Kevin Hancock

I am doing fine.  Time seems to be moving very fast and I don't seem to get anything done.  I got my third project down for Thermo and my next one is due on Tuesday of next week.  I am leaving tomorrow for South Taiwan.  A group of us are doing some last minute travels before we all leave.  We will be going to two cities.  We are staying two nights at someone's house and one night in a hotel.  I will be taking the high speed train Thursday night.  I am thinking I will really enjoy this vacation.  But when I get back I will need to work very hard to get everything done.

About two weeks from now I will be heading to the airport.  Time has gone very fast.  Especially these last few weeks.  My last two weeks are incredibly full.  I have 4, possibly 5, days of company visits.  I have two projects for Thermo to complete, my class meets all day on the days that I am not on a company visit, and I need to build my design.  I will have to build the design last minute and after hours. 

Last week I did one company visit with a Solar Cell company.  It went well.  I am learning a lot from all these tours.  My class has been going well also.  Today I learned about smart grid.  There is a lot I could share about this topic.  Just ask sometime and I will explain it to you.  I love being able to see the future.  In summary, your house energy usage will be uploaded to the internet and you can control your house from your computer.  Also, did you know you can buy an adapter to turn your power outlets into internet connections.  No need for Ethernet plug-ins and you can now have internet in any room.

My weekend went well.  I went to south Taiwan and hiked up a mountain.  We got there in time to see the sun rise but it was too cloudy.  We stopped on the road and saw monkeys in the wild.  They hang out in this area because people feed them.  It was a lot of fun to see them jump on the cars and buses.  You could get extremely close to them.  I have some pictures up, but I can't upload the videos I took. 

On Sunday, I went to north Taiwan.  I went and saw some waterfalls.  We also visited a Taiwanese pastry store.  We got to try many samples.  The food was very delicious.  We stopped at a beach to see the scenery and then headed to a night market for dinner.  The night market was very large and there was tons of food.  I had some lamb noodle soup.  There was a nice park at the night market where we ate.  I really enjoyed just relaxing and being surrounded by the culture.

Some of the pictures can speak for themselves because I am too busy to explain everything.  Peace!

Well, I just got back from a fun filled weekend.  It was really neat to see another side of Taiwan, the beautiful side.  But first I will talk about the days leading up to this weekend.

My job has been fun and a great experience.  Like I said before, I have finished my design.  I have been designing a mechanical hoist that will raise and lower a projector.  I am working for Tatung but for a sub company called Toes.  Toes does designs for robotics.  For my job, the university is having Toes make a mechanical hoist for a research project.  They are doing some research on projecting a 360 degree image.  The projector will point up at a cone mirror and will display an image on a circular screen.  They need a hoist to vary the height of the projector.  I have been assigned to design this machine and to assemble it. 

The guys in the research lab, my work friends that I talk about, showed me what they needed made and I got to design it.  It has been a long process of finding ways to make my design better.  I am very happy with the end result and a few pictures are now posted.  On Thursday, I gave my design to another company to get an estimate on the cost for materials and for manufacturing the metal plates.  Once we have the cost I can present this information to the research lab and they will have to give the okay to order the parts.  Once those parts come in, I can fully assemble the robot.  Until then, I can do some pre-assembly with the parts we have.

My classes have been fine.  Thermo keeps me busy.  The green energy one has been insightful.  I enjoy learning about alternative energy sources.  It is exciting to get a preview of how we will be getting our energy in the future.  I will be doing a company visit to Green Energy Co.  They make thin film solar panels.  I get to see how it will be possible to wear solar panel clothes.  Thin Film is flexible and can be shaped to anything.  I got sized for a complete clean suit, that I will be wearing in the company.  This will be a two day company visit.

On Thursday, I got with some friends and we made dumplings.  Dumplings are very popular here.  We just stretched the dough and put meat in them.  It was then a trick to try and fold them up to look pretty. 

I seriously had a blast at the water park.  It was a great park and there was a lot to do.  The slides were fun and our group of friends just had a good time with one another.

Then there was this weekend.  Roger, Sam, Eric, Anne Sophie, and I went to Rogers city.  It was near Taichung and happened to be the exact center of Taiwan.  We took a charter bus there, a four hour drive.  We then took another bus to a lake.  We spent the day at this lake.  When we were on the bus we happened to meet some teachers from Canada.  We always meet the English speakers in Taiwan.  They wanted to have lunch together so we ate at a local restaurant there.  I had some more weird food.  After that Roger, Sam, Eric, Anne Sophie, and I rented bikes.  We started riding around the lake.  We would stop at temples and any other sights we found interesting.  We had to split up for a while and Eric, Sam and I went on a gondola ride. 

