Hiatus

Well I have a very busy summer schedule, and probably won't be able to post anything for... eh, about five weeks. Busy summer! For the time being, about everything is on hiatus for a while, until after I get back on track with life and everything.


Love you all!

How to Build a 1:20 Scale Model of the Doctor's TARDIS: Phase 1

Yes, you read that right. I am going to attempt to make a miniature TARDIS. I imagine it will take a bit of work, but it will be awesome!

Today, I completed Phase 1: Math.

I decided to make my TARDIS 1:20 scale, because I wanted it to be 6 inches tall. That meant that a TARDIS that is 10 feet tall is equal to a TARDIS that is 6 inches tall when you divide it by 1/20, or .05.

I found a picture of a TARDIS with the height next to it. It was probably in meters, but I decided that It was in feet. I'm not good with the metric system. I calculated that one foot was equivalent to approximately 18 pixels, so I set up two basic formulas:

(p/18)12=f, where p is the number of pixels in a particular measurement and f is the inches the full scale TARDIS measurement is.

  f           i   
  1   =   .05, where f is the value we got from the last formula and i is the inches the scale measurement should be.

That's basically what I did for each measurement. If you want all of the measurements, here they are!

FINGERS ON LIPS!

This is one of my favorite scenes in Doctor Who yet. I've started to wonder if this attempt to watch various sci-fi TV shows this summer has turned into an obsession...

Yes, yes it has.

I've been watching for around four days, and finished a whole season in one day... For the past two nights I've stayed up until... oh, around 4 AM watching Doctor Who and talking about it with my friend Katie. Bahaha I love her to death, I don't know of anyone else that would stay up watching Doctor Who until almost morning. (Well, except for me, of course)

It's gotten to the point where all of my thoughts are in a British accent... That's loads of fun! It's great, my mental British accent is magnificent, but my real one is awful. I also keep thinking about what I would do if I had my very own TARDIS... That would be fantastic!

I was really sad at the end of season two... If you haven't seen it or you don't want it spoiled...

SPOILER ALERT!

Well.. Now that that's done, lets get to the good stuff. I loved Rose! She had been traveling with the doctor for two seasons. She can't just go and figuratively die! It was at least a clever way to write her off. When the Eccleston doctor regenerated into the Tennant doctor, I was a little disappointed, but now I love Tennant!

Well that was a fun little rant. Off to-- you guessed it-- watch Doctor Who. :D

Tired...

Last night, I stayed up until about 4:00 AM watching Doctor Who. It's late now, so this is going to be all for tonight.

Greenroll'd

I love my friends. We came up with this new idea called Greenrolling.

It's like Rickrolling, where you give someone the link the Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" unsuspectedly. It's one of the most popular ways to troll.

Basically my friend Carl made a bunch of green photos and put them on Facebook. It was for a video he's making. I went and tagged him in all of those pictures, so the default pictures on his profile were all green. Then his brother Christian did the same thing to me, so then all of MY default pictures were green, and thus Greenrolling was born. Have fun with it!

The Open Door: Day 4

I had a good day. I went to my brother's 8th grade dance. It was fun! I decided that tonight I'm going to write something short, since it's already 9:30...

I have a summer project. I am going to watch as many sci-fi TV series' and movies as I can. I'm starting with Doctor Who, and I'm probably going to watch Stargate next. If you have any suggestions as to what I should watch, let me know!

The Open Door: Day 3

Hm... day three!


I didn't really do anything today other than sleep in, so I don't exactly have anything to write about. I posted on Facebook to give me suggestions, and my friends Addy and Olivia suggested pie. I was never told what exactly about pie, so I guess I'll have to include everything.
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Pie: A History

Pie is a baked dish, usually composed of a crust and a filling. The crust can either be more of a shell, where pie has an open face exposing the filling, or in can completely encase the filling. The filling can be... well, anything you want to put in a convenient pastry. Pies can be either sweet (for desert) or savory (as an entrée, appetizer  side, basically anything else) and can be made in sizes anywhere from big pies with multiple servings  to one-bite pies.

It is believed that the ancient Greeks are the origin of pie pastry. They used a flour paste (basically flour mix with fat, the most simple form of a pastry) to encase meats to seal in juices, help in the cooking process, and it was much easier for soldiers to carry at sea. 

In Europe, meat pies are much more common than in the United States. They are almost like the European version of fast food, because they are very convenient. However, the United States is known for their pot pies with flaky crusts and creamy meat fillings. Fruit pies in America are often served à la Mode, meaning they are served with a scoop of ice cream. It is also common to put excessively large amounts of whipped cream (or Cool Whip, which is common with pumpkin pie) on top of pie.

In popular culture, cream pies are often used as props and are thrown into people's faces. The term for throwing a pie in someone's face is called pieing. 

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Unless Addy made a typo, I believe this short essay will do nicely. If, in fact, she did mean pi, here's another essay.

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π

Some people are like pi. They're simply irrational.

Pi is a mathematical constant, representing the ratio of a circle's circumference to its 

diameter. It is a never ending decimal, and it never repeats.

For more information, please click here.

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I would write more, but the Wikipedia page on Pi is longer than the page about life. That's a liiiitle sad.

Addy and Olivia, I hope this was satisfactory.

The Open Door: Day 2

Why hello there, internet peoples!

Today was a good great AMAZING day. I took my foods exam (EASY!) went to the pool with some friends, and I've basically been doing nothing since. I have over two months to do whatever I want. YES! I really just want to have an epic dance party. This feels awesome, to not have to worry about ANYTHING for TWO MONTHS!!!! *flails like a crazed muppet* It's great doing actual school and stuff, but this summer is going to rock.

