iFoundry updates

Link to video of my steam car.

2009-12-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhT9kole1j0

This is a video of my Eng 198 group testing our steam car.

I'm following myself.

2009-11-30T15:08:00.000-08:00

I accidentally started following myself today. Oops. Haha at least I'll know that I posted something for sure. And nobody else is doing it.. why not start a trend? ; )

So the semester is ending fast. My finals seem to be as early as they possibly could be, so I won't have as much time as expected to study, sadly. But I'll get them over with and that'll be nice.

I like my Eng 198 group's project. The hovercraft is coming together nicely, and Kevin had a surprise for us today, we are going to control it with a super NES (I think that is what the system is.. I'm not a videogamer..) controller! I am really excited to see if we can get it to work. The circuitry is hard to figure out, and I'm an EE major. I have a LOT to learn. Next semester I'll be in ECE 190 and I hear that if you don't know C, you will be in for a tough class. I don't know C.

IExpo is Wednesday. It should be alright, I think what my ESS group is doing is really cool, except I can't tell you and spoil the surprise. I guess we are still going to do iTeams next semester... I hope they become less stressful. Lots of enthusiasm in iFoundry as a whole has dropped, to put it frankly. Not that it can't continue, but is it improving things? That is the question that the people in charge will have to think about. The goal of iFoundry was to basically make engineers more aware of the complexities of the real world. I suppose it has, anything that makes you go over and above will make you learn things that you wouldn't normally learn. I think that some things should probably be changed. The whole "my iTeam has to have an event every week and change the world" idea should be halted. Please. We are also trying to do well in our classes, and it just isn't possible. Eng 198 is good. Some of the lectures have been iffy just because they are saying things that are common sense, but others have been good. And if iFoundry wanted an iCommunity, they have one. I recognize kids from iFoundry and we actually kind of know each other. And in Eng 198, I can honestly say I know at least half of the kids names. Ok that sounds bad.. it's only a class of 30.. haha. But you get my point, in my normal lectures or normal discussions, I know probably 10% or less of people's names.

I wish everybody good luck on finals!!! And I believe that this is my final blog (7!!!!), so Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!!!

The dress of the future, it lights up!!

I saw this at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Thanksgiving break

2009-11-23T14:02:00.000-08:00

The semester is coming to an end. It's Thanksgiving break and I'm at home with my family. Still plenty of homework to keep me busy, though. I'm expecting finals to be a bit stressful, but once we're done, Christmas break is going to be the best ever! I actually won't have anything to do!!! Wooo!!! That is the great thing about college, we work hard and we get it done, no need to spread stuff out when you can work a little harder and get things done. That's a great strategy to have, maybe I need to think a bit about how I operate and see if that's the best way. I tend to be the person who works hard at EVERYTHING, so I keep busy. I am the type that spreads stuff out, too. Is that a good thing? Well I don't get quite as overloaded I suppose. But on the other hand, when it is Thanksgiving break, I want to have a break. Instead, I have to do homework stuff like this every day. Hmm.. Study skills are very important, and efficiency. I can always improve on that.

In class, our next project will be due soon. My group is building a hovercraft that we plan to program to steer. I hope that we are able to program it well, because that seems to be the hardest part. We are basically done with the actual hovercraft already. I have some experience with hovercrafts already, because for AP Physics last year in high school, my "project" was to make a hovercraft. I actually was pretty successful because I was able to make it remote control to steer it and control the major duct (hovercraft for fan). I was messing with multiple motors and a servo just like what we are doing now! It was an individual project and I really enjoyed it. But my major problem was controlling all three parts, the two ducts and the servo, with the same battery/remote control. Maybe they weren't getting enough voltage. Actually one of the problems now that I am remembering was that the servo which controlled the rudder would automatically turn to one side whenever I turned it on. That was a bit frustrating...

Here are some pictures of that:

One interesting thing for our project is that we are trying a COMPLETELY different skirt design than what I used, which you can see easily on the bottom left picture. My skirt on that hovercraft ran around the edge of the craft, while ours is like one big bag over the bottom. They both seem to work, but I think that I prefer my old one. It was good to try different designs, though.

2nd Semester Schedule, updates on other iFoundry stuff

2009-11-04T12:27:00.000-08:00

Hi, so it's already November now. Goodness how time is flying this semester (except when we're actually in class)! I feel really at home here at the University of Illinois. Basketball season is starting, our football team won a game (vs. michigan!!!), life is good. : )

Illinois: 38 Michigan: 13

Illini fans party like it's 1983!

So this week I signed up for classes. I am so thankful to be a James Scholar for that. It would be terrible to have to wait another 2 weeks to sign up for classes and have a ton of trouble getting in any good ones.. I'm an Electrical Engineering major, so I'm taking ECE 190, MATH 241, PHYS 212, and RHET 105. ECE 190 is supposed to be harder than ECE 110, which I'm already in, and the professors aren't supposed to be good at speaking English... MATH 241 is supposed to be EASIER than MATH 231, so I'm excited. PHYS 212 could be weird because I heard that there is a lecture where the professor teaches two classes at once and in one of the classes you have to watch it from a video camera. That would be terrible.. And RHET 105 is just supposed to be a lot of work writing papers that don't mean anything. It'll be 16 credit hours, so that seems good, especially since it's only 4 classes. This semester is like 5 classes plus iFoundry/iTeam stuff. Hopefully there will be less iFoundry/iTeam stuff next semester.. Then I'll have more time to focus on my actual classes.

