Notes

STEM Trip Log

-Monday-
Written at- 8:30-8:45
The check in was pretty smooth; I got the key to my room and my identification lanyard. I got to see my new room, but my roommate had gotten in and out before me. Mom moved a few things around and rearranged a few items in my bags. After my family dropped me off, I sat in a room waiting for a few people to be ready to go to the main meeting place. On my way out, I waved to my family and they waved back as I set out for my 5 to 6-day week at Emory. While waiting for registration to "close", all the scholars played two truths and a lie; I scoped out the room for my roommate in the process. He was not anywhere I could see him. After around an hour or so, we headed down to the cafeteria. I didn't eat much since I had pizza literally 4 hours before dinner. Next up was a general introduction to the program and our group advisors. I was in group L with Mr. Thomas doing APP DESIGN! We were dismissed to meet up with our galaxy groups. Nothing much happened there, except the receiving of a water bottle, STEM notebook, pen, and Envision notebook. It was at 8:15 that we were released back to our rooms. I changed into my comfy clothes and sat down to read my letters from my family. At 8:36, my roommate walked in. His name is Christian and he is also a rising Freshman. Room check is supposed to be at 8:45 every night, so I am waiting for that right now.

Written at- 7:00 tomorrow morning
The rest of the night I just watched Netflix on my MacBook. I decided to go to sleep around 10:45 that night.


Tuesday-
Written at- 5:50-6:15
I woke up this morning and got dressed for the day. I was supposed to meet in my galaxy classroom at 7:20, so I headed there. We were waiting for 12 minutes, since we had to wait for all 20 of us. First thing was breakfast! After breakfast we had the group photo. They had us line up from tallest to shortest (that took ages with all 230 scholars). We headed to our galaxy classroom again to talk a little bit about the speaker coming up next. We walked over to the auditorium and Jerry Lineger, an astronaut, spoke to us about his time in space. Lunch was next, and guess what they had? Pizza, they had pizza.. again. After lunch, we went back to our galaxy classrooms. This was my favorite part of the day. We got with our groups of four and got a laptop out of the bin. It was time.. to create.. an app. The moment I had been waiting for! It was so much fun to learn how to create an app. The advisor literally gave us a basic tutorial, and then let us figure out the rest. I think my group has a good idea of what we are doing and we might even have the best app! Anyways, he let us leave 45 minutes early for dinner. And that was good, because I was starving after all that work on the app.

Written at- 7:50-7:55
After dinner, we had a choice to play soccer, bingo, or watch a movie. I chose to go watch a movie with a few of my friends from my galaxy group (Noah and Abram). We were watching The Martian, but they turned it off and put on a YouTube video about Mars. I couldn't hear a word because of all the noise around me. It is quite boring and I could probably fall asleep if I wanted to; we still have about 30 minutes left until we can leave for our rooms.

Written at- 8:30
I am back in my room and pretty worn out from today. I plan to watch Netflix for a while tonight to entertain myself after that past hour and a half.


Wednesday-
Written at- 5:35-5:50
The first thing we did this morning was breakfast, like usual. We had some pancakes; they were amazing. So, we not only get to create apps, but we get to experience medicine, robotics, and civil engineering at least once in our time here. Today's other subject was robotics! Not only did the advisor for that class let us build and program robots, but she also had us play some games every now and then. My group completely failed on our robot though; that might partially be because my group didn't give me control over the programming . Anyways, next was lunch. I had pizza, pasta, etc. Nothing new there! After lunch was concluded, we were able to get back to our galaxy classroom and finish creating our apps. I think my group might win the "competition." Our app includes the temperature on Mars, a global map of Mars with your latitude and longitude listed to the side, a Heart BPM function, and finally a gravity level changer on a scale from one to nine, nine being earth's gravity. We were taken over to the book store once most of us felt good about our apps. I didn't buy anything, since I felt I didn't need any books; I would have preferred to go to a store with small memorial trinkets. And then we were off to dinner! There was pizza and pasta again, but I just decided to get more pasta and no pizza since the pasta looked a little different than the recent ones.

Written at- 8:50
Right after dinner, we went to do our field activities. A few of those things were Mars Jeopardy, Taboo and a Scavenger Hunt. My team didn't win in Jeopardy, but we still did pretty well, if you count guessing. I had never played Taboo before, and they had to explain the rules to everyone. It is basically charades, but talking and not miming. Sort of like: Yellow, hot, round, star......... We guess.......... Sun! And so on, until we run out of questions/words to answer. Team with the most points wins in the end, like most games. And finally, the scavenger hunt! There were 18 questions we had to search and find answers for. The answers were hidden on floor 2 of the hall. My team of five people found them all before time ran out. But, the person in charge hasn't graded them yet, to see who won of course. If my team wins, or comes in second or third, we apparently get a prize. That was all for the night. Once again, I plan to watch a few things on Netflix before I head to bed.


