A Punt-astic Day in Cambridge

Hi there Crypto-blog-readers! This is Katie and Hannah giving you the daily debrief of the Breaking Codes and Winning Wars May X in London!  

 

Today we explored one of the oldest Universities in the world, Cambridge University, which was first established in 1209. Our day started bright and early at 8:15am with a coach ride to Cambridge! (Yes, it was a coach, not a bus. Our coach driver got upset every time we called it a bus... oops) Although we were all a little tired, we were so excited for the adventures ahead. 

 

Once we got there, we met our first tour guide, Mary, and went straight into a walking tour around Cambridge. Our focus for the tour was Alan Turing and WWII, but we got to see so many things with a huge academic history and incredible architecture. One of our first stops was the Cavendish Laboratory. This laboratory was built in 1874 after there was a need for space since there were students doing science experiments and dissections in their dorm rooms... eww! However, Mary told us that Cavendish was home to many of the most famous science experiments in the Modern World. For example, in 1913 Niels Bohr conducted his famous atomic structure experiments in this building. In 1897, J.J. Thomson and his team conducted his cathode ray experiment in Cavendish which confirmed the existence of the negatively charged particle, the electron. It was incredibly rewarding to stand where these experiments took place, because this is what we have studied in many of our science classes today! Mary mentioned that if it weren't for these types of discoveries and these scientists' deaths from mercury and radiation while working on them, then the world would not have progressed in physical science as much as we did in the past 100 years. Then, we went on to see The Eagle (Royal Air Force Pub), King’s College, and we went inside King’s College Chapel and learned about its history. Mary was an epic tour guide!

After the walking tour, we went on a punting ride on the River Cam with our guide, Tom. Tom graduated from Cambridge University where he attended Trinity College. He is now studying computational linguistics in Edenborough, and he is spending his summer being a punt tour guide! Punting is a small wooden boat with a guide on the back pushing the boat along with a long pole. The tour took us next to about 4 colleges of Cambridge including King’s College, Trinity College, Queens College, St. Johns college. In addition to the tour of the colleges, we got a small couple of lessons in various subjects. For instance, Dr. Woodard asked if there is rowing on the River Cam. Tom informed us that there is a separate part of the river that is set just for rowing. We also learned a little about the rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge. This past year, Cambridge University Boat Club won against Oxford University Boat Club in the famous annual Boat Race! We all had a blast and wished that part was a little bit longer. The best part of the punt ride (in our opinion) was when Lilia tried punting for herself. Tom was generous enough and brave enough to let her try. Let’s just say that Lilia should stick to riding the boat instead. Tom had to save us from crashing into multiple boats on the bank... anyways! We then had a little bit of free time to grab lunch and explore with the short time we had left. While we were on the walking tour, some of us saw numerous places to grab ice cream so we naturally couldn’t leave Cambridge University without a sweet treat! Then we got back on the hot coach...  

Then came the computing museum. We were all a little worried after our bus driver got lost a few times attempting to find the place and once we saw the place we were even more worried that this was going to be a rough museum. Once we all found the old school gaming consoles and arcade games, everyone got really excited and jumped into playing all of these fun games. Dr. Millichap went straight into playing Donkey Kong on the Super Nintendo from 1992. Not surprisingly, he was very good at this game. Kali and Jay found the Lego Star Wars game on PlayStation 2 from 2000; they could not stop playing. Also, to no surprise, Dr. Woodard got excited about the 70s office exhibit, which took him back to the old days. Ella and Hannah were so excited to see a cool typewriter, so much so that Hannah convinced Dr. Woodard to possibly bring in his working typewriter that is sitting in his attic. Hannah also learned a lesson in typing from Dr. Woodard. She learned that the shift key, that makes each letter uppercase, was literally because the keys on the typewriter shift to print the capital letter on the paper with ink. Very cool! Some of the other notable games played at the museum included Space Invaders, Pac Man, Mario Kart, and Wii Golf. After a bit of time at the museum, a few of us (Ella) were a bit tired (pictured below).  

 

The ride back to our housing was another story. The coach was so unbearably hot, and the ride felt like it was never going to end. We all tried to distract ourselves but not much was working. When we got off that coach, it was the best feeling ever!  

 

We finally got back to our housing, and all went our own ways to find dinner and get some much-needed rest for our last free day tomorrow.  

 

Thank you for reading! Be sure to come back tomorrow for some more stories of our amazing time in London!  

 

Signing off, Hannah and Katie 

 

Honorable Mention Quotes / Stories  

 

“I think it’s better to stay in school than go out and work. That’s why I’ve been in school my whole life.” - Dr. Mark Woodard (at approx. 11:35am)  

 

“Do you have chiggers here?” - Dr. Mark Woodard (at approx. 12:30pm   

 

“Ava K is the Nick polygraph. When Nick is talking, I look at Ava’s face to see if he’s telling the truth.” - Josh Saadati (at approx. 6:09pm)  

 

“Lilia is not making good choices. She’s trying to cook chicken and sprayed my dry shampoo (highly flammable) in the hot pan instead of cooking spray. We’re lucky to be alive.” - Ella Perry (at approx. 7:49pm)