Crazy? I was crazy once. They dropped me at a lake. Mirimar lake. A lake full of USVs. The USVs made me crazy...

Even though we had less than two weeks to build, program, and test our devices, our first field test was very successful! USV teams were able to drive their boats around (some even ran autonomous pathways!), and the science and data teams were able to collect and transmit data -albeit the pH was negative.

Now let’s get into a deep dive of what happened in this instance, starting off with the Lake Miramar visit. We started the day early around 8am, we had breakfast and were told to go to class, we then were told that we had to get the boat ready by 10am, so that we could head out and test our boats. When it was time, we walked towards the bus and headed towards the big lake. We were accompanied by our sister cluster, which is cluster 11, and you can check what they’re all about in this page.  The ride to the Lake was about 30 min which many of us took as a little nap time. Once we got there it was 11am and we got testing. The groups in our cluster were the groups we were on and so USV teams got to test their boats. USV 4, started their boat testing first and it was magnificent. Then after the next teams continued to test their boats and everything went well. One little mess up was that the batteries were left plugged in an that took the battery to zero and we were told by Jack, our professor that we should not kill the batteries because they become useless if they die. Other than that the visit to the lake was awesome. The lake’s convenience store had Kayaks and Canoes to rent, and after testing there was sometime left and people were allowed to rent and drive around. Overall the Miramar lake visit was a win. To make a quick mention, the RAs, Chris and Hector have been doing their job perfectly, on the residential life sections there is bound to more information on their wonderful work.

Overall, it was a very successful day and we learned a lot! No fish were electrocuted in the process.

At night, we all watched the sunset at the Sun God and got to create some paintings. We have many programs at the Sun God such as volleyball and drawing contests. While some students are enjoying these programs, others were adding final touches to their Ethics Essays. 

La Jolla shores (pronounced la HOY-ah) was not prepared for us. As much as we love Warren Hall, it was really nice to take off for a bit. We cleared our minds with salty waves and silly little fish, as well as good food. Some of us even went banana boating! 

After a week of hard work, we spent Sunday relaxing. However, we first attended a UC Admissions seminar, where we learned all about UCSD and the general UC application. It was really helpful and a haunting reminder that we have to complete the four UC essays this fall.

We then had a couple hours of dorm time, where we relaxed and recharged, hiding away from a forcasted thunderstorm. It has been a week since we got this much time to relax during the day, so we soaked up every last crumb of it.

At night, we partook in the annual COSMOS Casino Night. We sipped mocktails while gambling with fake money to buy raffle tickets. 

USV teams contintued to work on their vehicle modifications while the science and data teams fought for their lives trying to get the radio to connect. Even struggling through wires and probes,  the science team began researching how to send probes further underwater. 

The data group also started working on the HTML/CSS of the database (and as they say, beauty is pain T-T).