This week, this summer session has seemed to go by fairly quickly. I have discovered that I have already finished all the non-final tests for my class, which is nice. I also feel as though I'm pretty well back on track for that course, again nice. Today I might even get ahead a little.
But all of that is boring compared with work.
Last time I worked it was for 7.5 hours doing field testing of the little toy sub that we built. Much much fun. We were driving around the lake having it take sonar images of whatever we could find. Overall the day was a large success, until we hit the last run for the day.
We had been having good success of taking sonar of fish and the boat and such, so with just enough charge we decided to drive across the path of the little bot so it could get the boat in motion, instead of just flying by a stationary boat. Well we sent the little sucker on its way then gunned the boat to get in front of it and swerved about in the sub's path, thus ensuring some wild sonar images. Well we waited to here the little "I'm over here" alarm the sub gives after it surfaces. We waited and waited-no alarm.
This is about the time the panic started to set in, the forward look sonar device the sub was carrying is worth about $50,000. Naturally not something that would be good to lose. Well after spending a few minutes trying to figure out what happen and convince ourselves that we had not in fact run the darn thing over we pulled out the hydrophone and triangulated the position down to about 2 meters-This took an hour or two. After this we waited for the scuba diver to arrive (one of the reasons I would like to get scuba certified) and after testing the water and depth and other such things we dropped him basically on top of where the sub was. He was under for maybe 10 minutes when he came back up holding our $50,000+ toy.
We were well pleased to find that there wasn't a scratch on it. Apparently the prop wash was enough to throw the thing about a third of it's own length into the sticky mud at the bottom, where it engaged it's "I'm too deep under water" routine which consists of turning off the motor and waiting to float to the surface. The mud disagreed with this plan and instead held the little sub on the bottom until it's battery died and then we found it.
That was an excited day at the lake.
Today I spent outfitting another sub to pull a hydrophone along behind it so that we can listen in on fish conversations and what not. The plan with the next run is to try to get two of our subs working together.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Fun Fun
Well once again I got the highest grade in my class on a test and once again it was a 98. So I should be doing pretty well in that class, but I'll have to see how things turn out with homework and what not.
Today was a busy but boring day so far. I settled all my banking stuffs and what not-it's really nice to have a job because I can actually see my money grow now instead of it just kinda sitting there. USAA makes me happy with how very helpful they are. Oh and any of you folk who happen to buying Christmas/Birthday presents and not getting some sort of music or what not another idea for you is Savings bonds-the gifts that keep on giving. But then again nothing is always an option too.
I got all my filing done! I even have left over files!
I've been really lazy with interneting since I got the new apartment, I'll probably get back into it more as everything else gets more settled. Oh, we discovered a current layout that we like for the living room, but I think we shall be getting rid of the original free couch, which is ok cause we have plenty of seating otherwise.
Well, the microwave just alerted me that it has finished heating so I must go check on it-more later
Today was a busy but boring day so far. I settled all my banking stuffs and what not-it's really nice to have a job because I can actually see my money grow now instead of it just kinda sitting there. USAA makes me happy with how very helpful they are. Oh and any of you folk who happen to buying Christmas/Birthday presents and not getting some sort of music or what not another idea for you is Savings bonds-the gifts that keep on giving. But then again nothing is always an option too.
I got all my filing done! I even have left over files!
I've been really lazy with interneting since I got the new apartment, I'll probably get back into it more as everything else gets more settled. Oh, we discovered a current layout that we like for the living room, but I think we shall be getting rid of the original free couch, which is ok cause we have plenty of seating otherwise.
Well, the microwave just alerted me that it has finished heating so I must go check on it-more later
Thursday, July 24, 2008
tired
Well, today I took a test then worked for 7.5 hours-bit of a long day I'll tell you more about it later on
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Alright so I haven't posted much
I know I know, I've kind of dropped off the face of the internet for a couple days maybe even a week and in terms of the internet and technology that can be forever, but it's been busy with moving and and class and I just recently got the internet back.
Well lets see, bunch of stuff going on...let's start with probably my favorite bit-academics.
Ok so right now as I write this I have 88 credits and I'm sitting at 3.51 GPA overall-decently good but not where I want it (should be 91 credits at 3.7 but whatever). Anyway I woke up early this morning to go talk to my adviser about the much fabled BS/MS-fabled because I've been trying to get into that sucker for a while now. But here's the news on that one. As soon as I complete this summer term (August 9th) I shall be applying for the program. Now this is a bit crazy because while I will have 90 credits at that time, I'm not planning on finishing the undergraduates until spring 2010. For the BS/MS program the last two semester of your undergraduate are where you take the 4000 levels that double count. (this is concise plan coming next) So, I apply for the BS/MS Fall 08. I spend Fall 08 and Spring 09 being a regular Engineering student. Small Small Chance that I'll need to do classes Summer II 09 (hopefully not!). Fall 09 and Spring 10 I spend finishing my undergrads while (at the same time) starting my graduate degree in Electrical Engineering. Summer I and Summer II 10 I have no idea right now (might have to spend in Blacksburg doing research, might spend in Warrenton working). Fall 10 and Spring 11 I spend finishing my graduate degree and graduate Spring 11 with a Masters in Electrical Engineering! Then I go in the world find a job, a house, a wife, a house, and a sack of gold so I don't have to be a sprite. Then I get the people I work for to send for a Ph.D.
