Merit Presentation:

   This week I've been working on my Merit Presentation for the Industrial Designer's Society of America (IDSA) conference in April. The Merit Presentation is a way for senior industrial design students from all different universities to show what we have learned. It is a great honor to be able to present at the IDSA conference because only one student from each university is allowed to present. I am up against two other classmates, Stephen and Jordan. Us three will present some design projects we have worked on throughout the past few years. We can present whatever we want, so each of us have very different projects to show. Our presentation is Friday, April 5th here on campus. We present to judges that are not associated with Iowa State, so they do not know who we are. The judges will choose one of us to present at the IDSA conference in Indianapolis. 
   Today, I've been fixing up a project I worked on in Rome last summer. I designed a Lamborghini wine set. The set includes four wine bottle stoppers, a bottle opener, a corker, and a foil cutter. I also designed a case that holds all of those tools. The case is supposed to be an abstracted shape of a Lamborghini car. Here is my final design that I will add to my Merit Presentation (you can click the pictures to see them bigger/better):

 Foil Cutter

 Corker

 Bottle Stopper (can hold the cork after it is removed)

 Bottle Opener

   The other projects I am showing in my presentation are Calphalon, PWC dashboard, and my Kayak senior thesis. 

That is all I have for today. I've gotta get back to work. 

Second Day in Maine:

   I sat in on a lecture for the Yacht Design program today. I didn't stay long, but it was still very nice to hear what they are currently learning about. They had a guest lecturer in to talk about his yacht design company. 

   I think I've found a place to live. Dad and I looked through the housing list and picked out a place that is rented out by a person who lives on the property. It is a house right on the ocean. It overlooks a bay that has the fishing and lobster boats coming in and out. I'd live on the lower level with a private entrance. The woman who lives upstairs is a retired school teacher and a dog lover. There were two dogs there to greet me when we looked around the place. Here are a couple pictures of the place. The current tenant was a little messy. But I know I can add my design flare to it and make it look nice. Mom... There is an ice cream shop just down the road. 

   This house is close to the restaurant Dad and I ate at last night as well as a lobster shack that Dad thought looked cool. The picture of me below has the restaurant in the background (the blue building). And then another picture of the restaurant below that. 

    Dad and I drove up to Portland today and checked into a new hotel. We ate at the Dry Dock. There was a "Dry Dock Lady" who was a lot like Mom. She came to talk to us with a sling on her arm from shoulder surgery. Then our waitress later said that she can't believe the boss is back at work already because she just had surgery a week ago. Sounds like someone I know. 
   After lunch we walked around to find a place to eat supper. While we were out, we walked on a pier that had the offices for Sabre yachts. Sabre is the company owned by a man from Des Moines who graduated from The Landing School. Maybe I will get to meet him next year and talk about Iowa :) 

   While we were walking around, we noticed some friendly seagulls that got really close hoping we had a french fry to feed them. 

   Tonight we ate at a restaurant we stumbled upon after lunch. Guess what table dad chose to sit at? It had a view of the water... and a view of this...

   We share some lobster. It was very good. Mom, I should probably just drive by our house on our way home tomorrow and go strait to Snap and run on that treadmill the rest of the night... but that brownie I ate tonight was very good. 

   Our flight is very early tomorrow morning. So we hope to be home before dark. But I can't wait to get back here in September. 

The Tour:

   Dad and I made it to Maine late last night. The flights were messed up because of the blizzard in all of Maine yesterday. I am so glad we got here, though, because today was a very good day. I got to tour The Landing School.

   We left Portland this morning and ate lunch when we arrived in Kennebunkport. After lunch, we went to the Landing School for the tour. It exceeded my expectations. Everything they said and showed me was great. The facilities are new and continually improving. I walked through each of the four "programs" (Yacht Design, Marine Systems, Wooden Boat Building, and Composite Boat Building). The Yacht Design classroom looked like home for me. Each student has their own workspace just like what I am used to in the Armory at Iowa State. I had a chance to talk to the professor and he seemed like a great guy. He knows what Industrial Design is and says that that is a great background for me to bring to the program. That was good to hear. I looked at some of the student's work and it all looks like exactly what I was expecting. After today, I am so much more excited to join this school in the fall. Because it is a one-year program, the students I met today will not be there next year. They all graduate in June. 

   I was added to the school's Facebook group. This is a way for me to meet the new students who will be joining me in the fall. That is convenient. We were also given a long list of housing options. The School does not provide housing, so Dad and I plan on using a chunk of tomorrow to look at potential places to live. 

   Tonight we went out to eat at Pier 77. It is a restaurant on the water. Dad liked looking at all the fishing and lobster boats in the bay. I can tell he is happy. He misses this place and I like watching him and listening to how excited he gets about simple things like lobster traps and buoys. It makes me happy, too. 

   I plan on going back to The School tomorrow morning to listen to a lecture in the Yacht Design classroom. It'll be nice to hear what they are currently learning about. After the lecture and apartment hunting, Dad and I plan on driving back up to Portland (about 25 miles) and staying there tomorrow night.

P.S. The bed in our room is huge. I think this picture of dad next to the bed is funny. 

March 12: 

   I have been accepted to The Landing School :)

   Now I am even more excited to visit the school next week. Dad and I are flying out to Maine for a few days during my spring break to take a tour. If I like what I see, I intend to start their Yacht Design program in September. 

   If nothing comes up with school, I will come home tomorrow to start spring break. My sister, Kelly, is home on break from Idaho, so it will be nice to see her. I'm also excited to see Sammi. 

