The 2005 Elementary Science Olympiad was held for elemntary school students in the Auburn/Opelika area. The event is hosted at Auburn University by the College of Sciences and Mathematics. My uncle has organized the Hot Air Balloons event for the past several years and I was in town for the weekend so I got an opportunity to help out with the event.
The premise is simple enough. Teams of up to three kids from each school construct a paper hot air balloon that they bring with them to the event. Each team is given a time window in which to fill the balloon and make any spot repairs or changes they need before they release the balloon. At the end of 15 minutes, the balloons must be released. The balloons are judged on aesthetics, flight time, and maximum altitude achieved.
My job was to time the flight time and filling time, as well as to operate the heat guns providing the buoyancy for the balloons. It turned out to be a more fun than I expected.
Some of the teams did quite well, sending the balloon all the way to the roof and achieving hang times extending for the better part of a minute. On the other hand, there were some teams that didn’t get their balloons off the ground. Fairly large balloons with a traditional shape tended to do the best. Most of the teams waited the full 15 minutes to release their balloons, but a few of the higher ranking teams released early with good success.
All in all, it was a nice break from the norm to complement a nice weekend out of town. I wish all the kids best of luck next year!
This past week, I received the components I had selected for my new small form factor PC. The system has been assembled and, for the most part, is running smoothly.
Here are the components I selected.
The rest of the components, including memory and hard disks, were pulled from my old tower.
Hardware Installation
The Shuttle interior case design is generally very well thought out and component installations are quick and painless. The optical drive and the top two hard drives all mount on tool-less rails and the hard drives are particularly easy to simply snap into place. The space below the optical drive can hold either a hard drive or a floppy disk drive, the former in my case. This drive mounts directly to the optical drive rack instead of using rails.
Installing the graphics card was somewhat tricky, as the X850 XT occupies two of the PCI slots rather than one. I found it easiest to bring the PCI plate side in first and swing the rest of the card into place, rather than trying to bring the card in parallel to the slot.
I also had to remove the drive tray bezel from the PX-716A to get the tray to properly eject through Shuttle’s spring-loaded drive door. I have some concerns about the long term welfare of the drive operating without the tray bezel, but I cannot take the drive back after applying for several mail-in rebates. Those considering pairing the SN25P and the PX-716A should definitely proceed with some caution.
I did encounter difficulties trying to remove the optical drive from its bay. After several minor lacerations, I discovered that removal of the optical drive is greatly facilitated by removal or suppression of the EMI shield, which exerts some force on the optical drive.
Software Installation
I ran into problems when trying to actually boot the system and install drivers. I thought I could simply transplant the primary hard disk from my old system and Windows XP would take care of the rest. Unfortunately, Windows repeatedly rebooting the system rather than detecting and installing the new hardware. At this point, I had to place components back in my old tower and backup what I could. I ultimately had to perform a clean installation of XP.
I encountered my most serious problem when trying to install the drivers for the onboard audio chip, a VIA Envy24PT. The driver installation process consistently hung the system at 100% CPU usage. What I find more interesting, is that it is the System pseudo-process, as opposed to System Idle Process, that hangs.
I tried a number of different driver revisions with no observable change in this behavior. I eventually tried disabling the audio device in Device Manager and I was able to succesfully install the sound driver. When I tried enabling the device with the proper driver installed, however, the system locked up again with the same behavior.
I eventually moved on to the remainder of the driver and software setup and I didn’t encounter any further problems with any other facets of the system.
The audio problem is troubling because it leads me to believe the system may have a bad audio chip, in which case I will have to RMA the system. I am currently waiting for Shuttle to provide some feedback on my problem. The SN25P is limited to PCI-Express expansion only so there’s nothing I can really stick in the system to handle audio duties in lieu of the onboard audio. I configured and built this system for gaming, so the system will not be truly complete until this problem is resolved.
Impressions
The Shuttle case is very small, as one would expect in a small form factor system. To give a frame of reference, I found the SN25P to be slightly smaller in every dimension than my Klipsch subwoofer. It’s also interesting to note that despite its relatively small footprint, the SN25P is actually larger than almost all of Shuttle’s other case designs.