Later that night we went to a restaurant near Roger's grandma's house.  The restaurant had a hot pot at each spot you sat.  You would get the food you wanted and then cook it yourself.  We spent the night at Roger's grandma' house.  I liked the fact that I got to see the inside of a Taiwanese house. 

On Sunday we went to the top of a mountain.  It took about an hour to get to the top by bus.  The top had a farm area.  It was a tourist place and there was lots of food venders there.  There was even a Starbucks.  The view was unbelievable.  We took tons of pictures.

I have posted a lot of pictures from all of the activities that I just talked about so take a look.

I am very busy lately and I don't have time to sit down and write about my day.  So I will give a few things that I have been up to and a few things I am going to do.  I can go into detail on my next blog.  It is late and I need to sleep.  However, I am leaving for the weekend so I figured I better say something.

I finished my design of the projector hoist.  I will explain what it is and post some pictures soon.  I will do some building next week but most of the assembly will be when the parts come, in a week and a half.  My green energy class is going good.  I did a lab today, we made a certain type of solar cell.  My thermo class moving quickly but I will get through it. 

Today I went to a water park to celebrate someone's birthday.  It was a lot of fun.  Tomorrow I am going to a city in the middle of Taiwan, Taiung.  My Taiwan roommate lives there so all of us roommates are going there.  We will hang out at a lake on Saturday and go hiking on Sunday. 

I will tell more later.  bye bye.

I am still here, safe and sound.  I have been busy with school, work, and fun activities.
I am still working on my design for work.  There is a lot that goes into designing and getting it ready to be made.  My design will be sent to a manufacturer who will make the parts I designed.  So my sketches need to be correct and detailed.  I still have to do some work with the part list and a few changes on the design.  I think I understand why it is important to know about both design and manufacturing.  I designed a part that I now need to change because it would be difficult to make and it would cost too much. This next week I will finish my design.  I will then put it together once the parts come in.

Thermodynamics has been challenging.  The hardest part is not having anyone to do it with.  When I need to ask the professor a question he is often sleeping due to the time difference.  I got my program done today and I just have a little bit more to do for my project that is due Tuesday.  I also have a test on Tuesday.  I am not sure what we will be learning about in my green energy class this week.  I hope it is an interesting topic.

There were some Spanish students here for about a year.  They left on Saturday so we hung out on Thursday and Friday.  On Thursday they made Spanish food.  Mostly pasta.  On Friday we went t0 a restaurant.  At the table there was a spinning tray.  The food would go on it and we could grab what we wanted from it.  It was delicious.

On Saturday I went to a baseball game.  It had the same rules as in America but the crowd acted different.  There was a small band for each team and they were really loud, chanting and drumming when their batter was hitting.  Some players have their own song.  The crowd all had noise makers and got really into it.  I have new pictures posted so check them out.

After I got back from the game, another group of people wanted me to go do karaoke with them.  They call it KTV and it is extremely popular in Taiwan and China.  You go in a private room with your friends.  There is a karaoke machine and you just eat and sing.  All the songs have music videos, which is a little different then in America.  There were English songs, so i did my share of singing too.  They can speak English as well, so we all sang many English songs together.

Today, I went to church with two friends.  I enjoyed taking them there.  One had gone to church last week with me, for the first time.  It was the other guy's first time today.  I plan on hanging out with some of the people that I have met from that church again.  They asked me today, if I wanted to go to Green Island with them in the end of July.  That would be a possibility.  I also may be able to help out at a little kids church camp where the kids are learning English. 

I love all the opportunities I am getting. 

My class started on Monday, it is now Wednesday and I had my second class today.  I enjoyed class today.  We learned about photocatylists.  It was very interesting.  It is a method of using light to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen.  It can then be used for many thing such as, cleaning, filtration, energy, fuel cells, and more.  I found the part about fuel cells very interesting.    They can get free energy by only using water and a little bit of a chemical agent.  When the photocatylist works with the fuel cell the water, hydrogen, and oxygen can be recycled through the system.  This system also uses the air for oxygen and the sun for the light.  It is not developed enough to mass produce but they can do experimental models of it.  We may get to make a photocatylist. 

