It’s been a while since I wrote, but I have been doing many exciting things, from taking a short vacation to San Diego (my new favorite city, other than Boston, of course) to attending the NEACAC regional conference with Caitlin at St. Michael’s College in Burlington, VT. I can’t believe that June is almost OVER! This summer is going to fly by, I know it.

Since many admitted students (Class of 2012) read this blog, I was hoping to put the word out that we are soliciting student profiles from entering students. Many of you may be familiar with our current student profiles, which can be found here. If you would like to be featured on our website as a student in the class of 2012, please email me at Emily(dot)Moscol(at)Olin(dot)edu and I will send you the list of questions that we need answered.

Thank you!!!

I hope you are all enjoying your summer! See you soon!

Emily

We officially have a new summer tradition at Olin… I say officially because this is now its second year of existence. Thanks in part to Boris ‘09 who started this gluttonous behavior last summer - and thanks to Evan Bryce ‘10 this year - the weekly eating extravaganza continues: in essence, large numbers of the summer research students as well as various and sundry faculstaff* gather each Thursday to gorge themselves on ridiculously large portions of pasta (and bread and roasted garlic and salad and…) at Vinny T’s. So far, we’re averaging about half the summer student population = 25-30! And the faculstaff joining the gang week were Professors Oscar Mur-Miranda (ECE) and Chris Morse (Chemistry), and l’il ol’ me.

*Faculstaff is my shorthand for the combination of faculty and staff members (not very creative, but useful!)

My stomach hurts just looking at this!

I was at the other table, having a rather amusing conversation with Bryce ‘10, Zach ‘10, Leslie ‘10 and Zim ‘11 about the various and devious ways one might use the wind tunnel in Professor Jessica Townsend’s lab… don’t ask. Really.

Then I made the mistake of relinquishing my camera to Arash and Nick ‘11 - this is when I wonder about the future of engineering:

Bad Photo #2 - the carpet…

Bad Photo #3 - a bunch of glasses and pitchers…?!?!

This is Nick pouting because he can’t take any decent pics with my camera.

We did some serious damage!

I’m not gonna lie - this photo of Thomas ‘09 scares me… a lot!

>

Oscar Mur-Miranda is pouting, but I’m not sure why. Maybe because everyone went back to Olin to play Rock Band and left him behind?

Their evil plan comes to fruition… it was all a shameless ploy to get into the blog. Guess it worked.

I can’t wait until next week! We’re also trying to plan some periodic, yet regular, side trips to get sushi…mmmmmm….

Until the next installment of “As the Stomach Churns”,
Allison

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

Last week, Olin hosted the semi-annual Olin Exposition. This occurs after finals are over, and every single Olin student is required to create a poster or give a presentation on a favorite project from the semester. The idea is that by the end of their senior year, each student will have presented to external and internal evaluators at least seven times, which is great practice for the Real World. So, last Monday, members of the classes of 2011, 2010 and 2009 presented their work, and then the following day, the seniors followed suit with SCOPE Expo. SCOPE, if you remember, is the year-long engineering capstone project that all students are required to complete.

A sampling of some EXPO project titles:

Investigating Ion Charge to Mass Ratios with Penning Trap Simulation (Rachel, 2011)

Analog Stories: The history of circuit design and why you care (Boris, 2009)

Olin’s class of 2019? Volunteering to supplement STEM education (Alex, 2010)

Investigating the role of stiffness in malignant transformation of breast epithelial cells with 2 and 3 dimensional collagen-crosslinked hyaluronic acid gels (Whew, that’s a long one! Kate, 2009)

I stopped by to talk to Sarah, Class of 2010, about her project entitled “This Is How We Roll: Paul Revere’s Road to Rolling Copper.” She gave me a very thorough and interesting mini-talk about the role of copper in colonial-era warships, and showed me some examples of rolled copper that she made herself this semester.

I then headed to a classroom to listen to Mike and Jillian (both class of 2010) talk about their respective User-Oriented Collaborative Design class projects. Mike worked with firefighters and Jillian worked with cafeteria workers in order to better understand their work environments and improve them in some measurable way. They both did a great job conveying the process that they went through as a team, and the challenges they faced during the design process. I also listened to Erik (also class of 2010) discuss a class he created with a fellow sophomore called Vital Ideation. They had speakers come each week to talk about the process of creating new ideas, and new lenses with which to view the “ideation” process. It’s a really interesting concept, and very Olin. You can see the class website here.

