Nelsons ledges July 24 Misery Bay Region

I just registered for the 1-day Misery Bay region event, and will probably be at the july 27th fundayz, supposedly the last wednesday fundayz of the year. I hear the friday fundayz is full of the local riffraff, and I don't need to be on a track with those guys.
I'll be with a few other guys on the 24th for sure, but it would be nice to see some fbody guys out there besides myself.

What is it that fascinates you?

Inspired by a thread I just replied to, I figured i'd ask what technically inspires those of you on this board (mostly since we have alot of engineers here also).

For me, it was a particular machine we use at work, the Universal HSP 4797 chipshooter. It places Surface Mount components on pcbs, and it does it really f'n fast. Now there are probably faster machines out there now, but these things are damn impressive. This machine is almost solely responsible for me to go back to school into a Mechanical Engineering major.

what fascinates me about it:

I'm flabbergasted at the engineering behind this thing, and how it can spit out parts small parts at such high accuracy on a small film of solder paste (and that the parts do not fly off/or even skew). its great stuff. I can watch one of these machines run all day long and not get tired of it (most of the time you really try to make sense of the "blur" the machine moves so fast

The first time i've seen this machine, i realized that if i had to design such a machine, i would NEVER have came up with the idea of using a rotary turret to do so many things as once, its like a machine gun of parts (its not like its placing the same part over and over, many different parts in different locations for those of you unfamiliar with the process).

http://www.uic.com/wcms/WCMS2.nsf/index/Pr...roducts_15.html the video on thier site is pretty pathetic and does not do this machine justice, it places with a max tact time of .075 seconds between placements, that translates to about 13 parts PER SECOND (in perfect conditions that really don't happen in the real world often).

now, there are machines that are impressive due to numbers or power, but this one, to me out for its combination of precision/speed/data processing (component recognition and part realignment on the fly).

question for the engineers

how much trouble have you had in getting your degree?

I'm starting to have a tough time, but its mostly because I don't have the time to study. currently i'm only in the beginning, general chemistry(with lab) and calculus 1.

my chemistry teacher is hard to follow (foreign), i'm getting a high D
and calculus isnt that bad, I'm getting a low C
chemistry lab is a low A, but that was a pretty simple class.

my problem is i work 40 hrs during the week, and i have alot of travel time also. I have an interest in this stuff (not so much chemistry), but find it very hard to lose sleep to study.

anyways, i was able to move 24 of my work hours to the weekend for next semester, that should help greatly, I'll be taking calc 2, physics 1 (with lab), and c programming.

Ok guys, how bad do i have it???
I know i'm only in the beginnings of engineering here, and i'm not looking good, i really hope that will change next semester since i've made some changes for it.

what did you guys find tough or demanding when it came to engineering classes? I find it takes me absolutely forever to do my homework and focus on it, I blame being out of school for 5 years for that (although i know it could be alot worse).

Did you guys find the later engineering classes to be much more difficult than this earlier stuff?

btw, i'm a Mechanical engineering major, and if it matters, i've completed an associates in EET in 1999 from a tech school

NWOR vs FWR vs ASCC at toledo airport

i've only had 3 autox's this year, and all before june, so we'll see how I do. I've also never been on concrete before, we'll see how my near-dead nitto's do there.

who is interested in going? Do i have any CP competition?

I figured that since I just finished my summer semester, that I can make the drive out to this place and give the concrete a shot.

Miki

Does Your Local Autox Club Have Trouble With Lots?

I'm in cleveland, and we now have lost all of our lots due to trivial shit like noise. The only lots we can get cannot accomodate for our average 120-160 car size.

I was wondering if anyone else has this problem?

Also, are there any clubs out there that have thier own lots that they bought and maintain? That would be very expensive, but may be the only way to get to an autox within an hours drive here (to me autox isnt worth more driving than that).

we've lost lots due to condition, change of management doesnt allow it(twice), noise(twice) - in just the past 2 years. kind of sucks. now there is nothing, and I don't have the time and money to do OT. If this stays this way, I may actually have time to do my schoolwork during the weekends, but a big part of my would rather do some form of racing and procrastinate with the schoolwork.

also, what types of places do you run at? airports, closed businesses?

Miki