I Left My Heart Valve in Aachen

Personal

After finally finishing up most of the Otto Bock presentation, I and a few friends visited the Black Forest. We had a bit of a rocky start trying to get a rental car, but we eventually made our way onto the road. After stopping at a McDonald's for lunch (very American, I know), we finally got to our hostel in Baden Baden. We had an awkward but pleasant interaction with the owners, and the accommodations were very quaint. In the morning, we made our way to Offenburg for breakfast at a café and then strolled through the open market. Our first destination was Triberg where we hiked around the famous waterfalls. We then drive around to Feldberg and Belchen mountains. Our final destination before lodging in Titisee was the Todtnau Falls. While Triberg Falls was beautiful, these waterfalls were breathtakingly tall and magnificent. We hiked up to what we thought was the top but the waterfall seemed to keep going up. The next morning, we lingered at the edge of Lake Titisee and observed the ducks and their odd habits. Finally, we did a tour of Hohenzollern Castle, built by Frederick William IV of Prussia. While it was built somewhat recently, it has very medieval architecture and our experience felt quintessentially German.

Program

This week was very stressful in terms of school work. Since the Otto Bock presentation is this coming Friday, we had to wrap everything up in preparation. Our designs were nailed down and our presentations were evaluated. On Thursday, we had a pleasant break from the project in Aachen where we visited the Department of Cardiovascular Engineering. We had a fascinating tour of the facilities that seemed to excite all the biomedical engineering majors. It gave us an enlightening view into the fun types of things that we might get to do after graduation. We also visited the Aachen cathedral which was gorgeous and unique because of it's octagonal Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne and Byzantine inspiration.

Weekend Before Berlin

Since we had a fairly busy week with tests, the Otto Bock project, and Aachen I decided a calm weekend was needed. Friday night I had dinner with my host family and watched a movie with them. The movie was in German (with English subtitles) and was a parody of Ocean’s Eleven. It seemed like it would be a funny film if I knew German because many of the jokes were a play on words in German, so I sat there confused at times while my host family was cracking up. Even though the jokes were over my head for the most part, I still enjoyed spending some time with my host family. Saturday I caught up on some sleep and then headed to AIB to work and hang out with some of the bioscience kids who stayed in town. Then a few of us went to a Spanish restaurant close by for dinner and I got some more delicious paella! I love seafood and was afraid before coming to Germany that I wouldn’t be able to find good seafood, but I have been pleasantly surprised with all the yummy paella and other fish I’ve had here! Today is a beautiful day so I had brunch in the backyard with my host family in the morning and later they are making BBQ for dinner. I’m really interested to see if their version of BBQ is what I am used to in Texas, but I’m sure either way it’ll be good! Besides that, I’m just trying to catch up on some work before we leave for Berlin tomorrow morning. It sounds like AIB has a lot of cool events planned for us in Berlin plus we have our presentation for Otto Bock, so next week will be an exciting one!

Black Forest (Personal)

This weekend I went to the Black Forest! After encountering several difficulties in renting the car, we got off to a very late start and didn’t get to our bed and breakfast in Baden Baden until nighttime. The place we stayed was a weird experience, but it was a nice place and we just slept there and then left the next morning.

            On Saturday morning we stopped in Offenburg for breakfast. After our meal we walked around the cute farmers market they were having and got some snacks for the rest of the day. Next we went to Triberg to do the waterfall hike. The hike was beautiful and it was so nice out. The falls looked really nice with the white water pouring over the mossy green rocks. This little town was cool too, and we spent quite a bit of time in one of the larger gift shops that had all kinds of black forest things. I got a pin for my collection and some jam for my host family. We also sampled black forest ham while we were there and got some interesting flavors of wine to taste: a cherry one and a red current one.

We left Triberg and drove around in the mountains. This was a really beautiful drive and we even got to play in some snow! Whenever we passed by a nice view we would yell at our awesome driver Reid to pull over so we could get out and look around. One of the lookouts had picnic benches and we sat and at our snacks on the edge of the mountain. Nicole rolled down a grassy hill we found. Don’t worry, I vlogged it!

