SPEECH!

Okay! My speech is TODAY. Now. It’s going to be livestreamed on Facebook here. I can’t make this post too long, but oh man, I am so excited and nervous and kind of tense all wrapped up into one big ball of anxiousness. Anyway, wish me luck! (Oh, and I hope your exam week is going well! Be sure to get a good amount of sleep!)

Lehigh Valley 3rd Annual Intercollegiate LGBTQIA Conference

So! March 29th. Mark your calendars. Lehigh Valley’s LGBTQIA Intercollegiate Conference returns! More information as it’s given, but for right now, just know that it’s happening, and it’s going to have all sorts of events and panels and information sessions and even a keynote speaker–Kye Allums, the first openly transgender NCAA Division 1 college athlete.

Registration is here, site facebook page is here, official site is here. The official site has links to all that if you don’t feel like poking through my carefully-arranged hyperlinks. ;D

Other topics include intersex conditions, transgender issues, ally sessions, LGBT+ in media, finding your voice in the bedroom, workplace equality, and marriage equality–full list of topics/events here.

I’m definitely going. Lehigh is becoming a much more welcoming place to people of various minorities, and it is a glorious thing.

Let’s see, other things. Today and tomorrow are the last days to fill out my survey! (At least, to win a gift card, that is. I’m leaving the survey open for personal research.) I’ll be picking someone to win the gift card/Paypal money at 3:30PM EST on Sunday and notifying the winner by email. People, come on, please take the survey. It’s as long or short as you want it to be. You can write me an essay or one-word answers. I don’t care. I NEED MORE DATA BEFORE MY SPEECH. (To those who have already taken it, THANK YOU!)

Ah yes, I’ve also gotten more information on the speech event! I can’t find it on any of the school calendars, though. Anyway, it’s called Lehigh Speaks, and the theme is “Challenging Global Concepts.” April 4th from 2PM-6PM in Linderman Library Rm. 200! Come watch me give a speech in front of people and a camera. Oh, and if you come, prepare to have your mind blown. I guarantee that you will never think of gender in the same way. (And, if you miss it, I’ll have videos.)

And on a more academic note–major declaration day is coming up. Hoo, boy. I know I want to do mechanical engineering, but… I also want to minor in three different things. Aerospace engineering, electrical engineering (robotics, specifically), and technical theater. I mean, no one’s going to forbid me from just… minoring in all three.

Ay. Big decisions must be made. Hope your own decision-making goes nice and smoothly. Good luck!

Hope everyone had a good spring break! + programmable microcontrollers

So! The usual well-wishing and greetings to ya! I hope everyone’s spring break was relaxing. Mine was. Well, most of the time. My car had a pretty serious malfunction, and I got a little sad to leave, but now I’m back at Lehigh and already back in the rhythm of things.

One aside before I launch into the rest of this post: if you haven’t taken my survey, please do! It’s for a speech about gender that I’m putting together to be presented in April. The survey is open to literally anyone, even non-Lehigh-affiliated people, and you can have a chance to win an Amazon or Paypal gift card! If the link above doesn’t work, just type in bit.do/gendersurvey2014 into your browser window. You can also complete it on mobile browsers if you prefer to do things on-the-go.

Now then, on to other things. I’ve seen a fair few posts about the Arduino controllers the Engineering 10 class is using, and as much as I hate to follow suit… the things are so darn cool. You can do all sorts of crazy stuff with them. Although all we’ve been doing in class is lighting up LEDs, you can do SO many other things with them–the only limit is your imagination (and, well, coding proficiency, I guess).

A couple things people have made with Arduinos: drawing programs operated by nothing but your eyeballs (awesome idea for enabling people with movement disabilities/severe paralysis with better communication!), tree-climbing robots, a biking jacket with LED turn signals, a flame-throwing jack-o-lantern, a chess-playing robot (Noah, I swear I will make you one of these one day), a wireless chess set you can play over a distance, a Twitter-powered coffee machine, and even a retractable iPhone-controlled hydraulic kitchen island. Click each thing for more info on the project, and even tutorials.

Now, admittedly, most of these projects require auxiliary equipment, like LEDs, cameras, magnets, servos, and in the case of the kitchen island, a giant hydraulic scissor lift, but the Arduinos are the things that make all those things actually work. I plan on messing around with the Arduino outside of class, too. See? Classes can show you some pretty awesome stuff sometimes.

For more info on the EyeWriter (eyeball drawing program), see here.