Smog now in Technicolor!

One of the undergraduate environmental labs at my university uses colored dye, water and salt to simulate smoke plumes and pollution. In a tank of distilled water a mix of salt water acts like an upside down version of smoke or steam pollution. After time these slightly more dense solutions will settle on the bottom of the tank much like a layer of smog can lay at a fixed altitude over a city.

 In the photo below the red layer is a medium density salt water mixture that settled into the bottom of the tank like a layer of pollution. The blue mixture is even more dense and as it billows upwards into the atmosphere (or down into the water tank) it being slightly more dense than the red layer it will settle as a more dense layer below the red layer. Never expected my lab photos to turn out looking so artistic.

Designing the Collapsible

For my senior project one of the big challenges is trying to flatten the thing we are designing. There are a whole lot pieces of technology out there, though one doesn't traditionally think of using it to fold structures, but in this case that's what we're looking for.

I started off with McMaster Carr, my favorite one stop shop for the discerning mechanical or manufacturing engineer. I'm waiting on an order right now, with a press button incremental hinge, an adjustable friction hinge, and a lever lock hinge.

But another great way to get some inspiration is by heading to your local hardware store, or even your local outdoors/camping store. We found a slot hinge used for folding a chair which was something I had considered. Only problem is our structure is not very large, and these act like a brace in the corners so it can take up quite a bit of room.

We also found a rounded hinge that was used for a camping table and the spring wire/slotted structures that you usually see on pop up tents.

My favorite find, however, was the radial hinge from a jogging stroller. If you can picture the collapsible top of a stroller with rounded supports that allows it to fold close almost like an accordion you can see where this radial hinge fits in.

There's something to be said for looking to the latest research or the most new and advanced manufacturing techniques but there's also an advantage to checking out basic consumer products that are already out there and seeing where inspiration strikes. You never know what simple mechanism did not occur to you in your hunt to optimize your design. Of course, this might be a bit too simplified if you're dealing with a failed water pump or something a bit more complex but if you're thinking for a prototype don't be afraid to stop by your local hardware store just to browse. You never know what you'll see.

What dreams are made of

Here's a photo of the White House gingerbread house for no particular reason. This is a yearly tradition, but love the White House dog sitting in front (though not exactly to scale is it?)

 

I have dreamed about having to go back to high school ever since I left high school. Sometimes I have to go back to take a class I need for college, or sometimes I am back in band again and hoping I can still compete even though I've already graduated. Last night I believe I had my first ever college dream. Or college dream that I can remember. Just in time for me to graduate, even my dreams know I will be done soon and it's time to start dreaming about it.

Engineering Groups and the Biggest Loser

I don't have cable programming anymore and past the first season of Survivor however many years ago and an occasional guilty pleasure with Project Runway I don't watch a whole lot of reality television. So I guess it's surprising I watched a little of this latest season's Biggest Loser.

I don't want to talk about what I think about the whole competition itself (though like most reality programming I feel drawn to it like people are drawn to watch a car wreck). But what I did find was interesting was they started the program with teammates. Two people competed together as a team unit. About nine episodes in they drop the partner scheme and they are back to competing as inviduals.

What I thought was interesting was the individuals' perspective on the change. Most were disappointed. Even though the individual work counted, that second person was someone you could fall back on for support and coping.

And I started to think about my engineering groups. Usually I rail against school-based group projects. Somehow you have four people and you would think that means you each only have to do one quarter of the total work but somehow it ends up being more like four times the work for each person.

I'm a shy person. And I don't mind working with others in the workplace, but it always came off as too forced and too social at school. But you know what? I realized I would never have met these people or formed these pseudo-friendships with them otherwise. I'm a self-sufficient person. I'd like to think I don't need to "make friends" (don't I have to pay some reality tv show guru for using that phrase?) That I'm there to get my degree and I honestly don't have time to be hanging out with these people so what's the point in being super friendly.

But it's nice to meet up with members from groups past. And have that common ground where you struggled on the same team for a goal. Where for some reason you care a little bit about their success and you know they care a little bit about yours. Someone you can casually wave hi to or who it's nice to see when you show up alone at the lab and recognize a friendly face.

So even though up until this point I'm usually pretty negative on how school groups function on projects, and I still think it's nothing like the "real world", there's something really beneficial about it. I don't know how you'd incorporate that better into an engineering curiculum because when I think back on the early and smaller engineering group projects I did not form bonds with those people or remember them past project completion. But there is something to having someone there who cares a little bit more about you than just anyone and knows exactly what you're going through.

