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It's been a while since my last update, for which I apologize. And in that time, so much has happened. Our device is nearing completion, as is our *censored* - I must repeat my earlier encouragements to "wait and see" what the final state of our design is. We have encountered many obstacles, but we are overcoming them. The end of last week drew to a close the months-long battle for equality among motors, about which I suppose I should provide some background. In our first parts order, we requested a second motor, but upon assembling and attaching the two motors (Murphy ensured that we did not fully realize this until after they had been screwed onto our base and the wheels temporarily attached) we found that there was a basic inequity of speed between the two motors. We had heard of the need for differential, but this was ridiculous (and one sided, so it would only work turning one direction, making our device act like those cheap rc cars whose steering consists of "it drives straight going forward and turns right going in reverse"). So we tried to resolve the problem first by exchanging the defective motor for a new one. Which we did. Again. And again. And yet again. Until it seemed that our goal was more to demonstrate the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over while expecting the same result, for those of you who don't know) than to pick up and stack sandbags. Finally, after realizing the futility of our current endeavors, we brought our motors downstairs to Sandy, and finally came to realization of the true nature of the problem. It seems that we had received one 6 volt motor and one 4.5 volt motor - which has the nasty (from our point of view) effect of causing the motors to run at speeds inversely proportional to their voltages. We enjoyed the greater speed of the 4.5 volt motor, so we exchanged our 6 volt motor for a 4.5 volt motor. Everything seemed to be going great. But then came the soldering workshop, during which (in addition to learning just how many different ways a soldering iron can cause significant and permanent bodily harm that would make CA glue or a bandsaw look like nothing) we discovered that while the 4.5 volt motors may appear to work better, in using them one risks a catastrophic failure at any moment as the motors finally lose patience at being overworked and quit. Which if our friend (?) Murphy has anything to say about it, will happen right in the middle of the competition, and replacement will entail dismantling 3/4 of the device. So on Tuesday, we reverted back to 6 volt motors, in the process providing yet another example of Kearney's Law ("Do everything twice", origin unsure, but evident in examples too numerous to list here despite the lack of a known disk space limit and the near-ubiquity of high-speed internet access among my readers - I guess what I really mean to say is that I can't remember them all and don't feel like digressing further to list those which I can recall). But we now have a functional base and are nearing completion on the accessories. We have met twice already this week and have a few more meetings scheduled in hopes of meeing our self-imposed deadline of this Sunday. Which is perhaps not an entirely realistic deadline, but useful nonetheless. For as long as we are shooting for that deadline, even if we miss it, we are pretty much guaranteed to make the real deadline of next Friday. Perhaps this is not an ideal method, as it does hold the potential to encourage one to take deadlines slightly less seriously. But at the same time, I think it is better to set an early deadline and miss it by a little than to focus on the actual deadline and barely make it. Which manifests itself in my work habits. If I have a medium to large paper due (and by large I mean somewhere between around 10 pages - this probably won't apply to my thesis paper), I tend to stay up half the night working on it. But that half the night isn't the night before it is due. It is usually a few days before. I offer as Exhibit A (or I would, if this were a trial, in which case I would possibly be guilty, although of what I'm not quite sure) my design paper. I assembled the charts and diagrams in the week or so before it was due. But when it came to the actual writing, I started at about 9:00 the Friday before it was due (yes, you did read the day of the week correctly), took a break at 10 to go see a movie, then upon my return created a self imposed deadline of Saturday morning to have the paper finished. I was up until almost 4 that morning, but I completed the paper. Now the technique which I have just described may not work for everyone. It does not always work for me - there are some papers which I have begun one night, realized that I'm not going to finish, and put off until the next day. But if you're the type of person who works better under a deadline, or who does things better at one go, this might work for you. And the beauty of it is that, just as I described in the sentence before last, you keep your options open. If you end up encountering writers block or things just somehow do not work out, you can obey the instructions on printed on the casing of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ("Don't Panic" for those of you who have been deprived of this excellent series). You still have a few more days in which to repeat your endeavors. And if you do finish the assignment, you have over a day to examine it from the perspective of the mind at noon and replace any symptoms of the occasionally-incoherent-yet-incredbily-insightful mind-after-midnight. Which is another advantage of this technique for creative writing - I find that my best ideas come roughly between the hours of 11 pm and 1 am. Which is an interesting observation on the workings of the human mind. But such a digression shall not occur at this point, and anyway is better suited to a philosophy journal. I have satisfied my goal for this post: To provide the reader with another peek into the internal workings of our progression towards the December 1 design competition. And managed to transition, inadvertently yet seamlessly, into a discussion of my study habbits and their implications towards others. And I hereby declare this post completed, with title amended.

