Caltech

CaltechY Winter Quarter Friends Dinner

The CaltechY hosts a Friends Dinner once every quarter to thank its supporters and provide them with an opportunity to network with the Y's student leaders. Each event features one special speaker. In the past, there have been artists, professors, film makers and more. This time, it was one of Caltech's chemistry professors, Peter Jonas, who spoke about the vision surrounding the new Resnick gift.

The dinners are all held at the Athenaeum. Since this event was pretty close to Christmas, the Ath was completely decked out in holiday decor, making it venue seem extra grand. Of course, since its the Ath, there is great food. The menu that night featured a fancy salad, roast chicken and veggies and the most delicious chocolate lava cake I've ever had. I gave an intro for the evening, welcoming people to the event and welcoming the featured student speaker of the night, and while doing so, people were already distracted by the food. Luckily, the main speaker of the night was programmed after the dessert.

I mentioned previously that the talk was centered around the Resnick gift, but it also touched upon a lot of the current sustainability research at Caltech. One of the major incentives is artificial photosynthesis. I won't go into details about the content of the talk, because my understanding of the contents is actually quite shallow. However, the idea is that we are quite close to being able to synthesize sugars from more abundant sources in our atmosphere. This makes me a lot more hopeful and excited about the sustainability of carbon-intensive industries.

I am not sure who is speaking at the next Friends Dinner in the spring. When it does happen, I will provide you with a more detailed synopsis. The photo below is taken by photographer Bob Paz.

 

LA Zoo Lights

There's nothing more festive than beautiful holiday decor. Something that has gotten quite popular in recent years is light displays. Around Pasadena, the LA Zoo, LA Arboretum are a few venues that have elaborate holiday light displays. This past weekend, I went to check out the LA Zoo Lights. The general admission is ~$15 on weekdays and ~$20 on weekends, which is certainly not cheap, so if you do go, be sure to take a ton of photos.

I went with two of my friends, one of whom has a pro photography gear. He brought two sets of lenses and a tripod. We never got to use the tripod since it was rather crowded. However, his two sets of lenses were quite useful. One was suited for panoramic shots, the other for close ups and special effects.

Right when you walk in, you are blinded by all the LEDs. There is a center piece that looks like a float at a parade. Surrounding the display are little pop-ups where local artisans sell their goods, including fancy salsa, jewelry and prints. We got some churros and hot chocolate since it was fairly chilly out.

Most of the animal exhibits were closed, with the exception of the snakes exhibit. We saw a variety of baby snakes, but did not see any pythons or cobras. Outside, was this massive web and spider made of lights. There were also light sculptures of flamingos, frogs and elephants along the path. One thing I really like about the displays is how well-planned they are. There are arrows guiding you from one exhibit to the next so you walk and optimized path without repeating sights.

The highlight of the place is this light tunnel. It's essentially just a ~100 meter tunnel lined with fairy lights of all colors. The beginning is white lights, then rainbow lights, before ending in golden lights. This is where everyone takes photos and shares to social media. We managed to get some nice pictures here, but it was quite touch to wait for the moments when the background is not filled with people. We left soon after that since it was freezing out. Well, freezing by LA standards, so like in the 50s temperature-wise.

 

The Zoo Lights were definitely beautiful, but I don't think I would go back again. I think they recycle the same displays year after year, so I wouldn't pay to see the same thing again. However, if you have never been, I do think it's a worthwhile experience.

New Years in Amsterdam

I visited Amsterdam for a brief two and a half days during my vacation. There were a few landmarks and neighborhoods I wanted to checkout, but did not plan the visit in detail. As such, when it came down to destinations with ticketed entries, I had to skip most of them, since they did not have day-of tickets left for sale. Fortunately, I was able to walk around most of the city and it was generally a good time.

I'll start out with the worst part of Amsterdam, the cold. According to the weather website, it was supposed to be in the low 40s. However, we found that the weather was actually around the 30s. Furthermore, due to the fog, the air is quite humid, so it felt even colder than it actually was.

We arrived early afternoon on NYE and checked into Generator, our hostel. After grabbing a quick dinner at the hostel restaurant, we walked into the city to checkout De Wallen, or Red Light District as we know it. Although there is a lot of controversy surrounding that neighborhood, it is one of the most historic and iconic parts of the city. Regardless of your political stance on the issues, it's worth checking out.

There were a few "city squares" there where many roads intersected. In these squares, people lit fireworks and fire crackers on their own. Apparently, there were no official NYE fireworks, so these local festivities were sought after instead. While the fireworks were exciting and pretty, it left the streets super smoky. Along with the fog, we could barely a few meters in from of us. However, on our walk to the district, we had seen a lot of the pretty bridges and canals. Also, walking in the fog is a different vibe. It made the city seem even more mysterious and intriguing.

