By: Hatless Jack [2005-10-24]

I hate "Engineering Day"

Look, I'm not opposed to Engineering Day... oh wait. Yes, I'm vehemently opposed to Engineering Day. None of the other departments have to put up with an influx of these middle school shits. There isn't "Obscure British Poets Day" for the English department, and the Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Zoology, Phrenology, and half a dozen other do nothing scientific disciplines don't have to run "Science Olympiad" (mostly because we run that one too). In fact, every time there are local school buses in the parking lot we're guaran-ass-teed to have about a thousand of these horrid little imps in our building backflipping through the halls, hanging off the banisters, and screeching at the top of their wretched little vocal cords.

It's bad enough they drove the permanent Magic the Gathering game off (I remind you all that those valiant god-fearing Magic players have sat at that desk non-stop even through the last two spring breaks and a damned lab fire), but they also managed to drive off all the tenured Engineering, Mathematics, and CompSci professors and a good number of the adjuncts. Education, as a whole, came to a halt. Hell, it would have been like a big holiday for everyone in Engineering and Applied Sciences if some of us weren't forced to guard the software development labs.

Yes, I was one of the valiant few who braved the knee-biters to protect the labs. I've seen things, man. I've seen things only veteran public school teachers and battle-hardened Marines have seen. YOU WEREN'T THERE, MAN! YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT, MAN! And for what? For what I ask you? Do you know what they do on Engineering Day? I'll tell you what they do on Engineering Day: They give these vile little shits eggs. Uncooked eggs. They also give them paper, Styrofoam, paperclips, and god only knows what else, but none of that matters since they give them replacement eggs after their old eggs mysteriously end up splattered against the floor, the wall, the ceiling, the door, the side of my head, whatever.

So, what is to be done? Well first of all we cancel Engineering Day. There's not a damn thing they do here that they can't do back in the penitentiary or wherever the hell the state usually stockpiles these monsters. We should also cancel Science Olympiad, Math Olympics, Imagineering Fiesta, Science Fair, Sci-xtravaganza, the Junior Thinkers League, and anything else that's slipped my mind. Of course, if the theoretical thinkers over at A&S want to rescue any of the above they can go ahead and host it in their own goddamned building.

"Wait, weren't you involved in Science Olympiad?" Yes. Yes I was. In fact, it was in this very building. AND I'M PULLING THE LADDER UP BEHIND ME, BABY! You haven't even heard phase II yet: The way I see it we have a nine or ten year headstart over these brats. By the time they graduate we should all be heavily entrenched in Academia or industry. We'll be the ones passing out the internships and doling out the grants. There'd be no way for them to thwart "Operation Echo-Golf-Golf-Sierra Lockout". They'll be scattered off to the liberal arts quick as ye' blink. Of course, if any of them make it through Phase II they'll be like vengeful engineering gods vulcanized in the fires of academic hell come to slaughter those who opposed them, but I'm willing to take that chance.

GO AHEAD! THROW THE EGG AGAIN YOU LITTLE SHIT.

Eggsperiments [2005-10-24 00:51:36] König Prüße, GfbAEV

The had an event for dropping eggs off the roof of the Vancouver Art Gallery, The VAG. George Washington U civil engineering here has an annual concrete canoe race on the Potomac River. I've seen some great ferro-concrete sailboats. Concrete doesn't rust or rot, and it crunches rather than crack like fiberglass, and it's easy to patch. My pop got a big, heavy, fancy bronze physics medal from Berkeley and one of my brothers has a physics degree, his specialty is remote controls and long-line processing. One time, my brother brought back a bunch of pop-tops from a beer factory, no cans just the pop lids. He said that the thing about beer machinery was that the cans had to align just right to paint the three-layer label. He went to Korea, but he didn't eat any bbq'd dog meat. I worked with George Washington U civil engineering graduates, and I'd like to know how you can get through civil engineering school and not be able to read blue prints.

Blue Printless Civil Engineering [2005-10-24 01:30:35] Hatless Jack

My grandfather has a degree in Civil Engineering and all he did with it was eminent domain interstate Ninety-one into existence. Sort of like the mafia:

"That's a nice Victorian house you've got there. Our government will generously offer fair market value for it. Rocco, give these nice folks a number."
"That's not fair market value; it's worth twice that!"
"Not after we build an interstate on top of it."
"I'm still not selling."
"Whoops, looks like your house was just condemned. Rocco, start up the bulldozer."

Ah! Zoning Commission [2005-10-24 01:43:00] König Prüße, GfbAEV

I like the building inspectors, too. When they come on-site, somebody puts a bottle of whiskey and a hundred dollar bill on the seat of their pick-up truck for them to find when they get in to write the report; unsually everything's OK.