The iTeam things have really taken a toll on my time, and what gets me is that we aren't even getting credit for it. We get 1 credit hour for Eng 198, iFoundry, and the iTeams. We should get like 4 or 5, based on all the work we do! I was happy when Kevin, my iChair, mentioned that maybe we will just simulate doing the project instead of actually doing it, since it would be a TON of work. I agree, I suppose it would be good experience to go through the motions, though that would even take a lot of time. haha sometimes I wonder what classes other people are taking where they don't have to worry about their time commitments as much as me...

Anyways my group is building a hovercraft for the Eng 198 project. I'm pretty excited to see what we will be able to make it do.

iPost about iCheckpoint

2009-10-17T21:37:00.000-07:00

So the one and only iCheckpoint was last week! It was pretty cool, it was pretty fun actually, instead of being all serious. One of the people that graded our presentation emailed the iTeam afterwards and said not to get too worried about the presentations, they were informal and we could lighten up. So now we know for sure that we don't have to be all business. It's nice to know that you can relax and not be perfect. I tend to do better that way, anyways (in terms of giving a presentation)...

So the secret's out: we can do whatever we want in iFoundry. I didn't know that it was actually that, but I knew it was something close. That's cool, I like how we can be creative. The risk by the higher ups is that us students don't really have to do much, then... But trust me we are. I'm actually a bit worried if we are above our heads at the moment in ESS. Our project is very ambitious, but I am also really excited about the possibility of actually accomplishing it.

In eng 198, we had the demo day for our steam cars. It went alright for my team. We won the boiler competition, where the goal was to for your boiler to begin to churn out steam first. On the other hand, we came in last in the race. Something went wrong, and it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it was because of all of the variables.

It could have been because:

1. the steam didn't come out powerful enough from the boiler.

2. the steam was missing the turbine.

3. there was too much friction in the system, either the turbine or the rubber band or the front wheel or any of the axles.

4. something else?

Either way, we learned a bit about steam engines and how to work as a team and for the next project, I'm sure we'll do better.

By the way, I can't wait for basketball season!!!!

BRUUUUUUUUUUUCE!!!

We decided on a project!

2009-10-01T13:48:00.000-07:00

We finally decided on a project in Engineering in Service to Society! We decided to install solar panels on a homeless shelter. I love the proposal, since I was focusing on finding information the solar panels for the proposal and as a EE major, I'd love to work with some solar panels! Who doesn't? Another proposal that I liked (mostly because it seemed to be on a smaller scale) was composting, but incorporating solar panels into it because the compost "wheel" would need to be turned. Either way, I love our project and am glad that we picked something that I care about. It mixes an engineering side (setting up and installing the panels), a business side (working with companies and government for grants and any sort of help possible in paying for it), and a social side (helping homeless people!). Honestly, it seems like a huge test for us. We are going to be talking about a LOT of money pretty soon, and loans seem very likely. In addition, we haven't necessarily found out if there is a homeless shelter that NEEDS solar panels. But I know replacing any power from power plants with solar energy is good, plus it would save money for the public, whose tax money pays for that electricity. Hopefully it will help the homeless have a less inconvenient lifestyle. David came up with the project idea and the team seems really excited about it!

In Eng 198, my team has basically finished the car. There is a picture of it above, with Derek improvising on the front wheel and Kevin working on the back, probably the boiler. On Monday, our final paper will be due and we will test the car. It really came along nicely by the end, though just by testing out how fast the turbine will have to turn for the car to move, it will probably be underwhelming. The car would probably beat a snail, but an ant would have decent chances in a race against the car. It just seems like the car wasn't made to go fast. A lot would have to be changed for it to get moving. In class, Eng 198 seems pretty pointless. It's all common sense. No offense to the lecturer, Dr. Goldberg, but we all already knew that a label can change to a name over time. I think my iTeam chair Kevin said it best in his blog by saying that everybody in iFoundry ALREADY has the skills necessary to be a successful engineer. And I'll take it one step further, every engineering major that I've met so far here at the U of I is a very good communicator. So many of my classmates are impressive in their knowledge, communication, and ability to solve problems that I can't help but think that if I were hiring somebody to work for me, I would have many exceptional candidates right here at the U of I. Honestly I think that it's a pretty big knock on us all to assume that we don't know these sorts of things.. networking, communication, writing. I just think that there's a bad stereotype of engineers being nerdy and unsocial, but it is so rare to find somebody like that that it's hardly the case. Just because we happen to be good at math and science doesn't mean that we are automatically terrible at English and social skills!

Fall has hit and my homework is adding up a bit. Wow I just realized that that rhymes haha! It's all the same homework homework, but now I have tests, projects, and activities mixed in with it.

