BOSE Factory Fieldtrip

Yesterday, we took a tour through the BOSE factory near Columbia off I77. It was really neat to see all of the automated machinery that builds and tests the wave radios and CD players they make there. There is still a fair amount of human labor involved, but only for the tasks that a computer or robot can't do -- even stacking pallets is done by a giant machine they call "Big Bertha."

Our tour guides were very knowledgable; one of them was even mostly responsible for the automation of the factory! Even cooler, he was a USC grad and got to work with Dr. Bowles, one of our advisors, on a IEEE project.

To top it all off, we even got free pens!

Sadly, they wouldn't let me take my camera into the factory itself lest I steal company secrets and such, I suppose. The grounds are veery nice though, and you can see some pictures of them and the other REU students in my photo album.

Tomorrow, we're going to the South Carolina Police Department's Computer Forensics Lab mysteriously acronymed "SLED." Hopefully, they'll let me take some pictures there.

I've been really enjoying StumbleUpon, a free social bookmarking plugin for your web browser. Church Sign Generator is one of my most recent stumbles. I think I can count on one hand the number of sites it's recommended to me that I didn't enjoy. Try it out and add me as a friend!

Gotta go finish my paper and start working on Power Point slides for my presentation Wednesday -- stay cool!