On the morning of June 1s^st, I stepped on the land of Sweden and also Europe for the first time ever. As the city of Volvo, Gothenburg’s first impression to me was the Volvo truck exhibited at the airport. I drive the same truck in the game Euro Truck Simulator 2 so I was really excited to see the truck in real world. I arrived at the hostel that afternoon. The room is even smaller than I thought that it is literally a “bedroom” – two beds take over more than half of the space. After settling down, I explored the area around the hostel and found some nice grocery stores. On that night I watched the exciting UCL final with my roommate Ben and also Daniel and Kung. I have been a fan of Tottenham Hotspur for years and it was the first time for us to play in the UCL final. Although we lost the game against Liverpool, I still enjoyed such an amazing season.

On Sunday we had a welcome dinner in a restaurant near the river which flows through the city. We sit at the balcony of the building and got a view of both sides of the river. We had a lively conversation with Dr. Wettergreen, Amy, and also teachers from Chalmers and received a general introduction to the Dare2Build Program. On the way back we went to a park near the hotel and played foursquare for an hour, and the day ended with each of us going down a slide that is about 5 meters high in the park.

We began the ENGI 355 class on Monday. We took the tram to Chalmers. I only took tram twice before in Shanghai so it was still a new experience for me. Unlike the crowded metro where people were packed in like sardines in Shanghai during rush hours, the tram here was much sparser that almost everyone got a seat. The first day class built the foundation of CAD modeling for me that I learned solid modeling- using basic shapes like boxes and cylinders to build some more complicated geometries.

On Tuesday, we learned a more advanced CAD function- 2D sketch, which was the most common way to build complex shapes. We practiced a lot and drew many shapes from 9 to 18, and also had homework to do after class. The day was busy and productive, and at this time I understood why Rice sets a 18 credit hours limit- there would be very limited free time if you take 24 hours (like we taking 6 hours in one month). For dinner, I tried a ramen place called Ramen-Ya near the hostel. It was very authentic and the only pity was that they didn’t offer Karaage.

In Wednesday, we learned another representation of shapes called orthogonal projection that the shape is represented mainly by three views- top, front and right. Although this projection makes sketching shapes much easier on paper, I’m not a fan of it as when dealing with complicated geometries, the orthogonal views can be confused sometimes. I also got a look at the architecture building where we took class at a balcony on the fourth floor. The building has a common space on the first floor, and the higher floors surround the common space so that people can look down at the space from above. There is a pyramid made of glass on the top to provide light to the entire building. This would be a perfect design of residential college in my mind- a commons in the middle surrounded by rooms of several floors and a roof which lets sunlight in, as long as there is no room facing inside.

Thursday was the national day of Sweden and we only had a half day class. In the afternoon we went to Haga, a district with shops and restaurants not far from the hostel. All seven of us rode scooters to there and it was an amazing experience. The district looked like a typical European city block with roads paved with bricks and three-floor buildings of all kinds of colors. I tried a cute lemon mousse in a café and it tasted awesome. This afternoon was really a relaxation from the busy school days.

Finally, it came to the end of week. In Friday’s class, we learned more advanced functions in Fusion 360 such as revolve, sweep, loft, and rib. These functions provided us with abilities to create more complicated with simpler steps. We also learned the assembly of different components which enabled some movements of specific components. After class, we played soccer together to celebrate the end of the first week.