#weekseven

1 - Prelude to Halifax Olympiad

It was time for my dorm building, Halifax, to host the annual Halifax Olympiad. Unfortunately I could not participate due to a conflict with the planned trip to Liège, but I did make it to a pregame on Monday. It was a perfect immersive environment to experience German college life. I picked up German gossip, snacked on various things, learned to play a German card game about mosquitos (very fitting with the summer heat), and of course downed a whole bottle of beer without even noticing. Afterwards we grouped up by our residential houses, and as a proud member of House 3, we tried our best to beat the other houses in a racing game involving luck and finding our assigned poker cards. Though we ultimately finished second, we sat down together and watched Messi score twice live. Not sure how much my running improved after the warmup games, but my skills at opening beer caps with literally anything at hand definitely improved. A lot. I will catch the replay of our actual Olympiad after coming back from Liège!

2 - UROP quiz day

It was 36 degrees Celsius outside and no one wanted to leave their room. I still showed up to the UROP quiz event though, and fortunately there were enough people to form three highly competitive teams. Our team was called "Kaiju 06," named after two members' names (Kevin and Julian) and another member Lucas's birth year. It was quite an elaborate quiz composed of many sections: general knowledge, STEM and engineering, geography, biology and chemistry, and Aachen and Germany, with 10 questions per section. It felt like being on one of those TV game shows, but in real life. Our team managed to clutch first place by a tiny margin. Everyone got a little prize in the end: a piggy bank filled with chocolates. I genuinely almost thought there was real money on top of the pig. Alina from the UROP team also bought us all ice cream. The pistachio flavour was awesome. Would definitely eat again.

3 - Liège, Belgium

The train tickets to Liège are incredibly cheap. Taking the S41 directly from Aachen to Liège costs only 14.20 euros with a special weekend youth offer, which gives you full flexibility to take any specified train on that day. I bought the tickets through SNCB-NMBS International, which is half the price of DB. The weather was literally 38 degrees Celsius, the hottest conditions I had been in for a long time, which is unbelievable for this part of Europe. Make sure to bring plenty of water. I filled my thermos with ice water, which was a wise choice. Do the same. The ride is just over an hour, and once we arrived I immediately went looking for lunch. The walk to the city center is about 20 minutes and would actually be quite scenic if not for the sun burning down like a death laser. There is a street leading up to the Liège cathedral lined with various restaurants, and we settled at an Italian one and shared a few dishes. I also tried the local specialty Liègeois, which is orange soda mixed with Grenadine. It has a unique taste, somewhat like Diesel in Germany, which is not the fuel you put in cars but rather Coke mixed with beer.

4 - Cathedral and Grand Curtius museum

The Cathedral of Saint Paul in Liège has a history stretching back nearly 1,400 years, originally founded as a collegiate church in the 10th century and rebuilt in its current Gothic form between the 13th and 15th centuries. It became a cathedral only in 1802 after the original Saint Lambert Cathedral, once one of the grandest Gothic structures in all of Europe, was destroyed during the French Revolution. What makes Saint Paul particularly special is that it inherited the entire treasury of the destroyed cathedral, making its collection of religious artifacts, gold reliquaries, and medieval art one of the richest in Belgium. The building itself is striking, with soaring vaulted ceilings, intricate stained glass, and an atmosphere of accumulated centuries that is hard to put into words. It could not quite compare to the Kölner Dom or Vatican City, but it is still a magnificent church with a remarkable story behind it.

There was also a treasury collection on display, but instead of spending time there we headed to the Grand Curtius museum, the largest museum in Liège. Housed in a beautiful early 17th century Mosan Renaissance mansion that was once the home of arms dealer Jean Curtius, the museum brings together collections spanning archaeology, decorative arts, religious art, weaponry, and glassware, tracing the rich history of the Meuse region from prehistoric times through to the modern era. The building itself is as impressive as what is inside, with its distinctive red brick facade and elegant courtyard. The most astonishing item I came across was a pair of pistols fused together at the barrel, deliberately designed to bypass South American weapons laws so that the buyer could simply chop the barrel down to the legal length upon purchase. The ingenuity of circumventing the law, cast in metal. The museum absolutely deserves more than two hours, and I hope to return and go through everything properly. Truly a wondrous collection, 1000% would recommend!

