AcDec Craziness!

Last Friday and Saturday I went to the CVHS Academic Decathlon invitational. It was pretty much just a practice match, but all of the tests were the hardest level. It made for some fairly interesting tests, especially when it was in a category I have not yet studied for. Those tests ended up being a look-for-the-most-interesting-answer strategy, and the return on it was not as good as the last scrimmage. However, I put some extra time into studying the science section, and it paid off. I got a 620 out of 1000, which resulted in first place for Honors Science. I was pretty excited about the award, and I liked this test more than last time since it dealt with more of the science of the Space Race rather than the history of it. (btw, the overall theme is Russia, hence the Space Race science section) I also liked the interview portion of the competition since I got to geek out after they asked me about what I thought the most important discovery of the Space Race was. I talked about helium-3 on the moon and how utilizing it for full scale fusion would allow us to make the jump to a Type I civilization. Anyway, my school's team did pretty well overall with about 14 or so individual awards and third place as a team overall. We also won the Super Quiz Relay, which results in none other than temporary bragging rights. The relay was pretty awesome too, going into the last round with a tie. The next step in AcDec for me is Regionals. The only problem is that the team can only take three members from each level. That means that I am competing against my five or six of my teammates for one of three slots in the Honors division for Regionals. We are taking mini tests next week to determine who gets the positions, so I have quite a bit of studying to do this week. 

On another academic note, I was accepted to Embry-Riddle today. This is really exciting since this could be a major stepping stone I could use to get into space. I just found out about this today, so I will be getting more information about it in the coming weeks. The VMWare class also starts tomorrow night, so I am pretty excited to start that. I also saw that the teacher I had for the other Linux classes is teaching the Linux classes again, so I am planning on making a surprise appearance before class later this week to say hi and see how things are going. Other than all of this, life has pretty much been focused on school, and I have not had a bunch of time recently to work on my website. I think I may work on it this week during school since I can now easily access the server file browser online. 

I have not heard of a release date for Minecraft 1.5, so I am not sure quite when I will be able to start some sort of Let's Play.

As always,

Happy Adventures!

-Zach

2013 Updates

So... Winter break is now over, and school has started up again. Over break I did not do much other than Minecraft and LEGOs, so I did not get very many productive things done. I did, however, put a bunch of time into website, so I now have a decent Minecraft section. Now, I just need to populate the section with pictures and descriptions. I figured that since it was my last winter break of high school, I would take it easy and not do anything too crazy. Even though it kinda bugs me that I did not get very much done, I do have to say that I really enjoyed this break with the extra time I spent hanging out with my family.

As for my adventures with college, my application to MIT was deferred, I got accepted to ASU, and I have not yet heard back from the other colleges I have applied to. Even though the MIT result was not what I was hoping for, I am excited to have a second shot at admission during the Regular Action round. I am quite excited to see what the final result will be, and I cannot wait until March when I find out. Oh, I almost forgot to talk about the community college. I signed up for a VMware ESXI 5 class, and that starts next week. I am pretty excited about that since it is a continuation of my previous classes and the next step in training for a system administration job.

As for Instructables, I am still planning on making some tutorials soon, but there are some other things that definitely take precedence over them(like the website and school). The same goes for my book. I will continue working on it once I am able to free up some more time in my schedule. I have some pretty neat ideas for it, and as usual, I will keep you updated on it as I go. So far, I have about 11,000 words out of a minimum of 50,000, so I still have a bit of work ahead of me for that.

I am also thinking about starting a Let's Play for Minecraft, and the 1.5 redstone update should be a perfect time to start on it. I do not know how well it will go, but what the heck. It seems like a fun thing to do, so I will at least put a nice attempt into starting that up later on. If you are interested in hearing about when the first video comes out or you have any suggestions for it, shoot me an email at zach.burnham@noendtech.com

There are probably one or two other updates I am forgetting, but alas, I must get to bed now.

As always,
         Happy Adventures!

-Zach

Some Good News

First of all, I got an email today that said when the MIT results will be released. I will see the results this Saturday, but I will not break the news, no matter what the outcome is, until next Monday. I am looking forward to Saturday when I can see if I was able to make the cut.

Also, my domain.com account was finally migrated over to their new system. It has a much nicer layout than the old one, and it much less of a pain in the ass when I am trying to find documentation on various features. It also has a new file manager, which allows for uploading to the server through the web browser along with ftp. Now, I can work on the website at school and be able to upload the pages there when I am done with them.

