the iron warrior: volume 23, issue 2

8/14/2019 The Iron Warrior: Volume 23, Issue 2

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Friday, February 5 1999 The Magazine o the University o Waterloo Engineering Society Volume 3 Issue 2

Education's purpose is to replace an empty min with an open one. Malcolm S Forbes


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Letter From TheEditorLuke Windisch

2A Systems esign

Loops. Of course, afterapplication of this law, I nowhad enough time in my dayto finish about two one-millionths of the things that Iwante d to do. So despit e mygood intentions, deadlines

and like ideas quickly evaporated, leaving

I was thinking the other day that the me with my somewhat pessimistic attitudeworld should just do away with dead - towards the usefulness of time managelines and time management completc - ment.Iy. I mean, we're all grown adults and have In retrospect however, my judgementhad sufficient work experience, especiall y was too severe, and doing away with deadduring C-op work terms, to know that lines and time management completely iswords and phrases like these are simply a bad thing. Not only do they keep theeuphemisms for llfiguring OUL the most that world from learning more than they wantwe cannot possibly get done in as lillie to know about the Hawaiian Gecko, thetime as possible. The simple fact is that apparent feeling of impossibility that theydeadlines are se ldom met, and that no mat - can sometimes bring to everything weter what good intentions one might have, want to get done helps demonstrate a marsomething will always crop up to help vellous aspect of human nature; we canpush time lines over their limits, and cause always count on others to help us out whenutter confusion and chaos. But if there we need it most. And realistically, the selfwas ever a pessimistic way to start an edi- less way that others can give time to youtorial, that was it, so let me qualify my when you need it is probably one of thestatements a little. single greatest joy of living. I've experi-

In putting together this paper, dead- enced this beautiful phenomenon in everylines and time management are terms that aspect of life , from my family, friends andare often used, and they took on an almost relationships, to bringing this issue of thecomic value for me this issue. Myexperi- paper together, when for unavoidable reaence started with going to bed on Saturday sons, nobody could devote hours at a timenight, with the noble, yet lofty ambition of to the paper. Togethe r we helped eachgetting up early Sunday morning. This other and supported each other in a waywas my first mistake, because I failed to that allowed us to produce what you areremember Jame 's First Law of Warm now holding, which I feel is an absolutelyBeds: The warmth of ones bed and the great issue.time spent in said bed are linearly related, But I want to emphasize that the paperwhere the constant of proportionality for is not a unique demonstration of this

this relationship is given by Z (SI symbol: human spirit, we all experience it everydayZzzzzl:z), . h i ~ hhas a value of 3 9 8 ~. \ n . e v e r y ~ i n gwe do. No matter how bad)(10115'. 0 after a long and 'arduou' tia - ' the going gets,' there are always people we

' tIe ' wi'th' General Fluff and his i l low can count on to help pull us through. OurCommandos, I decided that r should rest family and our closest friends are two ofmy troops for a while, and continue the the most important examples, because theyfight later (it just so happened that General bring more than just help when you needFluff was more than happy to offer me a it, they provide a feeling of completeness.place to rest in Fort Bedsheet). So after a Just think about how good going home2 hour rest, my troops came back and after an extended break from school feels,thankfully won the battle , anxiously anticipating the gleam in your

Unfortunately however, I then sturn- parents' eyes, or the way that a siblingbled over Lucky's Second Law of might hug you when you say hello. OrBreakfast, which states that, No matter think about the way that you can unloadhow poor the quality of Sunday morning frustrations on a friend, who wont judgechildrens' programming, university stu- you for it when you are done, but will

dents in their twenties will pend 2 hours instead provide a shoulder to cry on.watching said programming in pyjamas, These are all things that, although subtle,while eating endless bowls of Froot help get you through even the best days,

just because in the back of your mind youknow that that security and comfort isthere if you need it.

But beyond family and friends, thereare countless other groups in our society

that willbe

there to help out when thegoing gets rough, or to just lend an insightto make something that is already greateven better. Never forget how importantthese groups are, because they help contribute to things that are truly wonderful.

So, the focus of this issue is whether ornot we as engineers are narrow-minded.Sometimes in a program that is so highlyregarded in society, for whatever reasons,right or wrong, it is easy to loose sight ofthe rest of the world and to begin to thinkthat this profession is the be-all and end-allof things sacred. But such a view couldnot be further from the truth, and it isimperative to stop every once and a whileand - to coin the clichE phrase - take a lookat the big picture . Everyone in society, andevery group, has an important and invaluable contribution to make. In the same waythat this paper could not be possibJe without the participation and sacrifice of writers, photographers, and layout staff, oursociety could not be possible without allthe different groups. At the best times, weall build and thrive off each other, makingfor truly great progress, in whatever capacity. And when one group stalls or needs ahand, the others are there to provide it andto keep society going. So if we lookbeyond our own disciplines and professions, magnificent results ' will happen,results that are somehow much greaterthan the sum of the parts .

Professor David Wang

Developing A Social

Consciousnesspg 6Are Engineers Too

arrow Minded8

Just A Chromosome

How o Build TheItimate Snowfort

pg 13

W l W l ~The Magazine o he University o

Waterloo Engineering Society

Editor - in - Chief

Luke Windisch

Assistant Editor

Mat Pigozzo

Layout Editor

Richard Kuttner

Web page Editor

Andrew Hately

Staff

Wil AballeAllison Annan

Cory AmundrudYasin BismillaLindsay DerrahStuart Doherty

Nick GaganiarasAlison Kudelka

Aaron LeibaJenny MitchellCaroline Page

Mary RobinsonMin Song

Zhan Huan Zhou

Contributors

Milton ChanRyan Chen-Wing

Kelly FawcettPatrick GroverMike Hermann

Danny HoSarah KamalPhjl\ip Taylor

Mike OlleyLiz Parry

George RoterIan Tien

The Iron Warrior is a fomm for thought provoking

and informative articll l>published by then g i n ~ e r i n g

Society. Views expressed in The Iron Warrior arethose of the autho, , and do not necessarily reflect theopinions of the Engineering Society.The Iron Warrior encourages submissions from studenlS. faculty and members of the university community. Submi ions should reflect the concerns andintellectual standard. of the university, general. Theauthor's name and phone number l>hould be included.All submissions, unle otherwise stated. become theproperty of The Iron Warrior. which reserves theright to refu>e publicauon of material whIch deemsunsuitable. The Iron Warrior also re .Crves the rightto edit grammar. spelling and text that do not meetuni,ersity standards. Authors will be notified of anymajor changes that may be reqUIred.Mail should be addressed to The Iron Warrior,Engineering Society. CPH 1327, University ofWaterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G I. Our phonenumber is (519) 888-4567 x2693. Our fax number is(519) 7254872. Email can be sent tojMlarrior@en8mJlil uwaJtrioo ca


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ProfFi l s

MUSICIAN

,,', . , . ,

AllisonAnnan

3A Compo

Flying Circuits

Aaron Leiba

3A Compo

Flying Circuits

Has your prof ever tried to ell you a CD in class?Ours did. Picture yourself sitting in Calculu cia sandyour prof tell you that you can pick up a copy of his lat

est CD at the HMV in the University Plaza Talk aboutgoing off on a tangent Well, it just 0 happens thatProfe or David Wang. a member of the E&CE faculty. is11 member of a band . Criti ca l Mass, the Catholic ChristianBand to which Wang belongs, ha sold 750 copie of theirCD "Faith Looks Up". Wang is actively involved in songwriting. singing v o c a 1 ~and managing th band. Theyhave played for over 10.000 people since the band began.Two songs from t h ~ album were rUllnerSlIp in the"Inspirational Song of the Year" and "Rock Song of theYear" categories at the Canadian Gospel MusicAssociation's 199B Covenant Awards.

The band recently shot a music video with Ray Lyell.The video. taped throughout Kitchencr and Cambridge,was a very exciting first for the band. They were filmedplaying in a variety of locations. including water fountains. amidst moving cars on boulevards and silting on topof moving convertibles. Wang loved the experience and islooking forward to the next video shoot.

TEACHlN(,

Professor Wang weill to the Universit} ofSaskatchewan for his undergraduall' degree and then camehere. to our very own U of W for a Masterl> and a Ph.D.He did his graduate work in the field of robotics. morespecifically. control of flexible link m a n i p u l m o r ~

In 1989 the professoJ who supervised his graduatework retired. opening up a position in the E&CE faculty.Wang took this chance to fulfil h i ~ d r e m ~of teaching.Since '89, Wang has taught a variet) of courses rangingfrom calculus to robotics. When we asked what he enjoysmost about teaching. he emphasi/ed the impact that he hason hundreds of students throughout his years of teaching.He said that papers resulting rrom his research. althoughvery exciting to him, arc read by very few individuals, andremembered by even fewer 10 years down the road. Theteaching aspect of his job; however. has an impact on

Alld he plays Jan . , wo Thal s rim l t 1M1m , IVlI ' I ( (md 1,wn Ihe l ~ t

approximately 150 students per year, which he feels really good about. His also has a fondness for presenting in

front of large groups of people, and teaching allows him"to do this on a day-to-day basis.