The SN25P is generally very quiet. There is an initial fan roar when you power on the system, but it quickly dies down as the smart fan kicks in. I haven’t noticed any prolonged fan spin-up during regular usage or extended gaming.
The 2005 Atlanta Auto Show started this Saturday and this year’s show will run for nine days, up from five last year. Mom and Dad came up to Atlanta this weekend to attend the event with me again this year and we also decided to go to the Atlanta Dogwood Festival that was also being held this weekend.
The auto show is a great experience for any car enthusiast. Concept cars tend to garner the most press, but I’ve quickly realized that the real treat of the show is getting the opportunity to sit in and play with the majority of the cars that are out there on the floor. Some noteables included the Mercedes-Benz CLS55, Chevrolet Corvette C6, Acura RSX, and the Acura RL.
The CLS55 featured the nicest interior of any of the models unlocked for public display; then again, at a price tag reaching over $90,000 with options, it should be pretty nice. The CLS55 comes from the AMG wing of Mercedes, so that same lush interior can be had without the special AMG engine at a slightly lower price point of about $70,000.
The new Corvette has garnered more praise and accolades than any version to date, but I’m still not taken with the interior after giving it another try. Snug describes the feeling aptly. All the floor models had the removeable hard-top taken out for display and I imagine that things could get very tight for someone of my stature with the car assembled in full coupe form.
The Acura RSX struck the best balance of features that appealed to me for the price. It has a nice, comfortable interior for someone of my height and it has a sporting nature that I find appealing. At the same time, it doesn’t go as far toward being a full-blown sports car as I would like, bringing only modest styling and power.
The Acura RL is easily my pick of the show, but I would never have come to appreciate its features if I didn’t get to sit in the car and try them out. The RL has a very unique voice-controlled console and navigation system. Just hold one button, speak a command, and the car will respond. For example, if you wanted to locate the nearest Chinese restaurant, you can say "Find nearest Chinese restaurant" and the navigation system will bring up a list of locations for you to choose from and then map a route to the point you chose. I actually tried this and it worked beautifully. It’s a feature with real geek appeal.
It’s been a busy couple weeks. I had forgotten just how much time work takes out of your day. I got to enjoy my first three day weekend under Barco’s 9-80 program, which allows you to take every other Friday off in exchange for working an extra hour every Monday through Thursday. It definitely comes as a welcome break after working a couple 12+ hours in a row. We’ve been pushing to get one of our consoles out the door and I’ve been working extra hours to help with that effort. My primary responsibility is the system’s software configuration, but I try to help in other areas when I can.
I’m settled into my new apartment now, but there are still things to do and the living room isn’t completely cleared of boxes yet. In the near future I’m going to be looking for a new wireless provider as well as looking for a few small furniture pieces and upgrading my computer (it’s that time again). For reference, my new address is 607 Ivy Chase Lane, Norcross, GA 30092.
Mom informs me that I’ve been running overages on my mobile phone so it seems like a good time to shop around for a new plan and/or provider. My mobile phone is really my only phone so I tend to use it whenever I need it rather than wait for the off-peak hours. T-Mobile provides my current service, but I’m leaning toward switching to Verizon. They lead the way for cell-phone service providers in PC Magazine’s most recent Reader Satisfaction Survey. T-Mobile didn’t do too bad either, but I’m inclined to try something different at this point.
I’m looking to scrap my current tower and replace it with a small form factor (SFF) box in the near future. After living with a huge tower for a couple of years and moving it constantly, I feel that a huge case no longer meets my needs. SFFs have evolved to the point where I feel like I could make one my primary machine without compromising much. I’m looking to use Shuttle’s SN25P, which should hold an Athlon 64 CPU, 3 hard drives, 1 optical drive, 2 memory sticks, and a double-wide PCI-Express graphics card in a box that measures 320mm (12.6in) x 210mm (8.27in) x 220mm (8.66in) (L x W x H). For reference, my Lian-Li PC75 full tower measures 23.125in x 8.25in x 22.625in (L x W x H). I’m quite looking forward to putting one together.