-Zach

Some More Updates

Here is the update only a few days late. The light system I made worked fairly well, but the most notable design flaw is the connector between the servo and the light switch arm. The arm itself is made out of Legos, and the connector is a paperclip. There is enough stress on the paperclip that after a few runs, it would start to warp, and the lights would not turn on all the way. I had it set up in such a way that it would hit two light switches, but when the paperclip is bent, it will only turn on one. I am working on a solution to the problem so I will be able to activate both switches.

So, now for the stuff I forgot to mention in the last post. The first thing is that my crayon painting got an honorable mention at the state fair. Originally, I thought it did not get anything, but it did and everything I have put into the fair has gotten recognition of some sort.

I have also been looking into setting up a shop on Etsy. I love making art of all sorts, especially when it comes to wire and bead related projects. My idea is to turn that interest into something that can provide some money for other projects. I have seen loads of really amazing wire-wrapped jewelry and art all over Pinterest, and I figure that with some practice, I can eventually make pieces similar to those that are decent enough to sell. I also enjoy working with beads, and I have made several creatures over the years. I am thinking about making and selling those too. I think it would also be a good option for a job for the time being since I would be able to work on the stuff when it fits into my schedule rather than trying to mold my schedule to fit it. It will be exciting to see how that goes.

Just yesterday, I signed up for another Linux-related class at the community college. This time, it is on VMWare ESXI server management, and the exciting part is that the other classes I took are prerequisites for this one. I think that this experience with Linux and server management are extremely valuable in today's tech-centered world even if I get a job that is not directly related to being a sysadmin.

So, that concludes this post. I will definitely try to post more often than I have in the past, and I will continue figuring out the rest of my website.

Happy adventures!

-Zach

A Crazy Month

At long last, I have some time for another post. November is finally over, and December has finally started. Last month had to be one of the most chaotic and crazy months so far in life. I had AcDec, school, NaNoWriMo, and several side projects. I will try to write more often in the future.

First of all, NaNoWriMo. I was not able to finish the book for the end of November. I was only able to finish about 11,000 words, but I had fun and learned quite a bit from it. The first thing I learned was that writing 50,000 words is not as difficult as it may seem. Now granted, I only finished 11,000 words, but I only put about 12 or 13 hours into them. The hardest part about it was starting. Once I got started, it was easy to keep going on the writing. The second thing I learned is that consistency is really important. I found that writing was the easiest when I worked on it for an hour or so each day, rather than skipping a day or two and writing for irregular blocks of time. The final thing I learned with this endeavor is that writing fiction is really quite fun. At first I wanted to write the book but was not sure how much fun the process was going to be, but I soon found out that it is really fun. Writing, much like some forms of art, allows me to create my own little universe that has nearly infinite possibilities. Even though I was not able to write the novel during November, I will still work on it this month and see if I can finish it. I have some fairly interesting ideas for it and some possible sequels. I definitely recommend writing at least one novel in your life, whether it is for NaNoWriMo or if it is just for the sake of writing a novel. Write the story you want to read.

School and AcDec were pretty interesting last month also. Homework came in really large waves, so it was pretty chaotic having one night with no homework followed by one with enough to fill an entire week. Academic Decathlon was pretty fun, though, and made up for the chaos with school. I was a bit stressed out going into it, but I did a lot better than I expected, getting the third highest score on my school's team. The score earned me a spot for the next competition in January where we cannot bring the entire team. The speeches were my favorite part of it. The impromptu topic I got was related to technology, so I was able to do well on that. My prepared speech was on the importance of failure in life and how it plays a role in shaping who we are. I talked about Tesla, Nobel Prize winners, and memory palaces, and how failure has played a role with all of them. I will definitely revise my speech to incorporate my recent NaNoWriMo failure and how I was able to learn from that. I am excited for the next competition.

Finally, my side projects. I never got around to making an Instructable on the pirate ship props for the school dance, so I will work on that this month. I have also not gotten around to completely finishing my website, and I will also try to get that done this month. Over the past week or so, I found a bunch of cool projects on Pinterest that I will work on this month too. I will write about those in other blog posts as I finish them. The final thing I will talk about for now is a project I just finished before I started writing this post. I thought of it last Thursday, but I was unable to successfully complete it until now. In the mornings, I have a hard time getting up early, so I decided that I needed to find a way to turn on my lights when my alarm goes off in order to try to trick my brain into thinking the sun is up. I ended up using an Arduino with a photoresistor to activate a servo that turns on my room light and an outlet with a desk lamp hooked up to it. My phone's alarm brings up an image of a big, white alarm clock, and there is enough light to make a noticeable difference in the Arduino's readings from the photoresistor. So, I hooked it all up, and when my phone's alarm goes off, a whole bunch of light floods my room. Tomorrow will be the first real test for it, so I will write another post tomorrow for the results of the alarm extension, along with anything I forgot to talk about in this post.

