Work Term!

Phew.. Haven’t written in awhile so here I go! Alright so being part of a stream 4 program, I am now on my work term, working at Firmwater Inc. in downtown Toronto. I am currently living in a townhouse only three blocks away from where I work, so it’s real easy to commute! Work term is something totally different than studying in school. First of all, there isn’t really any “studying” to do, besides PDEng, so most of the time, you get your evenings off! (For those of you who don’t know what PDEng is, it’s an online course in which you learn how to become a “professional engineer”) In PDEng, you read a few pages online and complete a few short assignments every 1-2 weeks, depending on how long they think it will take you.

Work term at Waterloo is quite the interesting thing. Having evenings off is quite the change from studying during the school term. You finally have a chance to take a break and do some things that you’ve always wanted to do without the stress of exams! Work term is also a great chance to go to somewhere new that you’ve never been to before. Having lived in Waterloo all my life, I find living in downtown Toronto much different. I recommend applying to jobs in other cities because it can be both exciting and a learning experience! Another recommendation would be to apply to study in other countries in your upper years! I’ve had several friends who have studied or worked out of the country and have had an amazing time. Also, if you’ve lived in residence (Village 1 or REV) during the term, it’s a good way to learn how to cook for yourself, among doing other ‘chores’. Exploring a new city can be fun and exciting too!

Anyways, off to do PDEng!

~End of Line

1A Complete

Alright, so I apologize for not having written in about a month, however the end of term rush took over and I completely forgot to blog to be honest. Alright so, the mechatronics robot competition went pretty well. Everyone brought their robots to the SLC and we competed for two hours. It was quite the interesting event, with random people at our booths asking us questions. After this event came a very long few weeks. First of all, for the mechatronics final, a work report was required consisting of around 30-40 pages. In short, very long process, but turned out well and satisfying in the end though. After that, the study rush begins.

So as exams start, I begin studying in what is my new home for studying. SLC 3rd floor. The other two main areas of study which I did not go to at all during final season would be DC and DP libraries, which I may add were quite full according to friends. Other places that one could go to study would also be empty rooms in buildings, which works suprisingly well. I found that working in my room was not nearly as productive as other places for some reason, even though my residence was very quiet due to the 23 hour quiet hours rule. Basically if you’re caught talking in hallways, talking in your room without doors closed, playing music or anything, you get fined $10, but everyone gets a “get out of fine” card for free for their first offense. It was quite the interesting event.

In my opinion, finals are more exagerated than what others seem to say. As long as you study well and pay attention in class, it really isn’t too big of a deal. Anyways, now that exams are over, a great deal of stress is relieved and now I just await the work term!

 Happy holidays to all =]

 ~End of Line

Final Stretch!

Alright, so there are only two more weeks of classes! Hooray! However, this also means that finals are also quickly rolling up. After these two weeks, we get a week to cram as much information as we can for finals. It’s going to be tough. Projects have been piling up as well as trying to keep up with school. This week, mechatronics has their lego robot competition on Friday, which should be a good time. The whole mechatronics class meet up in the Student Life Centre and race their robots for marks and bragging rights! In addition to all this work, we have started the infamous PDEng, a mandatory engineering co-op course that must be completed and passed. The joy. However, it is said that it will only take a few hours a week during co-op.

A few words about co-op for stream 4 students. Get your resume’s updated and complete before you get to University! It will save you lots of time and hassle when you actually start applying. Students basically use this site called JobMine to search for jobs and it is also where you check your interviews and see if you get a job. For some students it can be very tedious and stressful if a job isn’t found by now. The following term I will be working downtown Toronto working for Firmwater Inc. Should be lots of fun!

Anyways, I must start doing important things like playing foosball. Updats to follow.

