Some Suggestions To THE Breakthrough In Aerodynamics

Erm, I think this post would seem really "no-link" or disjointed unless you've read the previous post. So, do check it out in order for this post to make a bit more sense.

Anyway, in answer to the bonus question in the previous post, perhaps R****** (censored as usual for GC's safety) was looking for different answers like this:

1) Pray hard. Pray really hard. Pray really, really hard, such that when a hypersonic vehicle is being launched, a mysterious hand would appear from the heavens and give a magical push that would cause the vehicle to speed up to Mach 1,000 - that is if the material could take it to begin with.

2) Examine the possibility of utilising the creation of a black hole to suck the hypersonic vehicle such that in the process of the suction, the vehicle would accelerate to Mach 1,000 or more =) Oh, do make sure that the astronauts are people you're sure you do not like, and wouldn't want to see ever again. =)

3) Examination of the possibility of utilising the explosion of a atomic bomb that has 100 times the power of that dropped in Hiroshima to propel the hypersonic aircraft to speeds beyond mach 1,000. Oh, do make sure that the material is really good stuff. Really, you won't really want to scringe on the material especially if you're on that aircraft.

4) Examination of the possibility of downing 1 litre of neat vodka and perhaps, it would create hallucination or dreams of sorts that would result in the breakthrough in aerodynamics in ways mankind has never known before, or will ever know.

5) Or the best solution of them all: Fire (ie. 炒鱿鱼) the lecturer teaching Aer*dynamics II currently. That would certainly improve the lives of over 80 poor suffering souls in the area of aerodynamics =) Now, that's what I call a real breakthrough =)

Question to ponder: What's the point of having a hypersonic vehicle anyway?

Why Do Such People Exist???!!!

Well, if you remember that sanity-absorbing/reducing assignment that I posted earlier on, here's a little more insight to what actually happened that really irritated my last night, and today, and probably for the next 1.5 years...

At the end of the question paper contained the following:

Glass Cookie's (GC) initial passing thoughts: Hmmm, could it be... that... she (ie. the lecturer) is super geh-gau (ie. super rigid and insists on doing things the inefficient, rigid way stubbornly)? Hmmm... maybe, maybe not. See how la.

And since it was a passing thought, I didn't really think much about it other than complaining that it was a joke. And of course, with the passing of time, the following instructions were relayed to me through a coursemate (the following conversations are not the exact words at all, but the idea is definitely there):

Coursemate 1 (yup, this indicates that there is more than 1 coursemate that would be mentioned): Oh, R****** (censored to protect the poor blogger from suffering from 'double jeopardy', and worse still, 'triple jeopardy' or even quadruple jeopardy for future assignments and in the worst case, the FYP) wants us to take back our answer scripts to fill in all the reasons why we use all the formulas there.

GC's second thought: What???!!! After spending probably 15 hours or more on that piece of crap I still need to collect it back to fill in more crap?

And then, not too long after that, a third response came from my coursemate at around 11+ p.m.:

Coursemate 1: By the way, we need to go back to school to collect it from her before 930 a.m.

GC: Huh? Erm, any idea if anyone's going down? Maybe he could collect it from us. I can't possibly wake up if I were to sleep at around 3+.

Coursemate 1: Actually, she said that she will only pass our scripts to us personally. She will not allow us to collect on the behalf of other friends. And because she has a meeting at 10 a.m., so she says we can meet her before that, like between 9:30-10:00 a.m.

GC: What the...???!!! But why 930 a.m.? Our very first lesson is at 1:30 p.m.!!! How about our friends who live in tampines?

Coursemate 1: Ai ya, don't know her la...

GC's third thought: Man, I've never met anyone as geh-gau as her. Why impose her timing on us too?

Well, if I thought it all stops there, I was quite wrong actually. In fact, I was very, very wrong because today, as I collected my script from her, I was told the following:

R******: For your bonus question, I only want a sentence to explain about it, that's all. Why do you all give me so many sentences?

GC's fourth thought: Hmmm, I think I know of some who wrote 3 pages for it... and why didn't she mention earlier? Considering the bonus is 5 marks and the CA itself is 10 marks, why wouldn't anyone write 3 pages if they could? Luckily I only wrote 4 paragraphs...

