SheSue Experience

I admire her big dreams and encourage them all. Here is a great poem I found simply called:

Follow Your Dreams
You must follow your dreams

You must follow wherever it leads.

Don’t be distracted by less worthy leads.

Shelter it, Nourish it, Help it grow.

Hold your dream deep, down deep where dreams grow.

Follow your dreams, Pursue it with haste.

Life is too precious, too precious to waste.

Be faithful, Be loyal in all the day through

the dream that you follow will ultimately come true.

Speaking of graduation, a friend sent me this video of a senior project at Savannah College of Art and Design. The title is Deadline: Post-it Stop Motion. I guess I have to admire the time and commitment that went into the project, but have to wonder what his mother thinks. Just wanted to share it with you.

The Race Car Engine

My son is in the mechanical engineering program at Oregon State University.  His current dream is to be involved in the design of race cars.  It seemed fitting for him to get involved in the Formula One Student Team at OSU.

Formula Student is a design competition for university students held annually at multiple locations around the world.  This year my son and the team will compete in Los Angeles,  Germany and Austria.   He heads for LA in a couple of weeks, then on to Germany and Austria in August.  He has been on the team for a couple of years, but this year his responsibilities have really ramped up.

Each year, hundreds of college teams design and build formula style race cars.  These cars are designed as prototypes to be evaluated for production by a hypothetical manufacturing firm.  The cars are evaluated on a number of qualities including their design, performance, and cost.  The competitions provide an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge, develop creativity and work as a team on a complex engineering project.

The teams are broken down into different aspects of the car:  electrical, engine, design, machine work, etc.  Senior students use one aspect of the car as their senior project.  They not only are responsible for this part of the car to be completed, but they must submit a written report based on their work.  The team leader is also a senior student, using his leadership skills as his senior project.  The leader must make sure everything gets done, his team mates work together as well as  come up with sponsors and funding for the project.

These teams  spend hours and hours of time building this car. They get no class credit. But they do get the glory of a completed car and watching it race. Saturday was the grand unveiling of the car for 2009. There were a lot of last minute details that needed to be taken care of, but the kids pulled it off. My son hadn’t slept much in the previous week. Now he has to get ready for finals while doing all the fine tuning on the car.

The Race Car Shifter

Mechanically the car is mostly ready. My son says a lot of tuning and testing still needs to be done, then the car will be ready for decoration. All sponsors get a sticker put on the car plus the team envisions a beaver on the nose of the car. They hope the beaver will take them to the top ten in their competitions.

When the kids got up in the morning, they would get a note from the Easter Bunny. It had a clue leading them to the first hiding place. And at each additional place, there would be another gift/egg and clue. When the kids were younger, I made the clues pictures. I’d find pictures of a toaster, clothes dryer, brush or TV set. As they got older the clues would be written. The last year we had a treasure hunt, the kids did one for me. That had to be the best of all!

I had a great time putting it all together and the kids loved the adventure.

The celebration was set up in a huge tent in the the parking lot behind the pub. There were several vendor booths with lots of ‘green’ goodies, Irish memorabilia, plus some good food and lots of beer. They also had a small stage set up with a dance floor. The music was good Irish jigs mixed with rock and roll. Twice a day they had local dance troupes, including young children and teenagers do some traditional Irish dancing. The dancing was good, what I could see. With no seating, viewing was between heads and elbows.

More impressive is this Avalon dance troup:

Here the lyrics to an Irish folk song that talks of the love of Ireland. I could say the same for my Pacific Northwest.

THE CLIFFS OF DONEEN

You may travel far far from your own native land
Far away o’er the mountains, far away o’er the foam
But of all the fine places that I’ve ever been
Sure there’s none can compare with the cliffs of Doneen

Take a view o’er the mountains, fine sights you’ll see there
You’ll see the high rocky mountains o’er the west coast of Clare
Oh the town of Kilkee and Kilrush can be seen
From the high rocky slopes round the cliffs of Doneen

It’s a nice place to be on a fine summer’s day
Watching all the wild flowers that ne’er do decay
Oh the hares and lofty pheasants are plain to be seen
Making homes for their young round the cliffs of Doneen