I got a Thesis!

Wow, so it's been almost 2 full months since I've posted anything on here. It's certainly not for lack of activity. I would like to apologize to all my faithful readers for the blogging hiatus (that's pretty much just y0u, Mom). So, in the last two months I've basically just been super busy. This semester of school is really kicking my butt. My missile class is taking up a vast majority of my time, so I've been neglecting my other two classes and research for the most part. That will all be over Monday. Our missile presentations happen Monday. Eeek.

The professor has still been in the business of changing guidelines and adding side projects all week, and we finally had to put our foots down (so to speak). No more changes! You can't be adding stuff to a project this big less than a week before it's due, that's just cruel. So, anyway, this week I've been devoted to writing my technical report and making pretty slides in PowerPoint. Lee, of the Superfriends, says, if you can't impress them with fact, wow them with pretty formatting. That's my plan. I'm presenting first (my choice) which has its advantages but also its disadvantages. I'll be out of the way and can enjoy the other presentations and I'm a nervous speaker so I won't have too much time to freak out and be nervous ahead of time. On the other hand, I'll have no idea what sort of questions they may ask me, so in lieu of a blank stare following a tough question I'm just going to feign deafness.

The biggest news of all lately is that I got a thesis topic!!!! I pinned down Dr. Kimble (aka Dr. Nowhere To Be Found) on Monday to ask him about classes for the summer. He suggested I take thesis, to which I replied, Gee, do I have a thesis? Not really, of course, but something to that effect but nicer. So, we talked about it and decided on a thesis. He gave me some choices, and they're all heavily programming related (ugh!) but I chose the one that didn't involve wavelets, because they are the devil.

Ok, so I know what you're thinking....Amy, what is your thesis topic? Well, that's an excellent question. It's basically working with Tensegrity structures to develop a generalized method to solve for equilibrium position and determine structural properties and natural frequencies. It's something that has sort of been done before, but not in a general way for any tensegrity structure, and not with very well fleshed out proof.

The exciting thing is I start taking thesis this summer, which means tons of research work, but only one real class, and after that I only have one more class - in the fall, and I could potentially graduate in December!!! Real world, here I come!!!