When his first child was born (the first "Wanglet"), thebaby was very sick, so he drove back and forth betweenWaterloo and Hamilton to cater to both hi career andfamily. During thi time he got very little sleep and as aresult the following story portrays the most bizarre thingthat ever happened to him. During one of his lecture hetried to teach the "Nyquist Criteria" (your guess is as goodas ours) to his fourth year st udents, but was perturbedwhen all of his student had very strange looks on theirfaces. He knew that the material wa difficult, and may becausing the odd looks, but kept on teaching. By the endof the class, the students were flipping back and forththrough their notes furiously, looking very confused. Itwasn't until a year later that Wang found out what truly

happened that day. Apparently, Wang wrote a full twocha lkboards of course material, erased the boards, andthen proceeded t teach the EXACT same material allover again , word for word' N o ne of the students understood the material at the time, and although it seemedstrange to them, they copied it all down. It wasn't untilone of his grad students showed him the two identicalpages of notes that Wang really believed what had happened. This jus t goes to show that a little sleep deprivation can really make class more interesting.

RESEARCHProfessor Wang is involved in some really interesting

research at the university. His work is focused in the fieldof Virtual Reality . You may have experienced VirtualReality (abbreviated 'YR') yourself at Canada 'sWonderland or Sega Playdium. where VR manifests itselfin the form of entertainment. Wang's research takes VR toa n e ~ level by adding touch to the virtual environment.For example. when your VR ~ i m u l a t i o nha you hanggliding through a beautiful bullerfly filled sky. and all of asudden you CRASH into the side of the RockyMountain .. you should at least feel that something happened. Wang and hi > group arc researching technologiesthat provide that sort of "force feedback" through simulating spring and damping characteristics of virtual objects.

Control Advancements. a company that spun ofUromhis. and others '. research produces the "Virtual Mouse".While nav igahng one' way around the computer de ktop.the mouse. through the use of computer controlledmotor:.. applies force feedback to your hand each time youroll ovcr ~ indow border. buttons. and icons. An excitingapplication of this technology allows the visuallyimpaired to use computers more effectively. StevieWonder himself. during the SAP Stevie Wonder competition. was so amazed by the fact that he could surf the webthat he interrupted the presentation to do just that. He proceeded to his web page. downloaded sound clips of hi.own songs. and even ang along to them

THEME[n an attempt to stay with the theme of this is ue. we

asked Professor Wang if he thought that engineering students are too narrow minded. "YES, capital Y-E-S" wahis very explicit an. wer. He tre sed the fact that engineering students hould be involved in more than ju. ttudying. He believes that tudent waste far too mueh

time competing with other students in the cia s for those

The I on Warrior Friday. February 5 1999

"extra 2%". He blames the class ranking as a majorsource of competition,' and wishes that admini tration

would abolish it.Wang discussed the importance of getting involved in

activities with fellow classmates by comparing it to networking. No, not computer networking, people networking' He tre sed the idea that by meeting new people, youare actua lly making essential fut ure contacts. He statedthat the most successfu l classes are those who remain incontact after grad uation. Instead of being a compet itiveclass, concerned on ly with gett ing better marks than thosesitting around you in class, get out there and start networking. The people itting next to you in class todaymay be the people providing you with new contracts andjob opportunities years from now. So remember, nexttime there is a clas party or social event, participate .Think of it as investing in your future.

Wang stressed the importance of getting involved and

becoming a more well-rounded person by stating ''I'mhoping that we're not graduating a bunch of technicallycompetent people with absolutely no ocial ki 1 "Sur prisingly e nough , Wang mentioned th at "hav ing thatextra 2% and putting fu ll focus on your school [work] ultimately hurts you." He stres ed thatgelling involved in FASS, or otherextra curricular activities. is morebeneficial in the long run than theextra time spent studying.

Wang also offered advice aboutchoosing our elective . . He hanoticed a shift in student' s a ttitudeswithin the last 10 year s. Ten yearsago student s would take cour esbecause they were interested in thetopics, whereas today, students aretaking the cour es that they believeindustry wants them to take . ThLattitude re. ult in students takingcourse that they dislike so as tohave the education to get jobs inindustry . Wang thinks that there 'senough jobs out there in all theareas that the . tudents bould bestudying topics that they enjoy andnot suffering through courses thatthey hate. Wan g / 1.\1 1 n

Wang believes in becoming a well-rounded person.being involved in a lot of activities and leading a fulfilledlife. He said "as much as I love my job at the university,I love teaching. I love the research - it's still a job. It doesn't define who I am." And he's right. Hopefully, by reading this article you have gotten a mall glimpse of whoDavid Wang really is.


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w sHow Much Is Five ollars Worth To You

lison Kudelka

3A Enviro-chem

To me, $5 is worth exactly $5. On a $3000 tuitionbill that's 0.2% of the total bill. Doesn't soundlike much to me. That's why I say, "LET IT

GO " . So WPIRG puts $4.75 on our tuition bill. To me,that's no big deal. There are much more importantthings in life than $4.75 for a non-profit organizationrun through the university. I spend more than that onlunch some days if I'm too lazy to make it myself.

There are so many non -profit organizations at UW,and everyone of them need some money to keep thingsgoing. Luck ily for us, we have 20,000+ students toshare all the costs. It's only a few bucks here and thereto keep things running. Imagine how one-dimensionalthis university would be without all of the organizations. I can't imagine losing Fed Hall (concerts, events,etc), and all it cost to each person to keep it was $l2.Now the Bombshelter needs money to renovate. I saygive it to them ; if they can make necessary renovationswith a few of my dollar , why not? It's not like they'redoubling tuition or anything. They are asking for sucha minute amount of money compared to tuition. How

much more is $3000 when we're already paying $2995?I've had enough fun there to justify spending a few dollars for neces ary renovation ,

It fru lrates me to hear people always nit-pickingthe small stuff. f your prof spells a word wrong on theboard and you know it's spe lled wrong , chances are therest of your class knows too, or doe n't care. t doesn'tneed to be pointed out in front of the whole class disrupling the lecture. Some things are so sma ll that theyshou ld just be ignored. Life would be so much morerelaxed amI easy-going, The minute detail are ju tthat; minute, negligible, in ignific ant, inconsequential,immaterial.

There are so many confl ict in this world and 1 betthey all started with mall, insignificant issues thathouldn't have escalated as far as they did . Think about

so meone you are mad at right now. Can you remember

what started the initial conflict? If you can't, you knowit was someth ing so insignificant that it shouldn't havebeen an issue in the first place. The overall stress levelin this world would decrease dramatically if everyonewould ju t stop sweating the small stuff. My philosophy is that it all evens out in the end. If you don 't haveany money and are dying of thirst, I ll buy you a drink .I will not hound you for that dollar the next day.Eventually you will repay the favour even if it's penniesat a time. f you don't, then I'm still glad I could helpyou out. On the grand scale, it's just a drop in the ocean.

It's much more practical to save your energy for thethings that really matter . So go out into the world andfight your battles and wars. Scale your mountains butstomp on those molehills and forget about them. Thinkof how much energy you will have to expend to scaleevery mole-hill-tumed-mountain. It's not worth it.Save your energy. Pick your battles. It's $5.

vs

Counterpoint

e

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Mat Pigozzo

2A Mech

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world:indeed it's the only thing that ever has "

- Margaret Meade

W r e n your fundamental beliefs and values are challenged, or the health and wellbeing of yourself or someone you care about is threatened, how do you respond?Do you shrug off the offence as mediocre, or roll over and die ? I believe most peo

ple would not respond so passively to threats to tho e people and ideals that make up our corebeing, defining us in the face of a world of chaos and uncertainty. Anyone would fight suchoppressions to the bitter end. Why then do the lesser causes, the minor injustices we experience every day, receive less attention? t is important to realize that problems come in bothsmalJ and large packages , in fact a large problem is nothing but a collaborative effort of manysmaller ones, By taking note of, and acting out against the little snags in daily living, we aresimultaneously smoothing out the bigger wrinkles on the roads of life ,

One seemingly minor issue that is receiving a lot of attention lately is the debate of the$4.75 WPIRG fee each UW student pays with tuition. It's exciting to see how passionatesome people are on this issue, Even though all it really means is about five bucks to the average student, people feel strongly about it and are becoming involved in the issue, The impact

of this fee is not of monumental proportion - I lose more than five dollars to the cracks in mycouch each term - but that' s not the real point. The issue has sparked interest and confl ict.

ness and consciousness of this issue . More than that, its an inspirnliol) to liS all. tl) rise lipfrom our mundane c\istcncl' anti throw oIl ttw ~ h a d , l l01 .Ipathv and ta"t' illtilln 101 magainst whatcycr i s s u e ~an individual feels strollgly ahollt. t \ illI l'nlight 'lIillP l'xperil.'IK'l', IIlesson showing how much can he a c c ( ) l l 1 r ~ h e dwhen Wl' ~ \ ) PtWill ) , o lsclVl'l:> ilnd \WCOIIIl'panicipants in the game of hfe . It is I'llr i l l ~ tthl'Sl' n:ason", and the catalytic ('Iket \w hawon other . , that makes it worthwhile to light for a pmition thOit (lIll' holds 011 '1I1)th[1I" " is inhow we face thc challcngc '>of daily life that ddine who we an' as PI'Opk' This IS what MartinLuther King, Jr. meant whcn he said "Thl' ultimilte lIl'aSUrl'01 a man is not WIWl ' Ill' standsin moments of comfort. but where he slands at times of l'hulknge and controvc[sy."