~End of line

War is Over Now Time to Sleep

With midterms finally being over as of last saturday, I’ve finally had the time to a) catch up on some well needed sleep b) catch up on some material in class. Well, at least that’s what I’d like to think. Now that the stress is over, it’s time to continue with clubs and other extra curriculars that you don’t have time to do during midterms. Also, everything has gone by very fast, and it’s only seemed like you’ve been here for a couple months. After about 5 weeks you start midterms, and once those are over, you have another month to five weeks before you finals pop up. Scary thought really.

Anyways, there are several things that have been going on around campus lately. Last week there were many Halloween related events. There was a very well put together haunted house in the basement of Village 1 North 1, in which you got FREE candy! Also there were other various activities such as movie nights, with movie giveaways and there was a costume party at the Bomber. This weekend was the SCUNT (scavenger hunt) that is held every term by engineers. I wasn’t able to make it but I hear it was pretty fun. Essentially each class is their own team, and they have 24 hours to get as many items on the SCUNT list as possible. People go on road trips to these items… in other cities!

Anyways, must go to class. Please don’t ask why I wrote this in the morning.

~End of line

Almost Over

Phew… It has been a strenuous two weeks of attrition in the midterm war, but alas, I have almost defeated the evils behind calculus, linear algebra, chemistry and programming. Tomorrow morning will be my final midterm for 1A, which is chemistry. (Yay), however it is on a Saturday morning. Who gives exams on Saturday mornings?! What about Saturday morning cartoons?! After exams, everything should become less hectic though.

Over midterm season, I think you really begin to develop time management skills, because you need to manage time for studying all the information you crammed in the past 5 weeks and do other things to keep sane. It really is a good thing to learn and get used to in university. Also another word of advice, use your TAs! (Teacher Assistant) Basically TAs are hired by UW to help out in tutorials and mark assignments. They typically have an office of some sort, so you should find out where it is and go there when you need help. Professors often give office hours too, which are times and dates that they will be in their office available to give extra help. Another place for finding information would be… the library! At UW there are two libraries, which are the Davis Centre and Dana Porter Libraries, in which there are thousands upon thousands of books. (It’s rumoured that DPL is sinking because of the weight of the books). Use your resources well!

~End of line

Preparing For War (Midterms)

Okay… so Thanksgiving just rolled on by and it’s only seemed like I just started classes here at UW and surprise! Midterms are here! Yay! *cough*. Anyways, after filling up on lots of homemade food from Thanksgiving, all us engineers are getting ready for our midterms, which are to start next week. Not half an hour ago, I just got back from a “practice” midterm, which is a fairly easy exam. Unfortunately I have a grave feeling that the real midterm won’t be so simple.Other than studying, I’ve been working on a robot in a sub-team of the UW Robotics Team. The robot my team is working on is called the “Follow-Bot”, which is a robot that stalks you – I mean … follow you! Anyways, the robot is in it’s early stages and is still being designed but we have a base with motors and we’ve implemented a rear wheel already. All you future engineers should join some sort of team! They’re a good break from all the academics and studying, and also give you some hands on technical experience. Some of the other teams are the Midnight Sun, which is the UW solar car team. They currently hold a world record! Some others include the Formula SAE, the Off-road Mini Baja Team, and Aerial Robotics.

Some other things besides design teams include sports! Across campus there are many different clubs and teams available no matter what your skill level is! Currently, I’m in one of the hockey leagues and it really is a fun time, practicing and playing with your teammates. There are many different sports to participate in including basketball, badminton, ultimate frisbee, martial marts and more. It’s also a good way to get some exercise for us nerdy engineers that don’t get out much. Just kidding.

Anyways, I must go back to osmosing as much information into my brain as possible.

~End of line

Classes Begin! Ahh!

Classes. Where to begin? After frosh week, disillusioning university to seem like all fun and play, you slowly begin the transition into the real grind of: staying awake in lectures, keeping up with material, projects galore!

The first week of classes were fairly simple. Even until now, the third week, the material is mostly review. However, the pace is much quicker than from high school. From the morning, you head off to class and sit down in a room full of about 100 people and wait for the professor to come in. From there, the professor will just write, talk, write, talk continuously, occasionally stopping to answer a question here and there. Afterwards, the prof would leave and we would wait for the next prof to come in (yay for lack of exercise!) And that is your basic lecture.