(I'm also so pleasantly surprised that theres an interactive bow shooting game where the game indicated I'm a Manchu archer type, which actually accurately predicted my Manchu heritage!)

Yuqi SUN

Department of Robotics, Robotics

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Computer Science

I just want to say that I'm grateful for you all still being here and not unfollowing me for not being very active lately. Also to the people from discord who keep making me smile and positive. Thank you all!

Dragon Boat Festival

The first thing I did during week 7 was made these herb bundles for the dragon boat festival that was coming up. The dragon boat festival is a yearly festival around China where people race very long boats, commonly with dragon heads on the ends, along canals and rivers against each other. Unfortunately I didn't get to watch one, but there were still many festivities and things to do centered around the festival such as the herb bundles we made, and mooncakes that we ate.

However, the most exciting thing that I got to do during this time was getting to race a dragon boat myself! As part of the program, we all got trained by some people from SJTU, then we all got on two boats and, after a bit of practice, competed against each other from the docs to the bridge.

Although we were pretty new to it and a lot of people were out of sync with the drum, so my boat ended up losing—but it was still a great time and was super cool. We even got a gift of sjtu mooncakes and a hat!

Unexpected Maker Competition

Later that week, my buddy from SJTU asked me if I would like to join them in a maker competition for their project they were working on. I agreed, so I showed up to the meeting later that night. They explained the project to me—it was a company plan to put combine ai training data centers with electric vehicle charging stations. The idea was that, as EV charging stations usually only sit at less than 50% usage, we can use the existing grid system and energy infrastructure to support certain kinds of ai training and generation so that we don't have to use extra resources and land to create data centers, without harming the EV charging station either as it can be switched off whenever needed. After they explained the project, they told me that I would be presenting the project myself the next day at 7 am! They said I would have an advantage because I spoke English very well. I was very surprised, but agreed anyways. The next day, I woke up super early to catch the bus, got a quick snack, met my buddy Tianyu, and left for downtown to present the project.

Presenting the project was a bit scary, and there were judges that were taking notes, but I feel that me and Tianyu presented it pretty well. After we were done, we went around and looked at other people's projects, some of them were very interesting.

The craziest thing is that we ended up getting second place! Some of the other projects were so cool, I was very surprised.

Cloud Nice Mall

We visited Cloud mall, and I had some of the best noodles I've eaten here, it had a sort of barbecue-like sauce with chicken, and was a new kind of flavor for noodles that I had never really had before.

They also had one of the most interesting bathroom I've ever seen, with led purple lights and a fancy design, as well as very human-like robots, that only when you got closer you could see that half of them were actually just people dressed up and with makeup, and the other half were actual robots.

But the main reason we went to the mall was to visit the Pokemon center, a huge Pokemon gym where lots of people were playing, and you could buy the new cards that just released the week prior. In order to buy the card, they would show you a Pokemon and you had to name it correctly in one try. Luckily, I got a easy one with jynx and I passed and was able to get the new pack.

After the Pokemon center, we visited a pc cafe, which are very common in Shanghai and China in general. It was pretty cheap and had good computers, I was even able to order dumplings directly to our table!

I finished off the week by going to a techno rave with some friends, and drawing more pictorials for my mecheng250 class.

This week was pretty fun. Although I stayed in Shanghai this week, I was able to visit the city a lot an enjoy a lot of activities that I had never done before, it was a fun time.

See you next week!

bye bye

Connor Madriago

Mechanical Engineering

Hola! I am in a Spanish speaking mood today since I just got back from Barcelona, Spain (also yay Spain just won the world cup)! But before I get into talking about that, I wanted to talk about several of the events that Sant'Anna has hosted this past week! 

