Hello, World.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Duke Summer Days: Part 2
So, about another week has gone by at Duke...man, it would be easy to stop the blog here; really very little has happened.
Finally took care of a few study abroad papers today - turns out I'm qualified for a lot of the CS classes I was interested in taking and I placed an approval request for an AI class (cool!).
RoboCup is slow moving - still no motors, no luck on figuring out how to choose our motors. We've decided to possibly just buy some DC brushed motors (on the reccommendation of Greg Fricke - a grad student who helped us out) since they'll be cheaper and easier to use, but now we're having trouble finding those :( . I've been in contact with a couple of sales people asking for prices and "free samples" (no luck so far). The guy from Maxon actually seemed pretty helpful though, so we'll see if that pans out.
Also, we started researching solenoids/how to use solenoids to kick a soccer ball. Building this robot makes me realize how little practical electronics I know...so I signed up for a forum and have began posting about my problems in hopes of learning some.
My biofluidic research is going decently - I'm almost finished with the paper; which I am not confident in saying is about quick ways to ensure biofluidic chips are working propers. The next section is on "future research" and I'm supposed to pick out an area there that interests me, so we'll see how that goes. I'm excited and I hope something cool comes out of it.
Beyond that - the gardens are still beautiful, but unfortunately the weather hasn't been (although it is picking up!). I want to rent a bike next week and just bike around Durham at random when I have free time (possibly eat at "Wangs and Thangs". I ate at Chubby's for the first time, biggest burrito ever - but I dont reccommend shrimp in it (kind of want a t-shirt..."I love chubbys"). Donnie Darko deserves all the hype it gets - wish I had been in more of a movie mood when I saw it and that I had spent more time trying to figure it out before switching to wikipedia. I LOVE CROSSFIT! So bummed I can't do the workout today...(wow, I don't think I've ever said that about working out before).
I added this new gadget to my facebook - a map of all the places I've been in the world; I've gotten 6% so far. Tobias has 8% - darn you Tobias. I'm excited to add so many countries so soon, but for some reason not as stoked about Australia as I have been. I'm kind of scared it will be like America. On the other hand, I'm looking forward to the enormous cultural gap in SE Asia.
In an effort to add more countries to my map; here's my life plan: graduate, teach somewhere crazy, work somewhere crazy (joke job...maybe summer camp?), do something like Peace Corp. Then grad school I suppose?
Oh yeah, I'm going home today; I'm actually in an airport right now.
Peace out, World.
-DJ ¶ 10:22 PM 0 Comments
Finally took care of a few study abroad papers today - turns out I'm qualified for a lot of the CS classes I was interested in taking and I placed an approval request for an AI class (cool!).
RoboCup is slow moving - still no motors, no luck on figuring out how to choose our motors. We've decided to possibly just buy some DC brushed motors (on the reccommendation of Greg Fricke - a grad student who helped us out) since they'll be cheaper and easier to use, but now we're having trouble finding those :( . I've been in contact with a couple of sales people asking for prices and "free samples" (no luck so far). The guy from Maxon actually seemed pretty helpful though, so we'll see if that pans out.
Also, we started researching solenoids/how to use solenoids to kick a soccer ball. Building this robot makes me realize how little practical electronics I know...so I signed up for a forum and have began posting about my problems in hopes of learning some.
My biofluidic research is going decently - I'm almost finished with the paper; which I am not confident in saying is about quick ways to ensure biofluidic chips are working propers. The next section is on "future research" and I'm supposed to pick out an area there that interests me, so we'll see how that goes. I'm excited and I hope something cool comes out of it.
Beyond that - the gardens are still beautiful, but unfortunately the weather hasn't been (although it is picking up!). I want to rent a bike next week and just bike around Durham at random when I have free time (possibly eat at "Wangs and Thangs". I ate at Chubby's for the first time, biggest burrito ever - but I dont reccommend shrimp in it (kind of want a t-shirt..."I love chubbys"). Donnie Darko deserves all the hype it gets - wish I had been in more of a movie mood when I saw it and that I had spent more time trying to figure it out before switching to wikipedia. I LOVE CROSSFIT! So bummed I can't do the workout today...(wow, I don't think I've ever said that about working out before).
