitive to reactions in the days ahead.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or thoughts you may have.

Richard K. Miller

So my eyes are STILL broken, but I shall forge on…

Now, where was I? Oh yes…

Last Thursday brought the Ignite Clean Energy (ICE) Competition. While I was in no way involved in the activities, it seemed pretty cool that we were able to host the semifinals at Olin AND we even had a participating team! The idea behind the ICE is to build the clean energy business cluster in Massachusetts (and regionally) by working with entrepreneurs to crystallize their business concepts and helping them produce a compelling ten-minute investor pitch. By getting entrepreneurs in front of investors and others in the sector, the ten finalists got some great exposure.

The highlight of the day for me, however, was Trivia Night - sponsored by the Class of 2007. It was emceed by Chris Morse (our Chemistry prof and resident QuizMaster) and scored by Adam “Joe” College ’07 (who was banned from playing because he could beat every team there by himself!)

Professor Rebecca Christianson, David ’07 and Jeff ‘07 chat prior to the evening’s trivia smackdown.

There were about 10 teams, several of which included faculty and staff members.

Apparently Carol Kelley, Assistant to the Dean of Student Life, didn’t want me to take her picture.

Chris Morse distributes the answer sheets, while Alison Black, Assistant Dean of Student Life, discusses strategies(?!) with teammates Alison ’07 and Tiana ’08. And yes, they are wearing boas!

So my team, Four Eyez – Katherine ’10, Ellen ’10, Jon ’08, Teresa Kelleher from the Admission Office and me - held our own through 5 rounds… despite being down one person for the first and last rounds! In between the question rounds, Lindsay ’07 lead some fun games for extra prizes (most donated by Class of 2007 parents… yes, our parents rock too!). (more…)

There’s been a lot happening at Olin this week! Upon my return from a tiny trip home to Texas, I jumped right back into the thick of things… beginning with our largest information session EVER at Olin!

This is a pic of our welcome board - it doesn’t begin to illustrate how big the group was! But, alas, we forgot to get a picture of the auditorium… oops.

I don’t have an exact headcount but my best guesstimation was about 60 people listened to my “song and dance” in the auditorium that day. Wow… we’ve come a long way since the days of 1-2 families chatting in our lobby!

Next was an Ecumenical Passover Sedar on Tuesday evening. The Sedar was open to the entire Olin community, so it was a really cool mix of people and faiths. For some of us, it was a great (comforting?) way to celebrate Passover when we’re far away from family; for others, it was an opportunity to learn/try something new with a group of friends.

Our Ecumenical Sedar in the East Hall Lounge. Lots of people spent many hours (Bonnie ‘09, Ben ‘10, Karen ‘06 and Professor Lynn Stein to name a few) organizing and COOKING this delicious homemade meal for the Sedar. Photo courtesty of Yifan ‘10

Sadly, some folks had to jet off early to prepare for the next item on the agenda: ExpressO Black. As Ellen and Jessi mentioned in their blogs, it’s an “uncensored” version of our variety show known more commonly known as simply ExpressO (some of you saw a sampling at Candidates’ Weekend). Because of its racier/edgier content, this one’s mainly for the current students but I was dying to check it out! So I hung out with some first-years in the mezzanine to get a birds-eye view. There were a variety of acts – some exactly what I would have expected (bawdy, raunchy, funny) but others were truly clever and amazing displays of talent, including a powerful monologue by Keoni ’07.

Wednesday brought Big Conversations, a day when classes are cancelled and our community takes time to ponder the world beyond the “Olin bubble.” Amy Smith, an inventor and instructor at MIT, was a terrific addition to Olin’s Speaker Series on “What’s Important?” Professor Smith is dedicated to developing technologies that optimize limited resources and solve seemingly intractable problems in developing countries; she and her students are making a difference in the lives of thousands of people all over the world with their inventions.

Amy Smith sharing one of her favorite quotes (and guiding principles of her life) with the Olin community during Big Conversations.

I must admit that it was a pretty amazing and inspirational presentation! Afterward we had several options including a series of short films, continued discussions over lunch (free and sponsored by our Office of Innovation and Research!) and a variety of activities related to appropriate technologies, social entrepreneurship and community service.

So, my eyes are broken and I must stop staring at this computer screen. Thursday and Friday (aka Part 2) will arrive soon…

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/

… It’s about our STUDENTS!!

So go check them out at their new-but-still-a-work-in-progress BLOG!

http://studentblog.olin.edu

Happy reading!
Allison

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/

… and the OFFICIAL READING SEASON hasn’t technically begun!

So as we gear up for all the applications to arrive, a couple of us took the day to re-group and get ready for the onslaught. It was a long day in the office but well worth it! It’s a little weird feeling like there is so much to do when everyone else on campus is winding down for the semester. Finals are done - YAY! - and all that’s left for students are their Expo presentations… I promise to post about Olin Exposition later this week, as I’ll be wandering around, sitting in on presentations and checking out all the posters on Tuesday and Wednesday.

So the weather up here has been insanely mild for almost-winter… and I admit, I’m a little disappointed! Most folks think I’m crazy, but after all, one of the reasons I moved to Boston was to finally experience 4 seasons. Oh well. I really can’t complain. It was gorgeous today - 50ish degrees and sunny - and I took a break from work to join a group of first-years in a pick-up soccer game on the Great Lawn. No clue what the ultimate score was, but after Nina’s foot went one direction and her body went the other, everyone decided it was time to call it a day. And while she was waiting for Mike to get ice for her ankle (he returned with an ice-cold can of root beer in a sock - ahhh, the Olin ingenuity), we all got serenaded by Ben (who wasn’t playing soccer with us, he just happened to wander by and couldn’t say no to our begging for a sample of his latest song).