Design Fridays: The Claw

I have been keeping busy with numerous senior design projects. This was a not-adapted design for a claw in my mechatronics project. We ended up going with something else, two legs of the claw with a cam in the middle. From the original design (a worm gear and two center pieces to move the legs in and out) we tried to improve the speed, which was one of the major goals of the project. The direct drive screw moving the legs of the claw in and out was effective but extremely slow, even with a bigger screw.

 

My design represents an intermediate design where we considered having two sides and only one that would rotate to clinch the pieces. However, we were able to incorporate the cam into the existing built parts and went from an open/close time of 9 seconds to less than 1 second.

Grow your own shrooms

Used coffee grounds and mushrooms don't usually bring to mind entrepreneurialism. A couple of university business students in California both approached their professor after a class where growing mushrooms in coffee grounds was mentioned, and he paired them up and they've been trying to make a business of it ever since. Apparently growing the mushrooms themselves for local restaurants proved too space inefficient. So now they make these kits, a sort of DIY. Right now they're running all this on their own with very little fixed expenses so it remains to be seen whether they could actually make a profit from this venture.

 

This is timely for me as it is senior project time in my design class. I was surprised to hear my classmates speak up in dismay that projects developed for a private company would be something they would not retain the IP (intellectual property) rights for. I think many will go the academic/research route just to control the rights to the projects they work on. I know not all of them plan to go to grad school, so it's interesting to me how many have that spark of creativity where they would like to keep working on and keep developing their ideas. I, like the characters in Shawshank Redemption, am mostly "institutionalized" and can't see myself working on something that is more research driven than private. However there are lots of good projects. Another classmate of mine was mulling over doing a project that had a lot of meaning and could actually help people versus something that would be more likely to get him a job. I'm trying to push aside any desire I might have to work on some of the more "interesting" projects in favor of something less difficult so I'm not as overwhelmed in the next several months. I guess we all have difficult decisions to make.

2010: A Class Project

Is that a yellow monolith? Are astronauts standing in its shadow on the other side of it? Of course not. It's the reason I haven't been posting. Because I've finally learned how to use bones as tools. Or maybe because it's part of my mechatronics project and I haven't been writing or sleeping as much as I'd like.

C's Pass Classes

This graph demonstrates how I've reasoned out the minimum level of effort I can put forth to get a passing grade in my classes. The amount of effort required to get a B is much, much higher. As a person with a job, a husband, and a cat I'd like to see and spend time with I just can't convince myself to go beyond the C level of effort. Even when I try mind games or psyching myself out, it always comes back to that C.

 

In the "real world" here at Megacorp, that is no problem. My coworkers tell me stories of how harrowing were their days studying engineering and their grades abysmal. I nod and pretend I too spend hours and hours every week earning my C's, but the fact is I don't; I have it down to a precise level of minimum effort. In school I have to hear the students who have fairly high GPAs complaining about the difference between an A- and an A. Or for my mechatronics project my teammate turning down one of my ideas because it would "slow our robot down" and "we are being graded on time." I am certain if our robot works, performs the tasks, and doesn't move abominably slow he'll still be able to his A or B or whatever it is he's clamoring for. I've seen these things fail and not work. I'm not to the point where I'm thinking how fast we can make it, I'm thinking how we only have two weeks to get all this together which is basically two weeks or four days. I'm thinking I'd rather it work, and work reliably, than be the fastest in the class. Coming in last is still completing the competition, and I'm sure there will be failed bots along the way.

 

Sometimes I wonder if there's something wrong with me that I lack the spark and excitement of these youths in their drive for perfection. I wonder if it's really the cold, hard corporate reality that's driven me to this or just a failure in who I am.

Too many wires for me

What's with all these phooey electrical things cropping up in my studies? My boss even asked if my project was for a "mechatronics class." It's interesting how much senior projects can vary based on what the specialty is of the professor who designed the series. We'll see if the machine shop portion is gritty and mechanical enough for me. For now, my MCU (Microprocessor Control Unit) and my motor driver board in all their spaghetti glory.

Full Circle

Four years ago I worked on my freshman design project with three other students. Today I walked into my senior design lab class to see one of those group members in my section with me. It's thrilling to have come this far. To know that four years ago what seemed so far away is now so close.

