２０１４年５月１９−２３日

May 19th-21st:

Definitely the most brutal days of my stay in Japan so far. I was at the lab until about 9 o'clock each night, only leaving the lab because the supermarket closes at 9:30 and I needed dinner.. Here's a sample of my dinners throughout the week:

This all costs about 800 yen ($8) after 8 o'clock. And yes, those are pizza flavored chips. 

Anyways, I forgot to write why this was such a hard week. I had a 30 minute presentation on Thursday, in which I had to sum up what I'd been doing for the past month. To make things even more chaotic, Professor Kondoh asked if I could present in Japanese. I wasn't sure if he was serious or not, but I figured why not give it a try. I started working on my powerpoint presentation at around 10 on Wednesday morning and only finished it on Thursday at 4:30 in the morning -- 4 and a half hours before the presentation began.

May 22nd (Presentation Day):

So this was my second presentation in this lab, but the first time I was brand new to the team and didn't really understand anything that was going on. So this time I was able to take a lot more out of my labmate's presentations. For example, one of my labmates is developing a theory on the mechanism of ultrasonic welding, a phenomenon where you can weld together to materials in a matter of seconds by basically rubbing them together at super high frequencies. Another project consisted of using titanium carbide to replace steel knives. His work is funded by a French chef apparently and the goal is create a knife that is as hard as the steel carbide knives, but with better maintenance characteristics. My buddy Motohiro is working on making a aluminum nitride motor cylinder-piston interaction surface that will increase the life of the motor. Basically, there is some pretty cool stuff going on in my lab. Of course mine ranks up there. :P Here is a handout I made for people to follow during my presentation.

I just spotted a typo... -_-....

Anyhow, I did the introduction part of my presentation in Japanese (basically the first 5 minutes). After that, I simply did not know how to explain the science of my report in Japanese, so I continued in English. Professor seemed happy with the results, and we had an active discussion after my presentation to figure out how to tackle the next month of research. I will be focusing heavily on carbon nanotube dispersion techniques. The problem with my last sample was that the carbon nanotube clusters that were still there reacted heavily with the titanium matrix to produce titanium carbide. Resultantly, there were two types of material strengthening occurring, titanium carbide solutes, as well as carbon nanotube strengthening. The more effectively I disperse the nanotubes in the beginning, the more prominent of a strengthening effect the nanotubes will have. Contrarily, if I don't disperse them evenly, titanium carbide will have a more prominent strengthening effect. Also, I will decrease the extrusion temperature from 1000 degrees to 800 degrees in attempt to keep the material below the TiC transus temperature.
Anyhow. Overall, my research is looking promising.
After the presentations, I was heading home with my friend Izawa. We were riding down a road when I started yelping in joy at being done with the presentation. Surprisingly Izawa joined. He was just as thrilled as I was to be done. I invited him to the dorm, where we played 15 minutes of basketball before it was too dark, went to eat with my other buddy from Berkeley, then watched Frozen at the hall with hallmates. He seemed to have a great time, because he asked me the next day when the next time he can come is.

May 23rd:
I took a lot of pictures on this day just cause it was such a perfect day and I was still in good spirits from the previous day:

On the prettiest road on the way to campus.

On campus by the lunch area. 

Right after he ate, some dude knocked out next to me at the cafeteria.

My friend Motohiro on his new bike. Remember his last bike? This thing looks straight off the racetracks! Apparently it can hit 250 km/h (155 mph) @_@

Truly a hard week of work. On the way back on the pretty road.