Happy Adventures!

-Zach

There and Back Again (x2)

About two weeks ago, I ventured out into Phoenix again to take some more ham radio tests, this time dragging one of my friends along. I spent the first half of Fall Break cramming for the General and Extra class tests, and the cramming paid off. The General Class test was not super difficult, and I only missed about 5 questions. The Extra Class test was a different story. Instead of 35 multiple-choice questions, there were 50, but you could miss a few more than on the Technician and General Class tests. I thought that the Extra Class test was the most difficult out of the three, but I suppose that is only natural, being that the test covers electronics, propagation, and general radio practices in far more depth than the other two tests. Anyway, the worst part about taking the test was waiting while the test was being graded. Fortunately, I was able to pass, and my new license showed up in the mail today. Now I can carry around a license that says "Amateur Extra" on it. :D

I still don't have a station set up, but I will be ready for one when I have the opportunity to acquire the radio equipment. As I mentioned earlier, I talked my friend into taking the Technician test the same night, and he was also able to pass the test. Afterwards, I gave him study books, so the next time there is a test, he may be able to get an Extra Class license.

On a similar, adventurous note, the results from the state art fair came out over Fall Break. This was the second time I entered the fair, but this time, I had four entries. I had a bead dragonfly, a wire flower, a trash-to-art butterfly from keyboard parts, and a crayon painting. The flower placed second in the 3D wire category, and both the dragonfly and the butterfly placed third in their respective categories. Unfortunately, my favorite out of the four, the crayon painting, did not place. Once I get the stuff back from the fair, I will post some pictures on my website of the pieces and their ribbons.

Along with those two adventures, I am gearing up for another project that is quite a bit larger. Over the course of November, I plan on participating in NaNoWriMo. It will be quite a challenge to write a 50k word novel in a month on top of school and everything else, but I think it will be an interesting challenge. I have wanted to write something for quite a while now, and I will take this competition as an opportunity to push myself to new extremes in order to complete it on time. As of this post, I am thinking that I will write something that has steampunk influences, sci-fi influences, or even both. I have not yet figured out what exactly the storyline and the characters will be like, but I suppose figuring that out as I go is part of the adventure in this competition.

Here is a link to the NaNoWriMo website:
NaNoWriMo

As for interesting senior adventures, I was in charge of the decorations for the homecoming last Saturday, and there is an Instructable in the making. I will also be the DJ for the Jr. High dance on Friday, which will pretty much include monitoring the electronics and making sure that things are going smoothly with the songs. I have not done this sort of thing before, but I am up for the new adventure. I will also lobby for being in charge of decorations for the winter informal dance because I want to do a sort of tron theme. More information will come on that later, along with a link to the Instructable of the other dance once I am finished with it.

-Zach

Exciting Times

Last night, I got a decent amount of work done on my website. I have completed several more project pages, and I have decided what I am going to do with the Minecraft section. For now, it will just be a single page filled with all sorts of pictures from my Minecraft projects and adventures. Later on, I may add sub pages to sort of categorize the different projects. That page is, for the most part, the last major thing that needs to be done on the site. Most of the project pages are up, and the ones that aren't yet are fairly easy to set up.

I have also recently taken on another challenge: building a website for school athletics. One of the coaches at my school wanted a website dedicated to sports, much like some of the other high schools. Word spread about my site, and he found out and asked me if I would be interested. I could not resist the offer. It would give me another opportunity to sharpen my HTML/CSS skills, and I may be able to work some JavaScript practice into it also. Oh, and it counts as service hours. Since it is being done for the school free of charge, I can count the hours spent on writing the webpages towards community service hours. It is a win-win situation for me and my school. They get a nice sports website, and I get a fun service project to work on.

College applications have also taken up a decent amount of my time this weekend. So far, I have sent an application off to ASU, and I am working on applications to MIT and the University of Arizona. After these, I will also look into sending off applications to Harvard and Cornell. This is a rather exciting time since it is my last year in high school. I am excited to be so close to college, but at the same time, I think it will be a bit sad leaving the people I have spent the last 5 years with. Some of my friends and I have some ideas for this year that will make it a memorable one. We are going to do as many things together as the senior class, so we leave at the end of the year with loads of fun memories of the times we all spent together.  I will try to post as many of the events/projects on my blog as possible.

-zach