The semester continues with amazing experiences during what is considered the most beautiful season of all: fall. Even though workload starts to increase with projects, I still found time to check off some items from my bucket list.
First of all, visiting a friend in Saint Louis, Missouri over a free weekend was amazing. It was truly the Heartland of America. Saint Louis is known as ‘the Gateway to the West’, as the initial expeditions to expand America to the West started from here. Washington University is another well known university in America. I simply couldn’t resist, even on my weekend off, to spend some time on campus, and visit the Engineering faculty of Wash U.
In the spirit of supporting the sport teams at Columbia and my passion for basketball, I attended the Basketball mania event. It was a great evening, dunk contest, cheerleading and dance performances, marching band songs and of course also the possibility for a student to try once a mid-court shot to win tuition for a semester (unfortunately she did not make the shot).
The highlight of the month for the campus is Halloween. This is heavily celebrated in America, with decorations popping up everywhere! I had a modest costume, by making myself the chest piece of Iron Man. Of course, as an Engineering student, I 3D printed the case, lasercutted the plexi glass centerpiece and soldered the electronics.
I helped out with some electrical projects as well for the FSAE – Columbia University Formula racing club. This has been a great learning experience for me. In their free time, students build a formula racing car. Usually this is with a combustion engine, but this year they are attempting to build an electrical version as well. I can use more of my knowledge for the latter, so at some occasions I have been helping out and debugging or optimizing their schematics and circuits.
As delightful ending of this busy period, I attended the “Energy Harvesting from Infrastructure and Ocean Systems” (EHIOS) conference by ECI. It was an enriching three-day event with a beautiful view on the skyline of Manhattan, from Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken New Jersey.
Now it is time to dive into more assignments, exams and projects.
Arnaud from KU Leuven to Columbia University 