What makes the perfect project meeting? As finals and end of semester projects loom in the not-so-distant-but-not-near-enough-to-really-start-worrying-about future, Off the Press went on a fact finding mission around campus. We talked to a full gamut of groups, from senior design super-developers to outstanding organic chemistry crews, as well as groups with less superb attributes to find out what their secret sauce was… or was not.
Our first stop was the library where a group of four was making an important presentation. They told us the semester presentation is coming up so they, “have to make it look like they did something.” They seemed to be in a frenzy of productivity, so maybe the secret is to just make people think you did something instead of actually doing something. The Google Slides animations were on full display. In just a few minutes of talking, we saw the honeycomb transition, every possible direction of text flying in and out, three different themes, and multiple gifs. There was even a slide that was just a link to NASA’s website because their project had something to do with space. Whether it was a facade or not, it looked cool and we think this group has the potential to blast off at the Innovation Expo and they’ll be shooting for the stars next semester.
Next, we snuck into the labs where some chemical engineers were struggling to force ketchup through a tube. “It’s a NON-NEWTONIAN FLUID,” one of them raged. We aren’t sure what the popular Fig Newton snack has to do with fluids, but apparently, they’re absolutely crucial to fluid classification. He gave us a rant that involved a lot of made up words like “viscosity” and “shear force” and “pipes,” but we missed most of it because one of our editors had brought a hamburger and was trying to use the pump to put the ketchup on his burger. Then the pump made a god-awful buzzing, whirring noise, and ketchup began to squirt everywhere. The lab looked like a crime scene, and the plastic tube moved and wiggled like it was possessed by a demon, but the engineers were ecstatic.
The biomedical engineers were in another lab nearby. They showed us a device that they claimed was to help people breathe at night but it was definitely just a medieval torture device, but plastic. We tried to back away as quickly as we could but it was too late. One of them grabbed our editor. Another shoved the mask device thing onto his face. Our eyes wide with horror, we could only watch as our beloved editor, our fearless leader, the Emperor Palpatine to our empire… kept breathing normally? It must be a trick! After a frozen moment, we rushed to his aid, pulling the mask off, and shouldering the biomedical engineers out of the way. In the process, we also knocked over some very expensive prosthetic prototypes and may have undone years of intensive research. This meeting revealed to us that if you’re desperate enough for human testing, you’ll eventually end up working together to get it.
If you want to see what great teamwork looks like for yourself, then you should come to see Off Center’s final improv show of the semester The Price is Right to Bear Arms tonight 12/2 at 9 p.m. and tomorrow 12/3 at 3 p.m. all in Babbio 122! Our terrific teams of talented troops trained tirelessly for this and their teamwork is top-tier. Hope to see you there!
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