This issue is just one of many I hear about during Illy daily cxpl'I'il'nt'l" at Watl'lloo . Blltthis issue is special in thut a lot of activity and bl'ndit j ~ being gl'neratcd as a rcsull of it. Anynumber of people can complain about an issllc, but until somcone actually dOl'S sOll1lllhin '

about it, it will remain on the ever-growing complaint 11',1. Things do not sUlrt out big, theygrow from the tiniest event, the most minute amount of sinccrl' cmlrt. Aut once tht' motionis initiated, they grow to the greatness of their own accord In t h ~words of' Moth er Tl'rcsa,"We can do no great things: only smalllhings with great love ,"

There is a sense of pride inspired by mUking a change, even ii its a changl' of only thesmallest thing in your own life that no one will ever Sl'C or know of, if i t ~a change for thl'better, i t ~for the good. As William Ellery Channing oncc stated: "Dirtkultics arc meant torouse, not discourage . The human spirit is 10 grow strong hy connic ." Each of u'> has a voiccand with this voice comes the privilegc .. nay, the duty to u ~ eit; Speak out against the cvill>of the world and sing the praises of merely being alive in even the ).mallcst things wc do, Theform t h i ~takes is up to the individual. but we must all light our battles and come to knowourselves in our own ways and in our own lime. A final inspiration from Hannah More summarizes this perspective: "One kernel is felt in a hogshead; one drop of water helps to swellthe ocean; a spark of tire helps to give light 10 the world. None are too small. too feeble toopoor to be of service. Think of this and act."

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those o the authors or the ron Warrior staff. Point Counter Point articles are meant to be athought-provoking debate on a prevalent issues related to engineers. They are not meant to be a statement o act

The IronWar

nor Fnday. Februmy5

1999

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Developing of a Social Conscious ess ...

Patrick Grover O?raduate Studiesil ii Engineering

I admil that during my undergraduate years here atWaterloo, I was the typical apathetic engineering student. I was aware of the issues affecting our society,but never felt the need or desire to do anything aboutthem. Activism always seemed to be about a bunch oflong hairs waving placards and chanting silly songs, andthat was never really (and still isn't) my scene. J had heardof WP.I.R.G, and thought that some of the stuff they didwas, at best, interestin g J am a big fan of Ralph Nader).Even if T did feel like joining, r wasn't sure what in theworld they did; moreover , I was nervous that I would notbe well received into that cullllre, being one of themengineers . But most of all , I really couldn't care less. Ihad better things to do like getting a job.

Now I am back at Waterloo a number of years laterdoing graduate studies and am active within WP.I.R.G.During the fall, I got my hands dirty restoring old bikeswith Recycle Cycles. and I have also been doing a bit ofresearch and reading on globalization as part of my workwith the group, People Against Corporate Rule. Throughmy involvement, I have become informed on a variety ofother issues, such as the provincial government's newLand's for Life policy and the Expressway 7 debate. Idon't alway s agree with the viewpoints of some of themembers, but the challenges to my values and viewpointsforce me to examine and defend myself, often causing meto closely examine them. So how did this transformationoccur? Well it is a story, which involves ajoumey ..

When I graduated, ] dec ided to go planting for thesummer and then perhaps go travelling. Petro -Canada wasin the middle of layoffs, and so were many of the other oil

companies, so hey, this would be a good excuse to go bumaround for a little whi le. Plus, I was disenchanted with theengineerin profession because 1 had met so few engineer s while on work term s whom were gelluin e ly happy.They tended to lead very boring and insignificant lives,and it showed in their gloom. This confused me. It endedup thaI l spent the last three years travelling and doing allsorts of strange jobs (tree planting and working as a bikecourier were Illy main sources of income). During thistime I met lots of people with unique outlooks on life,and I put myself into very intense situations. By listeningto what these p oplc had to say and liVing through theseexperiences, I was able to unlearn much of the crapwhich had been taught to me over the past years. Anexample of this crap is the notion that what you do (i.e.your job) defines who you are. Another examplc is to

believe that it is perfectly okay to devote a massiveamount of your life to your job. so that at the end of theday you arc too tired 10 do anything but turn 011 the TV

and turn off your brain. I began to gain my own perspective on the world. I highly recommend dropping out for alittle while, it makes a world of difference. Sure some people might get upset or worried, but usually that is how youknow that you are on the right track.

So during these years, I spent most of it with peoplewho occupy Ihe lowest economic classes. As a bike courier, I was surrounded by the street culture, which includedjunkies, the homeless and those who just decided to dropout of the mainstream. When you start to actually get toknow some of the homeless people, it is hard to ignorethem. I spen t some time in the north, and saw fir t handthe level of poverty on Canadian reservations. I saw placeand learned of situations in the WT , NorthernSaskatchewan and Ontario that were right out of thedeveloping world. And by travelling to South America

on two separate occasion , I saw some appalling stuff.

But I would say that my development of this socialconsciousne. s" thing really happened during my second

trip to South America. This time I brought my bike (whichis the be t and realistically, the only way to travel) whichallowed me to cycle into some very remote parts of Peru.I m not sure what it is, but we do have quite a defensiveshell around u that can protect us from reality. We seepoverty on TV, but those are just images that may instantly affect us, but wear-ofr pretty fast. Even when I saw thepoverty of both Canada and Sou th America first hand, Iwas still unaffected.

So I'm not sure whether these images and experiencescollected in my mind, adding up to a bursting point, or ifI experienced a powerful enough event, but eventua lly myshell crumbled. One situation that really stick out in mymind was when I was ridding through Peru. I was told thatI was the first foreigner to travel through these parts as farback as anyone could remember. This area was just begin

ning10

recover from the years of hardship and atrocitiescommitted during the reign of the guerrilla group, TheShinning Path. One day in a town just out ide of

The Sandford Fleming FoundationCPH 4306888-4008

Civil Engineering

a Journey

Huancavalica . while talking to some locals. a young girllooking to be about 8 or 9 walked over to us and ju t stoodthere laring at me. The locals. noticing her, explained tome that she was actually 14 year old, but her growth andmental development had been tunted by year of malnutrition. There was something in those eye of hers, whichpierced that protective shell and struck my oul. I startedto shake, felt nauseous and had to excu e my elf andbiked off in a hurry.

I spe nt the rest of the day ju t ridding and trying to forget about that girl. I began to question what right I had tobe there? My privileged white skin, my immunizations,and my money. What right did I have to look at that girland not be affected? Ever ince then he ha haunted me,reminding me of the actual suffering which goe on in theworld. It is her that has driven me to become an activi t,and it wa her who helped destroy my apathy.

In a stra nge way this girl in the middle of the Peruvianhighlands, who had nothing, ended up giving me perhapswhat I was really looking for: Meaning for life. Ever si nce

r have become an active member of my socie ty and I havefelt that my life now has a direction, a purpose.

Back to WP.I.R.G. - why i it important? It is a placewhere you can come to challenge, expand and exploreyour own thoughts and ideas. W.P.I.R.G.' . views are ba edon the collective opinions of its volunteers. Sometimes theissues are political, but more often they are issues whichdeal with common sense. As for engineers, we tend tohave different methods and v iews on how to attack issues.We are problem solvers. A number of us WPRIG member. who are engineers are organizing a group to look intoactivism and the kind that appeals to engineers (i.e.re eareh oriented). We are going to examine one issue,which affects us as a collective, and try to work forchange.

So what i the point of this article? Perhaps it is this:

To start to question the things around you, and stopaccepting what is aid to be true. Go out and see the worldfor yourself. Find and develop your own voice. A foonything happens when you go off alone to find yourselC: youdiscover that it i fou nd in the community you left.

Sam Keen a philosopher, psychologist and consu ltin geditor for Psychology Today for 20 years, points out thefirst que tion. we must ask ourselves:

Where am I going, what's my life about, and whatgives it meaning? After that, of course we have to ask theque tion, How do I make a living and how do I provide formyself? The order of the questions is the key

If you are intere ted in joining this group contactplgrover@ellgmail or mplablaflc@ellgmail.

Waterloo Campus Activitiessff@dean

Chris Flamanill ishop

Orla HegartyAlex Parlour

Electrical Computer EngineeringManagement SciencesMechanical Engineering

U i ~ r 30/tlut 1998 Sandford J emingJ.oundationJeaclung Ajji3ianl.3lup -AwarJ

Funding for this award comes from engineering student contributions and depends on them for continuation.

An organization devoted to the advancement of engineering education.

~

The Iron WarriOl' Fr Iday. February 5. 1999


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Tal mu 'h ot m ~ heril,lge.

outb of Ihe border, thi ma) be ~ en a. Ihe \\ a) of lifeand something lhat ~ ' \ " e T )immigra nt mu. ( COp ' \\ ilh. InCOnlnI. l. here m Canada . \ \ ' pride ollrs ' hes in being a"mo aic of cu ltlll'c. ' com pared to the. men an m ItingPOL The rea lil) i n C anada, ho \\ ever. is thlt Caucasianind i\ idu a l. don '( have an) of the cult ural pre , u r e ~Ihat animmi grant has. uch a conformi ng to the We. t m wa> of

life . The cultural differen e dr amati all ) affe ct th eupbringing of a youn g c hi.ld new to the c ounr ry. 0 childwant be different from his pee rs and will d o virtuallyanything to be accept ed. in luding abandoning his nativeheritage in favour of the "Canadi an" Iife,.tyle . 1 fell victim to this when I wa in public chool and deeply regretit now. I am ur e Ihal many of you ha e this experienceor know omeon e who ha .

