I moved back to Austin early again to help the solar car team with the Edison Lecture Series. This year’s topic was TV, Image Processing, and Surveillance. People thought it was funny for us to be on display, but solar power is definitely useful when it is impossible to get a connection right off the grid.

This semester, I am taking the following classes:

• EE 351K – Probability and Random Processes
• EE 360 – Special Problems in Electrical Engineering
• EE 362L – Power Electronics
• EE 364D – Introduction to Engineering Design
• EE 366 – Engineering Economics I

As I have said for most of my other semesters, this semester is going to be the hardest yet. However, I somehow manage to make it through each and every one just fine. What is this force? I think this force consists of faith, my willingness to do anything ethical to get my EE degree, and the wonderful people around me. One is rooming with me next year, and another one is teaching me how to build a tube amp and speaker set.

To top off the first week, I went to Bridge Point Elementary with the team to participate in their Science Day. We talked about what we do, solar power, why it is useful, and how electricity works. After the talk, the kids got to wire solar panels to the toy cars. We got the cars from a dollar store; and although the wiring is a trivial task, making sure they work is not!

Fast to fail, fun to diagnose! After all was said and done, we were left with a huge pile of carnage!

Unfortunately, the weather was not very suitable for the cars to go outside and run, so we had to make do with halogen lamps. Nevertheless, the kids had a lot of fun and walked out of the room exclaiming, “That was awesome!”: