My advice to future COSMOS students would be to get out of your comfort zone. The major theme of COSMOS is getting to try new experiences – being independent, living in a dorm, having a roommate, making new friends. Ultimately, you are walking away with an aresnal of memories and experiences. In order to make those experiences as fulfilling and enriching as possible, get out of your comfort zone; try new things. It'll all be so worth it.

I am overall extremely happy with how our final product turned out. The T-shirt folding robot works very accurately and is extremely precise. It continuously folds shirts of different textures and weights relatively quickly and accurately, making it a practical device. I am proud of the journey, since we had to overcome a few obstacles in order to get to this final product. I am grateful for my work partner, Akshat, and we made a great group in the end.

My on-task to off-task ratio in the computer lab is close to 80:20. About 80% of the time, I am extremely focused and on-task, collaborating with my partner to be productive and make progress on our progress. The other 20% of the time, I socialize with my peers and see what they are up to, both in their project progress and personal lives. I think this is a normal and healthy ratio, and it allows me to both create and have fun.

We faced some difficulty with the folding of our robot; only the top part would fold all the way, and the shirt would sag over the edge of the holes. We were able to fix these two problems – the first by extending the arms on the side all the way down, and the second by increasing the size of the middle platform so that the shirt would have no room to sag over. In general, I am extremely happy with our robot, the progress we are making, and all that I am learning.

Peer critiques have definitely helped in my project. My peers helped me realize certain problems with my robot that I would not have noticed otherwise. Jerry's comments have helped me improve the quality and sturdiness of our robot. I think I collaborate well with my peers and our ideas tend to bounce off of each other to create an impressive final product.

I deal with failure in a healthier way than most others. I acknowledge that failure is an inevitable part of the learning process, and that no journey would be as fulfilling or enriching without some frustrations along the way. Because of that, I embrace failure, and use it as an opportunity to grow and learn from it. For our robot, we have already encountered a failure in our original design sketch because when the platform folds back it hits the other motors and the T-shirt cannot fold properly. We are working through this obstacle in order to create a fully functional final product.

I think that Newton climbed on the shoulders of giants like Descartes in order to develop his findings. As a matter of fact, I think that all revolutionary figures climbed on the shoudlers of the giants before them. Even when I develop my own creations in Fusion 360 and CAD modeling, I use pre-existing tutorials and designs to guide my creativity. Thus, I also stand on the shoulders of giants when I create my 3D printing projects such as my bookend, geocaching container, and Pomodoro Tomato.

To be completely honest, I do not think an assignment should be given to students visiting the Exploratorium. I think students should just enjoy the experience and go visit the exhibits that interest them the most. I think that interacting with the exhibits through the lens of "this will be good to write about" takes away from the genuine interest and excitement of the exhibits. At most, an assignment at the end can be "which exhibit was your favorite and why?" I think an open-ended question like that is good for students to reflect after they have explored the Exploratorium.

My learning method is quite interesting. I do not learn by taking notes; I never have. As a result, you may see me in an important lecture without any paper or pencil out. Instead, by actively engaging and participating in the lecture I retain all of the information. By being in the present moment, I learn so much more than focusing on what to write down. Analogies, mnemonic devices, and relating the material to things I know well also help me understand difficult concepts.

I think seeing a manufacturing factory is a very valuable experience. Especially since I love designing, CAD modeling, and 3D printing, making observations of how manufacturing a product compares to designing a product for personal use is critical.

I am keeping myself healthy at COSMOS by biking around from place to place, managing the portions I eat at the Dining Commons, and sleeping at least 8 hours every day. I am also being productive in my free time by working on summer homework, or reading books. I am really enjoying my time at COSMOS, but the ways that I keep myself healthy and active make it even more enjoyable.

I think that Nikola Tesla has become overly credited for innovation due to propaganda and media at the time. His name must have been passed down through stories of innovation, and he may have been part of the cause in taking credit for all works he was involved in. Another contributing factor is that widespread media was not as advanced back then so people could not verify the information they were given – Tesla's name was just passed down and not the names of the other inventors.

Dr. Yang's lecture yesterday poses some crucial ethical concerns. Specifically, the experiment involving the mouse caught my eye. Seeing the mouse run in circles with the flip of a switch and then stop immediately when turned back was disturbing. I personally do not think that humans should have such power over animals. The experiment with the monkey heightens concerns, as pairing a bluetooth device to a monkey is highly unethical. Each of these experiments does considerable damage to the brain, which only makes matters worse.

I understand the relationship between circular and linear motion fairly well. I have seen diagrams and animations showing how a rod rotating in a circle about a center point moves back and forth, like the mechanisms of the pistons of a car. As for my time at COSMOS, I am having so much fun. I have met great people, and will only make more friends with time. I love the independence and thrill of being on my own.

Today I really got to work on my robot. I successfully programmed it to form squares, the letter A, and a figure 8. Eli gave me the tip to decrease my robot's speed in order to improve its accuracy and precision. When the robot moves fast, its momentum prevents it from stopping exactly in the precise spot we want it to. As a result, it is better to work with the robot at a slower, more controlled, speed.

Today was the first day of classes at COSMOS. The most important thing I learned is that it's okay to not know, but it's not okay to not try. In this cluster, there will inevitably be people who know more than me about computer science and programming, especially since I have never worked with Python before. However, I am not going to compare myself to others since all that matters is that I try my best and put in effort to understand what I don't know.