After that, talk turned to life in the Office of Admission and questions of “How many applications do you think we’ll get this year?” See?!? You’re not the only ones who ask us those questions - even our current students are still intrigued by this whole application process! Like I mentioned in my previous post (November 16th) we don’t really know how many applications to expect this year. So your guess is pretty much as good as mine. But as we inch closer to that January 1 deadline, it is definitely looking like we’ll have more than last year.

Hope everyone has a good Sunday. I’m going to start reading applications this week, so wish me luck!
Allison

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/

Today, the Olin community was a bit larger than normal when 70 4th grade students from Hillside Elementary School in Needham became “Guest Judges” for our Design Nature class (that’s the first-year design component of ICB, our Integrated Course Block, and students use nature as the inspiration/guide for their design projects).
The Design Nature students showed off their toy prototypes this morning in the first floor hallway of the Academic Center. The Olin students were challenged to develop bio-inspired wall walkers for elementary-aged children; the cool part was that the Hillside 4th graders got to evaluate the toys and experience a little bit of Olin!

It was *so* much fun! I almost felt like a kid again! As I wandered back and forth along the AC first floor, it was amazing to see how engaged and excited the Hillside students were - they took their assignments very seriously as they carried their clipboards and moved from team to team, asking questions and rating each design on an evaluation sheet. Rather than just doing a standard presentation, this was a great way for the Design Nature students to explain their designs and see if they appealed/made sense to their target audience.

And now… the requisite pictures! And yes, the team names are rather, er, creative…

Hard-core evaluating goin’ on!

Ryan, Luis, Victoria and Jeff (Team Two Step Program) and their Caterpillar, Senior Meef Quesarito!

Nikki, Marti, Garrett and Heena (Team Hot Glitter Concept)

Daniel, Brian, Ashley and Giulia (Team Nizhegorodov)

Erika, Annie, Amy and Evan (Team Mega Blab) show off their wall walker to Asst. Professor Oscar Mur-Miranda

Ilari, Ben, Julie, Nina and Yifan (Team Walker, Texas Ranger) demo their walker for Asst. Professor Ozgur Eris - “it walked up a 58 degree incline, w00t w00t!” (a direct quote from Ben ‘10)

Evan, Tatiana, Pam and Jenn (Team Verti-Go)

Alyshia, Sarah, Greg and Roland (Team Las Tres Ardillas) get ready to demo their Fire Snail for Oscar - “our fire snail climbed an incline of 42 degrees! woot!” (direct quote from Sarah ‘10)

Andrew ‘07 and Asst. Professor Ben Linder test out another design

Avinash, Matt, Leah, Eric and Chujiao (Team Sky Walkers) demo their Flying Squirrel design for Assoc. Professor Allen Downey - “Our walker was modeled after a flying squirrel (see the parachute on it’s back?). He DID walk up a VERTICAL wall and did GLIDE down to a safe landing on the floor. In fact, I believe we repeated this over thirty times!” (Direct quote from Leah ‘10)

Morgan ‘10 (Team COW - Crawls on Walls) explains her team’s design to one of the young evaluators

Casey, Amanda, Ben and Andrew (Team Snakes on a Vertical Plane)

Members of Team “Willing2FallMakingAttempts2Elevate” show off their fuzzy wall walker; seen here are Andy, Brittany and Sarah (Wellesley ‘09)

…. very sleepy… that’s all for now.

Keep working on those applications!
Allison

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/

So as I was going through my emails this morning, a posting from one of our many listservs caught my eye…

One of our first-years got up at the crack of dawn today to go pick up HUNDREDS of flowers and bring them back to campus. Why, you ask? Just because. Because getting flowers feels good. Because giving flowers feels good. Just because.

“…I guess it just seems like a good time for flowers. People are extremely stressed and tired, and flowers just make things happier…” ~Traz ‘10

Thanks, Traz!!

Sometimes Olin just makes me happy.

Hope everyone is having a good Monday!
Allison

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/

A lot actually!

On December 1st, the Olin community descended upon our Dining Hall with cash and checkbooks in hand for the annual SERV (Support, Encourage, and Recognize Volunteerism) Auction. SERV is the umbrella organization for community service at Olin and, each year, it organizes a auction on campus to raise money for various charitable organizations. This year was the most successful SERV Auction yet (we raised $6,805) and all proceeds were donated to two organizations: half to the Chernobyl Children’s Project and half to Partners in Health.

The event is actually two auctions, one is silent and the other is live. There was a dizzying array of goods and services donated for the auction, from Baked-Goods-of-the-Month to rides to the airport and “Story Time” with Montana Mike (’10) to organizing your home/office/dorm room. And yes, one of the donated items was a pair of tickets to the opening series of the Red Sox and Yankees next April (courtesy of Visiting Asst. Professor of Chemistry Chris Morse). Members of the Office of Student Life and Asst. Professor of Mechanical Engineering Jessica Townsend got in a bidding war…

Note how Prof. Townsend (pictured at right) is staring down her competition!

The tix sold (eventually!) to Jessica for over $200.