The day after, we took a day trip to Old Holland, which I will cover in a different post. During our remaining in Amsterdam though, we visited the Albert Cuyp Market, a famous outdoor market open daily from 9am-5pm that is comparable to Borough Market in London. Market vendors sold everything from leather jackets to green juices to stroopwaffles. The waffles were certainly what you should go for. A lot of the booths had XXL waffles for 1.50 euros, and these waffles were the size of my head. I heard that the Original Stroopwaffle stall is where you should go, but it was still setting up when we were there. I'm sure the other places are delicious as well. If I did not have a big brunch right before, I would have eaten a giant one or two, easily.

If we had more time to spend in the city, we would have visited several museums. We were interested in the Anne Frank House, but unfortunately, the tickets were sold out. For that museum, tickets for 2 weeks from today are released. 80% of the tickets are sold online prior to the day, and the remaining 20% is sold on the day of at 9am. I tried queueing online for day of tickets, but ended up on the waitlist at position 320. Right when it got down to 14 people in the queue, we were kicked out of line as the tickets were completely sold out. Other notable museums include the Rembrandt house and the R*** Museum. There's a super cool "I Amsterdam" sign on the lawns of the R** Museum that you have probably seen all over instagram. I wish I had gotten a photo myself, but it was out of my way.

Snowboarding at Cypress

Snowboarding with my friend Cecilia is an annual occasion when I go home for the holidays. Cecilia and I actually learned snowboarding a few years ago. We signed up for these intro lessons, but arrived at the slopes early and thought that we would try a run before the lesson to see where we at. We were slightly confused, so took the lift to a green run instead of the bunny hills. We got down that run 80% on our butt and 20% on our feet, but it was a great start. By the end of that day's lesson, we were getting down that same run 80% on our feet. Of course, now we are much better.

We chose to go during peak season. Even though we had purchased lift tickets and rentals well ahead, we had to wait ~1hr in line to pick everything up. There were just that many people that day. I was almost concerned that they would run out of equipment. Anyways, if you visit Cyprus, I would highly recommend purchasing online ahead of time since there is at least a 10% discount and it saves you so much hassle on the day of. Also, for adults, rentals do not include a helmet, but if you value your head and its health, you should probably rent one for an additional 10 dollars.

Getting back on the slopes felt quite strange. I feel like I never use my quads that much in real life, after a few runs, my legs felt like jelly. Also, since there were a lot of people, it was difficult trying to go fast and avoid everyone. It's terrifying going down a run with inexperienced snowboarders and skiers since you don't know if they will suddenly slide to a stop or will lose control and come flying at you. In addition, it was sunny that day, so the conditions were rather icy. Another hinderance were the clouds that eventually became fog. Not being able to see far ahead on a crowded slope was quite a challenge.

I think I was able to get about 6 runs in before we had to take the bus back home. I also don't think I could go for any longer since I had taken a few falls by that point and my entire lower body was sore. Although the conditions were not ideal, it felt good to be back. I wished I could go a couple more times, but I had other plans for the remainder of my break. Perhaps I will visit Big Bear or Mammoth in the new year, or will go more next winter.

 

Ice Skating

Ice skating seems rather uncommon here in Southern California as there are only two year-round rinks within driving distance of Caltech. One is the Pasadena Ice Skating Center which is only minutes away, the other is the Santa Monica Rink which is way out west. The interesting thing is, the Olympic figure skating Mirai Nagasu is actually local. Her family owns a sushi restaurant in Arcadia that is only 10 minutes away.

There are a lot of Caltech events at the Pasadena rink. The houses often play broomball with each other. For broomball, we would rent out the entire rink. It's extremely fun and you do not need to know to skate to play. My friends and I have also gone a couple of times to actually skate during their public skate sessions. In fact, two weekends ago, a friend and I headed over to polish up our extremely rusty skating skills.

We went right when the public skate session opened and there was already a line. It was around $15 per person with skate rentals if you had a California driver's license. Personally, I am not a fan of skate rentals because for figure skates, they shave down the toe pick to prevent people from falling. However, for more experienced skaters, the dull toe picks simply feel strange.

Even more strange is the sensation of getting back on the ice. To remind yourself to push off your back foot, glide and be confident in your balance is not that easy. As such, there are plenty of adults stumbling around the perimeter of the rink. There are also lots of amazing young figure skaters practicing in the center of the rink. We saw several doing lutz jumps and shoot the duck spins. I used to figure skate and I felt the urge to try a few of my old tricks, but I stopped myself from doing so because it could also possibly fracture my tailbone.

When I go home over the winter break, I will definitely go skating, and I will hopefully bring my brother along as well. Ideally, I'll bring my own skates to campus in the new year, so I can go more frequently with my friends here.