Why did I want to join ESS? That is a question that my fellow ESS teammate David asked himself, and he got me thinking about exactly what I liked about ESS. I think that the simplest reason to why I joined ESS is the "Service to Society" part. "Engineering" wasn't an option to get out of.. haha. No actually I love the idea of using engineering to help people. I think that that will be my focus throughout my career. It certainly won't be "How can I make the most money?" Money is not the meaning of life, no matter what the media tells you. I am Catholic, and I WANT to use my abilities to help others. It's actually pretty straightforward like that. There are a lot of things in life that don't really matter, but helping others sure is one of the most important ones for me, so I am happy to get involved with ESS and I look forward to all that we can achieve!

Getting ready to get ready

2009-09-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

I've been at the University of Illinois for exactly a month today. It's a good place. ; )

So what's been going on with iFoundry? A TON of ideas, and not many decisions. I'm specifically talking about Engineering in Service to Society at the moment.

The iTeams seem to be the main focus of iFoundry to me. Do we do other stuff in iFoundry? Yes. But do I see anything special about the rest of it? No, not really. From what I hear, Eng 198 is MUCH more rigorous than Eng 100. We also have to build a steam powered car as a side project. I even had to head down to the ESPL outside of class time to work on it already. But is that special? Not in my book. It's just the average class, even though it is different, if that's what iFoundry is going for. Different from Eng 100. What does that say to me? Probably that Eng 100 is too "easy" or "pointless." Why do most students have to take Eng 100 then? I'm not sure, I'm just a freshman, sheesh...

I'm happy that I went to one of the career fairs. It ended up being unproductive in terms of actually landing an internship or anything like that, but it's some useful information to have for when I actually have a chance for position like that when I'm older.

Engineering in Service to Society is an interesting situation. We must have 30 completely different ideas by now. It seems like the iFoundry higher ups are TOTALLY leaving up our "project" up to us. It seems like we can basically choose whatever we want to do, with advice from one faculty adviser and two grad students. Open ended? Yes. Overwhelming? A bit. We really are in charge of ourselves now, and we need to make sure that we pick a "project," since that's what it seems the goal will be, that we will realistically be able to accomplish. One thing that I've been wondering is what our time line is. Are we going to try to do something this semester, while we're still in Eng 198, or maybe this year? Will we still be in iFoundry these next 4 years? I'm pretty sure that we are. But what will we be doing? Will we still be in the same iTeams as seniors as we are now? Will we have to take more special classes? That would be really hard for us. Eng 198 is doable because every engineer has to take Eng 100. But even next semester there won't be any more classes that every single engineer has to take. Will there be an iFoundry specific Electrical Engineering class in the future? That's something interesting to think about. So what is my role in this iTeam? I can honestly say that as of now, I've been the most average of the team. I'm not in a single leadership postion (Goodness we must have 7 by now.. haha) but I am becoming more and more active. I hope I can help out the team. Scratch that, I know that I can. It's just been hard sometimes because people start talking and the ball gets rolling and people are coming up with EXTREMELY optimistic ideas. I mean they sound like fun, but we don't have 50 hours in a day to be able to fit everything in... My biggest thing so far at the U of I is time management. Its very important to be efficient when there is so much that you have to do in very limited time.

Okay back to studying for that Intro to Electrical and Computer Engineering 110 test tomorrow...

This iFoundry thing

2009-09-05T11:36:00.000-07:00

Hey guys this is my first blog for Eng 198 and iFoundry! It's already been 2 weeks of school and we've got going already. In Eng 198 we have class Wednesdays and we work on our project on Mondays.

Or project is to build a steam powered car. We are in groups of 4 or 5, and I'm in the "Perpetual Motion Squad" along with project manager Derek, Matthew, and Kevin. Derek is in charge of turbine assembly and will oversee the project since he is the manager. Matthew is in charge of building the boiler and troubleshooting. Kevin is in charge of the chassis and all sheet metal cutting, while I am in charge of building the fuel tank and the wheels and ensuring the overall quality of the car. This really is a cool project, but it will take a lot of hard work to finish on time because we have a limited amount of time.

In class, we focused on how to ask the right questions. It was hilarious to me how over the past few days after that talk, I've been thinking of that whenever I think of asking a question or hear someone ask a question. There was some good stuff in the lecture to think about. The back of the napkin book is pretty good, but I have a feeling like it's going to be the same thing over and over again. We'll see. And the Entrepreneurial Engineering book is all common sense. Well to me at least...

So the last thing I have to write about is the iFoundry iTeam thing that we're in. I am in the Engineering Service to Society iTeam. It's easily the best iTeam out there ; ) We have a TON of ideas, but we'll have to focus on one or two of them. I think that it's a great idea to do something smaller this year and then take bigger steps later on. This is a four year commitment I think.. That part is a bit confusing to me.

Overall iFoundry is a HUGE time commitment for me and it's really been tough to get through all of my other classes with it, but I think I'll adapt and be fine : )
Chris