CAPA Night!

Last night all, well most anyways, the seniors at Tech attended the top secret event: CAPA night. Due to the sensitive nature of this topic I will leave out key details and request ALL underclassmen to exercise good integrity and self control by not reading this blog and turning away. Thank you.



Moving on!

Throughout the week the senior class has been put through and engineering class to learn about root cause analysis meaning what was the actual problem to a disaster and CAPA (Corrective And Preventative Actions) where we learned about how to create a method to help prevent and correct the problem in the future. We received worksheets from Dr. Immel to help us prepare to write an executive summary where we would state the problem, factors, details, root cause, and possible solutions to our "Boss" who would only give us one night to do the paper. Later Mrs. Immel, Dr. Immel's wife, who is the president of a company called Immel Resources (immelresources.com) gave us a presentation and exercise to prepare us for the upcoming event.

At 6:00 last night the event began. During CAPA night the class sat in a dark room and we listened and watched the disaster that will remain unnamed. We then had to break up into pre-assigned groups where we went through material and media trying to find the root cause of the problem. about a hour later we reconvened to have a meeting to discuss our finding/reenact events. We later had to hold a press conference to a group of "reporters" AKA a group of parents and teachers who obnoxiously bombarded us with questions making the event seem very life-like. At 10:00pm the event was over and we were told that our executive summaries were due at 1:00pm the next day. My two friends and I went home and had a sleep over so we could all help each other write our papers. Around 12:30 I finished my paper while my friends continued to work. One of us was online taking to people via AIM and most of the class was on working on papers and helping others. By the time we were all finished it was 3am! Then we finally got some sleep.

Now that all the papers are turned in or about to be turned in the weary and fatigue seniors are ready to enjoy the Holiday (I'm being PC) break.

This I Believe

This I Believe

I believe in stepping outside your door to experience new places.
Camping and traveling have always been a passion of mine, and in my 17 years I’ve been more places than many have been in a life time. I find that it baffles me that I know people who have never been outside California or gone for a trek in the woods.  Many people are so caught up in daily routines they can’t seem to find time to take a day to go to the beach, visit a friend in another city or take their family out of the city and into the wilderness. They can’t seem to make that step out of the house and into the unknown or unanticipated.
 
I find that you gain new appreciation and knowledge every time you walk out your door to a new place. Today our environment is in poor health and I find that those who have not experienced nature don’t seem to understand just how dangerous that is. Without experiencing nature for yourself you miss out on the beauty of the planet and without it, you make it impossible to truly understand and appreciate it. You can find the real workings of thing around you.
When you travel around the world or even the country you get to taste the culture. By going to, lets say a foreign country; you get to experience the lives of people who are very different than you and whose environment is completely different than yours. Every time my family travels somewhere we gain so much by learning the histories and cultures of strange new places, making them seem like almost another planet. Sometimes you just can’t really appreciate having the simple things like clean water or bed until you see places that if you lived there you would be lucky to have them.
 
Whenever you travel you tend to learn not only about the people around you but also about yourself. You may find that you like something you’ve never tried before or that maybe you are truly interested in something you’ve never known about. You might find that someone you know is a totally different person than you thought they were and you may find that when you get home you love the people you left behind more than you did when you left.
 
When you experience new places you gain appreciation and knowledge, not only about place, but about yourself and those around you. Until you take that step outside you door you can never really be all that you can. Go ahead and try it, you might end up liking what you find.

Postmodernism Cartoon

The Senior Project

Since the school year started I've been down right scared of the up coming senior project. Just the thought of it weighed me down and it seemed like this endless mountain looming ahead with no way around. In fact, at first, the senior project scared me so much I couldn't focus on much. 

This continued over the last few months until about three weeks ago. My parents had been particularly busy over the duration of the week leaving me home alone with a huge pile of chores to do around the house. As much as I did not want to do them I knew I had to or my parents would get pissed at me. Of all the chores the ones that bothered me the most were the ones that made me go outside into the cold to feed the horse, sheep (which I usually do anyway) and open and shut the chicken coop door. The coop is just so far away from the house, my shoes always get wet from the moisture soaked grass, I have to put on  a jacket so I don't freeze, then I have to walk all the way back. Okay, okay so it's not that far but it's no fun anyway. I wished there was a way that I could take care of this task without actually having to go outside in the cold. As I was walking back to the house and pealed off my wet socks, I remembered that for my senior project we had to make a product. Perfect! I could make an automated chicken coop door opener! It wasn't the most original idea, and yes my dad may have suggested it the day before but until this point I thought it was a stupid idea. 

Later my dad and I thought of all the cool ideas we could do for it. We could use a hydraulics system to ensure that no chicken-eating critters could get it, we could make it solar powered so there would be no need to even set up a bunch of annoying electrical cords. The best part was that we could put it on a timer so that the chickens could get out in the afternoon and then after they were all inside at dusk it would close itself keeping safe during the night. I talked to Dr Immel about this idea and he thought it was pretty cool. He suggested the use of a remote control so that the door could also be operated from afar if someone did not want to use the timer. 

Now that the idea of the project is out of the way and now that I have some experience working with electronics at school, my mind is much more at ease than it was. I guess this project is not as bad as I thought it was