We continued driving until we got to the Todnau Falls. The first waterfall we had gone to was a really long continuous path of small falls, and it was nice for hiking all the way along it. Todnau Falls a tall steep waterfall that came crashing down. There were cool reclined chairs right next to where the water fell, which was a really nice way to experience it. This was also perfect for Kelsey to use while the rest of us climbed the stairs to the top, because Kelsey had a sprained ankle.

We drove to Titisee and checked into our hotel for that night. We ate schnitzel in the restaurant at the hotel and then went back to our rooms and played cards and hung out.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to see Lake Titisee. It was beautiful and peaceful and we enjoyed watching the ducks there. Then we had a long drive to Burg Hohenzollern, which is not in the Black Forest, but it wasn’t too far out of the way and we were all eager to see it.

It was definitely worth the drive. It was also worth the grueling hike up to the hill to get to the castle. We missed the English tour of the inside and we didn’t have time to wait for the next one so we went on a tour in German and they gave us a guidebook in English to read about each of the rooms. The inside was lavishly decorated and the history was interesting. Mostly it’s just fun to be inside a castle. :) We also got a tour of treasury, which was really spectacular. One of the things in items in the treasury was a decorated snuffbox with a dent in it. Apparently the king was shot but he had this box in his pocket and it shielded him from the bullet and saved his life. After the tour we at lunch in the courtyard, which was an awesome experience. There was also a really cool view down below when you look over the side of the castle.

The trip to the Black Forest was probably my favorite trip this semester. It was so beautiful and I loved getting to spend so much time outside in nature. One of my favorite parts was actually being in the car, because we were driving through such beautiful areas and listening to music and getting to know each other better. It was perfect!

Aachen (AIB)

On Monday with AIB we had our Berlin pre-departure meeting, which got me really excited for the trip. We got visitor books so we could start planning what we wanted to do in our free time. On Tuesday we worked on creating a visual representation for our socket design. Our model didn’t work out too well but it helped us organize our ideas as a group and make sure we were all on the same page about what we wanted the design to look like. We also had our second Signals and Systems test this week. The material wasn’t too difficult but it was over a lot of information and a long time so it was hard.

On Thursday we went to Aachen to visit the Department of Cardiovascular Engineering. This was one of my favorite trips out of the whole semester. We began the visit with a presentation about the different devices they work on and how they do testing. They explained artificial lungs, artificial heart valves, and artificial hearts. I really enjoyed this presentation because we had just learned about the cardiovascular system in Physiology so we could actually understand what they were talking about, and Dr. Wasser occasionally stopped the speaker to ask us questions and make sure we understood. The speaker explained the different methods and instruments they use for research and for testing, and then we got to take a tour of the labs and actually see everything we had just learned about. This was really interesting! The people working in each lab would explain to us what they were doing and we already had some understanding from the presentation. This tour made me really excited because it confirmed my decision to be a biomedical engineer. Seeing the work they were doing made me realize that it was exactly what I want to do, and being there I felt like it’s where I belong.

After the tour we went to the center of the city for lunch. I got some really delicious authentic Chinese food at a cute Asian restaurant. Next we got to take a tour of the cathedral. We started in the treasury, which had some really beautiful stuff with interesting background stories. I especially liked the tomb we saw because it had the story of Persephone shown on it, which is one of my favorite stories from mythology. Then we got to see the inside of the cathedral itself. It was breathtaking. The ceiling and walls were beautiful tile mosaics and the architecture inside was really cool. It was laid out in an octagon and it was just so interesting and hard to describe. After the tour we had a little more free time to explore the city. We went in the chocolate shops (Aachen in on the border with Belgium, which means they have amazing chocolate) and looked at some Roman ruins and took pictures under flowering trees. It was probably one of the best days of the whole trip!

