First Day of DME

Hi all! I'm all semi-settled in to MIT now (I may have to switch rooms during Rush, but other than that I'm pretty settled) and loving it! Before I take off today to go build some robots I thought I'd share some of my robot building experiences from yesterday.

As I told you before, I'm doing DME for my FPOP. That means I get to build a robot! After breakfast in McCormick Hall we headed to Paplardo Lab to begin construction. We were briefed on a variety of tools and skills, including arbor presses, belt sanders, drill presses, soldering, crimping, and the band saw. After that we were given a big tub full of parts, an instruction manual, and a yellow toolbox.



Essentially, we were given two minute lessons on tools and then told to "Build." Psh, sounds good to me, get straight down to cutting stuff!

There was quickly carnage, as you can see. One of the first steps was to dissassemble some cordless screwdrivers and take the gearboxes out. Here's what that looked like at my table:



I also got some pictures of some people working really hard. Here's Paul's back as he works to mark the base of his robot . . .



And some more people marking bases . . .



And a quick shot of the lab itself . . .



After slaving away all day in lab we took a tour around Boston, which I happily took some pictures of. It was very cool, especially when I realized that there was a Best Buy, Popeye's Chicken, and a Fire Station all really close!





Of course, walking across the Harvard bridge we saw some Smoots.





That's all for now, I really have to go, but I'll continue to fill you in on what's going on! BYE!