Discussion was equally interesting as well: while the question on the conchord was very open ended I still found the discussion stimulating because it caused me to think about aircraft design. It would seem to me that the best solution to the issue of the conchord would been to make sure that the runway was free of debris and then install better guards on the wheels that would not break off during takeoff or landing. I also found the Spruce Goose to be quite amusing.

From what I have learned in my lab, if you are engineer that knows how to program then you are a much better engineer and I can see why. Programming will allow me to shorten repitive tasks on the computer by just creating programs to complete them. Also because I want to go into robotics programming will be useful. Many robots have to programmed as we move towards more and more autonomous robots. I plan to use my new found knowledge of programming next year in school as well for taking care of useless busy work.

Vex robotics is a robtoics system sold at radioshack. It is an interesting kit an gives a good feel of what protoyping would be like. The forum of the website has lots of great information on not just vex but robotics in general. I consider it a great resource.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotics

A wikipedia article on robotics. Like all wikis it gives a great overview of robotics and good background information. It also shows some interesting robots.

http://www.robotbasics.com/

Great site! It breaks down the various components of robots and some features that tend to show up in robots.

http://www.pervasiverobotics.com/en

A specialty blog on robotics. This blog stays current with the happening in the robotics world. If you’re interested in new technologies then it’s great to check out.

http://asimo.honda.com/

ASIMO is a humanoid robot being developed by Honda. To me this is an amazing little robot. I would absolutely love to work on something like it in the future.

Lerner, E.J. (2004).Less is more with aerogels: A laboratory curiosity develops practical uses (electrionic version). The Industrial Physicist. 26-30.

While this article may not be quite as recent as is desired, I found it extremely informative. Aerogels have been around since 1931, but have not come into use until recent years as their production time and cost decreased. They are particularly useful because of their structure: as they consist of tangled, fractal-like chains of spherical clusters of molecules each 3-4 nm in diameter that form a structure that leads to the formation of air filled pockets about 30-40nm across. Because of this structure aerogels have the lowest density, the highest thermal conductivity, lowest refractive index, and highest surface area of any solid, making them a new type of solid. This allows them to be utilized in many fields for particle detection, capacitive deionization, optical fiber cladding for efficient light-guiding, thermal insulation and much more. The most interesting thing to note is that it will probably cross into a commercial market at some point in the future as well.

Today in class I learned that I have an INTP personality type. This will be useful when I am trying to learn new things as I have learned that I learn best by diving head first into things and learning things as I go along. Also I learned that trying to learn using two methods at once can be more effective than trying to work in one meth alone (i.e. auditory and visual vs. just auditory). This will be extremely useful for me at school when I am trying to learn new material. Typically, I try to approach learning materials using only one method (usually visual), but now I can try using to methods and hopefully cut down on the amount of time I spend studying. I also learned valuable information on problem solving that I will use when I am given labs in physics next year.