Excursion to Aachen

This past Thursday we went to Aachen! Unfortunately the day started out with a lot of traffic because there was a transportation strike but it thankfully didn’t really affect our trip. Once we had fought through the traffic, we arrived at the Institute of Applied Medical Engineering at Aachen University. We first met one of the engineers in the cardiovascular unit who gave a lecture over the university and the different topics of research done there. They are working on some pretty cool stuff so I was excited when we got to go down to the labs and learn even more about their research. Some of the cool things we got to see were their artificial heart design and blood lab, but all of it was really interesting! We then went to the Aachen city center for lunch. A few of us went to a Spanish restaurant to get some yummy paella and then met back up with the group in front of the Aachen Cathedral. From there we got a tour of the treasury in the church and then of the cathedral itself. The treasury had some really cool pieces, one of which was Charlemagne’s sarcophagus. The cathedral was also beautiful and I found it super interesting that Charlemagne himself was in charge of the building of the church. We then got to walk around Aachen a little before heading back to Bonn. The city center was really cute and filled with chocolate shops which made it that much better. This short excursion was great and I would love to go back again!

One of the pieces in the treasury

Aachen Cathedral

lots of soccer

AIB:

This week, our bioscience group had the privilege of going to visit the company Bayer's offices in Cologne. There we had a guided tour basically outlining what the company was doing today as well as a brief history of what it had done in the past. When the tour guide first asked what we currently knew about Bayer the biggest thing everyone thought of was Aspirin. Turns out they do a lot more. Apart from pharmaceuticals, they also focus on the two other general fields of agriculture and materials. On our tour we were led through a variety of rooms, each with a different theme. Several had interactive games which is always fun. The first was a soccer challenge, which was a pretty discouraging prequel to our soccer game later that week. Next, we got to break out these super sweet 3D glasses and to see the actions of different proteins as never before. Following this, one of our students came close to breaking a record for the fastest time on a driving simulator (unfortunately the record for least fuel efficient was also close to broken). Finally, after a few students and Dr. Wasser tried out the iMoove, we learned that anything will sound cooler than it really is if you just put an i in front of the the name.

Personal: 

Not only did we get to attend a professional soccer game, but we also got to participate in our very own AIB soccer cub this week. The fc köln stadium wasn't nearly as dramatic as Kyle field but many of the fans were just as passionate. And not just the fans in the stadium. The entire path from central station in cologne to the actual stadium was jam packed with traffic and people trying to get to the game. Our tram car to the stadium literally could not have been any more full. We were lucky to make it on as it quit letting people in at stops after ours. All the AIB students got to sit together and enjoy drinks and bratwurst while watching the game which was fun. The score ended up being zero to zero but there were still some pretty intense points of the match. And it was raining so that automatically makes anything more intense. Our AIB game wasn't quite as intense but still pretty fun. We had some great sunny weather and got to play in a big park/field in front of the university and meet a few other friendly German students who were also hanging out there. Then as a reward for our slight amount of exercise we got free pizza and drinks.

spring break

After enjoying the weekend before spring break with my parents, I headed to Barcelona for more adventures.  This proved to be a great decision as the weather was perfect for enjoying the beaches there. Walking around the coast my first day there, I kept noticing certain parts of the city that looked oddly familiar. Then when we saw a bunch of kids skateboarding and I remembered an old video game from my childhood, Tony Hawks underground 2, and the level in it which took place in Barcelona. It was pretty awesome seeing in real life the place where 10 year old Brandon had spent so much time virtually skateboarding (although there where a lot less awkwardly placed ramps and rails in real life). The food was another big highlight. I don't usually enjoy seafood too much but I ended up eating paella pretty much everyday I was there. And our hostel was right next to a big open air market where we would get fresh fruit smoothies in the mornings. We also got to meet some students who attend the university in Barcelona.  They were all very friendly and seemed to really enjoy school in Spain. I may return to Spain later this semester when it gets warm enough to actually go swimming at the beaches and really enjoy the heat.

Week leading to break

Personal: 

After school and AIB activities had finished up for the week, I got to see my parents on Friday. They had just landed in Frankfurt as my classes finished then got to Bonn a few hours later and were noticeably exhausted from the over night flight. Still though, I got to show them around Bonn for a bit then the next day cologne. It was really odd seeing them for the first time in a few months so far away from home. Then we ventured to Munich and took some day trips around that region. We first went to Garmisch and hiked around then took a cog wheel train to the peak of the highest mountain in Germany. This was the first snow I had seen this entire semester. It made all of us wish we had rented skis as this was why most people were there. We also took a tour of some castles outside of Munich in the Neuschwanstein area. Our tour guide was very funny. Half way to the first stop, the bus started slowing down and her super calm and happy voice came on the speakers "excuse me, I have something to tell you. Our bus is broken. We will now wait on the side of the road for the next bus... All drinks are now free".