My work is continuing to go well.  I finished drawing the parts and assembling them.  I still have more work to do with the 2D sketches.  2D sketches will be used when we build the parts.  I also have to number the parts and do an animation.  I willlearn how to program the motor to work with a controller.  I think the standard parts will be ordered tomorrow.

I have a Thermo project and test coming up.  I will need to do some homework and study this week.  Busy, busy, busy.  But I always am!

Happy fourth of July.  My Fourth was eventful.  I did a lot of tourist things.  I started my day by going to church.  I was asked if I wanted to go to church with a friend from work.  He has a friend who has a christian girlfriend.  Them, my friend's girlfriend, and I (the fifth wheel) went to church.  I didn't know it was going to be a completely Chinese service! 

After that we went and got some food.  If you don't like hearing about what I ate then don't read this paragraph.  They ordered some traditional Chinese food.  I have been here for around a month now, and haven't had this stuff yet.  I was avoiding it, but they ordered several small plates of things and asked me to try them all.  So I did.  I would try it, then ask what it was.  Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have ate the pig ear!  I had shark sushi, fish skin, then the pig parts: ear, tongue, lung, and intestine.  I didn't like the fish skin or the pig ear, they were hard and tough.  I could eat the tongue and the sushi.

My friend,  Barry, and his girlfriend, Olive, then took me to see some sights in Taipei.  We went to a miniatures museum.  It had little toy like statues of houses and people around the world.  We then went to see the Memorial Hall, the picture that is on the top of my website.  It was a famous building for their soldier who fled to Taiwan to be away form China during their civil war.  So on the Fourth of July, I went to a memorial for Taiwan's Independence!    The cool thing about this place was the soldiers.  They stood by the huge statue of the leader.  They did not move for an hour.  They would then switch soldiers at the hour.  It would be a big event, very serious and rehearsed.  They did some cool tricks with their guns as well. 

Our last stop was the Storyhouse of Taiwan.  It was in the basement of a building with many antiques from Taiwan.  There were fake rooms to show how things were in the olden times.  We took some pictures and ate some kind of tofu soup.  It wasn't tofu but it was its just as evil twin! 

Well my class starts tomorrow.  I am glad I am finally starting it.  The college had to wait until the students were done with their school and the professors were done with grading.  My class will be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in the morning.  As I have said before, it is on green energy.  I will now be balancing work, green energy class, thermo 2 class, other projects I know of, and experiencing the culture.

I worked on my project on Friday.  I got all the parts put together as a rough draft.  I will need to make some changes so things work out better.  I am thankful for this opportunity to problem solve and learn from designing.  For lunch on Friday I had Japanese food.  It was like a tenderloin on rice and eggs.  Everything in Taiwan is served with either Rice or noodles.  Even my steak Friday night.  Friday night I went to the big outdoor mall area again.  We ate, shopped, and watched some soccer.  I was sad to see Brazil lose that night.  Saturday I woke up around 9:30 and played some basketball.  It was too hot so we didn't play very long.  I wanted to play badminton but some of the gyms are closed right now.  The rest of the day I didn't do much.  Just watched TV and relaxed.  I also did a little bit of Thermo homework.

In past few days I have been working and doing some school work.  The second day of the Semiconducting company tour was good.  We saw the second half of the factory.  I was able to see how silicon is formed and some cool mechanical devices that wash the semiconductors. 

On wednesday, I started working for Toes.  I was given some CAD drawings and was told to draw them so they would have the files on hand.  They only receive PDF's from companies that they buy from.  The part is a mechanical arm of a robot.  The arm has many little complex parts.  I started drawing the parts individually on the computer using Autodesk Inventor.  This is the program I have experience using.  That afternoon I was given another  assignment.  The guys in the Robotics lab need a mechanical hoist to move a projector up and down.  They asked me to design one as part of my internship.  They are doing research on projecting an image in a cone mirror and making a 360 degree image.   They want to vary the projector height.  I am designing the table, mechanical system, and the projector holder.  I spent Wednesday drawing up some sketches by hand.  I needed to get an idea for what they wanted.  I also created some dimensions using the projectors dimensions.

Today I took the sketches and designed the parts on Autodesk.  This has been great practice and a lot of fun for me.  I can tell I am in the right major.  I love designing.  Tomorrow I will put the parts together and maybe do some automation with them.  Next week I will build the device.  When I am done, I will do some more CAD drawings for Toes and what ever else they want me to do.

I am still trying to plan this weekend.  I want to go see something in Taiwan.  Maybe the zoo, memorial hall, a museum, a night market, or something else.  Next weekend I am going to go to a Taipei baseball game.