Wednesday, June 11, 2008

June 11-Day 3

Breakfast :
Once again, we woke up as the alarm clock suddenly rang at its horrible tune. We washed up, picked clothes and rushed down to the lobby to grab ourselves breakfast.It seemed toasts and syrup are still my favorite... Anyway, everybody got used to this kind of fast pace breakfast, with small nice talks now and then.



Autodesk lab :
It took us around one hour or so to reach Autodesk Lab, which locates at San Rafael. Frankly speaking, we were impressed by the sublime views along the way: blue sky sparkling with tiny houses and airplanes flying across our heads. Ms. Amanda Collins, Senior Marketing Manager for Autodesk presented this vital, innovative company to us. Amanda shared with us vision of the company:Technologies to create digital models and workflows that help to visualize, simulate analysis. What's more important, experience ideas before it becomes reality!


It was quite exciting to take a close look of Autodesk's proud Multi-touch wall with our own eyes. And what's more, we even had our hands on this really cool stuff for some time. Watching lava jumping back and forth, we felt our hearts were beating harder and harder. The concept of multi-touching also enlightened us on the way of designing the user interface and making life easier for everybody. It matches the four digital trends clarified by the company itself: Digital Life, Globalization, Industry Boom and Climate Change.


After 5 minutes ride, we went to the other part of Autodesk for lunch. Different from the other times, it was a traditional American meal with stuffed chicken, home-made salad and many more dishes which I couldn't tell the names. When everybody starts eating, designer Jose gave us a vivid presentation on the importance of design and how to corporate design with engineering and marketing departments in a company. As we realized how crucial communication is and he went on to explain that Autodesk Lab is actually meant to research on the new technologies for the future with a time span of more than several years. Interesting!


It matched what HP had suggested days ago, we are doing things for the generation of tomorrow. Oh, gosh, I nearly forgot to say, the lunch was really tasty with all knowledge we absorbed in one hour's time.

Computer History Museum:

Wow! It's museum again! What's new this time? Let's follow the way of our great docent Roy Mize, he tried to reveal all his stories of computers with us.

There are over 600 unique artifacts, from rare slide rules and mechanical calculators to the earliest one of kind computers, vintage PCs and exotic supercomputers. Visible Storage represents just a small portion of objects in the Computer history Museum's collection, which is the largest in the world.

On exploring a-five-decade-long history of computers, we learnt from Mr.Roy along the way of touring as well. He said:" When you step out of the campus, you haven't done your studies yet. It's just your beginning! " With an age of 74 years, he still taking courses now and then to charge himself, so what could stop us from this endless learning journey?

We took a fine group photo with Mr.Roy before we called a day, everything was just like the sunshine in California, delicate and peaceful.


Dinner:
I know that not all of us enjoy the traditional Chinese food as much as I do, but a dinner with six different dishes gave us enough energy to recover from tedious trip back from well-known San Francisco Bay. Short conversations during the dinner time was also a way make us feel close with each other.

Shopping Mall:
Shopping is all about fun! We managed to spend one hour and a half in a shoping mall near Comfort Inn, the motel we are staying. Not everyone of us bought something inside the mall, but we had a good time there, though after which we had some troubles of finding the way back home...


It's another day there waiting for us!Come on!


Regards,
Chen Kun
Ngee Ann Polytechnic

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