Physics Field Trip

First off I would be remiss if I did not mention our physics field trip to the CIRA - Italian Aerospace Research Centre. Now a brief side note, most of the other classes offered at Sant’Anna include a few field trips throughout the duration of the class but this is the only one for physics. It took about 2 hours to get there by bus, and we got to tour around different areas of the center. Interestingly, some of them were even done in collaboration with NASA. For each facility, different supervising engineers spoke to us about the work that is conducted there. My favorite part was going inside the icing wind tunnel that they use to test aircraft parts–and thankfully for us it was not running when we were touring it. Afterwards we had lunch in their cafeteria area, which they did unfortunately make us pay for, but then we headed back to Sorrento afterwards.

Inside the icing wind tunnel (left) and the plasma wind tunnel (right)

Sant’Anna Events

Besides the physics field trip, Sant’Anna is always hosting different events each week which is nice, especially during the week when you are done with your classes for the day. Now I fully admit I did not go to very many my first session, but one of the great things about being here for both is that you get a chance to do them all again. This week alone I went to a tiramisu class, mocktail making, and pickup soccer.

Like the CIS cooking class, we all got to make our own Tiramisu, but we used a different recipe this time which was fun to try. For the mocktail making they provided a bunch of beverages and fruits that you could combine to make your own unique drink. Some people even challenged each other to make a drink with balsamic vinegar and I will admit they weren’t terrible. Finally for soccer, they usually host it every week, but this was only the second chance I have had to go. It is hosted at a small field behind a nearby church, and it is another great way to get to know Sant’Anna students who go to other schools and/or live elsewhere from you! It is not serious at all, so do not worry about that if you have little to no experience–everyone is just there to have fun!!!

Tiramisu making! This is mine before I put the cacao powder on top

**I unfortunately was slacking and forgot to take photos of the other activities but I can attest that both were very fun :)

Barcelona

Now, onto this weekend’s adventures! Barcelona was such a beautiful city to visit, I loved all the architecture and sightseeing it had to offer. The city is so full of life and color, it was so energizing to be surrounded by that type of environment. The city also surprisingly felt not too far off from the US. They have real side walks (something you come to appreciate after a summer in Italy), things are open a lot later, and they have a lot of US brands/stores. Even their police and ambulance sirens sound like the ones in the US.

Picasso Museum Exhibits (left and middle) and a street off the Passeig de Gràcia (right)

Casa Milá (left) and Casa Batlló (middle and right) which felt almost like a fun house

In terms of tourist attractions, we packed in a lot of things for our two days to explore the city. The first day we visited the Picasso museum, the Palau de la Música Catalana, Passeig de Gràcia, La Pedrera - Casa Milà, and took a night tour of the Casa Batlló who was designed primarily by the famous architect, Antoni Gaudí. Again all the architecture was so unique and mesmerizing to look at.

The second day we visited the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia which was genuinely jaw dropping, Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau which used to be a hospital, Park Güell which is full of colorful mosaic architecture, and the Montjuïc Hill and Fountain.

Basilica of the Sagrada Familia (left) and Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau (right)

Park Güell (left) and Montjuïc Hill (right) where the Summer 1992 Olympics were held!

The Montjuïc Fountain holds a water and lights show in the evening with music!

In case you were curious, we also visited both the McDonalds and Taco Bell, and then for our second night we ate out and got probably the best tapas I have ever had. So all in all I had such a great time in Barcelona and this definitely made me want to return for a longer stay at some point in the future.

Fanciest fast food restaurants I have ever stepped foot in (left and middle), and tapas (right) where you order several small plates to share, like appetizers as your meal

Once again I hope you enjoyed getting all the updates from this past week, and look forward to getting to tell you of all my adventures next week! We tragically have our second physics midterm which I am hoping won’t be too bad on Wed. Afterwards, I am heading to Milan to see Lorde on Thurs night and then visit some of my family in Frankfurt, Germany Fri-Sun. So there are many adventures ahead, and only three weeks left of the entire program–scary! Alas, see you all next week :)

Ava Sillars

Data Science Engineering

I produced a flatlay of the box to contain the book in illustrator and then took this across to the labs to laser cut into wood.