I’ve got up to quite a bit considering the time of year and the inevitable “ranting blog posts” that are now circulating in my head. The start of this week saw an end to my second year, in that I no longer have any lectures and have no more coursework.

Much of the weekend was spent working on my compilers coursework, a 2 month project that involved many nights of confusion, energy drinks and nightmares about being attacked by C++ functions. Being a coursework of such a long duration, the majority of us in ISE had left the bulk of the work to this last week. After finally getting as much as I wanted done, I realised it was 2 in the morning on Sunday night and so I slept. The following morning (9 o clock, of course) I demonstrated my code and found that it did everything my lecturer wanted and even a few things I was unaware it was able to do. In a word: Epic Win!! (OK in a phrase)

That left me with the rest of Monday to revise for a spanish listening exam that afternoon, which I had got an extension on because of my illness last week (the Humanities department really are lovely!!). I also had a big Spanish exam on Tuesday, so the start of the week had a bit of a Mediterranean feel. As for how they went: I really can’t say. All I know is, it’s over!!

That left me with an afternoon to relax, as the panic about exams didn’t properly hit me till after my final lecture on Wednesday. When I got home, I rekindled the on-and-off relationship with my Playstation, watched as much iPlayer as I could and did a few nerdy things with my old laptop. A good afternoon being unproductive and unorganised, just what the imaginary doctor ordered.

But beyond the mundane talk of my academic timetable, there’s also been a few other things worth blogging about. EPOD recently did an interview with Head of the EEE department, Peter Cheung. This news really did enthuse me, so any free time I had was dedicated to getting the audio edited together. Peter Cheung is an absolute legend and talks about the banking industry and how us engineers need to approach it, and I do recommend any engineer give it a listen. (Download) (iTunes)

I also took a part in the CGCU elections this year. While most people are viscously campaigning and setting up facebook groups for support, I am taking a more relaxed approach. I am running for ISE 3rd Year Rep, which puts me in the unique position of being uncontested in an election only available to 20 people. It’s bad election practice to be cocky and presumptuous, but I think I can safely say I have got an exciting and important role in my department next year.

Hope everyone who had a humanities test on Tuesday or has one coming up did/does well. Let me know how it went by leaving a comment (preferably in your studied language). Hope everyone has a lovely and productive Easter and I will see you all when the exams finally rear their atrociously ugly heads; good luck!!

Thanks for reading,

Chris xx

At our last EPod meeting, we discussed the idea of doing a video interviews and had a Flip Mino to play around with. Predictably, most of our time was spent putting people on the spot with the camera and generally make each other look stupid. However, there was enough non-questionable content to inadvertently make some videos which we could potentially use for advertising. So I spent a little bit of time this weekend sorting through the footage and producing these promos. Enjoy (and subscribe!!):

“My time in the spotlight”

“Meet part of the team”

Check out the EPOD youtube channel to keep up to date with our shenanigans

Thanks for Reading,

Chris xx

It’s been an incredibly productive week thus far. The library has predictably taken over my life, as the Christmas cheer has been thoroughly bleached away by my coursework, and I’ve got a fair bit of work done. I have also had quite a nice bit of down-time this as my society life has been a bit more active than usual.

EPod

Thrillingly, my voice is now available for download through iTunes!! Much to your dismay, this isn’t because of my singing voice landing me an album. Earlier, I posted about EPod, the podcasting team at Imperial I am a part of, and the difficulty involved in doing spot interviews with students without seeming strange and scaring them off. Well, the ePod team have finally compiled together the first podcast of the new season and we are all immensely proud of what we have done. It was a load of fun for all involved, although I have grown quite a hatred of my own “Radio-Voice”. Please give it a listen and tell us what you think and how we could improve the show. (Click here to subscribe through iTunes or to download the mp3)