 

Also, I hate group work and was lamenting the kind of partner I'd have. But I lucked out. He has machine shop experience and loves tinkering and taking things apart, so definitely not the lazy type on the assembly aspect of it where that seems to me to be a time consuming waste. Sometimes I think the working world has crushed any interest I ever had in this subject. But then, not all engineers are equal in what interests them I suppose. Give me a nice CAD program anytime.

Everyone's in School

My community college class is packed. Apparently all sections are full and my undesirable evening class is still getting ok attendance a month or so into the semester. Summer classes were cut by 50% due to budget restrictions but I think the classes now are the normal load. Just that there are suddenly a lot more students. And not older, unemployed students (though there are a few of those) but young, fresh out of high school students.

 

The US Secretary of Transportation posted recently on his blog about his experiences at a community college as well as a future White House Summit on community college. From my personal experience, more students are utilizing community college programs, students from all walks of life. I know an aerospace engineer who after graduating started at his local college in the A&P program (airframe and powerplant) usually meant for technicians. You know when engineers are pursuing this they think it's important in this economy. And it could be cutbacks at other colleges have meant more students flowing into community college, some that planned to to save money or some for whom it might have been a second choice.

 

My university classes appear to be at the same capacity, despite the fact that tuition is measurably higher this year and I think there are a few more students than normal trying to cram in their final year right along with me. One of my professors used the word interdisciplinary about ten times, so I know what message is being pushed down from the top. For engineers who really ought to be thinking about specializing in the future of their careers I'm not sure how this will play out in the class. I wonder though if it isn't part of the overall grant/research effort and for the university to cover their asses on funding they lost from the government. Hard to say whether the ploy will work, or what affect all this will continue to have on the students.

Lost My Appetite

From my textbook; creepy hand shows you how to do the right hand rule.

Students in Space

August means the start of my new class; how crap moves in space. Or maybe Orbital Dynamics would be the formal version. It's worth mentioning my professor looks (and sounds) like an older Pavel Chekov (aka Walter Koenig). He hasn't asked about any enemy wessels yet but it's only a matter of time.

I paid fantastically wonderful $15 for a new copy of the textbook. Some loud mouth student in front keeps complaining why we don't use this book, which looks to be somewhat basic on a lot of things but also not go into as much detail on orbit-specific topics. Not to mention it's $75 through Amazon and probably would be $100 through the bookstore. Same loud mouth student keeps interrupting the professor to "correct" him on the way he is explaining things, and has questioned equations from the book. Only after an extremely polite explanation from the professor does he finally admit, very loudly and to the rest of the class, that he was wrong. Like I listened to his post-class student-led "i like the sound of my own voice" discussions anyways. Apparently he learned from the other book, and I understand the difficulty of learning the same topics but from a different book and/or professor and having to learn things in a different way than you did the first time. It can be very frustrating. You want to go back and consult your old book and nestle in the safety of its familiarity.

But the tone of arrogance in correcting a professor with likely decades of experience in not only learning these topics but teaching them multiple times is about ready to knock me over. It's not that I think professors are infallible, and if there's an error on the board I think someone should point it out. But to question the method teaching something that you have likely never learned in full before, and you are an undergrad, and you have never taught before, simply blows my mind. I'm waffling between saying something polite about how his questions interrupt my ability to learn and asking him to save "discussion section" questions for the professor's office hours, or the more satisfying alternative of throwing paper rockets at him and asking him if he's majoring in douchebaggery or suggest that if he knows the material so well he doesn't need to take the class and ruin the experience for the rest of us. Every time I'm in class with an irritating student I tell myself that the one time I decide to say something will probably be the one student I have to work with on a senior project, so I'm trying to behave and say nothing at all. But it's really difficult.

Inverted Pendulum vs Mothra

So I'm in Control Theory and one of the common problems given to undergraduates is the "inverted pendulum" problem. I guess the practical use behind it is maybe trying to launch a rocket at a certain angle by controlling the platform the rocket's on. Or in very simple terms, it's like balancing a broom on the palm of your hand and physically moving your body in order to keep it upright. Here are the equations in case you wanted to go build your own controls robot.