(If only blogger would actually parse my php code - and if only it was all actually valid.)
UPDATE: And it did - but not in the way I had intended. Pretend that there's no space before of the first question mark in the title.

Avast, me hearties!

Ahoy there. As some of ye may already be knowin', today, the 19th of September, be talk like a pirate day. It be a Wednesday too, the day of my First Year workshop, that hour per week designed to help us, still landlubbers on the sea of college life, find our sea legs to stand steady as Pilots at the University of Portland.. This week's session concerned test survival, an end toward which we collected the "13 commandments of test survival". As they may be useful to others, I present the results of our discussion here. But, as today be talk like a pirate day, I present them in pirate speak, the taking of a test allegorized as a stormy sea and, more commonly, a battle against that scurvy foe who be desirin' nothing more than to sink ye with a broadside from his cannons.
The two references to communism are simply the exception to prove the rule, and a test to see who remembers their cold war US history.

1. Be readin' the records of previous battles and talkin' with the old pirates – it be very likely they have fought and defeated t'enemy. Note especially those battles which ye have barely won and ye know will be hard fought if ye be fightin' the same foe again.

2. Know thy test – it is like the sea, prone to sudden and violent storms but navigable when carefully observed. Heed these words – the test is as thy enemy. If ye do not make note of every nuance of its behavior, it be boardin' ye when ye be least expectin' it, making ye walk the plank of ignorance and failure.

3. Stop yer procrastinating – now! Every minute ye wait without makin' preparations the enemy grows closer. Every minute ye wait before giving chase gives the enemy greater chance to escape.

4. Let yer notes be organized, and not scattered as the crew of an opposing ship on the sea after ye be firin' a broadside on them.

5. It be easier to sink a ship if y fire on them simultaneously from both sides, so work in groups. But if ye be true pirates, ye had best be plunderin' yer partners before they be plunderin' ye.

6. Review the logs after each battle – patterns may emerge to aid ye in winnin' the war.

7. Break the enemy through a continuous siege, not with a single broadside

8. Meet with yer captain frequently to discuss the course of the voyage and plans for the future.

9. Be communist in your studying – work in groups, each giving according to his knowledge and receiving according to his need.

10. Ye be not keelhaulin' yer enemy – fore to aft be only a suggestion. Some ships be more easily boarded from the stern.

11. Be anticommunist in your studying- have a list! Bring it to the HUAC meetings (Helpful University Academic Courses, not House Un-American Activities Committee).

12. Dead students write no answers! Make sure ye be gettin' yer slumber.

13. If all else fails, mutiny!*

*I suppose I should clarify this point a little, lest I be thought to be advocating violence against anyone. As the rest of this list is derived from an extended metaphor, mutiny could be interpreted to mean anything from dropping a class to transferring schools. But unlike the
rest of this list, point 13 is not derived from any serious point of our discussion in class, therefore it does not require a symbolic meaning, and may also be interpreted as simply the humorous play on typical pirate ways that I intended it to be. Whew...now I can breath easier. So much explanation for one line of text
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Did anyone else notice that I ended up with 13 points on that list? What great luck will come to be all those who heed that advice.