Thursday-
Written at- 5:45-6:05
The first thing this morning was breakfast. Nothing new happened there. We had our second of three subject right after; today we had medicine. In that class, we were taught how to properly make a splint on an arm, ankle, or neck. I am going to explain how to make one on an arm. So, the first step would be to mold the legit splint part onto the uninjured arm. If it it too long fold the ends so that the top is right behind he knuckles and the bottom in around the same spot underneath the hand. After that is molded to the arm, you are supposed to wrap gauze on the wrist to partially prevent movement. The third step is to wrap the splint with a stronger form of gauze-like material onto the broken arm. Finally, you take a triangular shaped cloth and tie the ends around the back-neck of the patient in order to form a rest for the arm; make sure the hand is resting at or above the heart. Another few things we learned were: how to stop severe bleeding and how to stitch closed an open wound. There were also a few games we played in certain parts of the class to revive our minds. Such as: Black Magic, (Everyone in the room agrees upon an object, and the person who we earlier sent outside has to guess correctly. The advisors are the people going outside and pointing to objects asking "Is it this?". When the person sent outside is asked "Is it this?", they must answer "Yes." or "No." -- preferably saying yes to ONLY the correct object -- ) Man on the Moon, (You have to do the hand motion correctly -- EVERY little detail -- ) and finally, Crossed and Uncrossed (You pass an object around the circle either saying "Crossed." or "Uncrossed." If you say the incorrect one, you are out of the game. There is a certain requirement that needs to be met to stay in; I am not going to reveal it, for that defeats the purpose of the game!). After Medicine, we headed to lunch; we were kept in Medicine 20 minutes longer than planned, but it was perfect. We headed to our galaxy classrooms to make any final improvements to our apps before deciding upon who would present theirs in front of all 230 scholars on Friday. My group, in two hours, got nowhere. We tried to add a compass but that failed. We tried to improve our longitude and latitude, but that failed. We tried to add a game for entertainment, BUT THAT FAILED. Get the pattern? And that's not all.. Around 30 minutes before presentations, we had an error with our app that caused all our backgrounds to not show up! My group mates and I ended up trying loads of things to fix it, but nothing worked.. Until I had the common sense to just go try another computer. We were fine after that, with 2 minutes to spare. Our group wasn't voted to go against the other class, but I thought my group did amazing anyways. After we had decided which group in our class would go against the other class, the other class showed up for the final presentations and decisions. Group L, My galaxy group, Abigail and Tyler's app was going to be presented on Friday. That was when everyone decided Group L was now LIT instead of LOSER. Haha. Next up was dinner. Guess what we had? Yeah, you guessed it, pizza and pasta!

Written at- 8:35-8:45
A few minutes after I had written my last entry, the huge building outside the cafeteria collapsed! It was like the coolest thing I'd ever seen. It just tumbled down with a loud and dull CRACKLE CRACKLE THUDDD. I couldn't see a thing outside, excluding dust, for a few minutes. Oh, and before you get worried, the building was being demolished. Hehehehe. Anyways, after all that drama, we had an option between sports or another movie. I obviously chose sports; I got to play Ultimate Frisbee and jackpot with a frisbee. It was a lot of fun. I can't wait to get home; I've been saying "Just Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday!", "Just Thursday and Friday!", "Just Tomorrow and Saturday morning!" the whole time. Anyways, I have the same plans for tonight as the past few nights.


Friday-
Written at- 5:45-6:00
Nothing has changed, breakfast was first today. We had pancakes again, but there was something else that just tasted wonderful.. BANANA BREAD! I didn't even know it was banana bread when I grabbed it, but I was just so happy when I bit into it. Haha. After that, we headed to our galaxy classrooms and got some papers with some past assessments. (This includes the mentor scores) It seems that I am "on the quiet side." I don't particularly agree with that, I just feel I am respectful of others when they are talking. Otherwise, in that session, we just chilled. Next up was the speaking event. Three ladies talked about their careers and college decisions. Two were Chemical Engineers while the third was an analytic and statistics person. I think I am much closer to deciding what EXACTLY I want to be and do when I get to college. Anyways, lunch was next (nothing cool happened here). After lunch, we got to do some Civil Engineering. It was pretty interesting, and I might be interested in doing something on a smaller scale, such as interior design, for a side job in the late future. And for the last hour, we just were sent back to our galaxy classrooms; we didn't do anything but sit and listen to music the whole time. After that we headed to dinner; something cool happened here. Alright, so, Noah just started clapping, for no reason what-so-ever, and others started joining in until the whole cafe was clapping (excluding me. I said he would not get me to clap). Moving on, later tonight we have a talent show and the presentations from each strand of STEM.

Written at- 9:30-9:35
The talent show and presentations were SPECTACULAR! This is probably the only time I'll ever use this word. It was SO LIT. Hopefully someone got that on video! Anyways, it was a great show. I can't even explain it. Same plans for tonight.. can't wait until tomorrow!


Saturday-
This morning, we had breakfast, one last time! We got back around 9:00. I literally sat on the floor four lobby until 10:20 or so until I heard my name be called for checkout. Honestly, it felt like a lot longer than an hour an a half to me. Anyways, my Aunt Jamie picked me up. It was a two hour drive to the truck stop that I was meeting my family at. The first hour, I talked to Aunt Jamie about the camp, things going on, and other random stuff. The other hour, I just played on my phone. When I met up with my family, my mom and Faith came rushing out of the van to come hug me. Kaleigh and Ashlynne were in the van while my dad was helping Sienna get her things out of the van. Shortly after I get settled in the van, we stopped at On The Border. The chips were amazingly better than in past visits to locations near Waxhaw. On the way home, I read my log to everyone who hadn't heard/read any of it yet. Other than that, I kind of just relaxed and enjoyed the noise. See what I did there? Hehehe. Once I got home, I threw my bags in my room and headed downstairs to take everything in. This concludes my week at Atlanta, Georgia.. Envision STEM.. Emory University.