A ide from having all the phy ical attributes to pa sa"Chinese, " I have very little el e to identify my elf auch. For example, my Chinese oral and written 'kill are

comparable to a kindergarten level and are degradingevery year. I don't even know when Chine e ew Year imost of the time. And even something a s impl e a, consuming rice regularly is becoming more infrequent. I eatWestern foods more than 90 % of the time. And to top itall off, I don't even have black hair any more

There are time I try really hard to fool myself into

Gemini:

thinking that r am indeed Chi nese. I will attemp t to speakto I l l ) p a n ~ l I t .in Chine se or tr) to read a Chinese new. paper. Wh('n r am r('ally desperate. I even eat al SunshineExpre s or Grand China 10 g.el u grolls approxlinatlOn of111) ('thni' food 10 l'ominl'l: m) self that 1 am indeedChill'." . 1 haH: . ome Chinese I:alendars that I pu t up tofool p'oplc inlo thinking thaI I am in louch w ith my eu ltur'. Th I ar times I feci likl' I am insu ltin g my Chine eherit,\ge h ) 'a lling my . e lf a hinese p'rs on .

An example t haI ma ny o f )ou may h e able to rclate tois calli ng ) ourself a C hristi an. When \Va the last timeyou w ent 10 church? When wa . the last time you said

Gr aceb e f o n ~

dinn r'? Whcn was (h last time you confe , sed your sins? When was the la. t time you prayed toGod '? Wh 'n ~ as the lao time being a Christian had amajor impa t on any action you have ommittcd ? I don ' tmean 0 offend any Chri [ians but althou gh many peopleare technically Christians , most don ( practic e Ihe beliefenough to really be called a hristian . Th e same i truefor calling m e a Chines e. Chine . e blood may flowthrough m y artcri es, but I am n. Canadian a . the reo ofyou .

To paraphras e a certain song, you could say that I'm"Pretty Chink for a White Guy."

Take A Zhance has oeen regularly featured in The IronWarrior since September 1997. Past anicles can be found athttp://,, ww.eng.lllla/( rloo .ca/sfuuen zh hol/

Libra:

nw

2A Mech

Stop meddling damnit You have to stop~ t c : r t e n m W J \ heyerybody else's life and startttealing . ybdr own. You find it 0 ea y tofind fa It ith other people but fail to recog-

B e w a ~~ f authority for the next little while. Itmay r ~ f ~ ~'tii n s .Take exira care of acquain

tapcef ~ y

..t i ~ b e

deciding what will happen toybtt-i he nCx:t..::fuonth. Kee p a close e ye o n yourro n't 1 t th uc y u in ...

Sagittarius:F. pand yO\lr mind this week , TIlly n CO hy 0

group that 'v, I l ~ V l ' 1hl'ard or nlld I h ~ ' 1 1hlt'Hk itami hum th, l I l ' ~ . ~ l , Thi s will tellch you to WristYOttf-ffief1't y 1'ltf.'lUC1'l frivoll1uS thin ) .s as mU S ll ' . I on 'lI ~ ~ g l i l l i h k ~ Rlilnd up for your self andy ,U/1fghh . By the WHY, yes, you do have rights.

a: ' 1.Play your cards right and things are going to

w O t r 6 o t . ~ T e a t - {hope so. Go into interviews with,/ p&"tive , which will turn into bountifuloffers ovJing up. There will be some down time

soon. Lay low and watch your back fortabber that keep showing up whenever

you're having some luck .

m w 'ere,..)fle'swans strangle the tu/1les and. r ~ kshell . Catch the sw andpluc their hile singing a song . Now, takethe feathers an dip them in water three timcs to ridyourself of any bad luck. that may be present.

Virgo:Y . o t 1 . . . a r - e - t b . e ~ r . t ethat will bite the Leos thal youo fm.not ~ g . . ~ owaste your time here. I haven't

~ . ~ ~ g ~ to happen to you. It's as simple

m ~ Jo r f f J e t , ~ 'or the swan s will catch you. Ir

::I: thF - \: '\ - _y l--- - --

FS EPh illip Taylor 0


8/20

Feature

Caroline Page

A En viro Ch em

P eopl e don 't like to be insulted. Th at i s an undisputed fac l So if someone w ere to say that engineersare too narrow minded, that person would probablybe confronted with a barrage of highly convincing comments such a s: "How can you say that? " and "Ther e's noway " or po ssibly even "Th ey are not " . The se comment swill preclude any que stion , s uch as "What do you meanby narrow minded?" and "What makes you say that?". tis also unlikely that the issue of engineer's narrow mindedness will be disputed with a great deal of coherent arguing. After all , it is very insulting to be called somethingderogatory, or something that may be interpreted as beingderogatory. But to prove that we aren't narrow minded, itmight be best to figure out exactly what could be meant bylhatterm, and then try to refute it

The Narrow Minded EngineerThe word narrow sugge sts something constricting,

like a narrow passageway. If you apply this to a manner ofthinking, a narrow minded person might be constricted byhis or her ideas, unable to make deci sion based on all thefacts because all of the facts just aren 't in the passagewaywith the thinker. To make a distinction, narrow mindeddoes not mean the same thing as closed minded. The latter suggests a choice, which is accompanied by ignorance

and stubbornness. The thinker is presented with newinformation and chooses to ignore or disbelieve it. A narrow minded person has 110 such choic to make. The information is simply not available to him or her.

So how could an engineer possibly be narrow minded?As engineering students , are we not presented with endless amounts of information concerning calculus andphysics, materials and processes? As humans, particularlyeducated, reasonably affluent humans, do we not havevast amounts of inFormation accessible to us throughbooks, newspapers , television, and the internet? Howcould we not be seeing the whole picture, or getting all the

In ca e you missed the drift of my reverie. I'll rephraseit in a concise, logical, analytic manner. Creative thinkinggot dropped from the curriculum and was replaced bymemorization of fact s a nd mathematical problem solving.Th e school system stopped nurturing the creative, spatialside of us in order to encourage our logical , analyticalmind s to grow . And grow they have. After all, we find our-elves here at university in the realm of engineering, sur

rounded by the laws and rules of the universe. As the"good students", we thrived in the educational system andare now reaping its benefits. We are therefore narrowminded because we are using some of OUT abilities, thelogical, analytical ones, to look at the world. We are confining ourselves within mental boundaries.

Enter the rain

The human brain , when viewed from above, is madeup of two similar appearing, rounded halves, connected atthe center. The two halves are known as the "left hemisphere" and the "right hemisphere". The l ft hemispherecontrols the right side of the body, while the right hemisphere controls the left side. In animals, the two hemispheres develop symmetrically, and are similar infunction. The human cerebral hemisphere , however,develop asymmetrically in terms of function, which leads

to the handedness of humans .About one-hundred and fifty years ago, scientists dis

covered that language and language-related capabilitiesare controlled by the left cerebral hemisphere for abouttwo thirds of left-handers and 98 percent of right handers .This discovery resulted from observations o f people whohad suffered brain damage or injuries. Linking speech andlanguage to thinking, reasoning, and higher mental functions, the scientists termed the Jeft hemisphere the dominant (or major) hemisphere, while the right hemispherebecame known as the subordinate (or minor) hemisphere.From thi emerged the assumption that the right side of

the brain was less advanced and less

Scielltists have always proceeded Oil the assumptiollthat wholes are understamlable in terms of heir

parts .. ut of ell (ill fields such as art, music, and socialscience) wholes emerge that are not understandable interms of their parts, bringing science right to the edgeof he supposed gas between the material and mental

worlds, a gap which may be illusory or profound.

evolved than the left side. The left side ofthe brain was considered to be moreimportant than the right, and society wastaught to appreciate the capabilities of theleft hemisphere.

During the 1960's, scientists postulateda revised view of the capabilities of the twohalves of the brain. The scientists nad discovered that the main purpose of the cor-

- Sir Alan Cottrell

information? We avoid the issue because we find it sooffensive.

pus callosum, a thick nerve cable thatconnects the two cerebral hemispheres,was to serve as an information link

between the two nemispheres, allowing the transmrssion ti

of memory and learning. Scientists then postulated thatboth hemispheres are involved in higher cognitive functioning, and each half of the brain specializes in a different mode of thinking. Further studies showed that eachhalf of the brain perceives reality in its own way. The verbal, left half of the brain tends to dominate most of thetime in people with intact brains as well as in people who

have had the corpus callosum removed. t the same time,both halves of the brain are responding to

r ssonin g, and complex mental functioning. t has also beenshown that the two modes of processing tend to interferewith e ach other , preventing maximal performance. Thismay explain why the human brain developed asymmetrically - to keep the two modes of processing in differenthemispheres of the brain .

An example might help illustrate the power of the different sides of the brain. A male patient who had nad hiscorpus callosum removed was given several woodenshapes and asked to arrange tnem in a certain design. Hewas asked to complete this task using his right hand (corresponding to the left hemisphere) , but kept failing. Theright hemisphere, trying to help, but the right hand wouldpush the left hand away . The man had to sit on his lefthand to keep it from helping. When the scientists allowedhim to use both hands, the spatially smart left hand pushed

; . j ~ Corpus Callosum

Anterior Commissure

the right hand out of the way and completed the task. Inanother case, two pictures were simultaneously flashedbefore a patient, one which was received by the left hemisphere and one which was received by the right. The leftside of the brain received an image of a knife, while theright side of the brain received an image of a spoon. Whenasked to name the image, the articulate left side of thebrain responded "knife" . When asked to select the objectfrom behind a screen using his left hand (corresponding tothe right hemisphere), the man selected a spoon from agroup of objects including both a knife and spoon. If thepatient was asked to identify what was in his hand, hewould respond "knife". The right hemisphere was awarethat this was wrong, but was unable to verbally communicate, and so the patient would mutely shake his head.Confused, the patient then asked aloud "Why am I shaking my head?" t is obvious that, in a way, we each havetwo minds that are linked together. Sometimes the twominds cooperate, each half contributing what it does best.Other times, the hemispheres work relatively independently. Occasionally, the two hemispheres conflict, eachhalf fighting to do what the other half knows it can do bet

ter .