In other academic news I get to officially be a double major now-instead of just doing all the work without the official recognition. I'm completing the form later today and sending that in. I am not currently an official double major because football didn't want be to do as such-something about eligibility or some nonsense, but I don't have to deal with them any more.
Exciting news-I have a job, I am designing, building, and testing an autonomous undersea vehicle for the US Navy. I should be making about $10/hour, but that is technically not certain yet. Ok so now for the story behind this one a little bit. I emailed Dr. Stilwell because I knew I wanted to do research for him, I was expecting unpaid research for credit. He responded very quickly and told me that there just might be a paid internship position open for an undergrad. I went in to talk to him and he mentioned that contingent on his alloted budget he might be able to take me on as a paid undergraduate research for $10/hour. It'll be rather flexible Dr. Stilwell will mostly likely only let me work 10 hours per week just because of his budget could probably only afford that much and because he wants me to still focus on school work. Technically I believe the university will only let me work 20 hours. But after I was talking to Dr. Stilwell about the project for a bit he took me to meet the whole research team and what not and the guy I would be working for directly. I'm going to be part of the navigation team consiting mostly of me and a real life graduated engineer. I'm naturally pretty excited about such-it's not entirely certain that I'll be paid, but I'd do the work for free-the pay just makes life easier all around.
I think that cover's most of my academics and all. Jenn is late to work today and a little stressed, but it's going well with her. Paul and I cleared out the rest of our storage. the apartment is definitely coming together, even if slowly. This post might be a little disjointed cause I'm excited and slightly unorganized right now and the writting of this post has spanded an entire day pretty much. Right now I have to go clean some disks and what not so I'll have to post again later.
Well lets see, bunch of stuff going on...let's start with probably my favorite bit-academics.
Ok so right now as I write this I have 88 credits and I'm sitting at 3.51 GPA overall-decently good but not where I want it (should be 91 credits at 3.7 but whatever). Anyway I woke up early this morning to go talk to my adviser about the much fabled BS/MS-fabled because I've been trying to get into that sucker for a while now. But here's the news on that one. As soon as I complete this summer term (August 9th) I shall be applying for the program. Now this is a bit crazy because while I will have 90 credits at that time, I'm not planning on finishing the undergraduates until spring 2010. For the BS/MS program the last two semester of your undergraduate are where you take the 4000 levels that double count. (this is concise plan coming next) So, I apply for the BS/MS Fall 08. I spend Fall 08 and Spring 09 being a regular Engineering student. Small Small Chance that I'll need to do classes Summer II 09 (hopefully not!). Fall 09 and Spring 10 I spend finishing my undergrads while (at the same time) starting my graduate degree in Electrical Engineering. Summer I and Summer II 10 I have no idea right now (might have to spend in Blacksburg doing research, might spend in Warrenton working). Fall 10 and Spring 11 I spend finishing my graduate degree and graduate Spring 11 with a Masters in Electrical Engineering! Then I go in the world find a job, a house, a wife, a house, and a sack of gold so I don't have to be a sprite. Then I get the people I work for to send for a Ph.D.
In other academic news I get to officially be a double major now-instead of just doing all the work without the official recognition. I'm completing the form later today and sending that in. I am not currently an official double major because football didn't want be to do as such-something about eligibility or some nonsense, but I don't have to deal with them any more.
Exciting news-I have a job, I am designing, building, and testing an autonomous undersea vehicle for the US Navy. I should be making about $10/hour, but that is technically not certain yet. Ok so now for the story behind this one a little bit. I emailed Dr. Stilwell because I knew I wanted to do research for him, I was expecting unpaid research for credit. He responded very quickly and told me that there just might be a paid internship position open for an undergrad. I went in to talk to him and he mentioned that contingent on his alloted budget he might be able to take me on as a paid undergraduate research for $10/hour. It'll be rather flexible Dr. Stilwell will mostly likely only let me work 10 hours per week just because of his budget could probably only afford that much and because he wants me to still focus on school work. Technically I believe the university will only let me work 20 hours. But after I was talking to Dr. Stilwell about the project for a bit he took me to meet the whole research team and what not and the guy I would be working for directly. I'm going to be part of the navigation team consiting mostly of me and a real life graduated engineer. I'm naturally pretty excited about such-it's not entirely certain that I'll be paid, but I'd do the work for free-the pay just makes life easier all around.
