Tampa Trip

Just got back an hour ago from my Conference. I must say that was the most dissapointing conference I've ever been to. There were no prospective employers for me, and it seems everything taht we did failed. First was my speech. After being promised an over 100 turnout, I believe like 20 people came, of that 5, my friends. Next my Poster session. Instead of being an undergraduate design poster competition it was an international Biological Poster challenge, with people of all ages and different countries, with an insane amout of funding what it looked like. My poster looked so drab and dull next to theirs, even though I must admit, the judges did say mine was the most interesting. So I didnt win taht apparently. Then came the Fountain Wars design competition. We had 2 different things to do. 1. An obstacle course. Hit a coke can 30 feet away, put out a tiki torch 25 feet away and roll a 2 litre coke bottle 10 feet away, by 2 feet. All using water power of course. 2. Launch a tennis ball as far as possible using only water power, i.e no compressed gas. Distance traveelled over time taken is used in determining rankings. At our presentation, it was obvious that we were going to win. Noone else even came close to our 180 feet in 8 second launch time. The closest was 60 feet in 10 seconds. But nope. One of the guys forgot some vital stuff in the labs here, and hence we didnt manage to build it on the 1 1/2 hr time frame we got. So, some penalty in points there. Of course the worst had to happen and due to technical reasons we only launched the ball half the distance in twice the time. Frustrating, yes. But I wasnt in charge of that part, so it wasnt really my problem. My part was the obstacle course. So, anyways, I'd never tested my design, it was just supposed to work in theory. One team had a nozzle extending 15 feet towards the fuckin coke can, which I thought was fuckin bullshit, except the judges( by the way our College has had the unfortunate circumstance of being hated by almost every other school, due to rivalry in sports) But as it is, I managed to knockout both coke can and roll the bottle the fastest. Then came the tiki torch. I swear we were set up. I put it out once, and walked away from my nozzle with the crowd in insane applause being the fastest to finish. Then surprisingly, the tiki torch comes back on. I already had walked like 20 steps away. Running back, I did it again, and put it out. Looked at it for 10 secs to make sure it was out, and walked away. 2 steps later, it comes back on. At that point I just wanted to take out my hammer and completely destroy my water gun. I couldnt think of anything more frustrating. So there, my crappy weekend. At least I can say it was sort of a vacation. I think we drank almost every night, and had a really great time outside the conference, but in retrospect, I think they could have done a better job at organizing the employer meeting student thing. Sigh. The Job hunt will continue.

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