Thanksgiving in SF

I spent this Thanksgiving with one of my good friends in San Francisco. My friend is an Techer alum and she currently works in asset management. Since she did not have enough of a vacation to fly down to LA to spend the long weekend with her family, and since I was free, I went up to spend with her. Needless to say, it was a very untraditional Thanksgiving. We did not have any turkey or stuffing. Instead, we went out for sushi and brunch. One thing we did do is celebrate Black Friday.

I arrived in SF around Thursday evening, and headed out for dinner right away. We went to a sushi and karaoke bar located in inner Richmond. My friend said that the restaurant is usually quite packed. However, since most people are spending Thanksgiving at home with their families, we were one of the two tables that night. We ordered, sashimi, rolls, appetizers and plenty of matcha cream puffs. Even though the food was not that heavy, we still over ate and went home in a food coma.

The next morning, we got up early for yoga at the Equinox in Marina. My friend is a member and raves about the quality of facilities. I must admit that it does not disappoint. Their showers have Kiehls branded everything, and there is an unlimited supply of clean towels. After yoga, we headed to this cute brunch spot called U Dessert Story and Vintage brunch near Fillmore. We ordered the omelette rice and a matcha lava cake to split. It was absolutely delicious.

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Chrissy field, a grassy area with a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and Ocean Beach. At one point, it started raining, but the showers quickly subsided so we did not have to drastically change our plans. The highlight of that evening was catching the sunset at Ocean Beach. The beach has such a large field of view that it felt like the end of the Earth.

 

On Saturday, it just poured. We got brunch at Jane on Fillmore and had dinner at the Italian Homemade Company. We spent the rest of the day shopping and watching movies indoors. Although it was not that eventful, it was nice to take a break.

Finally, Thanksgiving break is a trap. When I got back to campus on Sunday, I realized how behind I was on work. Luckily, I've been able to get back on track, so the vacation/procrastination was worthwhile.

Exploring Koreatown

There have been numerous high scientific studies showing that LA has the best Korean food in America. I've gone to a couple of famous spots over the past year and aggregated these reviews to share with you all. If you read my other blogs, you would probably notice that I blog about food a lot. The truth is, I derive a lot of joy from going off campus for food adventures, so these are the highlights of my week that I want to share. If you are interested in hearing about other aspects of my life at Caltech, let me know. Also, I get asked this a lot in real life -- No, I am no a Yelp Elite. I do not write any reviews on Yelp at all. I just read other people's reviews to make my bucket list restaurants.

Moving on... the best place I've visited is Majordomo in the Arts District. If you watch any food documentaries on Netflix, you probably would know of celebrity chef David Chang. Majordomo is his first venture in LA and it is a mega hit. I was on the waitlist for a good month to get a reservation for dinner at a reasonable hour. Is it worth the hype? I think so! I was starving when I got there, which may have biased my palate, but I am a huge fan of Asian fusion, and everything on the menu was up my alley. Some must haves are the bing. We got the bing with ham and spicy pineapple and it was delicious. I heard the one with egg and roe is also fantastic. As for larger dishes, we got the fried skate rice. I would highly recommend it. If I had more people in my dinner party, I would get the massive beef ribs with fondue.

 

For more homestyle cooking, I went to Myung Dong Koyja. It has the best cold noodles and dumplings. I know the concept of cold noodles sounds weird, but they freeze the broth which becomes like a shaved ice texture in the bowl. The noodles are super springy since there's no hot broth to soften it. The texture is where it's at. The dumplings are also super plump and flavorful. We original got one plate of 10 to share amongst two people, but we had to double our order because it was so good.

Some K-Town classics are Sun Nong Dan, and Hangari Kalguksu. Sun Nong Dan has the most impressive beef ribs with cheese fondue. Each order is large enough to feed a family of four. Hangari Kalguksu is known for their knife cut noodles. You know it's good when the carb is the best part of the dish. Also, both these places have over 1000 five star reviews on Yelp, so even if I don't know what I am talking about, at least one of them would.

These are just a few of the places that I really enjoyed. Of course, there are plenty more to try. I heard Genwa has some of the best kbbq around town and Dae Bu Do has amazing seafood. If any of them are worth sharing, you can read about it in a follow up post.

WE19 Conference

Every year, the Caltech Society of Women Engineers attends the National SWE conference to network with other SWE Chapters and to hustle for jobs. Last year, the event was in Minneapolis, and the year before in Austin. This time around, it's in Anaheim which is much more convenient for us. Since it is much closer, we were able to send many more delegates to attend and miss fewer classes in the process of doing so.