There are also tutorials in which your class separates into smaller groups and is lead by a TA (Teacher Assistant). Different classes have different kinds of things in tutorials, however they are all essentially there to help you learn anything that you do not understand. These tutorials usually have some sort of marked assignment or quiz… so go to your tutorials!

Labs: In mechatronics 1A, I only have two labs, which are programming and mechatronics, which are both pretty good in my opinion. In the programming lab, you just program assignments and in the mechatronics lab, we’re starting to build our Lego Robots! The robot has to complete a race track and go over a few obstacles in the quickest amount of time competing against other groups in the class. Should be quite the entertaining experience!

Anyways, I must finish my drafting assignment right now (the thing I am drafting is a Star Wars X-Wing Starfighter, cool huh?) so I will end this blog here.

~End of line

EDCOM! EDCOM!

Ok, so today I will talk about the amazing frosh week! So frosh week for an engineering student revolves around two things.

1) EDCOM

2) EDCOM

What is EDCOM you may ask? EDCOM stands for Education Committee and they are the best at everything. They are superior to frosh in every single way. Treat them right or bad things may happen!

Essentially, frosh week is just a huge week of fun and events kind of in a competition with other engineers. One of the main things is to impress EDCOM. If you impress them, you will have a great chance of winning the week! The team I was on was Orange, and our theme was “Halloween”, so one of our cheers to impress EDCOM went like this : “EDCOM EDCOM you really rock! We really want to suck your … blood” Emphasis on the “…” So that cheer up there, was one of many, many cheers that you will learn for your frosh team. Prepare to lose your voice. A basic rundown of some of the events include Junkyard Wars (my personal favourite) in which your team has to salvage miscellaneous items from the scrap pile in order to build the main item, some sort of device to launch a hockey ball as far as you can. There was also the “Earn Your Hard Hat” event, in which your team has to go through a series of events in order to get your hard hat! You also get to meet the Rigid TOOL, the engineering mascot, which is a full 60″ in length! There was also a variety night and a huge SCUNT (scavenger hunt), which is amazingly fun! All you future froshies out there better go to frosh week!

In addition to faculty events, there were residence events, in which you meet your don and housemates, and get to know each other etc. Beware the multitude of ice breaker events! There are interquad competitions between North, South, East, West, Off Campus and UW Place, in which you’ll compete throughout the week for points. This year, the winners got front row seats to the Metric concert! In addition to this, other events included Monte Carlo, a night full of dancing and gambling (play money), among other small things throughout the Student Life Centre. Black and Gold Day was a rugby game against University of Toronto, in which Waterloo pulverized them, and to end off the week … Canada’s biggest Toga Party with a Much Video Dance!

All in all, frosh week is a great experience! All you future frosh better go, or I’ll cry… no, really, I will.

‘Til next time …

~End of line

Hello World! (and future frosh)

#include <iostream.h>

int main()

{

cout << “Hello World!”;

return 0;

}

Ok, so I guess you could say that is one of the nerdiest ways to open a blog, but oh well! I’m in engineering! That’s right, you get to deal with my little blurbs about life at University of Waterloo in the Engineering Faculty! As for introducing myself, my name is Daryl and I am in mechatronics engineering. Now, over the course of my first few weeks here, meeting hundreds of other frosh, I get the question nine out of ten times, “what the hell is mechatronics?” To be frank, I really don’t know either. Just kidding. It’s essentially the design of computer-controlled electromechanical systems for all you prospective engineers out there. That’s right, I’m going to make … robots! Anyways, enough about my program and myself. Over the course of the year, I’m going to be writing here as often as possible about things happening around campus, give future students tips and advice or just inform you guys about my experiences at university. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask me and I will do my best to reply as soon as possible! Anyways, this is it for my opening statement, I shall commence the real blogging soon!

End of line~