Discovery Channel

A lot of people are starting to anticipate my graduation. It seems like everyone I know asks me when my defense date will be. No matter who it is I say something like "I am pretty sure it will be around December". Do I really know? I will bet my committee would say otherwise, based on my most recent performance. But I keep hope alive by moving forward. A lot of exciting progress is being made. Two great things have happened on two fronts in the past two months.

The spinning sphere research has found more recognition (new mural going up in ME headquarters) and Brenden stumbled upon a fairly straightforward solution for curve fitting that is going to turn into a paper and resolve that part of my thesis! Thanks Brenden!

The bullet research has also moved in two directions. The first is that I was able to re-derive the model we have been using for the design process. A task I thought impossible two years ago. It took me roughly 3 weeks but I think it is really coming along nicely. More exciting though is that we were also recognized by the Discovery Channel and they came and filmed our experiment on Friday! I was informed of this opportunity just a week before hand and Rod and I worked very hard to get everything ready for their visit. There was a lot of machining and setup to get back in place for the shoot, and Rod put in some long and frustrating days in the machine shop. Thanks again Rod, you are incredible and I am sure we wouldn't have been ready without your help!

We had to get permission from the pistol coach Will Hart. He was terrific. When I called he said he had had a bad experience with a guy with the same program a year ago but that he would over look that for me and allow us to do the show. The ironic part was that although that particular jerk doesn't work for D.C. anymore (fired or something), the show title was the same. Thanks to Will for letting us move forward despite the past! Although it would have been fun to see Will give the guy a piece of his mind had he been there.

The day was amazing. The crew was extremely nice and I think things went really well. Of course, they had a bit of time to set things up and then things got busy. At times things were going quickly, then there were lots of long pauses, which were sometimes hard to just stand around with so many other things to do in the back of my mind. I was really glad that Alex could do most of the interviewing. She was a natural and it made me less stressed out knowing that I didn't have to worry about that part of things. I got a few moments though and it was fun to just see how they run a show like that.

I wasn't surprised that they wanted to create a sort of story to make the science a bit more interesting. However, it was strange to have to repeat things when they either missed them on camera or on the sound board, or if the director just wanted a second take. It was also strange to be "ghost interviewed". I don't know if that is the proper term but when I got excited a couple of times the director would take me aside and ask questions. They were usually pretty general but he didn't have a mic so it was like talking to a ghost interviewer, and it felt strange. I tried not to make things sound contrived but lets just say I could see them using those clips for some really lame statements. I can't wait to see how silly I look and sound. As you know I am a pretty excitable person and I just hope I didn't say something that isn't true or that comes across as dumb.

That all aside I met some great people the host Jeff Lieberman, and Mat were terrific, the whole crew was interesting and had some amazing stories of their own. Everyone seemed genuinely interested in our research, which was a bit flattering. The producer even stopped by for a few minutes and we talked about the research. Finally I met Wes Skiles who is an amazing director of photography, and he had some really great advice about careers and exploring science and the world without fear and with excitement. He really got my mind flowing with ideas for future projects... lets hope some of them become realities.

In all cases, I was thrilled and excited to be a part of it. Not to mention that the publicity should be a good thing. Here is the only photo I have right now of the event, more to come later. You can see me way in the back. It airs between Oct 13th and end of December. I will keep you posted when it will air exactly. The working title now is "Time Warp" and you can see some previews of episodes here.