Let's take a little journey back in time. Do you remember grade school? Those were the days. Math class wasfollowed by music. After recess, it was time for dodgeball.In the afternoon, science, english, and art were combinedinto one class. Now think about your average school day:numbers, theory, flow rates or computer code, the occasional lab, more numbers and theory. Somewhere alongthe line, things changed. My memories of kindergartenrevolve primarily around playing house, pounding nailinto wood, drawing and painting, and a whole lot of running. Grade 1 brought in a little bit of math, and the basicsof reading. As the years progressed, art and music clas esbecame fewer and farther between. English class changedfrom creative writing to grammar, spelling, and e say .Science became math and math became calculus and algebra and statistics and probability. And gym class? Well, Iquit gym so I could take all the computers, math, and science courses I needed to get into university. But I heardthat it was still pretty fun. You got to learn the history of

and processing information, each in theirown way The link between the two halvesmelds the two perceptions, which pre-

The le ft hemisphere analyzes over time, whereas theright hemisphere synthesizes over space.

_ sports, the proper techniques, the mu culature of theb o d y ..

The iron Warrior Friday February 5 1999

erves our sense of being a unified entity.Scientists also discovered that the left

hemisphere is verbal and analytic, whilethe right hemi phere is nonverbal and global. More recentevidence has shown that the mode of information processing used by the right hemisphere is rapid, whole-pattern, spatial. and perceptual. This proves that it iscomparable in complexity to the mode of processing inthe left hemi phere and that both ides of the brain usehigh-level cognitive modes, which involve thinking, rea-

- Jerre Levy

Society has a bias towards the right side of the brain.Our language contains many examples of bigotry towardsthe left hand, which corresponds to the right side of thebrain. The right hand is strongly associated with thingsthat are good, moral, and just, while the left hand is associated with things that are bad, immoral, and dangerous.The Latin word for "right" is dexter, the origin of the word


9/20

"dexterity" (meaning "proflciency" or "aptitude") . TheLatin word for "left" is sillister, with connotati ons uch a"si ni rer , "om inous , and "evil". The French word for"rig ht" is droit, meaning "good", "just", or "proper", whilethe word for "left" is gauche, meaning "awkward". TheEnglish word "right" comes from the Anglo-Saxon wordreht (or riht), meaning "straight" or just". The words"correct" and "rectitude" are also derived from this origin.The English work "left " comes from the Anglo-Saxonword lyft, meaning "weak" or "worthle s".

Up until recently, the bias against left handed peopleso permeated our culture that left handed children wereforced to become right handed because it was feared thatthe devil controlled left handed people. The place of honour at a formal gathering is at the host's right-hand side.At weddings, the groom is on the left while the bride is on

the right. We shake with our right hands. The political leftis fascist , admiring autonomy and promoting (radical)cbange. Throughout history, the left brain has been verbally demeaning the right brain, while the right brain ,unable to communicate through language, has been leftundefended.

People have long been aware that along with the physical duality of the brain, there are

r row

tion, intuition, and creativit y often doe occur in spite ofthe chool sy tern. But our culture i 0 trongly bia edtowards the left-brained approach that it is inevitable thatwe are suppres ing a large part of ourselve by failing totrain and encourage the right hemisphere , which re ult innarrow mindedness. Scientist Jerre Levy ha remarkedthat American scientific training through graduate schoolmay entirely destroy the right hemisphere While this isan exaggeration, it is undeniable that the school y tern

trains us to be one-sided, focusing on only half of our abilities.

So why doe it really matter that engineers are taughtto be primarily left-brained? If everyone is taught to beleft-brained, why is it such a problem for engineers in particular? If we're taught to be left -brained, why worryabout it? We feel fine, so what could we possibly be miss -

tunities to oversee much of our own learning proce , . Sowhy i it that we continue to only train our analytical side?In order to com up with creativ idea , doesn 't it followthat we hould tea h our elves to think creatively? But fororne reason, we ke p ignoring our creative sides. focus

ing on facts and fonnula derived by someone el e.Art cia mu ic. even English when there was a lot of

creative writing involved . Most of the engineers that I'vespoken with find the e subject the most difficult of all.

Being people who are generally unaccustomed to failure(except the occa ional midtenn), we avoid things that wedon't succeed at. Art clas ? Oh I suck at drawings.Writing? Oh I can't create a coherent entence. Calculus?Oh ['m great at math. l Il go into engineering. This is theway that we expand and enrich our minds. This is how weconfront our fears. By running from them into the com-

forting and familiar (yet chal-

also parallel ways of knowing.Throughout the history of scienceare anecdotes of researchers who,stumped by a problem, have adream in which the answer pre entsitself in some sort of encryptedmetaphor under tood by the scientist. We often have no logical rea-

Left Mode llen gin g) world of number andlogical, linear thinking. Thereason that we should takeclasses like art and music is

on to doubt a person's sincerity,but a gut feeling tells us not to betoo tru ling.

It is clear that both side of thebrain are at work, processing thesame situa tion . The left hemispheremode is analytical, verbal, figuringout, sequential, symbolic, linear,and objective. This side of the brainanalyzes, abstracts, counts, markstime, plans step-by step procedures,verbalizes, and makes rationalstatements based on logic. Theright hemisphere mode is spatial,subjective, relational, time-free,creative, holistic, and networked .This side of the brain can see how

things exist in space, and how partsfit together to make up the whole. It

Verbal: Using words to name, describe,and defineAnalytic: Figuring things out step-by-stepand part-by-part

Symbolic: Using a symbol to representsomethingAbstract: Using a small bit of informa-tion to represent the whole thingTemporal: Awareness of time, and doingtasks sequentiallyRational: Drawing conclusions based onreason and factDigital: Using numbers

Logical: Drawing conclusions ba ed onlogicLinear: Thinking in terms of linked ideas,progressing directly from idea to idea

ing out on?

Nonverbal: Awareness but minimal con-nection with wordsSynthetic: Putting parts together to formwholes

Concrete: Relating things as they are atpre se ntAnalogic: Seeing likenesses betweenthings and understanding metaphorsNontemporal: Lacking a sense of time

Nonrational: Does not require a basi:-, ofreasoning or faclsSpatial: Seeing things where they arc inrelation to other thingsIntuitive: Making leaps of insight. busedon hunches, feeling or imagesHolistic: Seeing whole things at once

because we find them difficult.That's the whole point. Giventhe opportunity to truly enrichourselves, what do we do? Wetake electives to plump up ourre urnes (MSCI, etc); becausewe're a lrea dy fami li ar with thesubject (when your last name isVon Trapp, you shouldn't takeGerman 10 I) ; or because wewant to lighten our work -load(as if ylll i r ~ y II (/fl t , t to whPSCI 291 or 2(2). IlIslead , we..hould confront our fl'ar lind~ i v oUI',('lvc\ u chance 10improve UUI' ~ k l l ~and expandour l l l l l l . We should lakeclasses that really will J1l.lkc usmore wt'll rounded : fuw art ,music, drama, cr 'alivc writing .If electives werc credit/no cred oit, maybe we would have th eluxury of doing so . Instead we

dreams, creates, gestures, and understands metaphors. Forexample, try to describe a spiral staircase without makinga spiral gesture. The right side of the brain uses intuition,resulting in situations where things seem to suddenly fallinto place ("Ohh ..now 1 get it").

Where the Engineer Falls Short

need to boost our averages, so we stick with subjectswhere we have a reasonable guess as to the mark we'regoing to earn before even setting foot in the room.

It is too late for u to go back to the beginning andretrain our brains to usc both hemispheres equally. But i norder to become good engineers, we need a way to learncreatively and to train the right side of our brains. We needto give ourselves the ability to see and think and makeavoritism towards Logic and Analysis

Engineering is about applying proven science andtechnology and bringing them to the world . Engineering isaoout:..l16uble-shooting, resourceful problem-solving, andinnovative ideas. In short, engineering is about creative

As I mentioned before, the school system, favor- ing sequential verbal and numerical classes, caters tothe left side of the brain. The right hemisphere cannot be reasoned ..yith. It cannot sequence tasks, andit has poor time management. It cannot categorizeand name objects, nor can it analyze and abstract.For these reasons, the right side of the hemispherehas been abandoned by the school system, which hasfound a way to educate the left hemisphere.Although awareness is increasing as to the lack of

The main theme to emerge .. s that there appear to betwo modes o thinking, verbal and nonverbal, represent-

decisions using all that we have . Training the rightside of the brain wiJI provide us with skills that wehave been suppressing. skills that poke their headsout every now and again, but can't reliably becalled upon.d rather separately in left and right hemispheres,

respectively, and that our educational system, s well asscience in general, tends to neglect the nonverbal formo intellect. What it comes down to is that modern soci-

The reason we are all here is because theUniversity of Waterloo deemed us "well-rounded",

intelligent, capable individuals who show promiseto have a significant impact on the future. But in

right brained education, school continues to be very

ety discriminates against the right hemisphere.- Roger W Sperry

order to take the world to the next level, we are

left brain dominated. Students progress linearly from

going to have to realize the boundaries of our (narrow) minds, and try to push past those limits.Remember that the only way to get out of a narrOWgrade to grade. Our main subjects are verbal and

numerical. We follow schedules, sit in rows, and receivegrades for our performance. The few subjects that providean outlet for the imaginative right side of the brain, suchas music and art, are optional, and even these classes focusless on creativity and perceptual skills than they should.Witness music class: the study of musical history, or artclass: the analysis of paintings and theif/verbal meanings.