AIB:

A lot of work was done on the Ottobock project this week. Our groups of three came up with some pretty solid initial ideas. We presented these in front of each other and our professors in power point form and all of them seemed well received. Unfortunately, though our Skype with one of the Ottobock engineers showed us that Ottobock's expectations were headed down a slightly different path than some of our ideas so a lot of us got pretty discouraged after the Skype. Another presentation was set for the next day. This presentation was much more encouraging as our group got past the previous days discouragement and came up with new ideas or adjusted their old to fit the goals of the project better. We still have a lot of work to do but it was nice to see everyone rally back and continue being smart and great.

Wave on Wave

We went to Aachen to see a cardiovascular engineering place and look at the Cathedral that Charlemagne built. The engineering place was ok, but I did not get near as much out of it as what the engineers did (for good reason). The cathedral was cool, really old, and lots of colors and gold around it.

Other than that, school and life have just been going on as always. The ottobock project is next week, when we go to Berlin. I have no idea what is really going on, it is way out of my element, and even the engineers seem confused by somethings. It will be interesting to see what happens, haha.

Go Sports!

This past week, we visited Aachen's Cardiovascular Engineering Institute and it was really interesting to learn about the approaches they take with artificial hearts. Previously I'd only heard about continuous flow artificial hearts. It was also great to go in the testing labs to see the hearts working. Also this week, we finalized our Ottobock designs and worked with Professor Brucker on our models. I thought it wasn't going to be a very exciting day when the professors would be gone on the conference, but it was nice to get to know Professor Brucker and to learn about her approaches in her art pieces. I also learned that when she was in Bonn last, she got all of her stuff stolen that was in her backpack and it was later found by the police. She later turned her credit cards in to pieces of artwork. That is art.

Outside of school, nothing much happened since we were studying for our signals test. I watched a lot of TV and we went to the string quartet. It was fun making the video to our fellow Ags back home. Although I was really nervous, it was a good preparation for our Ottobock presentation and it was a good chance to get to know the visualization kids. I also cleaned my room this week which was really nice since I was starting to get sick of how messy it was. I'm usually fairly neat, but since I'm usually home just to sleep and drop off stuff I don't need, it got pretty messy. Hopefully I keep up with it. Next week is Berlin, and Reid's birthday. I'm pretty excited!

Until next week! Tschüß boxes!

Roll With Me

This last week we went to Bayer. It was very interesting, but it felt more like a giant advertisement for what they do. They avoided directly answering my question about their development of antibiotics, but they had a lot of cool information about the development of drugs.

We started Pharmacology this week, it is a very interesting class and Dr. Fajt seems great!

That weekend, we went to a second level Bundesliga game, FC Cologne. Unfortunately, they were really, really bad and it rained a lot.

Wonderful Wednesday

          Wednesday was filled with tons of AIB activities! We started off the day with a visit to Bayer. I was expecting to just get a tour around their communications center and learn more about the company but the tour was way more than that! Of course we learned more about the company (they do more than just Aspirin!) but the way they informed us about their company was quite unique. They had several interactive activities from 3D simulations to driving games to showcase all their products and explain the science behind their materials. I felt like a little kid in an arcade but it was even better because it all dealt with the medical field. You could tell all of us were getting a kick out of the visit because we didn’t want to leave! After the visit to Bayer we headed back to Bonn to play in the AIB Soccer Cup. I have been deprived from soccer for far too long, so I was thrilled to finally go out and play. All of the AIB students were mixed up and placed on teams of six for several small-sided games. I had a blast and the weather was super nice (it was actually sunny and warm!) which made the event that much better. AIB then ordered a bunch of pizza for all of us and we got to hang out with the other AIB students. Going out to enjoy the nice weather with everyone was great and hopefully we will continue to do so as the weather warms up here.