I added this new gadget to my facebook - a map of all the places I've been in the world; I've gotten 6% so far. Tobias has 8% - darn you Tobias. I'm excited to add so many countries so soon, but for some reason not as stoked about Australia as I have been. I'm kind of scared it will be like America. On the other hand, I'm looking forward to the enormous cultural gap in SE Asia.
In an effort to add more countries to my map; here's my life plan: graduate, teach somewhere crazy, work somewhere crazy (joke job...maybe summer camp?), do something like Peace Corp. Then grad school I suppose?
Oh yeah, I'm going home today; I'm actually in an airport right now.
Peace out, World.
-DJ ¶ 10:22 PM 0 Comments
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Duke Summer Days: Part 1
So I've been at Duke since Monday and I'm loving it. Summer session is really relaxing and not yet boring - in fact, I haven't been bored in what feels like forever...I guess I have so little time away from school work that free time doesn't bother me any more? Anyways - I do have a lot of free time; I'm not really doing all too much.
I have one job - working for Robotics Club on Robocup. Its only about 20 hours a week...so really not very time consuming at all. Robocup's awesome though - in 6 official days of work, I've barely managed a thing, :( , but I've learned a ton. So far I've managed to identify two problems: 1) What parts should I order for the drive train and 2) What parts should I order for the BLDC controller?
Getting to those two was actually a lot harder than expected - I mean a week ago I didn't event know what either of those words meant. Needless to say, I've learned a lot about gears, torque, and motors in general. I'll be meeting with a professor to try to figure out which exact parts to order, so I'll post about that physics problem some time soon.
Other than Robocup, I'm doing some reading on Microfluidic chips in hopes of a research job or independent study when I'm back from AU. I'll post more about what a microfluidic chip is ermmm, when I know what a microfluidic chip is. Best of my knowledge - they have biological uses and I'm figuring out ways to make them more robust/cheaper/reuseable/reliable.
So this is already a long entry, and I feel kind of bad about that...but anyone who cares enough to read a blog about my life can hopefully put up with my rambling.
I moved into Central with Ross (surprise roommate, was expecting a rando and got him instead...pretty funny/cool) and Schneider. I LOVE CENTRAL! We have a sweet set up (made for a decent mostly Bro-Fest Friday night) and I have a double to myself. I'm enjoying cooking (eggs are delicious) and I love walking through the Gardens to get back and forth to work. Turns out that place is huge and awesome - I had only seen like a quarter of it before.
Alright World, that's all for now.
-DJ, out. ¶ 5:46 PM 0 Comments
I have one job - working for Robotics Club on Robocup. Its only about 20 hours a week...so really not very time consuming at all. Robocup's awesome though - in 6 official days of work, I've barely managed a thing, :( , but I've learned a ton. So far I've managed to identify two problems: 1) What parts should I order for the drive train and 2) What parts should I order for the BLDC controller?
Getting to those two was actually a lot harder than expected - I mean a week ago I didn't event know what either of those words meant. Needless to say, I've learned a lot about gears, torque, and motors in general. I'll be meeting with a professor to try to figure out which exact parts to order, so I'll post about that physics problem some time soon.
Other than Robocup, I'm doing some reading on Microfluidic chips in hopes of a research job or independent study when I'm back from AU. I'll post more about what a microfluidic chip is ermmm, when I know what a microfluidic chip is. Best of my knowledge - they have biological uses and I'm figuring out ways to make them more robust/cheaper/reuseable/reliable.
So this is already a long entry, and I feel kind of bad about that...but anyone who cares enough to read a blog about my life can hopefully put up with my rambling.
I moved into Central with Ross (surprise roommate, was expecting a rando and got him instead...pretty funny/cool) and Schneider. I LOVE CENTRAL! We have a sweet set up (made for a decent mostly Bro-Fest Friday night) and I have a double to myself. I'm enjoying cooking (eggs are delicious) and I love walking through the Gardens to get back and forth to work. Turns out that place is huge and awesome - I had only seen like a quarter of it before.
Alright World, that's all for now.
-DJ, out. ¶ 5:46 PM 0 Comments
Sunday, May 10, 2009
First Post
Just a test everyone, I hope this works. A real post should follow soon.
¶ 6:40 PM 0 Comments