Fortunately, development of inventiveness, imagina-

thinking accompanied by logical reasoning. In theory,( engineering seems to suggest a fairly large component ofright-brained thinking. In practice, the field is dominatedby linear thinking. The right brain approach is encouragedby companies, but, due to lack of training we are unableto access the right hemisphere at will. We have beentrained so that we can only complete part of the job.

Now that we are informed adults. we have the oppor-

passageway is to keep looking for the door.For those of you who still aren't convinced, and need a

few scare tactics to bring you out of the world of the leftbrain, studies have shown that people who work ex.cessively using the left side of their brain can actually lose theability to dream. Have a nice life.

The Iron Wl-HrIOI FI iday FctJI uary 5. 1999

--

-


10/20

-

he o you think en gineers are narrow-minded?

u

The Iron Warr ior Friday. February 5 1999

By Alison Kudelka and Jenny Mitchell

Nikita Eriksen-Hamel3A Enviro-Chem

1 think we stick together LOO much and don't take enough other courses. Ithink we should be thrown in Africa and see if calculus helps us. We shouldrely less on our engineering knowledge and more on intuition.

Karen Genoway4B Chemical

Right brain/left brain crap? I don't know anything about that. I wouldn't sayengineers are worldly. I don't know anything about history and stuff. I live ina bubble when I'm at school.

Derek Maat4B Enviro-Civil

Yes, I think so. They don't have a chance to develop a whole spectrum ofpersonalities. I think engineers are too goal-oriented and don't experience thewhole of life.

Sukbdeep GraewalPre-Optometry

UNo 1t

Tania PereiraIB Enviro-Chem

Yes, I think so because we're not encouraged to learn everything and useeverything. We are only allowed to take one elective and we aren't encouraged to develop our creative side. Our courses take up too much time so wecan't experience the full university life.

Victor Uras4B Electrical

Yes, I would have to agree with that. We take all core courses and then getone complimentary elective that we blow off to make our lives easier.

une LowFaculty

I'm alway. amazed at how good Tal-Eng i . I'm pleasantly amazed at howwell 'dumb' engineer can play music.


11/20

Zoot

A whipped up jillerbuggin' browll eyed manA stray catfrontin up an eight-piece bandCut me Sammy and you'f{ understandIn my veins hot music ran

- Zoot Suit Riot , Cherry Poppin' Daddies

Wil AbaHe

A Systems Desigll

The 1990's have been years of retro pect, witheve rythin g from disco to retro infiltr ating t he forefront of the current mu sic scene. This is perhaps a

phenomenon cau. ed by our anticipation of th ne", millenium: as we usher in th future. we feel the Il'ed to lipback into the pa I. winl i. of no exception to thi late .'ttring of re\ i\'a l . the pa t year generating an unbelie\'abl

amount of attention to thi. old form of dance . For theIlr t time in nearly fifty year. \\ ing has made a comeback. and people arc redi 'covcring the . he 'r c,hilarationand almost innocent jOy the mu:i and tht' dance bring.

The whole thing \\as . parked two years ago b} a u n n ~comedy called S", inger.. a fresh and witt) look at thenightlife antic. of buddies li\ ing in LA. Everyone", hosaw it sat up and look notice of the martinis. the 50's 'l'troshirts. the fedora h a t ~ ;it brought fame to Big Bad VoodooDadd). a wing group featured in one of th' scell S, andpeople began to realize ju t how 'money' :.wing is.

But it wa n't until the Gap commerciallhat swing really started to fly. That h0l1 thirty - econd ad campaign ofcouples doing aerials to Brian Setzer's "Jump. Jive andWail" confirmed in people' minds that -wing IS cool. Itinspired people to learn it.

In Toronto. night-spot like the Cameron HOll . e.Berlin and the Courthouse are now holding pecific swingnights, complete with live, full-piece jazz orchestra. AtUW, the Swing and Social Dance Club (SSDC). originated by an engineer ing tudent , Tim Bum, thrive. OnTuesday, January 19, a rumo red 600 hepcats tiled into FedHall, eage r to learn the foo.twork.

Is the wing revival genui ne and here to tay, or is itjust a short- lived whim enlivened by a Gap ad? Whateverthe ca e may be, a lot of UW tudent are having a lot offun , and unle s you want to miss out, yo u'll need basicsbeyo nd a pair of khakis.

Th e SSDC meetings, which occur on al ternatingMonday and Tuesday night each week at Fed Hall, i a

great place to begin. The club i organiz d by cnthu iastic Waterloo students with an avid intere't in swing. The

lub\ inlention is to provide dance les ons from all the\ arious t ~ p c sof swing, from Lindy Hop, East Coast

\\-ing llnd West Coast wing to Charleston. Jive andFo\.trot. This is a fri 'ndl) cene for beginners; you canmeet all sorts of n W people who are there for the samereason you are - to have a good lime. witching partnersIS l'ncollnlged. since one ob\ iousl) becomes better atswing \\ hen onc b ,ltrUIl'd to different dancing styles.

After the lessons. everyone leIS loosl' and the antics'Ilsue. with the part} continuing for un hour or 1\\0 \\ith aOJ spinning swing from the 40s 10 the '90s. This is thebest part of each tnt'eling. since il really gives you thechance 10 cut the rug wilh all th' n e ~ stuff yOLl justlearncd that c\cning.

It's :llll


12/20

ust a chromosome away

Caroline Page

omen in Engineering

Director

F riday, February 5th mark s the endof National

Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Most peoplehave probably avoided knowing that until now. The

main reason why is because we have a misconcept ionabout what an eating disorder is, and so we decide that wedon't have eati ng di orders, and continue happily on ourway . In truth , engineers have one of the highest inc idencesof eating disorders because of the very nature of the field.

Serious Eating Disordersf yo u ever read health and fitness magazines or watc h

after schoo l specials, you probably already know aboutanorexia nervosa and bulimia. But their omni-presence inthe media does not lessen the ser io usness of these disorders .

dents in general, are subject to a great deal of stress, bothsocial and academic. Co-op adds even more stres s. On topof that, many of us never cooked a meal for ourselvesbefore we got to university , and are unsure of how to do it.We have limited supp lie s of money with which to buyfood, and an even more limited amount of free time tocook it. And the cherry on top is that many of us didn'ttruly learn the benefits of, and the ways to achieve,hea lth y eating. Our parents, busy themselves, ta ught us towake up with coffee, sk ip breakfast, maybe even lun ch,and then nuke pre-packaged dinners.

All of these factors result in a myriad of bizarre andunh ea lthy eating habits amo ng engineeri ng s tudents. Let'sstart with the obvious: coffee . As a result of many latenights and altogether too man y 8:30 classes, many engineers get up late and don't have time for breakfast. Coffeeis used to provid e that kick that gets us to class and keepsus awake until noon. Later in

ing are usually fairly subtle. Because we are short-changing ourselves in food and energy, we have and increasedlikelihood of feeling tired and worn-down , and of gettingsick. Once we are sick, it is more difficult for us to recover, particularly due to the low protein content of our diets.I'm sure at least a few of these sy mptom s so und familiar.

We can all take a quick look a t what we eat every day,and see at least one area that could be improved upon . Atthe same time , we can enco urage eac h other to eat properly. One way of doing so is by eat in g toget her. I f youhave roommates, ;ook together and s har e your m ea ls.Even try de sig nating an item for eac h person to bring forlunch each day, and then pool the items to make lunche s .In stea d of going out for dinner with a date , try cookingtoge ther. We are living, studying, a nd socializi ng in thesame environment, giving us countless opportunities forhelpin g each other improve are eati ng habit s.

Choice is powerful.Since most of us are aware of these di seases (w hich is

what they are: debilitating but treatable diseases), we arealso aware that we are not afflicted by them. But justbecause you are not suffering from ei ther of these disorders does not mean that a frien d or acq ua in tance isn t. Forthat reason , it is important for each of us to understandwhat anorex ia and bulimia are all about.

the day, the coffee mug isfilled up agai n, or is rep lacedby a Coke, Pepsi, or ]olt bottle. High caffei ne, high sugar,and a liquid replacement that

90 of North American women are dissatis-fied with some aspect of their body.

Every per son ha s thechoice in what foods heor she consumes. I f welook around, we are sur-

Anorexia nervosa is a di ease that is characterized byan obsession with thinness. People with anorex ia seethemselves as fat even when they are underweight. Thiscan result in voluntary self-starvation. The most commo nvictims of anorexia are a dol e cen t females, but males a lso

su ffer from this di sease. Anorexics often stru gg le withissues of power; in an uncontrollable environment, whatand how often one eats can almo t .al a be c ntrolled .Anoretics are often perfectionists, and have low selfesteem. The warning sig ns of anor exia can be obvious orsubtle. A loss of

fills us up until we ca n get some food down. Caffeineitself isn't that bad for you. As lon g as you cons um e lessthan 400mg a day, yo u probably have nothing to worryabout (a s mall cup of coffee ha s a bout] OOmg of caffe ine).Above 400mg , caffeine will interfere with the absorptionof vitamins and min erals within yo ur body. But caffeinedoes hav e some ser iou s ly dan gerous repercussions, even

at low l eve ls. One is that it is addictive. If you need twocups of coffee to wake up now , what are you going to needin 20 y,ear ? Old habit , as they ay , die hard , and a caffeine hab it in yo ur twe nties wi ll be awful ly hard to breakwhen you're 40 o r 50. But even more dangerou s is the fact

that coffee is often used as a25% or more ofone's body weight,a distorted selfimage, an obsessionwith food accompa-

40 of males aged 12 to 22 are dissatisfiedwith their weight.

replacement for food. Liquids fillup our stomach so that we do notfeel as hungry anymore. Even ifwe aren't intentionally avo idin g

nied by a refusa l to cat, and (in the case of females) thelo ss of one's menstrual cyc le arc common symptoms.

