I am very excited about reading break. I look forward to sleep and taking a well-deserved rest. So far this week has been great, but tomorrow is my first Mechanical Engineering Lab Tour. For this tour, I will be taking the students to some of our awesome labs:<\/p>\n
The Anechoic Chamber:<\/u><\/strong> The Anechoic Chamber is a fundamental test facility for acoustical research. It is quite unusual both physically and acoustically.\u00a0 Its surfaces are made of highly sound absorptive glass-fibre wedges, creating an almost completely sound-reflection-free environment. Currently, the chamber contains two microphone-array acoustical antennas being used to localize sources of sound \u2014 in particular, on musical instruments.<\/p>\n MAL (Manufacturing and Automatization Lab):<\/u><\/strong> conducts research in the mechanics and dynamics of metal cutting operations, spindle design and analysis, micro-machining, virtual simulation of machining operations and CNC machine tools; design and digital control of high speed feed drives; precision machining, sensor assisted intelligent machining; and chatter stability of cutting processes. The academic articles published out of this lab receive the highest citation in the world in the field of manufacturing.<\/p>\n Although I consider myself a pretty \u201ceasy to talk to\u201d type of person, I have to admit my strength isn\u2019t necessarily public speaking. So, even though I am a bit scared, I am excited for this opportunity because I have the chance to learn something new and take on a challenge. I know it will be a good tour \u2013 I should know, I prepared all the logistics of the tour to make sure it is a success.<\/p>\n