2011 Recapitulation

Way back in the beginning of the year I came up with three "Big, Fun Scary Adventures," referred to herein as "BFS Adventures." The first of these was a concrete goal: to obtain my level-2 certification for high-power rocketry. The story of this adventure was a long and comical one:

My first attempt was in June, using my rocket called "Stinger." I used a Cesaroni J285, which is a very small J-motor. For some reason, the flight was just a flop:



Next month I managed to put together an entirely new rocket (can't remember the name of it). It was a big, galumphing rocket made from thick cardboard tubes. The idea was to build heavy so that the rocket didn't go very high so I didn't need dual-deployment. That idea came back to bite me:



So I figured that the third time is usually the charm, and I came out next month with this rocket, which is the sustainer stage of a multistage project.



I figured that I had failed, but we kinda had to rush off at the end of the launch, and didn't talk much with the certifying member afterward. But a few weeks later I got my card in the mail, which read "cert level 2." So that's the story of how I got my level 2 certification.

My second adventure was less than exciting. I set a specific goal to "earn at least $5000 by working and at least $5000 of non-ISU scholarships." This one was also a success. I failed to find an internship, so I worked hard on a sod farm all summer, some weeks working 60 hours! It was quite the arduous ordeal but I earned about $4500 for school. Previously during the spring semester I had earned about $800 from working at Target. So there's my $5000 by working. And I got a pretty nice engineering scholarship for $8000 which helped me stay in school!

My last BFS Adventure was rather vague. "Invent something cool," I said. I'm counting the payload we built for USLI for this adventure. While it was not entirely my invention, I learned a lot of great stuff from being on that team and helped develop pretty cool technology for it. All of the structural components were designed and built by me. A lot of the programming was me, too. One thing is irrefutable: It was cool.

So there's 2011 in a nutshell. Of course, that leaves out 99% of my life, but now you have the 1% worth talking about.

I sense 2012 has some adventures in store that will make 2011 look like a walk in the park. Bring it on!

Q&A with Vance Coffman

I got to have a conversation with the former CEO of Lockheed Martin! It was cool. About eight of us freshmen in aerospace engineering were in attendance, and we asked him questions about his life, his career, his education (he started at Iowa State), and he gave us advice on doing well in the aerospace industry. Just another cool little thing I got to do.

Career Fair

Due to the recent flooding in Ames, IA, the Engineering Career Fair at Iowa State University had to be moved from its usual location in Hilton Colosseum to giant white tents outside Schemann. The fair took place on the 21st, a day of solid rain. Determined students vying for internships braved the weather and showed up professionally dressed but soaked to the bone. It was fun.

As a freshmen, I didn't expect to be inundated with opportunities, but even so, it was a great experience to be there, learning about options for the future. I only had time to hand out about five resumes, which is sure better than none! The most interesting employer that I talked to was for the Strategic Systems Program of the U.S. Navy. They take on engineering students for summer internships, who work on submarines, strategic missiles, and other goodies like that. There are numerous opportunities like that out there just waiting for me!