Splashtastic

Splashtastic: An adjective used to describe a very

I decided to pick this word because the NBA playoffs are on and I knew that I would be able to use it quite a lot. I watched a lot of basketball in the past week, both with my roommates and with my family. With both groups of people I tried to use the word whenever I could. When I used it around my family, my parents just thought it was a new word that people my age were using. When I used it with my friends, they thought that it was a little weird that I had made up a word. I did, however, get one of my friends to say it, but I think that he said it just to make fun of me. Overall, I think that people didn’t take to it too well, but hopefully it can become a word that more people use.

Halfway Reflection

1. At the beginning of this class, I had a little trouble keeping up with all of the work. However, over time I have gotten a lot better at keeping up with the work. One thing that I have done is set aside times throughout the week that I work on this class. It is sometimes hard to keep this schedule because there are so many things to do during the summer, but I am getting better at working during my scheduled times.
2. Early in the semester, I had moments where I felt like giving up, and sometimes I did. There was one assignment where we had to interview five people and I got overwhelmed and decided that I would just take the zero. On another interview assignment I got stressed out about it again, but rather than just take a zero, I decided that I was going to do it. I ended up finishing it  and I felt great about myself.
3. Tips:
1. Look ahead in the semester for projects that require more time and effort to finish. I know if I had seen some assignments earlier, they would have been much easier.
2. Set aside time to focus on just this class. It’s sometimes hard to have that kind of self-discipline, especially during the summer, but scheduling time or this class really helps out.
3. Watch the lectures. I did not watch the lectures for the first couple of weeks of this class. Now that I’ve started watching them, some of the assignments are much clearer.

Reading Reflection No. 1

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

1. There were a few things that really surprised me about Elon Musk. The first was that he created his first video game, Blaster, when he was only 12 years old. The fact that he had the capability to do that at that age is really amazing. Another thing that was surprising is that he dropped out of college. He was in school for his Phd in Nuclear Physics at Stanford for only two days before he decided to drop out. He thought that staying in school was a waste of time when he could go and start working on his ideas immediately. The thing that I most admire about Elon Musk is his work ethic. He has been known to work 100 hours a week. He has to work this much to keep both companies, SpaceX and Tesla, operational. It is amazing that anyone can work this much and still do a good job. There is really nothing that I did not admire about Elon Musk. He seems to be an all around incredible man. Musk encountered a lot of adversity and failure. One of the first adversities that he faced was when he was bullied as a child. Another adversity he faces was creating a successful business out of only producing electric cars. People said that it couldn't be done, but in 2012 Tesla’s Model S was named “Car of the Year” by Motor Trend Magazine. One of my favorite quotes from Musk is “My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.” I think that this pretty much sums up his idea of failure.
2. Elon Musk shows an incredible competency to look towards the future, hence the name of the book. The technology that he is creating is like stuff we see in sci-fi books and movies. Most people could not have imagined a rocket landing vertically and being reused, but Musk is actually doing it with the Falcon 9.
3. One thing that I found slightly confusing was his idea of regenerative breaking. After a little research I now better understand the concept. Regenerative breaking is when the kinetic energy, or friction, caused by the breaks is used to charge the battery that is powering the car. This allows Tesla cars to drive farther than they normally could on a full charge.
4. Two questions I would ask 1.) Why are you so driven to put sustainable life on another planet, and 2.) Do you think that electric cars will ever fully replace combustion engines.
5. I think that Elon Musk loves hard work. It is almost crazy how much he likes working. He is quoted in the book as saying “If there was a way that I could not eat, so I could work more, I would not eat. I wish there was a way to get nutrients without sitting down for a meal.” Most people love eating, but Musk would rather work than eat. He also expects every one of his employees to work incredibly hard. 

Idea Napkin No. 1

1. My name is A.J. Mendola and I am a third year Food and Resource Economics major. I have been interested in phone apps since the boom of smart phones. I always thought that I could think of an app that could possible make money. I do, however, have no experience creating phone apps. I think that if I were to get the right people on board that this could be a very profitable venture.
2. My product is a phone app that allows you to take pictures of clothing items and see clothes that look similar. You will be able to buy the items right from the app. The goal here is to help consumers save money while allowing them to buy things that they want.
3. The demographic for this is relatively large. Really anyone that has a cell phone can use it. However, I do think that this will be most well suited for college students. Most college students don’t have a ton of money and really have to be smart with their money. An app that lets them get what they want for cheaper would be very appealing to them.
4. The goal of this app is to give people what they want for cheaper. The way we will make money is by marking up the price just slightly so that the items still remain cheap. Advertisements through the app will be the other way to generate income.
5. What will set us apart is the ability to get people what they want for less money. Most companies’ goal is to try to sell things for the highest price possible. Our goal will be to save the consumer money. Our customer satisfaction will hopefully bring us the business we need.

I think that these elements fit together quite nicely. Given that our goal is to save people money and that college students are looking to save money wherever they can, I think that this could potentially be a successful business. The only problem I can see is being able to create a database of some sort that holds all of the information of things that we sell.