May 15, 2009

It has been another busy week here at HMI as we all embrace every moment and engage ourselves in every activity. We had a lot of great activity options, as we always do, as to how we wanted to spend our time. Many students chose to make friendship bracelets, trading them with each other. It is crazy to think that we didn't know each other four months ago, because we are such a tight group now. Another group of students put their skills, having been finely tuned here at HMI's climbing wall, out to the test by going bouldering.

Tuesday MC held another rehearsal for the HMI musical, which will have its debut performance next week. Students sang and danced to the songs they wrote about various parts of the HMI experience. Thursday night was RMS 22's first sleepovers, with girls in the East Building and boys in the Yurt. We laughed and talked the night away, making sure to play some stereotypical sleepover games as well.

Today, Friday, was Project Day. Project Day is a day when students get to give something back to the campus that has given us so many wonderful memories throughout our semester. We spent the day sewing curtains for the cabins, staining porches, and building benches, leaving our special touches on this place that we have come to love so dearly.

This week was our last full week of classes, except for today, which was Project Day. Classes end on Tuesday the 19th, which is great from the standpoint that we will not have any more homework, but it also marks the last full week of the phenomenal class experiences that we've had at the Rocky Mountain Semester. Because it's the last week, this week has been full of homework; we have science projects, history papers, English papers, and math tests. Everyone is working to their fullest. We are all doing our work one step at a time, and slowly accomplishing it all. As the semester approaches its end, we are also concentrating on having as much fun as possible through these last few weeks, even with all of the work we have to do.

This week's update features "Sam's Precalculus: Advanced Functions" class. For the culminating project of our final unit on conic sections, we constructed what we call the "Solar Death Ray." To begin the project, our lovely math apprentice MC drove an hour to Frisco to pick up an old satellite dish. Using the properties we have learned about parabolas we were able to successfully calculate the vertex and focus of one parabola found in a satellite dish. Then, using a material called Mylar, which is used in space blankets and is extremely reflective, we covered the entire satellite dish. The rays of light reflected off the Mylar and they all collided at one point called the focus. The focus then became extremely hot and after creating a makeshift device we were able to balance a pan directly in the focus. With out new contraption, we first used the power of the sun to cook brownies. Then, due to the extremely sunny day and the very high elevation of HMI, we discovered quickly that the focus was much too hot and burned our brownies quickly. We recovered by grabbing another food to cook. For our second course we had solar fried eggs, which were followed by boiling water. It was a nice end to our unit and everyone enjoyed another sun-filled day surround by mountains at 10,000 feet.

In other, non-class news, we have continued our training for this weekend's big event: the "Fun Run." Throughout the semester, we have been running for AMX (morning exercise) three times a week, and have worked our way up from about a mile and a half when we first got here to the 6-mile loop. We have been running the Loop once a week for the past two months or so. The Fun Run is nicknamed "10 at 10 at 10" because it is a ten-mile run at 10,000 feet at 10 o'clock in the morning. We have been hearing about it all semester, and most of us are very excited to try to run that far. Most of us had never really run before, or if we have, only two or three miles at a time. Now we can all run six, which is an achievement in itself. There will be several aid stations along the route, which will be manned by faculty, apprentices, and the students who have injuries that prevent them from running. Sunday is going to be a big day here! There is talk of a trip to the pool afterwards to cool off and relax, which will also be great fun.

So, as you can see, we're keeping busy here at the Rocky Mountain Semester XXII. Stay tuned for an update about the fun run, project day, solo, and other fun activities that await us during our final week here!

By: Mackenzie Naert, Parker Watson, Sam Fields, & Maddie "Pants" Pantalena