It's science! [2005-10-24 05:41:03] König Prüße, GfbAEV

I can only imagine what happens at the Science Olympiad. But my impression was that engineers like to drink beer and join frats, but science guys don't. Me, I like to drink beer and dip frogs in liquid nitrogen.

Run down: [2005-10-24 06:18:19] Hatless Jack

There are two types of events in a Science Olympiad: the first is "Build such and such to our specifications", and the other is "Memorize this textbook". One is sort of interesting, and the other is unimaginably boring. The Math Olympics and Science Fair are horribly depressing because you get to watch middle school kids utterly kick your ass in your own field. Sci-xtravaganza is put on by the Chemistry department (in the engineering building :sigh:) and it's every cool chemistry demonstration ever conceived of by man. I'm not sure what happens in the Junior Thinkers League, but those were some of the unhappiest looking kids I've ever seen in my life. Imagineering Fiesta was canceled several decades ago, but the engineering department neglected to tell the University pencil pushers over in Administration. The planning committee has chosen to meet in the bar until someone notices.

Patent Fair [2005-10-24 07:13:23] König Prüße, GfbAEV

They have an annual "Patent Fair" at the US Patent Office here, you might like it. They have all kinda displays. One I remember was a very simple small plastic thimble with a series of progressively smaller collars inside and a pressure-sensitive explosive at the bottom. It was an arming-fuze for missiles and when the air-speed was just so, it would pop and arm the missile. The display had it so that you could turn the air on, and pop the arming-fuze! Anything that goes bang is a good time to me! I was searching diamond patents, and there's one for a method with a loose carbon matrix and flooded with carbon gas to laser-weld in the carbon in the voids of the matrix. I'm looking for diamond-plated steel soon.

egg dropping [2005-10-24 14:18:31] posthumous

my high school was able to have an egg dropping contest without bothering any local colleges. it's amazing how hard it is to build something out of paper products that will keep an egg from breaking. or... maybe it's not amazing. it's just hard.

Egg Drop Soup [2005-10-24 14:42:59] König Prüße, GfbAEV

I made egg drop soup for lunch. Corn starch to thicken, and a couple of drops of lemon. A little parsley for color. Early vacines, they used to grow the cultures in eggs, but now they grow the cultures in vats. I used to eat raw eggs, especially for hangovers. But what with all of the tetracycline in the chicken feed, and the bird flu...in Mexico, they sell eggs by weight, not by the dozen. The yolks are very pale. They grow marigolds to sell to the US to add to chicken feed to make the egg yolks more yellow, but Mexican chickens eat tortillas.

back in my youngin [2005-10-24 15:19:55] grothmogg

days we had a contest in elementary school to see what pair of kids could through an egg back and forth without dropping and breaking it.
my team won......turns out that our egg was boiled :P me and the other kid were then expelled.

guinnessworldrecords.com [2005-10-24 23:20:22] König Prüße, GfbAEV

Greatest Distance Egg Dropping
The greatest height from which fresh eggs have been dropped to earth and remained intact is 213 m (700 ft). This was achieved by David Donoghue from a helicopter on August 22, 1994. David threw the eggs onto a golf course in Blackpool, Lancashire, UK. Getting the physics right is a vital part of the record. "You have to get the forward velocity equal to the downward velocity, then get the egg to land nearly perpendicular on a steep slope," says David.

You throw hundreds of eggs at a hillside from a whirlybird.. [2005-10-25 00:15:40] Hatless Jack

...and something's gonna land intact eventually. My admittedly limited expertise in physics is telling me that is a stupid idea. Basically, dropping an egg and not having it break is an exercise in limiting the egg's impulse. But if you're throwing the egg you're combining the two velocities (the one from throwing it and the one from the acceleration of gravity). No matter how you cut it that works out to a greater combined velocity and there for a bigger change in momentum or bigger impulse. Whichever. I must be missing something.

Now, if you're trying to break eggs by dropping them from a helicopter I strongly recommend aiming for the back of the head and using as much forward velocity as possible.

Chicken Cannon [2005-10-25 00:52:15] König Prüße, GfbAEV

I think that the chicken cannon would be a lot more fun!

Heinz Launcher v.1.1.4b [2005-10-25 11:24:08] Vicarious

A chicken soup cannon (one which fire whole, intact cans of chicken soup) would be more entertaining.

But, wait! [2005-10-25 23:23:32] König Prüße, GfbAEV

But wait, limiting the egg's impulse!?!? Eggs have impulses? We should stomp on all of them before they have any more of those!

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