Infinite Innovative Inventions, anyone!?

Friday morning I woke up much too early to be leaving my dorm at 6am. I train'd my way to Shin-Osaka and got onto my Shinkansen train (bullet train). It was a beautiful sunny morning, but still fairly chilly out - I was thrilled to see the sunshine, though - it's been a little dreary around here lately! I slept most of the way to Tokyo, waking up once or twice. I woke up the final time to "This train is out of service", and sat up shocked - my boss was sitting beside me looking at me strangely - I think he was trying to decide how to wake me up! We got off the train and found our way to some more trains - to Tokyo Big Sight! The train ride to the Big Sight was through the Odaiba area, and it was beautiful! It was right on the bay and there were docks and ships everywhere! It was a sunny and clear day, and I couldn't keep a smile off my face, or a little bounce away...

The Tokyo Big Sight was amazing, as well! The first thing that caught my eye was the large saw sticking into the ground, outside. I'm not sure what it was, but it was neat! There were several conferences going on at the same time - HVAC, R, Nanotech, and another one. We spent the day walking around the trade show - it was incredible! My boss spoke to the exhibitors and asked questions - I read what I could, asked a few questions, and studied each display. Most of what we looked at were chemical heat pumps - one of our major current projects. My boss was hiding his name tag for several of the exhibits...some of our competitors were there, and most of the researchers in the business know his name, and he didn't want it to affect their answers to his questions! :) Below was one one of the fun things I saw - silly, but fun! Each little disk pops from one side of the wire to the other. One of the end pads is heated, and each disk is made up of two kinds of metal with different heat expansion coefficients. When it heats up, it pops to the other side, and once it's cooled down, it pops back!

By the end of the day, my feet were sore and I was exhausted, but it was fantastic to attend the trade show and see all the technology. Once it was over, we took another beautiful train ride through Odaiba, and my boss took the Shinkansen back to Osaka. I hung out at Shimbashi station, waiting for Keith (another coop student) to finish work. And Tokyo exploring began...