Networking, Caitlin-style

The first official TMS 2009 activity we participated in this past week in San Francisco was a student mixer. (Photos can be viewed here.) For some reason, the phrase “student mixer” conjures up images of sock hops and root beer floats in my mind, but this was not the case on Sunday night. Instead, a couple hundred materials science students and professors converged on a ballroom at the downtown Marriott and got down with their bad selves. The best part was getting to meet people from all over the world, from exotic places like Finland, Quebec, Germany, and Iowa.

(It’s worth mentioning at this point that OSU’s MSE contingent has become huge fans of McGill University and is currently in the planning stages of a road trip to Montreal spring quarter. Bonjour to Jen, Max, Theo, and Rosen!)

Somehow my networking skills have been reduced to inadvertently networking only with people who live in locations I’ve always wanted to visit. I end up feeling guilty that I can’t offer them a comparably cool place to visit – no offense, Columbus – but I assure them that in about four months, I am hopeful that I will be off to live someplace worth getting one’s passport stamped to visit. Many of my new international friends asked me variations on the question “What’s the most beautiful place in America?” (also phrased, Where should I visit the next time I’m in the States?). Instead of listing places that I love but I don’t think are worth traveling hundreds or thousands of miles to see (Hocking Hills in the autumn, I’m looking at you), I threw out some locations on the west coast. This is where my mind is these days, on beautiful beaches with temperatures above freezing. I also mentioned New York City as my favorite city to visit, since there’s an endless supply of fun things to do and delicious things to eat.

So, gentle reader, what would be your response to the question?

California, here I come

A bunch of us MSE kids are headed out to San Francisco for the annual TMS conference over the next few days. What will it be like to witness a conference center overtaken by materials engineers? If I’m able to snag some free wi-fi while I’m there, I’ll give you a glimpse of the event in somewhat real-time – otherwise, you’ll just have to hold your horses and wait till I get back to Columbus.

And if there’s a commemorative pocket protector vendor there… souvenirs for everyone!

Whispers of spring?

Nearly two weeks later, the ice has finally melted.

Work hardening for all the wrong reasons

I’d like to think that I don’t look this deranged when wielding a hammer, although my fellow art classmates and Habitat for Humanity volunteers would know better than I do. (Also, I hope I don’t actually hold a hammer with two hands. I may lack upper body strength, but not that much.) Either way, hammering is quite a productive stress release for me. However, I’m adding stresses to the metal by hammering it, which makes the material stronger by creating dislocations. (For the Wikipedia summary of work hardening, please click here.)

The links I’m making for my art class bracelet don’t need to be strong, but I followed up my annealing and quenching with some hammering anyway. In jewelry-making, the hammering is called “adding texture.” I hadn’t really thought much about the kind of texture I wanted on my links – my primary desire was texture that didn’t look stupid. Hoping for the best, I grabbed a random hammer out of the tool cabinet and went to town, giving my links polka dots. Surprisingly, my piece of copper didn’t look too horrid as a result. This bracelet may see the light of day yet.