One thing I'm doing this summer is going on Footprints. Footprints is basically a week long hiking trip along the Appalachian Trail (AT) with girl scouts. I went in 2009, but I ended up falling a spraining my wrist. Again, in 2010 I was supposed to go, but that whole spine fiasco took place. I FINALLY get to go!! I love hiking. It really is a good experience. I love going places where most people can't say they've been to. Tops of mountains are also great places to take pictures!

Another thing I'm doing is going to the beach. I really just want to do and do absolutely nothing. We usually spend a week in the outer banks, but we couldn't do it this year because of school schedules. But we're gonna go deep sea fishing, go to a bunch of awesome restaurants, and just do nothing!

An ongoing thing that I'm doing this summer is selling cakes. I like baking, so I decided to make it a summer job.

My friend Carl who's on Team PyroTech with me likes video editing. He showed me this contest where you have to make a short video about duct tape. We decided that we're going to team up and make an epic video and win the $5,000 grand prize!!!

I love life. Isn't that nice? I think I'm going to go find someone to hug now. Bye!!!

The Glass Door: Version 2.0 - The Open Door: Day 1

If you are reading this, chances are that you have read my blog before. Assuming you have read this blog before, you probably have not even thought about this blog for about five or six months. The reason you have not thought about this blog for five or six months is probably because I haven't posted on this blog for five or six months. I am about to tell you why.

Hello, my name is Megan, and in the past six months, I have completely changed as a person.

Even though I may not have known it, I have always wanted to be an aerospace engineer. It's a dream that I've been pursuing my whole entire life, not even being aware of it half of the time. I had the grades, the attitude, the ambition, until I hit a small bump in the road.

It all started around January or February of this year. The new semester had started, the FRC build season had been kicked off, my back was starting to feel a heck of a lot better, and life was good. Really, really good. 

Classes were going smooth. I liked all of my teachers. (or could at least tolerate all of them...) I was doing the work, turning in my assignments, usually with little effort involved. That's usually how it's gone with me. I've never really had all that much trouble in school. 

I was having so much fun with robots, it basically took over my life. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it was in some cases. During the first quarter, I would say to myself "Well, I have an A in the class right now. Missing one homework assignment wouldn't hurt..." and boy was I wrong. I just stopped doing work. My grades were slipping. I became really stressed and not my normal self at all. My teachers were getting mad at me, my parents were getting mad at me, but most of all, I was getting mad at me. 

Regionals happened. Probably the greatest experience I have ever had in my entire life. Our robot, Team PyroTech's robot, the robot that 12 dedicated students put all their time and effort into (for the first time even!) was going to compete. We all had it in our minds that as rookies, we would place low and just have the event be a learning experience. After the first day of tinkering, testing, and practice matches, we still had that idea. But after the first day of actual matches, we all realized that we had a shot. This thing that we had all created, together, was amazing. It had brought us far, in the competition, in outreach, and in our team. This 'thing' I'm referring to is not the robot at all, but the bond that we created, the family that we built, in such a short time, to create Team PyroTech. In this period of time, we managed to meet, build a robot, and become a family .At the awards ceremony, we won the Rookie All-Star award. That meant that we basically were the best rookie team there. It meant that we showed effort, enthusiasm, and most importantly, gracious professionalism. That was the absolute best feeling ever. It also meant that we had a spot at the FRC World Championships. Let me say that again-- WORLD. CHAMPIONSHIPS. Very few teams had the honor of going, and a tiny team from rural North Carolina, got to go. 

During the short three days of the competition, I realized that the dream I was pursuing, to be an aerospace engineer, wasn't going to happen if I didn't step it up. 

About a week passed, and I was doing better in school, but not great. I was still missing assignments in some classes, and grades weren't up by much. But still, my parents were kind enough to let me go to St. Louis for Worlds. 

You know that thing about the regional being the greatest experience in my entire life? Scratch that. Worlds was amazing. It litterally changed my life. Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST (and the inventor of the Segway! :D) was there. Woodie Flowers, the co-founder of FIRST was there. Will Smith was there. Morgan Freeman was there. The Black Eyed Peas were there. Yes, THE Black Eyed Peas. (I did have fun stalking Will.I.Am xD) Seeing all the famous people was fun and all, but that's not the point.

Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers are the kind of people who make you feel like you can do anything if you listen to them talk for five minutes. When I heard their speeches about being the future of tomorrow, I knew that I really had to kick it up a notch.

In that short period of time that I had with my team, I learned more about life than I had... ever.

I came back wanting to kick it up a notch, and that's exactly what I did. I brought my algebra grade up from a high D to a high C (literally about two tenths of a point away from a B...) my programming grade up from a D to a B, and my biology grade up from a C to an A. For the last ten days of school, I spent two to three hours at a math tutor so I could get my grades up. I stayed for after school help, and that did the trick. 

I've been thinking about the title of this blog lately. "The Glass Door." I like it. But stating that there's a door implies that you cannot enter. From now on, this door will be open, to all and to anyone.

Being on that robotics team has really changed my life for the better. Every time I think about the experience that I had, I just feel like hugging every one of my team members. I truly cannot express the love I have for that team. Next season will be even better. To all of my family, I love you, for... well... basically everything. My friends, the same. To all members of Team PyroTech, expect a giant bear hug from me next time I see you. For now, I have to sit back, relax, and enjoy my summer. After that, tenth grade, here I come.