On to SCOPE Expo!

SCOPE tends to dominate the lives of seniors here at Olin, so it’s only fitting that we devote an entire day to the culmination of this experience. In the morning, the team leaders presented their “rocket pitches” to the community, briefly explaining the problem that was set to them by their company and encouraging people to come to their full-length presentations in the afternoon. Some teams were under non-disclosure agreements, so they were unable to fully explain the solutions that they arrived upon. Here are some photos that Allison took from the rocket pitch session:

The Nortel SCOPE team worked on developing a product or service that would be technologically accessible for the growing population of senior citizens in the US.

Here’s Connor presenting Nortel’s rocket pitch.

The ROCONA biosensor team developed a device that would sit in a toilet and analyze urine. This team dubbed themselves the “whiz kids” and always drew laughs during presentations. This photo also demonstrates the ROCONA non-disclosure agreement.

Team leader Vito giving the biosensor rocket pitch.

I hope to add some other pictures of both EXPO and SCOPE Expo soon… until then, enjoy this lovely spring weather!
-Caitlin

Caitlin Snow

Assistant Director of Admission

781-292-2212

caitlin.snow@olin.edu

… my vote goes to anyone involved in FIRST Robotics!

I’ve just returned from my second trip to the National FIRST Robotics Competition in Atlanta, GA. This year, I definitely had a better idea of what to expect but the energy and passion of everyone involved in FIRST never ceases to amaze (and inspire) me!

So I now present the weekend in pictures:

For those of you living under a rock (or don’t listen to the news much) downtown Atlanta was hit pretty hard by a tornado last month, and I must say, several buildings looked rather beat up… okay, that’s perhaps the understatement of the year. But at least the hole in the GA Dome was fixed and folks were able to find other hotel arrangements - I cannot imagine what would have happened if such a large even would have been canceled! Anyway, a shot of the downtown skyline (courtesy of Ash ‘09, from whom I’ve stolen many pics since she let me share her camera over the weekend - THANKS, ASH!)…

Nerd trading cards… (that’s what Ash called them)…

Life-size cardboard cutout of Dean Kamen, Founder of FIRST and President of DEKA…

I became a little obsessed with Team Pink this year (and, I might add, they did have a nice robot!)…

Highlight of the weekend #1… George H.W. Bush speaking at the Opening Ceremony… he pauses and looks up from his script, briefly scanning the thousands of fanatical FIRST participants… “It’s like the WWF - but for smart people!”

He also told the audience to “Go invent something to help your country.” But I didn’t find that nearly as entertaining. Sidenote - by Friday afternoon, at least one team had created buttons that read “FIRST - It’s like the WWF but for smart people!” Check out the banner on the Blue Alliance website for another example of how quickly people have adopted this accidental(?) slogan.

Future Oliner Jeffrey “stalks” Dean to get his shirt autographed…

Highlight of the weekend #2… No one told me that my simple blue nametag had *so* much power! I had “all access” to the floor during competitions - and even though I’m a robotics idiot, I still thought it was amazingly cool and fun.

And Rebecca (potential Class of 2012 and member of the Team #111) doing an awesome job driving the WildStang robot to victory in the qualifying rounds…

Highlight of the weekend #3… Oh yeah, and in the middle of it all, I chopped off most of my hair to donate to Locks of Love. Coming home with a 10 inch ponytail in my suitcase seemed weird too!

By the way, congrats to all who made it to Nationals and especially to Nik, Emily, Chris, Jeffrey and Rebecca!

That’s all for now,
Allison

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

That being said, Spring is finally (and hopefully firmly) here! It has been so nice out lately, and everyone has been trying to get outdoors as much as possible. I have seen several classes held outside, with the Academic Center windows doubling as dry-erase boards! When Spring comes to New England after a long and cold winter, the good weather seems like a reward for making it through. Plus, the campus is being prepared for Commencement, so everything looks beautiful. It’s a great time to come and visit, so if you haven’t yet, try and make it.

See you soon!!

~ Emily