I think I covered Friday, June 21 in my last blog post, so I’m going to start covering the weekend.

Surprisingly, I woke up early on Saturday morning, hours before the farmer’s market outing was supposed to start. I got some reading in before it was time to leave with Abby and everyone via the van. The moment my roommates and I left the doors of Freddy, it was pouring so we decided to go back upstairs and equip ourselves with umbrellas and jackets. We got to the van and reevaluated our plan with everyone. Instead of going straight to the farmer’s market, we stopped for brunch at Arcadia Cafe in Campustown. The food there was so good. Syema said she was surprised to find the PG Tips black tea there. I decided to try it, and I loved it. I haven’t had tea that good since I was in the UK (which was exactly the point, I suppose). We also went to the farmer’s market and checked out some other stores in downtown Ames. While Abby and I were waiting for everyone to purchase their local produce, I asked her about the history of Ames. She didn’t know, so I ended up wikipedia’ing it, and a one-paragraph history said it was a stop on the transcontinental railroad. I think Saturday’s outing was very fun, and I learned a lot about Ames along the way.

Sunday was Emmanuelle’s birthday. We did a lot of fun activities to celebrate, starting with bowling at an entertainment center called Perfect Games. We all started out not so great, but some top stars were Jennifer, Emmanuelle, and Lucas. We later got pizza at Jeff’s. I think we ordered two pizza specials that came with cheese sticks, which were so good. I hadn’t gotten the chance to try Jeff’s before. I’m glad I got the opportunity to go, and I think I would be going back again. This is us afterwards:

We got back to campus, and we sang happy birthday with a very good cake that Syema made. Then we started a very long game of Uno. We started playing with the rule that people had to keep picking up cards until they could put one down. That didn’t work so well because half of us ended up with “books” of Uno cards. There was a card in the deck that allowed us to swap hands with any player, which made things more interesting. After some people left, the leftover group played a few games of Nintendo Smash.

When I got back, I realized that all of my sheets were in the wash, so I wouldn’t have anything to sleep on until they dried. I finished a couple of designs for the REU t-shirt contest in that time.

I got to VRAC a little early and started drawing out some ideas for my MCA (major course assessment), which is for our chosen deeper dive. Alex listed some paths that we could choose in terms of direction for 3D printing, and I chose “heal it.”

Abby broke her right hand pinkie before we arrived in Iowa, and it’s almost healed. Although I can’t exactly “heal it” by making her another splint, I was still interested in her experience with the splint that she had to wear. I drew out some ideas that came solely from my imagination, and I presented them to her. We had a constructive discussion about what she liked/didn’t like about the splint she had, and she helped me brainstorm on ways that I would improve the design. This, with the technical knowledge about 3D printing that I’m getting from this deeper dive, is helping me to grasp what I finally have to do for the major course assessment.