Friends and Fun Under the Sun

Isabel working on our mouse

On Friday our class spent the first half of the day working on completing our robot mice. My partner Isabel and I had challenges throughout this process, whether it was losing pieces, not understanding directions, or having trouble with a soldering iron, but we finished with a (mostly) working robot.

The next half of our day was spent with modifying the placement of buttons in electronic toys. This involved sewing, rewiring, and soldering. It was pretty challenging to grasp the concepts at first, but, eventually, I figured it out. It was really satisfying when after all my hard work, I pressed the button and the toy started singing. It was even better when I was able to help some of my classmates with their toys.

After class, I had my last chess class. It was a bit sad as it was coming to an end, but I’m excited for my new arête class next week.

After this we had soft time, I went to the bookstore with some friends and bought a cute Vandy t-shirt.

My finished toy

The day eventually ended, and we all retired to our rooms.

On Saturday, we had morning classes followed by a TA lead activity and a fun outing.

My morning class consisted of finishing up our story books and getting them polished and ready to print. I’m really happy with how they ended up, it was a lot of work, but the stories were fun and really cute. I hope Titus and Camilo will enjoy them and the cars.

After class we had a quick lunch, and then we headed out with our TA, Kelsay, to do an activity involving the principles of engineering. In order to do this, we split up into teams of three and made paper airplanes. I wasn’t the most experienced in the field, but my group was victorious in making an airplane which flew for the longest amount of time.

After this we had some free time, I took this time to do laundry (yes, mom, I did laundry). And hang out with friends. 

Then we all boarded buses to our local movie theatre. We got to see the new Spiderman movie, it was really fun to see a movie with so many of my (now) close friends. VSA filled up the whole theatre, so it was a really cool experience, as is the whole trip so far. 

The inside of the movie theatre

Sunday was a much more mellow day. We got to sleep in, we didn't have to be up until lunch at noon, so I took this time to hang out with some friends and eat a light breakfast, and have my much needed cup of coffee. 

For the next part of our day we split up into groups, some went to the zoo, some the art museum, some the science center, while I went to the park. We hung out for a few hours, had some ice cream, and then headed back to the dorms for dinner followed by free time.