Week One

Before bootcamp, I did not know anything except how an axial piston pump works thanks to an early demonstration by Dan and Lizhi, my graduate mentors. However, I enjoyed broadening my understanding and getting to see the potential that fluid power has. I gave me a lot more motivation for the project I am working on, as I saw that it could have tangible results on pump designs, which would in turn affect a great deal of machinery and industries. One part that I found particularly interesting was hydraulic circuits, especially the parallels that can be drawn between them and electric circuits. It was very interesting to me to see how the flow of fluids and electrons, which are on completely different scales in terms of size, have very similar physical relationships and in some cases can even be modeled with the same equations. I also enjoyed the hands-on hydraulic circuits we were able to work with, and enjoyed Kaseem's lecture and demonstration of the displacement control technology he developed. Overall, I felt I learned a huge amount and am much more ready to tackle my research project.