Midterms

I've just earned two complete credits, .5 credits in 4 classes. That means the semester is halfway over in AP Psych, Calculus, Interactive Design, and Electronics 2. Exams were okay I guess...

Wednesday
Calculus - ugh...don't want to think about it. I'm sure I passed at least.

Electronics 2 - annoying exam. The first page contained completely irrelevant crap that wasn't even in the book. I asked Mr. Euler about it to make sure that it wasn't an error and he told me that it was supposed to be "common computer knowledge". I knew 3/4 of the answers on that page, but still...there shouldn't be that many irrelevant "mystery bag" questions that are extremely specific. After that he made some analogy to the GREs and how hard it is. Well, this is a high school midterm, not a graduate examination. Then we had to do a stupid essay about FCAT. Why? I left the class with a sour note.

Thursday
AP Psych - I think I did pretty well on the exam. I was drinking a Monster before the test, and Mr. Lacroix brought donuts for the class, so about 10 minutes into the exam, the extreme rush kicked in. I was already breezing through the multiple choice, but when I got to question 76, I felt SO much energy in my hands, yet I could do nothing with them. It was weird. Ironically, I scored 76/100 on that section. Not too bad, assuming the lowest score was 41 and the highest was 86, well above the class average of 63.8. I finished the MC around 8:25, and class ended at 9:40, so I had plenty of time to do the two essays. They were questions from the 2004 and 2006 AP exams. I think my first essay was perfect, but I didn't get to finish the second one. I outlined it pretty thoroughly, so perhaps I'll get more credit on the second one since I had the answer actually written down.

Interactive Design - He told us the assignment for the midterm approximately 2 weeks ago. There were 6 topics written on the board (1. Inspiration, 2. Problem, 3. Solution (non-technical), 4. Solution (technical), 5. Plan to accomplish, 6. Timetable -- GO!) It was really ambiguous, it took lots of really vague questions and weird (yet very interesting!) Standford and MIT lectures to somewhat get the point through. I kind of caught on, but the rest of the class was lost until about, oh...Monday. The project outline was supposed to be done and presented today, in preparation for spending the next semester working on our independent projects. After Mr. Calder used me as an example once, people began coming up to me asking to see mine or what I did or to help them. The truth was, I took a stab in the dark, and I just so happened to land somewhere. I encouraged everyone else to take a risk also, that's the only advice I could offer. I was done a week ago, so I spend 5 minutes refining some points and I presented first. You can read the presentation here. I got an A. Now for the hard part...making all of this work.

Just when I thought I was done, I remembered that I had to write a sponsor letter and business plan for robotics by Friday. I really didn't feel like thinking about robotics this week with exams and all, but deadlines are deadlines...