If you're wondering what's the bonus question, here it is:

Oh, perhaps the note (in red) in this picture should be appended to the previous picture at the top. Anyway, back to the story... As I heard that, I was kinda stunned. In fact, it only went to confirm how rigid she could possible get. But hey, that's not all, because while I was working at the computer lab, yet another coursemate warned my friend (ie. the earlier-mentioned coursemate) and I the following:

Coursemate 2: Hey, for all the assumptions and explanation that she said she wanted, you must put them on a new page. A**** (ie. yet another coursemate) (and of course, censored as usual to protect the poor blogger's friend from suffering from 'double jeopardy', and worse still, 'triple jeopardy' or even quadruple jeopardy for future assignments and in the worst case, his FYP) wrote them in between the spaces of his current script and she told him that's not what she had wanted. I think A**** was irritated/pissed/sian diao.

GC's fifth thought: What???!!! She's ridiculus. Why do such people exist??? This is beyond a joke man. She should just take her e*ropean culture somewhere else man. This is singapore (or 'singapuur', based on the advertisement about some cheap calls worldwide or something)!!!

Oh well, guess that's all of her nonsense... ... ... or so I thought, until I heard yet another warning at a later time:

Coursemate 2: Oh, for the bonus question, she said that if there are two suggestions that are similar, both will be marked zero. She wants different solutions.

GC: WHAT???!!! In hypersonic (ie. speed of Mach numbers above 10, 20 or more) flows, the ONLY problems are heat, low efficiency and high drag. What else could she possibly want???? Well, unless she wants us to come up with crap of all sorts.

Coursemate 1: Ya. I mean, unless she wants us to create an aircaft without wings. What the...

GC: Yea, or an aircraft that consists of only the engine. This is crap man. She's super geh-gau...

GC's sixth thought: PhD students can't even figure out what on earth is going on to improve it, how do we undergraduate students even begin?

GC's seventh thought: I must never be under her for FYP, or that'll be the end of my grades/life/free time/freedom.

GC's conclusion: Just as I thought engineers are rigid people who refuse change, this lecturer has made a mark beyond them man. Or perhaps it is with engineering lecturers like her, that engineers are stereotyped that way they are now. Or maybe, just maybe that is why the engineers are out there working and here she is lecturing...

GC's conclusion (meant for poor aer*space engineering students like me to understand only): Perhaps the curse of Sha*** still lingers after he's long gone...

The Longest Of Them All

If you're wondering what the longest of them all refer too, simply read on. But, it's not the length of this blog, since I have no idea how long this post is going to be =) Just a note, (words in green brackets do not belong to any thoughts pertaining to any dialog or re-iteration of that past). No idea what I'm talking about? Simply read on... =)

[About two years ago... (and of course, it's not about the longest length of time since/from two years ago, as you would discover soon)]

Someone-whom-I-can't-remember (SWICR): Hey, I head that aer*space engineering has the longest equations around leh.

Glass Cookie (GC) (seemingly not too bothered, cause he simply cannot be bothered - not because he thinks it's trivial): Huh? Is it?

SWICR: Ya, I heard it from my mechanical engineering seniors (who happened to take aer*space as a specialisation - ie. it's not the full aer*space course)

GC: Oh, ok lor.

GC's thoughts: Longest? Well, even if it is, so? It's not like I could change anything.

[About a few minutes ago...]

GC (verbally - note: This is not a thought): ARRRRGH!!! (well, as mentioned earlier on, the longest of them all referred to aer*space engineering equations, so it's definitely not the length of this "ARRRGH!!!". In fact, it pales in comparison to those equations) I had enough... 我不行了!!!! ARRRGH!!!

GC's thoughts: volume of "ARRRGH!!!" in decibels x 1000 is but an understatement (or maybe an under-volume) of this kind of crap...

GC (verbally again): ARRRRGH!!! What the [beep (ie. censored - nah, I didn't use any vulgarities if you're wondering. It's a literal beep which meant: {ie. censored - nah, I didn't use any vulgarities if you're wondering. It's a literal beep which meant: [ie. censored - nah, I didn't use any vulgarities if you're wondering. It's a literal beep which meant... (Ok, I shall stop going in an infinite loop. See, it's hard to preserve my sanity even as I'm taking a break)]}) ]!!! ARRRGH!!! [beep] [beep] [beep] [beep] [beep] [beeeeeeeeep]!!!

Well, well, if you're still wondering what I'm ARRRGH!!!-ing about, it's simply this: I have a set of CA questions worth 10% of the final examination grade and it's taking the life out of me.

