Tag Archives: fun

Spring Break Around Home

Last week was spring break and every day was an adventure. Not every adventure was in Boston, because I was home, but many of them were still nearby.

Kicking off the week, I spent Sunday drilling with a reenactment group based out of Dunstable. These were Revolutionary war reenactors, so many men of my age and ethnicity would be soldiers – I drilled while armed with a firelock :). Some of you may know this group as the End Zone Militia for the Patriots. I forgot to ask if I could post pictures, but I will probably get some later.
After drilling with the men for a couple hours, I joined the ladies downstairs. I learned to sew a backstitch and worked on one seam of a gown. There are some nice needle-shaped holes in my fingers now, but the half-seam I finished in an hour looks fabulous.

The next day was First Monday at Jordan Hall, which is less than a quarter mile from Wentworth. First Monday means free concerts organized by the man who used to be the president of the New England Conservatory. For March, we had chamber music from Schumann, Dvorak, and Crumb. I had never heard of Crumb, but his piece in the concert was a real draw for me. The composition featured an electric flute (who ever heard of an electric flute?? Awesome!)

WIT Student Ben Guest and myself #SpottedAround at Jordan Hall before a chamber music concert

Tuesday, I gave blood and was basically too tuckered out to do anything else. I talked with a really cool medical assistant who appreciated that WIT students still organize blood drives, despite controversy with the FDA.

Wednesday, a couple of my Wentworth friends came over and we hiked around south Massachusetts and northeast Rhode Island. We hit seven geocaches in one day without paying a cent for a geocaching membership!

Thursday I had a throwback day to fall semester and did another “escape the room” puzzle. This time I went with my girlfriend instead of a team of engineers and in Providence instead of Boston (we had coupons). We meant to go earlier in the year, and got snowed out, but the manager decided to let us go for free over break! The experience was different, but the result was ultimately the same, of course. We completed Escape Rhode Island’s ExMachina puzzle, which, at the time, had a 13% winrate *dusts off fingernails*.

Notice anything in common with these things I did over break? I’m a college student on a budget; none of them cost money. Admittedly, the escape game was a gift from nice the manager, so something like that takes a little luck and begging. With a couple friends and a little creativity, you will never run out of things to do around here.

HackWITUs So Cool

A hackathon is a friendly competition for students to network with other students – and sponsor representatives 🙂 – while making hardware or software tools and games. We provide free food, space, power, internet, other hackers, some hardware, some APIs, workshops, and prizes. Free.

One thing: we get a lot of questions about who can and cannot come to a hackathon. Everyone is invited and anyone should be able to enjoy the time. We have some events and workshops planned that require 0 computer science or programming experience. I’m not a computer science major…

Last week, the head of the group that is organizing Wentworth’s Hackathon announced that we have entered CRUNCH TIME. HackWITUs 2017 will be Wentworth’s first annual Hackathon. The planning committee has been preparing since fall semester for this event that lands on March 25-26. One of our members even made a blog just about us! We have our own website designed to spread information and show off our development skillz (even though it’s a static webpage, it’s cool enough that it feels interactive).

 

Behold our fancy logo and website!

We’ve been reaching out to sponsors all over the place to gather the resources to put this on for the people that come to the event. So far, we’re getting stuff/help from various departments and people around the school, Microsoft, Facebook, edX, kwidil, goPuff, and a few others. I always bring my resume to hackathons for a shot at jobs with sponsors; some companies sponsor hackathons and send a representative as a way of scouting talent.

Like us on facebook!

hackathon cover

If you can’t come this year, this will be an annual event. So hopefully I can meet you next year :D.

Coop Outing

Last week, ENE Systems (my summer 2016 co-op) invited me on one of their outings. The engineering and integration groups all went out for hibachi and a puzzle game. The invitation to meet up with the group was a real honor and the outing itself was a blast.

If you ever get the opportunity, Trapology in Boston is an awesome adventure for a group of engineers. Not all Wentworth students are engineers, but I think all of them would be entertained by the experience.

The ENE Systems Engineering outing squad

Our group rejoicing after glorious victory (only 17% of groups manage to make it out of the room in time)

Entrants are dropped in a room and have to escape by solving puzzles and finding clues in the room. As a player, I was able to use skills developed by my Wentworth education: leadership, communication, attention to detail, and looking at a problem with multiple perspectives.