Bulimia (a lso known as "Binge -Purge Syndrome")suffere rs alternately binge on large quantities of food, andthen purge themselves. Method , of purging include se lfinduced vomiting, diuretics , laxatives, or a combination ofthe thr ee. The mo st common victims of bulimia arewomen in their 20 and 30 a lthough men suffer from thisdi sease as well. Bulimics also tend to have low selfesteem, which is enhanced by the inability of a bulimic tocontrol his or her food intake . This results in a powerstruggle. Many anoretics are also bulimic on occasion.The warning signs of bulimia tend to be quite subtle, asbulimics do consume food . However , swollen salivaryglands, increased dental problems, binge-eating, excusiflg,oneself after meals (to purge), stockpiling food, and anobsession with food are notable symptoms.

Both anorexia and bulimia are a usually a result ofbody image issues and weight preoccupation . These aresigns of people acting on dissatisfaction. Dieting, bingeing, and purging are all coping strategies used to deal withunderlying emotions and stresses. Engineering is a high

stress environment. Many engineers are perfectionistswho are not accustomed to failure and may lack the ability to deal with non-success. As co-op students, we also putourselves up to constant rejection each time we gothrough the job process.

Eating Di sorders Among EngineersThe majority of us will never be afflicted with any

thing as serious as anorexia or bulimia, but we do not/ escape unscathed from the world of eating disorders. f

you look around the Engineering buildings, you will seemany signs of what is more aptly named "disordered eat ing". You will see people in the pre-clinical stages of eat

_ ing disorders, people who are manipulating their meal_ patterns in an unacceptable manner. Engineers, and stu-

TflC Iron V JC1rnor Friday. February 5 1999

food, a coffee on the go will oftenfill u up enough that we skip breakfast in an attempt toget somewhere in a hurr y. But, a ide from caffeine, coffeeco ntain s littl e e lse that is readily absorbed by your body,and so you arc lef t with low ener gy lev els. This is interpreted as sleep-deprived lethargy, and so we drink another cup of coffee. We get ourselves into a cycle wherecoffee becomes a supp lement to real food .

Another problem with the engineering diet is that itis very unbalanced . Fruit, vegetable, and protein intakeare low , while our diet is high in carbohydrates. Howmany time s have you grabbed a bagel for lunch? Bagelsare good for you , but your body does not function wellon a meal of carbohydrates . Your body requires a balance. We often rely on grab and go snacks, which provide carbohydrates and even fruits, but still do notcontain any protein. Snacks like yogurt, soy milk, turkeyor chicken, and tofu are easy sources for a little more protein.

Dieticians and nutritionists often talk about the 1-2-3energy package: fruits give you energy for one hour, carbohydrates for two , and protein for three. This systemshows that for long -tenn energy, we need to consume protein. In addition, the more carbohydrates you eat, the moreyou want. By eating too many carbohydrates, we actuallyforce our bodies to desire more food than we really need.We then gain weight, decide that we're over-eating, andcut down. But the answer isn't eating less, it's eating inbalance. When you eat less, your body slows down, think-ing that it is in starvation mode. In an attempt to stockpile,your body stores most of the small amount of food thatyou consume as fat. f you go out with friends and splurgeone night, plitting a pitcher and a plate of wings, yourbody stores almost all of it as fat. f you eat a balanced dieton a regular basis, your body does not feel that it needs allthe extra calories. You will also have more energy to tryand burn some of those calories off.

The results of the disordered eating seen in engineer-

rounded by informationon safe sex an d safe drinking. Food is a s imilar iss ue. Ifyou ha ve a friend who drinks him self i nto a stupor everynight, you worry abo ut him , and you confront him abouthi s problem. The same s hould be done fo r bad eatinghabit s, which can be just as dangerous. By getting into thehabit of proper eating now , we prepare ourselves for thefuture.

What to do about Disordered Eatingf you have or you know so meon e who h as a erious

eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia, you should gethelp . Contact a prof essiona l before conf ront ing the personwith the problem so that you don't sca re the person away.The Waterloo Region Eating Disorder Coalition can bereached at (519)749-4300 x2368 . The National EatingDisorder Information Centre can be reached at (4 16)340 -4 156 . Also, Health and Safety staffs several nurses and anutritionist who can be reached at extension 3544.

If you or anyone you know suffers from disorderedeating, yo u can also contact any of the above organization for help. If your problems are less severe, just making a few simple change to your eating patt erns may beenough to help. Try and reduce your caffeine intake, andincrease the amount of produce and protein that you consum e.

y grade 6, approximately 80 of girls and40 o f boys think they should be thinner, and

61 of girls and 31% of boys have tried tolose weight.

To help engineers make changes to their eating habits,Linda Barton, a nutritionist who has an office on campusthree days a week, has agreed to hold a seminar on healthyeating for engineers . I f you would be interested in attending such a semi nar , please e-mail Caroline Page(cnpage@engmail) for more infonnation. Watch for moreinfonnation regarding the date, time, and place of theseminar in the Iron Warrior, in class mailboxes, and onposters around the university.

It is vital that we watch ourselves and our peers forsigns of disordered eating. Because the incidence of disordered eating is high in high intensity fields like engineering, we are all at risk. Serious eating disorders, leftuntreated, can lead to serious medical complications oreven death. Disordered eating depletes a person's energy ,leaving that person unable to function properly. By recognizing problems that we do have, we allow ourselves torealize our fuJI potential.


13/20

How To uild TJenny Mitchell

3A Efll iro-C/iemENVidious

I'm sure that mo t of you. at orne time or another, have

stepped outdoors in the fresh, cri p winter air with theintent of building the mo t durable, inde tructible,inconceivable fortre s of ice Gust like Superman's). Andthen, after all of your hard work, blood, sweat, and occasional hot chocolate breaks, you find that your fort is a little less invincible . han you fir t conceived. This becomeseven more app arent after your fir t attack, when your fortends up collapsing on you, half burying you in the snow,and giving your enemi e (the Fort-Col1apsers) the perfectopportunity to pelt you with snow balls. Thi unfortunateending could have been complete ly avoided with ornecareful planning and a little help. So, as you read thisguide to building the ultimate snow fort, please rememberthat these are merely suggestions to improve its structureand de ign and that I take no responsibility for a collapsedfort. It may take a little practice before your built fort istruly indestructible (especially when taking into account

variables such as temperature, wind speed, humidity , theEarth's orbital position, and the phase of the Moon), but ifyou build smart and have fun, your 'fortress of ice' wiJlsurely be the last one standing at the beginning of thespring melt.

PREP R TIONFfteteare a number of different methods used in con

structing snow forts and all have their advantages and disadvantage . The deciding factor is the amount of time andeffort you are willing to put into making your snow fort.However, before you begin, no matter what method isused, there are a few questions to ask yourself ...

I) Is there any snow?This question (and answer) should be obvious. If

there isn't any snow on the ground then it would probablybe a bad time to try and make a snow fort - especially ifyou recently got a horrible sunburn on your back fromlaying out on the beach while watching your friendswater-ski.

2) Is there enough snow?

Ideally, you would want at least a foot or two of snowon the ground. This will just reduce the amount of timeneeded to gather the snow, and prevent you from having topick up 'Zam boni droppings'.

3) Is it cold enough?It's a proven fact that ice begins to change state at zero

degre es Celsius (or 273.15K). You definitely don't wantyour fort to start melting away before you have it completely built.

4) Is it packing snow?It is extremely difficult to make powder stick together.

f you can t make a snowball that stays intact for the duration of its flight to your sibling's chest, then it's not a goodidea to start making a fort.

5) Am I properly dressed?Do you remember how your mom used to dress you in

the wi nter before sending you off to school? Well, that's agood place to start, so put on the following: undershirt, T-shirt, turtleneck, sweater, long-johns, sweat pants, twopairs of socks, snow pants and jacket (or a stylish onepiece snowsuit), hat, scarf, and two pairs of rnitts .. withstrings attached. Now you're ready to head outside.

6) Where are my enemies?Just a reminder that you are attempting to build a snow

FORT, not a snow house, or a snow gazebo, or a snowvariety store. You WILL have an enemy. One of the beststrategies of the enemy is to knock down a fort while it isstill being built and steal all the snow with wheelbarrows.So be sure to keep an eye out for them - especially if yougo inside for a drink or a break - and be prepared to defendyourself and your fort (this is where friends and allies

(Part 1 of a 2 part series)come in real handy). If you do not think you ha\"e anenemy, then find one . Olherwi e, you may as well buildthat dream retirement home of)ours with the white picket fence. Oh. and don 't forget \0 include a nice loungechair, 0 you can sit and wallow in mi ery at your failedlife ..

This s a great opportunity to kill two birdswith one snowball.

CONSTRUCTION

Now that the proper building conditions and requirements have been establi hed, it' time to begin. Try to getsome of your friends and allie out to help, the construction will take a lot less time and you'll probably have morefun doing it. The following details some of the different

techniques used to build a snow fort, and ome helpfulhint s to ensure that your fortress is olid.