ChocSoc

Last Monday, I had another chocolate tasting with the lovely bunch at ChocSoc. Chocolate is such a fundamental part of my diet, but it was never something I would think about or explore. A craving will lead to the purchase of a Chocolate bar (or slab on a particularly good day) and 10 minutes later (regardless of size) I am incredibly satisfied with the contents of my stomach. With the Chocolate Society, I get to think about chocolate and enjoy it on a more analytical level. Each week we get quite exotic pieces from round the world and you notice the big differences in tastes. For example, chocolate from Madagascar is usually quite fruity, whereas chocolate from Central Africa is a bit more bitter and earthy. On Monday we tried odd mixes like peppercorn chocolate and aniseed chocolate. It’s great to find and taste all these bizarre things you never thought existed and, of course, free chocolate is the fastest way to my heart

Robotics Society

This was the most fun society meeting I’ve ever been to. One of the people on my course started up a Robotics Society and a bunch of us went to show support. Personally I had no intention of joining, but that was quickly reconsidered after we got stuck in to a “Scrapheap Challenge” style drag race. The room of about 60 people were split into teams and each given a small kit including: two motors with wheel axel attachments, a battery pack and two (horribly manufactured) wheels. We had that and a box full of cardboard, cups, lollipop sticks, blu-tack, tape and other office scrap to produce a car that could travel as fast as possible in a straight line. Being the tight-knit group that we are, all us ISE students stuck together. Using the extensive knowledge of Formula 1 we pretended to have we built what we thought would be good.

<WARNING: If you have no interest in cars, model making, or my nerdish tendencies, skip to [END]>

0 to Awesome in 3.5secs!!

Both motors were used in parallel to maximise torque and we made the wheels bigger to ensure they ran at an increased same speed (as the ones supplied were horribly made). The car was long and quite wide to limit it’s turning ability and the car was rear-wheel drive with all the weight at the back to push the wheels into the floor to get the most power out of them.

<[END]>

It was a lot of fun and resulted in us producing the fastest car and the only one to have two successful runs. As much as the hours of work I missed was annoying me afterwards, I felt like a child again, which is all I hope to get out of any society I join.

Society life is great at university. You meet a lot of very cool people who share your interests, and you do things you always wanted to try, but never had the means to do. What societies are you part of, and which ones do you think I would enjoy?

Thanks for Reading

Chris xx

First year was amazing. I experienced the uniqueness of hall life, I went clubbing for the first time, I had a roommate for the first time. Lots of very wonderful firsts. Although, one thing I do regret not doing last year is becoming more integrated with the “Imperial Society”. I wasn’t an avid member of any society (except for coming 2nd in the Assassins Guild game) nor did I really do anything at Imperial after lectures. This year, I decided to get off my backside and do things just for the hell of it. I applied to be an Imperial Student Blogger, I joined Choc Soc and Meat Soc (yet to go to an event there) and I also joined the Imperial Engineering Podcasting Team (EPOD).

EPOD is a monthly podcast, discussing any engineering news story or event that takes our fancy. For the past week, the team has been recording at various places around Imperial. My team decided to get the student opinion on Windows 7. So last Friday, I achieved another first; this was my first formal interview of anyone. It’s an odd experience interviewing people, especially when you have to be somewhat dynamic with your questions. We started off in the DoC Labs, which were fairly straightforward and then progressed onwards to the horror of the JCR. Even though the majority of the work is done by the interviewee, it’s still quite a scary experience. After doing 3, rather appalling, takes, it became a lot more fun and the power one feels from holing an XLR Microphone hooked up to an £800 recording unit takes over and you start feeling the urge to ask ridiculous and offensive questions. Fortunately, you can’t get too controversial when talking about an Operating System, so the Paxman inside me remained dormant – for now.

Off to tackle my 5 courseworks. It is going to be another busy week as I have those to contend with and a big Scholarship presentation on Tuesday. If you see anyone around EEE looking overdressed and sweating profusely – that’ll be me

Thanks for Reading,

Chris xx