Today was a Monday, meaning the day began by waking up at 8:15, heading downstairs for breakfast in the Hive, then rushing over to Herty for our lectures beginning at 9:00. The morning session began with Dr. M’s lecture on energy, featuring questions such as “Is life a path or a state function?” and “Is there a stable equilibrium for life?”. Normal physics lecture stuff. Next, we had Dr. D’s lecture on determining orbital elements from the position and velocity vectors, which was fun too and will be useful for our project later.
Following the lecture, we headed to the cafeteria for our lunch: mac and cheese, vegetables, flatbread cheese pizza, and the wonderful delicacy of Hi-C, my only source of Red Dye 40 since they cut off the pink lemonade supply. At lunch, I sat at the table with our guest speaker, and talked some about what they did and what they were presenting about.
After lunch, it was time for the guest speaker’s presentation. We all headed to the lecture hall for Dr. Cynthia Alby’s presentation on education and AI. We talked about different forms of AI and their varying influences and roles, both present and future, in education and professional fields. Afterwards, we held a reception, where we could talk with them one on one or in small groups while eating chips and guacamole (Aditya finally got his avocados!)
We returned to the Hive post-presentation, and following some intense table tennis matches, it was time for our second session of Dungeons and Dragons! With a high concentration of nerds, SSP is a bustling haven for the game. The day before, we had explained the rules and introduced people to the game, and now, we finally began. Some drama ensued, including Pierre and Eduardo getting kidnapped, the rest of us stealing a ship, and then kidnapping them back (along with a few of the kidnappers). Sai had to repair the ship 56 times. How unfortunate.
Dungeons and Dragons unfortunately was forced to end by the existence of dinner. Right as we were about to ungag a screaming Pierre and Eduardo, we left for the cafeteria. Hopefully they didn’t have anything important to say. Dinner consisted of a rice, cheese, and black bean burrito, which was delicious although unfortunately quite messy on account of the burrito being placed on top of the condiments. Not the standard setup, but we succeeded with a variety of strategies: I cut it up with a knife and fork, others simply transferred everything to a separate plate. Unfortunately, the pink lemonade maintained its absence.
Following our meal, I played a few more games of table tennis in the Hive before heading to Herty to work on problem sets and coding. Problem set 5 dropped today, so I got to work on it immediately (mostly orbital mechanics). Later in the evening, my group was observing. I headed to the observatory with Taja and Andrew, and I assumed my role of note taking with diligence. Things did not go exactly as planned.
Observation session notes (all times in UT):
2:30 – slewed to home position
2:33 – accidentally took image
2:37 – slewed to HIP 65639, magnitude 4.76
2:38 – began auto focus routine
2:41 – auto focus failed
2:42 – discovered telescope was pointed at wall
2:43 – slewed to HIP 64238, magnitude 4.38
2:45 – discovered telescope still pointed at wall
2:46 – hit by water in observatory
2:48 – Claire leaves to check if it is raining
2:49 – call from Sanjana informs us that it is in fact raining outside and that she and Sourish are locked out
2:50 – Claire returns to confirm rain
2:57 – Claire leaves again to check rain
2:58 – Andrew tried to give me frostbite with compressed air
3:04 – Claire returns; rain has stopped
3:06 – slewed to HIP 77512
3:07 – auto focus failed, cloud covering entire field of view
3:07 – observing canceled 😢
3:09 – slewed back to home position
3:11 – disconnected telescope
3:12 – closed shutter, powered off telescope
Not quite the result we were hoping for, but it could have been worse.
I returned from observing and soon headed back to the Hive. There, I found cake (thanks Taja!) and Sara begging people to play dungeons and dragons again (she “yearns for the lore”). So, after convincing Darnell (our dungeon master) of its grave importance, we resumed play. Nothing much happened aside from arguing over whether or not to untie Pierre and Eduardo after we had rescued them. I’m sure they’ll be fine.
Finally, I returned to my room to finish up writing my blog post and go to sleep. All in all, a wonderful day of physics, math, astronomy, and DnD.
– Michael C
P.S: Apparently we’re waking up at 7 am tomorrow morning to resume. Pandora’s box has been opened, and now nobody can stop (especially Sara)
