Elektro Department Christmas Lunch

Last Friday was the Electrical Engineering (Elektro) Department Christmas lunch. It was at a hotel a little north of the campus. They were kind enough to bus us from the campus and had a second bus from the campus in Risø.

Welcome drink in the lobby of the hotel - sparkling wine

Greetings from the department chair. He made a few comments about the coming year having 'forward bias' and other electrical jokes. Oh engineers 

Delicious Christmas buffet - salmon and meat (raw), fried duck balls, squash, white fish, stuffed turkey, roast veggies, Christmas potatoes, bread, and...

Sushi! It's so expensive here - it was a great surprise. 

Presents for the winning teams (games followed dinner)

The crowd: professors, administrators, staff, PhD students (considered employees at DTU)

My first plate, yum

Cheese and dessert course: cheese, more cheese, orange soaked in something good, little almond cakes, risalamande (rice pudding), and another duck ball (just because)

Then we played games! The first was called something like nanosound and was (of course) proposed as a paper we could all write together on acoustics in relation to intoxication. They played snippets of songs and teams of two had to name the artist and song title. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly at this point), most of the songs were from American artists. I was able to get a few, but luckily the folks at my table were much better. 

The second game was a civil engineering game. Each table received a bag of marshmallows and toothpicks and our objective was to build the tallest tower we could. 

Everyone had opinions about how to build, and we settled on many interconnected triangles. I suggested cutting the marshmallows into smaller prices so we would have more material. The build begins!

It was looking really good until... it wasn't. We didn't put enough support in the center and it toppled over before the judges measured it. wa wa Then we had more beer.

Timber! 

The team that cheated/changed the rules to their advantage. They used the candles on the table to melt the toothpicks together. Worked great... but they were disqualified. 

I think they won. Spires! 

We were disappointed that it fell over so we built it again. Bigger and better than before, I think we would have won. We added more supports in the center. Towards the end we perfected the design, but alas, it fell over again. Should have built a stronger base.. next time.

Another great Christmas party! Thanks DTU Elektro.