Chris Combs (iterative design enjoyer) Profile picture
@deehowardorg Endowed Assoc. Prof. @UTSA Hypersonics, aerospace engineering, fluids, aerodynamics, propulsion, energy, lasers, imaging, sports science 🚀✈️💥🔥

Apr 22, 2021, 18 tweets

It's been a tough semester for everybody, so to lighten the mood and provide some extra credit points I posted a meme challenge to my fluid mechanics class

The submissions were BRILLIANT

Sit back and enjoy this nerdy fluids meme thread. Our @UTSA students rock
#AcademicChatter

There were so many hilarious submissions (over 100!!) so I unfortunately can't highlight them all, but there are some that literally made me LOL

This one is a bit niche perhaps, but it was the perfect mix of educational, weird, and original that it made me laugh harder than perhaps all the rest

Not sure if this counts as a meme, but it's a cinematic masterpiece and history lesson all in one from Stanley Ngo (plus I'm a sucker for Rick & Morty content)

We had many that struck a great balance between educational and funny!

But fluid mechanics can be a rough ride, particularly during a pandemic (credit top-right to @NasKhalil3)

And while I did my best, class structure was not always ideal

Because even in the best of times, learning fluid mechanics is no easy task

In particular, the Navier-Stokes equations can be...intimidating

At least the students realize there is a good bit of utility provided by this daunting set of equations!

Particularly when you make some simplifying assumptions

Because after a while the Navier-Stokes equations start to look not-so-bad...

Overall though, the class certainly (and understandably) preferred to approach things with Bernoulli

Even if the derivation itself was a bit unwieldy

We also had this category that I would summarize as "unflattering Zoom screen grabs" 😂

And while I thought I knew all the memes, there were a handful that...opened my eyes (credit bottom-right to Tanner Maul [instagram @MaulTanner])

Admittedly there were times during the semester I felt like this

But at the end of the day I'm glad my students have accepted that as an engineer, there is ultimately no escape from fluid mechanics

I hope you all enjoyed these half as much as I did!

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