Elaborating an idea: dog amusement park

I'm a dog lover.

One day, when I walk past carousel in the market place, an idea struck me: why there's not a amusement park for dogs?

So, what do we have in the park? We'll integrate everything a dog love into the park. Some dogs love fetching, so there might be a frisbee machine. Some dogs love retrieving items, so there may be an artificial river to throw plastic balls in. Some dogs just like to be a couch potato, so a comfortable place to rest is included.

Also, once this idea sparkles other ideas, lots of toys can be invented particularly for dogs. One toy I can imagine is a machine with a ball hanging from the top. Each time the dog hit the ball towards the indicated direction (randomly chosen by the machine), rewards such as snacks will be given by the machine (or human).

While from the point of view from dogs, this might be fun to do so, in terms of feasibility, I think people will spend money on this kind of park, because people like to buy beliefs. Once there's such a thing as dogs amusement park, a lot of people will find it cool to let their dogs play in one of them. With some amount of compelling advertisements, people can be easily coaxed into it. :-)

Something to say after a 2-hour-long conversation

A new use for airbag!

http://gizmodo.com/5668304/this-pretty-girl-is-wearing-an-invisible-airbag-helmet

Can you believe that? This girl is wearing an airbag helmet!

Well, it's not that the airbag is used for decoration, but rather, it's made in a way can be carried, so people can wear one while biking! (check the link to see how it works)

As you can see in the video, when it's hidden, it may fit into one's overcoat, and when activated by vibration (due to the impact of a car for e.g.), the airbag expands and wrap around the entire head.

If it had any user, I would say that they wear it mainly to show-off. It seems so cool when under some condition, "puff!", an white helmet appear out of nowhere. However, I can't deny it should function well, as airbag is widely used in auto-vehicles.

If I become an enthusiast of this product, I could see myself designing similar device like airbag kneepad... For user's need for better protection, or, better show-off.

solving a problem using toulmin's argument

  Claim: I should not worry about the fact that I worry about my future all the time.
  Grounds: My psychology teacher told me that the age around 18-20 see a lot of life change, thus is most likely to have stress, and thereafter, worries.
  Warrant: I'm no different than other young adults.
  Backing: I go to college, I have normal emotion, etc, everything proves that I'm a normal person.
  Qualifier: For most of the time, my worries are the worries that my peer are having, so it make sense that I worry!

Communicate with my TA

These are several emails sent to and fro my ME lab TA. Question, answer, question, answer. Effective!

Hi, XX
About the lab assignment #3, should I convert all the units into millimeter for all the parts I created (including those in textbook exercise and the modeling a styrofoam cup) or just the styrofoam cup part?
Best,
Muyun


 Hey Muyun,
The units of all your part files should be millimeter.
XX


XX,
Ok... Is it millimeter kilogram second or millimeter newton second?
Muyun


It's millimeter Newton Second.
-XX

On networking: how I did, and what I learned

  In the past week, I tried establishing network with several people:  freshman student M, sophomore student S and Prof. K.

  OK, start with M. I found that he was an interesting person, so I wanted to have dinner with him, and talk with him. At first, he seemed to be a little annoyed because I asked him about meeting so frequently (three times a day), and seem to reluctant to response. When I realized that I was too haste, I waited for two days before I asked him out again, and that work.
  What I learned from this is that, one thing, I shouldn't be too haste. The process of developing relationship should be gradual, and spontaneous. Doing it in a haste manner may scare the other person, or cause discomfort. The other thing is that I have to have patience, and don't give up with that.

  Second trial: sophomore student S. Actually, it was him who took the first step. Student I seem to enjoy networking, and I should learn from him. He freely give out his contact info: Phone #, email, name, etc.  even before I asked. And Student I ended up knowing a lot of people... Every time I see him , he's always greeting more than one person.
  Of course, networking is never about talking to people only once,
but why not start by talking once, and exchanging contact info?

  The third trial is not complete yet. I think I'll try  to maintain the relationship with Prof. K. I started it well enough. Though he told me he doesn't need research student at this point, which did upset me a little, and he asked me whether I still want to talk to him. I said yes, and I told hie that I also want advice apart from gaining a research position, and showed patience: I told him I can wait till the next week or next month to meet him. Afterward, he told me that he would make schedule for it.
  So, that cause me to think that humility and understanding is very important, and again, don't give up on the chance to develop relationship.

Successful new-era engineer = engineer + philosopher

What I learned from the video clip is that we need to re-learn some "common sense" to bring effectiveness to our work. As I think about it, my three biggest problems among the seven missing basics would be failures to communicate effectively, to label, and to visualize. so I think I need to learn from Paul Newman, Aristotle, and da Vinci. The best way to learn from them is to read their books, and reflect on their ideas. Starting from the most interesting one, I'll learn more about da Vinci first, and I'm actually googling about him right now!