I think that cover's most of my academics and all. Jenn is late to work today and a little stressed, but it's going well with her. Paul and I cleared out the rest of our storage. the apartment is definitely coming together, even if slowly. This post might be a little disjointed cause I'm excited and slightly unorganized right now and the writting of this post has spanded an entire day pretty much. Right now I have to go clean some disks and what not so I'll have to post again later.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Yay for internet again
Well, we now have the internet once again after a period of no internet-also it seems that the firewall and virus protection that I was using no longer plays nice with windows so I have switched to that provided by Tech-looks to be decent. I hope it does well what with daily scans and what not. Well that's all for now-still much to be done, perhaps I shall get to sleep later even...
Monday, July 7, 2008
Ouch!
Well, I have some advice for you, if you should be thinking about building something that requires a bunch of screws and your don't have an electric screwdriver or drill available for the job, wear gloves. I have a hole in the palm of my right hand and a blister on my middle finger because I did not follow that advice, although I don't think I have gloves here that I could have worn- but Paul's hands aren't doing too much better than my, thus if you're thinking about that sort of activity go find gloves first.
Well, this is the start to a busy week, it's not quite into the super busy bits yet, but today had it's moments so far and the day is not yet done. Class seemed like it went really fast today with no real lulls until the end, which is kinda good and kinda bad-good because it makes the class time seem shorter that way, bad because there were lulls at the end which made it that much worse. But today we learned all about Bode Plots, yay.
Bode Plots are a convenient way to show the magnitude and phase responses of a system to a sinusoid at any given frequency. Bode Plots show the magnitude and phase responses separately which is pretty handy and in fact they are not really that hard to make. All of this gives me another tool for use in designing networks. All these tools and such give me a better understand of what everything means and how it all fits together-which is always a good thing. Overall I am very pleased with how my education and all is going.
Today there are also a whole bunch of little freshmens here for orientation. I feel all snazzy because I'm a legit college student and therefore cool-which is definitely a plus about our culture, for all the looking down on geeks and nerds and such-mostly in high school-you are automatically cool when you become a college student and you can ever be a cool nerd. But more importantly because it is once again orientation time, the food quality at d2 has increased-Horay for trying to impress people with inflated profomences which result in me eating tasty food.
But I must end this post for now as my computer is working very hard trying to do a lot at once and the network isn't helping very much
Well, this is the start to a busy week, it's not quite into the super busy bits yet, but today had it's moments so far and the day is not yet done. Class seemed like it went really fast today with no real lulls until the end, which is kinda good and kinda bad-good because it makes the class time seem shorter that way, bad because there were lulls at the end which made it that much worse. But today we learned all about Bode Plots, yay.
Bode Plots are a convenient way to show the magnitude and phase responses of a system to a sinusoid at any given frequency. Bode Plots show the magnitude and phase responses separately which is pretty handy and in fact they are not really that hard to make. All of this gives me another tool for use in designing networks. All these tools and such give me a better understand of what everything means and how it all fits together-which is always a good thing. Overall I am very pleased with how my education and all is going.
Today there are also a whole bunch of little freshmens here for orientation. I feel all snazzy because I'm a legit college student and therefore cool-which is definitely a plus about our culture, for all the looking down on geeks and nerds and such-mostly in high school-you are automatically cool when you become a college student and you can ever be a cool nerd. But more importantly because it is once again orientation time, the food quality at d2 has increased-Horay for trying to impress people with inflated profomences which result in me eating tasty food.
But I must end this post for now as my computer is working very hard trying to do a lot at once and the network isn't helping very much
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Congrads for Brothers
While I did not include the Lt. in the Congrads given in the previous post (chiefly because I'm pretty sure he was not involved in building the sandbox and such as mentioned in the Skip blog and such), he certainly does merit congratulations because not once while he has been on duty has the country been invaded by communists of any sort. If fact not once have we been attacked while he has been protecting our rights. It's a tough job, especially considering the fact that he's never home, but he certainly does it well.
Well, I've decided to try and learned Gentoo Linux-this is the super famous one, with the penguin and the control over literally anything. I figure it will be a useful skill to get things done, especially if I will be needing to do crazy things like developing machine intelligence, which is way easier on a Linux device. Also the documentation for Gentoo is very good and will a little effort I should be able to handle it fairly easily.
I will keep you all updated as I progress through this process and certainly be willing to offer any advice that I can if you need such.
Well, I've decided to try and learned Gentoo Linux-this is the super famous one, with the penguin and the control over literally anything. I figure it will be a useful skill to get things done, especially if I will be needing to do crazy things like developing machine intelligence, which is way easier on a Linux device. Also the documentation for Gentoo is very good and will a little effort I should be able to handle it fairly easily.
I will keep you all updated as I progress through this process and certainly be willing to offer any advice that I can if you need such.
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