A relevant comparison to the SWE conference is Grace Hopper. Both aim to increase the concentration of women in technology. However, Grace Hopper is specific to computer science and computer engineering while SWE caters to all fields, chemical, mechanical and biological to name a few. They are similar in scale with ~10K attendees, and have massive career fairs. As such, they are both valuable opportunities.

We left early Thursday morning and arrived at the conference venue around noon. The career fair opened at 2pm and we were able to get in right away. This first day is quite hectic as most people are trying to throw their resumes at recruiters to get interviews. When booths get busy, it may take 15-30 minutes to even talk to someone. I ended up speaking to some graduate schools about their programs. A lot of schools will have fee waivers for prospective candidates. Considering that application fees are upwards of $150, these fee waivers are the best swag you can get.

Another highlight for the conference is the keynote and workshops. A couple of SWE members went to one about engagement for your club and found it extremely helpful. One of the difficult parts about hosting SWE events on campus is that there are so many other clubs with their fun events with free food that it becomes difficult to attract attendees. It's even more of a challenge to incorporate the club's goals of professional development and outreach within these events. Regardless, the workshop taught us a lot about how we can run SWE at Caltech.

Some of our other club members got even more out of the event -- they came back with multiple job offers from the conference. Their success is a testament to the value of this event. There's no doubt that Caltech SWE will attend the national conference in years to come. However, there is room for improvement. One of the most simple changes we can make to our itinerary is incorporating more group dinners and activities to help with team building. Hopefully, this can make the conference even more worthwhile for SWE attendees.

 

Kicking Off Recruiting Season with SWE

Fall quarter is the peak of recruiting season when we try to juggle school and finding a job. Thankfully, Caltech has plenty of opportunities to learn about different industries and network with various recruiters. The career center hosts the fall career fair, the CMS department has their own seminars and events, and other campus groups have even more niche events. The Society of Women Engineers kicked off this quarter with a couple of great events.

Right before the career fair came around, SWE held a resume review workshop workshop with Bloomberg and an interview prep session with D.E. Shaw. Both these events were open to SWE members and their friends who identify as a woman in engineering. The events were coordinated with recruiters but ran by both recruiters and engineers. Better yet, a lot of the engineers present are Caltech alum. I think it is valuable to speak to someone with a similar academic experience as you to see how they got to where they are.

Of course, we also had a couple of tech talks. Tech talks are like technical seminar presentations during which the company's engineers talk about a cool technology or framework they are using. It's a good way to gage whether the work there is interesting to you or not. SWE collaborated with the Racing Team and robotics club for a tech talk with Lyft's self-driving division. We also had a lunch with Goldman Sachs to talk about they summer analyst opportunities.

While all these events are extremely fruitful, my personal highlights are the more fun activities. We had a puzzle hunt with Facebook, during which teams of four competed to solve brain teasers for some great prizes. SWE is also having an internal bonding event. All the members are invited for a movie night featuring Hidden Figures, popcorn and plenty of candy. It will be our opportunity to debrief from the rollercoaster of events so far.

It's crazy to think that it's only week 6 and we've already had so many events. I can't wait for more events to come -- there will definitely be more company tours and outreach!

(Most of these events have boba to lure students to come. Since I didn't get any photos of the actual event, here's a picture of the boba that was served instead.)

 

Building a BLDC Motor Controller

EE91 is a lab course that all electrical engineering majors have to take. Typically, everyone takes it in their senior year, but I have some hardcore friends who took it as a junior. I am taking the class this quarter, and for it, I am building brushless DC motor control with my partner.

This class is a project based class with presentations and lectures sprinkled through out. This means that the bulk of our grade is attributed to our final project. However, we have to hit various milestones along the way like completing block diagrams and schematics. For each of the milestones we have to present to the class. The goal is to simulate an industry setting where we can get our designs reviewed by our peers for improvement.

So far, we are only at the stage of simulating the circuits we are designing. We broke down our circuit into multiple sub-circuits that we are testing independently. We are running our circuits in LTSpice to see what the responses are for frequency sweeps. In a sense, we are testing to make sure that our circuit runs properly under a range of conditions. After verifying that it could theoretically work, we need to build them out on breadboards. If we are really confident, we can order the PCB right away and test there.

This would be my first time making an actual PCB. Last quarter, when we built function generators, I had the opportunity to make a PCB. However, PCBs are expensive and the project was self-financed, so I chose to solder instead. This time around, our circuits are too complex to solder properly. Furthermore, I feel like I won't feel like a true electrical engineer until I've designed a built a whole system from scratch. PCBs are a large component of that.

For the next two weeks, we will test our circuits then finalize them for PCB production. Then, our final task would be creating documentation. I am pretty excited for how the motor controller will turn out. I will keep you all posted on the progress and the final product.

 

 

 Image courtesy of Nidec.com.