   Libby and I went to the movie Oz today. It was good. A couple parts made us laugh so hard we couldn't pay attention to the following few minutes of the movie. 

   Inspire is a magazine published by Iowa State. My design group and I are on the cover of the most recent issue. There is an article about the Paragon Car project I was involved in last semester. The project involved seven industrial designers working with a class of engineers to design a smart electric car for the Paragon company. 

   I don't have much else to say. I wish it would stop snowing. 

More snow:

   Ugh. We've been getting so much snow lately. It was finally starting to melt the past few days. It has been raining most of the day today, making the snow almost completely gone. I told Dad this morning that I could finally see the grass again. I even saw an earthworm moving across the sidewalk this morning! Whelp, the rain turned back to snow about an hour ago. So we are back to where we started. 

   I hope to be able to come home early this week for spring break. I only have class until Tuesday afternoon. So.... depending on this unpredictable weather, I'll try to make it back before the weekend starts. 

   I've been working in the Armory most of the day today. I've continued working on my sketches for the kayak seat. I need to wrap up my sketching phase by the end of this month so that I can start building my final model on CAD software. 

   We had a meeting on Friday to talk about our senior show. We set it up in a gallery space on Main Street on April 21st. The show will be up all week, displaying whatever we want to. I'll probably showcase most of my senior thesis kayak project as well as a couple other projects that I've done throughout the past few years. David, the program chair, has invited lots of industrial design professionals from across the country to come to our opening night, which is Friday, April 26. Sounds like a big deal. We'll have a little party that night so us students can have a chance to talk to the guests. We have to take down the show that following Sunday, so it unfortunately will not be up during graduation. 

   At our meeting on Friday we also talked about creating a graduation book. Think of it as kind of a yearbook... but better. It is meant to show the work that the graduating class has accomplished throughout the years. We each get to show three projects (I think?) that we enjoyed the most. The book will look very professional... a lot nicer than a high school yearbook... especially when it is made by designers. So I am excited to have that to look at after I leave Iowa State. 

   I don't have any more photos to add. No new pictures of my kayak stuff yet. Time to go cook some dinner.

Calm week ahead:

   Today I started sketching ideas for the seat of my creeker (the kayak I'm designing). It is coming along nicely.

  I got ahold of 3M today. I officially start the internship on May 28! I am so excited to get some real world industrial design work experience. My supervisor is the same gal who interviewed me. I like her a lot, so I am happy to know she will be helping me during my time at 3M this summer.

   I decided to attempt to make chicken strips tonight. From scratch. I even made up how to make the breading. Guess what? They didn't suck! I'm not going to say how I made them because I know Mom and Grandma will probably laugh at my inexperience with cooking... Libby thought I was making fish.

   I talked to one of our new professors today. He is from New Zealand and has a background in marine design. My studio professor, Steve, introduced us. His name is Erdem and I got to see some of the work he has done. I have to ask more questions to figure out what type of schooling he had and what companies he worked for. But it is nice to have someone to talk to about my creeker and future plans.

   This week I don't have any big events. So I'll just keep working on my design studio. Not too stressful.... a nice change of pace.

Let me catch up:

   I haven’t written in a blog since my trip to Rome last summer. A lot has happened since then. I’ll just highlight a few things: my senior thesis, 3M, and The Landing School.

    I am in my final semester of my senior year at Iowa State. I’ve been working hard on a senior thesis: designing a creek kayak. There are a lot of different kayaks, and I chose to design one that is used in whitewater creeks.

 I’ve learned so much about kayaks and how they are shaped in order to serve a specific purpose. I have to consider their volume, rocker, hull shape, chines, weight distribution, and much more. I chose to design a kayak because I am interested in marine design. I do not intend to make any revolutionary changes to my creek kayak. Instead, I chose this assignment for the learning outcomes: I want to know techniques and the problems faced in general marine design. This has helped me a lot with learning hull design. I’ve designed hulls on computer software and used a machine to carve out my designs into wood. I’ll eventually test these small boats in water to get a hands on idea of how they are different.

  There are many different kayak brands, and I’ve researched the pros and cons of each brand’s creekboat. I intend to make a hybrid of each brand that has the most positive qualities as possible. I met with the Canoe and Kayak Club here on campus. I’ll got to ask lots of questions and ride in a creek kayak myself. I thought I had done a lot of research, but I still learned more in that two hour visit that I could ever have imagined I would. I'm so glad I went. 

I went practiced how to escape the kayak if you are flipped upside down. I know what safety features to add now.

    I took a chance at finding an internship a few months ago by showing up at an Engineering Career Fair. We don’t have many industrial design firms come to the Design Career Fair, so I went to the engineering one instead. I visited the 3M company booth. I talked to them and showed them my portfolio and was offered an on-campus interview the next day. The interview was for a summer internship. It went well and I was told to be patient in hearing back from them. A few weeks ago, I heard that they were interested in a second interview. This time it was with three of their lead designers and the original woman who interviewed me on campus. The interview went well and I’ve been waiting to hear back. I got an email this morning that they would like to have me as their intern for this summer! I am very excited and can’t wait to get some real world experience outside of school. 

   The Landing School is in Maine. It is a marine design school. I have applied to join their one-year-long Yacht Design program. If accepted, I'll start there in the fall of 2013 after my 3M internship. At the end of the year, I will receive a diploma in yacht design. More information on that later. Let's just see if I get accepted first.