Category: Professional

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Progress on Research Hardware

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This term, several of my undergraduate research assistants have been hard at work putting together a test platform for some research that I have in the works.  This diminutive rover will soon be outfitted with a sensor mast and robotic arm with the goal of loosely replicating a Mars rover mission.  This analogue test platform will then be outfitted with hardware that can inject faults into the system in order to exercise several prognostics and health management algorithms.

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This Arduino with an XBee transmitter is acting like a relay satellite.  Soon this will be built out with several sensors on a gimbal system.

IMG_2394This computer sends commands to the rover via the Arduino in the previous photo.  It simulates a ground station talking with a satellite that then relays data to a rover on Mars.

 

This short video shows the whole system in action.  There will be more to come soon!

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Advice to grad students and other academics

My friend and colleague, David Long, Ph.D., shared some free advice with me to both use myself and pass along to others who might find it useful.  I know that I need to work on a few of these points myself.  What tricks and tips do you use that should be added to this list?

  1. Back it up!  In three places — computer, campus network drive, network drive at home, portable drive, DropBox, Google Drive, etc.  — BE SURE TO SYNCHRONIZE FILES AND KEEP AN ARCHIVE!
  2. Read Piled Higher and Deeper — A comic that often hits too close to home for graduate students and their professors.
  3. Books — Websites such as Big Words and others are your friend when looking for inexpensive texts that beat the price of your local campus book store.
  4. Personalize Your Searches — Use services such as Google Scholar and customize them for the topics that you care about.
  5. Get to Know Your Librarians — Leverage their knowledge to leverage your research.  They can help you automate your bibliography with a whole host of software tools such as JabRef, Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, etc.
  6. Annotate Everything You Read — Put everything you read into your master bibliography file.  Make sure to apply keywords, write a quick three sentence summary, note if the the article is good or bad, flag interesting articles, etc.
  7. Write Something Everyday — Write at least a couple paragraphs everyday on your research.  Never slack off on this and you will always be ahead in your writing.
  8. Share with Your Friends and Colleagues — Share what you are doing regularly with your friends and colleagues.  Always be ready to share something interesting.
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ASME SPDC District D @ Oregon State University

The SPDC returned to OSU in April.  My friends who run and are members of the local ASME chapter made me proud by putting on a wonderful event!  Here are a few photos of what happened.

Setting up the check-in table in Kelley Engineering Center.

This entry in the micro baja came from Montana.

At the micro baja indoor event.

This car had a really interesting design.  It worked pretty decently, too.

At the outdoor micro baja course.

The motor ended up burning out on the spinning platform so I got to pretend I was a motor for the night.

At the design competition.  One of the OSU teams competing.

The awards ceremony.

At the gala banquet dinner at Cloud 9.

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