Doin it Doggie-StyleAlthough this method may sound crude, there is no

other way to describ e it. Basically, you start off with ahuge mound of snow. This is done by shovelling andshovelling and shovelling and shovelling .. If you've beensent out to shovel the driveway, this is a great opportunityto kill two birds with one snowball and get the foundationof your fort built. As you're shovelling, be ure to stompon the snow every layer or so to make sure it's packeddown tight. This will only aid with its stability. It is possible to use a mound created by a snowplow also, butunless it is packed down enough, there is the possibility ofit collapsing. If you decide to use this shortcut, be carefuland remember . .safety first Okay , now that you have yourtightly packed mound of snow , it's time to get 'doggie'.

tart at th point w e r e u t o n indigging. Keep low to the ground at first, and only dig ashigh as you want your door. As you move deeper into themound, begin shovelling out a cavern, or a snow cave.Make sure thaI your cave has a rounded top lik e an igloosince this is most stable. Also, check that your wall arcthick enough (at lea. t 30 cm). Once the entire interior hasbeen carved out, then you have your basi c hell . ff youwish to have an open ceiling, then instead of digging at thebase of the mound, you may want to start on the top andwork your way down. Or, if you want an opening at thetop of your cave, you should not dig it out from the inside(it may collapse) . Instead, work your way in from thc outside. f anything collapses, you can always build it backup afterwards.

Building from the Bottom UpThere are actually a number of ways to build your

fort up from the bottom, but they all use the same concept of building up one layer at a time. Also, for all ofthese methods, it is a good idea to mark the outline of yourfort and stomp down the snow that will be the floor ofyour fort. Now you are ready to start building followingone of these techniques ' tt ,

Just Start PackingThis is the method you would have to use if you had

no tools except for your own hands (or other people'shands). Just start piling up some snow and packing itdown, slowly building up your fort. Or, instead, roll a few'snowman balls' and use them as the base. And it you'rereally adventurous, you could try building your entire fortout of snowman balls

Walking the PlankFirst of all, you'll probably need some help, so get

some of your friends and aJJies. You'll also need at leasttwo fairly large, flat pieces of wood, chipboard, or particleboard (you could use smaller pieces, but it would justtake longer). Along the outline of your fort, hold the twoboards upright (at least 30 cm apart) and fill in betweenthem with snow, packing it down as you go. Continuealong the entire outline of the fort. This completes thefirst layer. You can continue in the same manner for thesecond layer, except the two boards will have to be held inplace. Anothe r option is to make the base slightly wider

and make liny ledge , as YOll move up each layer. Thi. willmake en ' h .uc e , si \c layer smaller in width, but providedthat the base i wide nOllgh, Ih rc shouldn't be any worries of collapse.

Igloo YO l tooBefore you start building your igloo style snow fort,

you need som hard-paCked snow. If there is nonearound, then tart , tomping. You'll aL 0 need a 'snowsaw'(a regular carpenler saw will work too). Then, start cutling block out of the snow. The blocks. hould be aboutthe length of lhe saw in width and depth, but can be anylength (generally Ie than a metre though). Once enoughblock have been cut, begin the foundation by followingalong the fort outline. Build each layer up like brick ona hou e until you reach the de. ired height of the fort. Tokcep the block securely in place, pack them togetherusing handfuls of snow. If you're interested in building anigloo, or would like more information on cutting and lay

ering the blocks, a great website to vi it is www.f reezone.com/action/igloo/intro.html.

Ice Ice BabyThis method needs the most preparation and the most

equipment. You should begin preparing a few days beforeyou are going to actually build the fort. You'll need lots of

n Illlh m w tefsure that any holes are plugged first). Put the boxes outside and Jet them freeze overnight. The next day, flip theboxes over and knock the ice olocks out. Repeat theses tep s until e nou gh hlocb huve hl.'l'lI i l i a d Now thaI youhave a collectioll of huge kc cuhcs. it's lime to stun ~ t a ~ing them. Build up your loundation, following Ihl' (onoutlinc. When you start stu king the s cond layer, soo} ofthe blocks may lIot stay in pia c. f so, Ih n usc SIlOW (ora litlle water) to help k ep the blo 'ks to et her . I woulddefinitely recommend wearing a pair of green pUlch, steeltoe, SA approved safety hoots if followillg this particular method because the law of grav ily still applies, especially to large blocks of icc.

f you do not think you have an enemythen find one

So now that you have some informatioll to get youstarted, the most important thing to remember is to havefun and be creative.

In the mean time, check out www.zipzone.comlnorthwUW/index.html.htm for some cool ideas about buildingsnow forts and other structures. I'd also like to apologiseto all those hard-core engineers who expected numerouscalculations and analyses in this guide. However, in mydefence, I'd like to remind everyone that I'm an Enviro . .know about trees, not degrees :-). Happy Snow FortBuilding Everyone

In Part 2 of this series, other features offort building will be discussed, includinginterior and exterior design. camouflage.disguise, and other strategies, andWEAPONRY'

I f you have any suggestions or buildingtechniques that you'd like me to include then email me atja2mitch@engmail orat iwarrior@engmail -- ~

The Iron Warrio r Frtday. February 5 1999


14/20

-

inger Up y Nose

Stuart oherty

2A Systems esign

S

O, according to page two, I'm a staff member of thisEngineering newspaper of ours. Well, in order to be staffJ would imagine one needs to be writing on a regular

ba sis, or needs to be helping make submis s ions look pretty, orhelping with the numerous other jobs that have to get done.

ut J wasn't quite su re what I could write about until I was s itting at home with my finger up my no se, dreaming of the daywhen 1 could have a pet monkey of my own, and it hit me:maybe people would want to know about all the s tupid thingsI think about so metimes . I seem to be able to ge t a chuckle outof the small audience that I share these things with now , sowhy not let a larger audience know about what goes on insidemy head? For in stance , right now as I write thi s article, I'mthinking about what that rabbit I saw this morning at 2:00amwas thinking about. Why was he out and about the town atsuch a late hour? You'd think that the rabbit was so busy during the day , taking care of his rabbit business , that he wouldn 'thave time to be gallivanting about campus. What is goingthrough that rabbit's head?

Then there's the whole monkey thing I mentioned earlier.Wouldn't it be so great to have a pet monkey? You could comehome from cla ss and there he'd be , sitti ng on the couch watching television, eating the crackers you forgot to put away lastnight. I'm especia lly ex.cited about the thought of visitorsmeeting my monkey for the first time . I'd probably haveJeeves (that wou ld be hi s name) answer the door for me, helpme with dishe s after dinner, sweeping the noor s; I could eventeach him how to play NHL '96 for the Genesis . Imagine howmuch fun little kids would have when they met the monkey .

With so many possibilities, I think that this monkey wouldbe a so urce of constant laughter for me . Of course, there are afew issues we would have to deal with . First, the monkeywou ld not have dangerous sharp teeth that he could hurt people with . He would have to be trained to go to the washroom,he couldn't be infested with any cr zy Ebola type viruses, andhe would NOT be getting any female monkey companion

while he wa ' living under my roof. It should be known thatthis whole monkey thing occupies much of my brain downtime, so I will probably occasionally come back to it. I hopeyou enjoyed this first release of Finger Up My Nose . f theylet me keep writing in future issues I hope to discuss topicssuch as: What are fish thinking about? What if humans hibernated in the winter? What if you won the Lottery? And, whatif it was cool to be hairy like a gorilla? If you have any similar thoughts you would like to share, feel free to email them tb ~me (sadohert@engmail) for potential future inclusion in thepaper. Later.

The Iron War rior Friday. February 5. 1999

Why I Wanna Wiggle

Matthew IrvineMec hani cal

Once there was a little boy named WaJlyWaJlabee. Wally asked zillions of questions. One day, Wally felt like he needed to

wiggle and wondered why. eing a curious boy ,

Wally decided he'd try to find out why . Wally askedhi s mom, Wanda, why he felt like he needed to wiggle , but she didn't know why Wally felt so wiggly.

Wally and his mom went for a walk. First, theywalked to Wallace' s Pet Store to buy so me fish foodfor Wally's gold fish , Wilbur. Mr. Wallace wasworking at the pet store today and Wally liked himbecause Mr. Wallace was friendly. Mr. W allace wasalso very smart, so Wally asked him , Mr. Wallace,why do I wanna wiggle?

Mr. Wallace replied , Wally, maybe you've gotants in your pants.

So Wally checked hi s pants but he found no ant s .Wally and hi s mom said goodbye to Mr. Wallace andwalked over to Williams' Bakery to buy someWonder bread. Mr. Williams , the baker , was alwayssmiling and Wally liked him too. Wally decided tosee if Mr . Williams could answer his question.Wally as ked , Mr. William s, why do J wanna wiggle?

Mr. Williams was not sure either but said,Wally, maybe you have crumbs in your bum .

So Wally checked for crumbs, but it turned outthat there were no crumbs in Wally 's bum. Wallyand his mom said goodbye to Mr . Williams and tooktheir Wonder bread and Wilbur's fish food withthem. Wally wa still very curious to know why hefelt so full of energy and why nobody seemed to beable to tell him why. Wally and his mom finishedtheir shopping and started walking home. On theway, Wally started to feel tir ed and began to feel lessand Jess like he needed to wiggle.

When Wally and hi s mom got home , Wilma,Wally' s older sister asked, Wally, do you knowwhere all the candy went?

Wally said, Yes Wilma I do , I ate it beforemom and I went walking.

Wally's mom looked at him and said, Wally ,now I know why you needed to wiggle.

Wally asked, Why mo m ? Well , said Wally 's mom, we get our energy

from the food we eat. Just like different crayonscome in different colours, different foods come withdifferent amounts of energy. Some food, like macaroni and cheese, has energy in it that is releasedslowly over several hours. Other food like candy,Wally, gives you a lot of energy

the iron warrior: volume 23, issue 2

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