This will be the beginning of my year long rant about my ideas for the steel bridge team. What I hope to gain from this is just to allow my ideas to flow on paper so I don't forget anything that I'm thinking about.

Today there is an info session. I'm going to be talking about the summer program, the project overview, the class, and leadership positions for next year. o yea and i forgot I'm suppose to talk about the summer training program.

right now I'm creating a list of roles/responsibilities for the steel bridge team. In some way I need things to flow together because there is a class and also people not in the class that are involved in the project.

I'm thinking of having the class to be technical based because I need people to work on the design and analysis. We need to break the class into groups so they can tackle on tasks like last year.

yogurt soju

yogurt soju is a very popular asian alcoholic beverage. I believe it came from korea. The first time I drank this was when my korean friend, jason, made it for all of us. It was like an asian horchata with a twist. Believe it or not, it is very simple to make and only takes one trip to the asian market.

Ingredients:

Korean Soju

Shots of Yogurt

Chilsing Cider

Calpico (the white one)

Get a pitcher and poor to your desired taste and until you are satisfied with your results.

Exhaust Gaskets!

so, i must've lost like 4 gaskets already in the past 2 months. I made sure I bought two gaskets just in case it pops out again. There is nothing much to explain here... you just make sure the ring goes between the exhaust pipe and the engine. Then you tighten the bolts as much as you can!! so that the ring doesn't pop out again!

blogging away your debt

Today's discussion will be on debt. I seem to have accumulated much of this in the beginning of 2009 when I bought my friend a drumset for his birthday with my credit card. It was pretty expensive and I had no job at the time, but I knew it was ok because I would eventually make the big money. I recently got a job at Websense as a QA intern. What QA interns do is test software and make sure it works. This software could be from web applications to GUI's.

Anyway, on to the heart of the situation. So I'm thinking that I'm a baller now, and life isn't so bad because I got a secure job. Well I was wrong for that matter. It's now summer and I can't do anything fun because of the debt I'm in. I started realizing that this has become a big problem when I discovered that I had to pay for my summer classes. I didn't receive any financial aid and had to borrow some money from my parents. Consider this a step toward fixing one of my personal problems. I know everyone has their habits. I hope to gain confidence in improving myself by paying all this off.


So here are the necessary steps I'm going to attempt to make to reduce my debt;

-Earn More
-Spend Less
-Do more outdoor and free activities
-Aggressively pay off one item at a time.


So over the course of this 3 month period, I hope to have 0 balance. This is how my summer of 2009 is going to be and although I won't be vacationing somewhere in mexico or paradise, I'll be accomplishing another goal.

kudos,
Jeff Lam

Bridges Without Borders

In La Pita, Nicaragua, villagers carry 100lb bags of crops everyday across a dangerous bridge made of three logs and a strand of rope. With coffee beans being La Pita’s main source of income, plans to improve this structure allowed the Engineers without Borders, a National Service Organization, to hold a bridge design competition at the 2009 PSWRC Conference in Hawaii. Four students, Amanda Wong (captain), Michael Germeraad, Lonnie Chang, and Jeffrey Lam, from UCSD placed 1^st among 17 schools.

The team was required to design a bridge that followed requirements such as accounting for horizontal loads from flooding, using the allowable stress method, and have a 50-year life expectancy. In addition two alternative designs had to be made using materials; timber, concrete, and steel. For the final product the team was required to submit AutoCAD drawings of the floor plan and a report with calculations that satisfied these requirements. A presentation of the final design was given to a panel of judges at Hawaii. Remarkably, this was done in a matter of 3 weeks!

With the second round of midterms and finals happening during period, how was this possible? Through the knowledge gained from previous courses, the team was able to accomplish this goal. “Our SE152 (timber class) helped significantly throughout this project”, stated Chang. Timber was used to design the winning bridge because of its availability, affordability, and its impact on the environment. In addition, Michael Germeraad considered SE103 (structural design) to be helpful in having the basic foundations of designing structures. These classes provided the initial building blocks to becoming engineers.

Although the team had the skills and experience needed to finish this project, none of this could be accomplished without the captain, Amanda Wong. She took the project to another level by applying ASD (allowable strength design) code, a professional standard in using the allowable stress method, to provide accurate results. “Also because it was a timber bridge we used the NDS (National Design Specification) for wood construction, a code book, in order to determine the member sizes”, stated Wong. Furthermore she utilized and delegated all team members’ so that the project was completed on time.

Everyone on the team had a great experience, among these students, Jeffrey Lam, a transfer student, had an enlightening one. “Although I had just started taking major classes, I learned so much about materials, economic efficiency, and environmental factors”, stated Lam. For Lonnie Chang, “this has been an unreal experience.’ Though it has been a pleasure for these students to take on such a challenge, the people of La Pita will be truly grateful for their efforts.

Cable Stayed Bridges

My final project for my structural design class consists of making a bridge that spans 16", resist 40lbs, and look f'en amazing. The design the we made definitely looks cool but I am not satisfied with its structural stability. I know that the two pylons you see at the bottom will bend in towards the middle of the bridge. This bridge is FAIL. What I hope to overcome from this experience is to be more assertive and address my problems with designs like this to my teammates.


Anyway

Just wanted to comment... that cable stayed bridges are best used when there are anchors to tie down the cables...

Nail Art

This week I was really bored and went to play in my housemates' room. My housemate, Virginia, was making these miniature clay models of desserts. She told me that you are suppose to bake them in the oven and they turn hard. Then you can glue them to your nails with nail polish. I thought this was a neat project. I wouldn't do this on my nails of course, but this seemed worthy enough for an entry in my blog.