I mean, consider this puny little question which is but one (erm, guess that's obvious enough since it's a little puny question) out of 18:

The question was to find the drag coefficient of this particular airfoil at an angle of attack of 5 degrees, at a speed of Mach 30 (ie. 30 times the speed of sound).

As year 3 aer*space engineering students know, the equation to get the drag coefficient is merely/simply:

Drag coefficient, Cd = ∫ (Cp,front - Cp,back) (dz/dx) dx, from x = 0 to 1.

Well, two pressure coefficient variables and differentiating the simple zu(x) equation above and integrate everything. How hard could it possibly get? And so, given such a simple equation, I started solving... and solving... and solving... and solving...
...
...
...

and solving and solving and solving and solving...
...
...
...

and solving and solving and solving and solving...
...
...
...
until I got this particular part which still requires solving...

Cd = ∫ -0.38cos(0.97454 - 4x) + 0.38 - 1.9x dx0→0.2 + [ 1.9xsin(0.97454 - 4x) / -4 - ∫ 1.9sin(0.97454-4x) / -4 dx ]0→0.2 + ∫ -0.02375cos(0.22454-0.25x) + 0.02375 - 0.11875x dx0.2→0.89816 + [ 0.11875xsin(0.22454 - 0.25x) / -0.25 - ∫ 0.11875xsin(0.22454 - 0.25x) / 0.25² dx ]0.2→0.89816

Note: All the letter x used indicates a variable, not a multiplication sign.

And well, to get to that stage took me more than an hour. And well, the solution is wrong when I finally completed it. As such, you see... it's not that difficult to lose one's sanity in aer*space engineering, isn't it? In fact, the challenge is in keeping it. Oh, did I forget to mention that the question that comes right after this is of a longer nature? But for those that are concerned about me, nah, don't worry. I mean, there are merely about 3 more of such longer questions, that all.

Hmmm, come to think about it, I remember blogging about sanity being a precious commodity. Looking back, I think I had ten times as much sanity as I have now, I think. And as such, sanity has become a precious rarity. Hmmm, I think I'm going nuts. But then again, if I could think properly and evalulate that I'm going nuts, am I truly going nuts? Yet again, I could be nuts and thinking that I'm not really nuts and may be going nuts, and as such, I would seemingly be appearing sane when nuts is what I am becoming. But yet again, if I could tell that I may be going nuts, yet having the appearance of sanity when I'm going nuts and hence misleading people into thinking that I might not be nuts by thinking that I'm nuts when I'm really nuts but rationalizing that I'm not really nuts and yet contradicting myself that being nuts and seemingly admitting that I'm nuts would indicate that I'm not nuts when I'm potentially nuts and somehow getting confused and all, that would be reaaaally be complicating. And as such, I'd better stop my nonsense here as you may agree. Oops, I guess I might well have driven some readers nuts if they're attempting to absorb all that I'm typing here. Well, if the reader is going nuts as a result of this blog entry, welcome to the world of engineering! =) That kind of feeling is but the beginning in my craaazy world.

OK, I think I'd better end here since rambling on after losing some more sanity to some crappy CA may cause me to churn up more crazy thoughts.

Thought: If that lecturer insists on keeping that 3/10% of my grades, so be it. She can have it all. I give up... ARRRRGH!!! What the [beep] [beep] [beeeeep]... etc.

WYSINWYG

Well, if you're wondering what WYSIWIG (pronounced as "we-see-wig") means, it's merely an acronym for "what you see is what you get". Let's just take this interesting piece of bread that was passed to me by someone recently as an example...

See that nice big juicy bread? Well, if you noticed that my blog title is WYSINWYG - and nope, that's not a typo (I mean, it must be really strange/weird/wrong/no-in-fact-something's-really-really-wrong for me to notice a typo, mention that "Hey, here's a typo. Check it out!" and do nothing about it) - that's because... voila! The bread is actually WYSINWYG (ie. what you see is not what you get, as much as a wig worn is a bunch of hair currently growing on someone's head [well, I mentioned 'currently growing' because some wigs are made of real hair. Hmmm, better not get into a topic about wigs in this I-don't-see-no-wig post]):

Thought: Hmmm... bakeries must earn a crappy lot of money by selling products consisting of 10% dough and 90% air. No wonder the chinese used air in their "drink west north wind" (ie. 喝西北风) idiom.