Balancing a broom by moving your whole body has got to be the stupidest way to balance a broom. Certainly we are evolved and can use our opposable thumbs or ducktape or something. So mostly it's just a useful example for understanding systems of equations for a physical controls problem. But people are stupid. And in real life, we do a lot of dumb things like try to balance something top heavy by wandering with our feet. How many times do we accommodate some unwieldy project by changing all the parameters and requirements surrounding the project rather than directly changing what the project is or what its goals might be? If you are like me this week and swamped with tasks and ignorant people asking you to jump through hoop it can definitely feel like you are balancing a broom on your hand. Sometimes it feels like you've got brooms in both hands. Then your boss or his boss (illustrated, accurately, by Mothra here) shows up and starts shooting giant lasers at your project. And you're like, wtf? It was hard enough keeping these projects upright without you sabotaging them.

So even strange examples given to undergrads that seem unlikely in a real physical world seem to have some place in the corporate world(which as we know, is its own system of equations attempting to model the real, the physical, world). Here's a cool video of someone's inverted pendulum robot:

High expectations for America's youth

The Control Theory I class I'm currently in is being taught by two professors. The second is a diminutive Russian fellow who's clearly a much newer immigrant to this nation than the other one. I always find these "new" professors amusing because there's so much they don't know about American culture: like our poor education system.

Circuits are some of the systems as unlucky mechanical engineering students are being asked to model in this class which requires a basic understanding of circuit analysis. Most of us grudgingly had to take a circuits class prior to now, but for me it had been a while. And while Kirchhoff's Circuit and Voltage laws were familiar to me I realized I was a little rusty and would need to review the material on my own before the homework. Because as our Russian professor sped through the material, without going over the laws or nodal analysis explained, this is really high school material, you should have learned all this in high school.

It makes me wonder what high school students in other countries are really exposed to. When my professors comment on how basic circuits or heat flow or basic thermodynamics is something we should have learned in high school I wonder what high school they went to. I took honors physics and it was pretty cool, but we didn't get far past Newton's laws. Beyond that it was a lot of building stuff, running experiments, and a few days where we learned the whole series of events that took place at Pearl Harbor in 1941. Am I missing the boat here? I went to a "good" school for the county, what is everyone else learning in high school?

What's the matter with kids

Actual photographic evidence that college students are a bunch of losers with no taste. I mean really, toe shoes? Outside? Have you no shame? I have to wonder what went in to designing something like this. Was somebody thinking gee, I'd like a shoe that proves I have toes but doesn't actually show them directly. I'm really hoping I'm wrong here. That I just imagined the harder rubber soul on the bottom and that maybe these are scuba shoes or surfing shoes or something and the kid was in a rush to get his X-treme day going. Any other bizarre fashion trends I should be worried are further signs of the apocalypse?

Textbook Mafia Wars

My Control Theory I Professor just saved me $160.00. There's a required textbook for the course but he told the class no one has to buy it. That if we do, it won't be a waste because he'll be using it in Control Theory II as will another professor.

 

You see, he originally started teaching when the 3rd edition of this book was out. So he crafted his lectures around that book. Now, X years later (or maybe six months in the textbook industry) the 6th edition is out and he doesn't feel we need to run out and buy new editions just because some editor changed a few things. Maybe because the 5th edition is so hard to get ahold of.  He's said the course is "self contained" and we'll get all we need to know from lectures. We can use the book if we want, but don't have to. This year even he'll be writing his own homework problems for the class instead of using those from the book. Double advantage to me, the person who never has solutions and/or friends which should keep all the cheaters from automatically getting a full homework percentage. It's always nice when a professor respects your budget as much as you do and does what they can to save you money, even if it means a little extra work on their part.

Thanks for the inspiration!

So one of my professors sends an email out to everyone in several different classes urging us to pay attention in class or we're "in the wrong major" and as motivation links to a popular consumer product.

Now, don't get me wrong here, I'm all for paying attention in class. But I think linking to some consumer product that was likely made by a talented inventor is not necessarily what most people go into engineering for. If you already have those skills, you don't need the motivation. And if you don't have spontaneous million-dollar-idea skills, the things that might thrill you are things like this or this or this or this.

Maybe that's the problem with science and engineering. People get the idea there's some sort of quick fix out there, that you can develop oxyclean and become a millionaire. They miss how cool developing something is, even a small subsystem of an overall more impressive project. And that's what the engineers my university educates will likely be doing. So why do professors continue to mislead? Either I hear about that, or they talk about the workplace like it's some kind of '90s style "no bad idea" laid back atmosphere when in reality it's a lot more paperwork and drudgery, but the payoff comes in the thousands of unique and considerable pieces of hardware being developed for all sorts of purposes. I think they miss their target, as well as fail to prepare students, when they present the world in this way.