Of note...

Well, I suppose there's been enough little interesting things going on to warrant a blog post. Most of them involve my lab at Cornell. But since I all but live there now, that's not surprising. It's a great place for interesting things, which is why I'm there! It's turning into quite a nice work environment as we continue to inhabit the new lab space. I'll take some pictures when things are complete.

Anyhow, "what's the oldest thing you've held this week?" you might (randomly) ask. Well, as it turns out, the oldest thing I've held this week is a 4020 year old artifact from present-day Syria. How do I know that? Well, I'm taking the word of the archaeologist who brought it into the lab for 3D replication, since my cuneiform reading skills are somewhat lacking. But apparently it was a dated receipt, in the form of a little clay "pillow" about 2 inches a side. This made it not particularly valuable (in a relative sense) from a scientific point of view, but it was still amazing to hold something that someone had been held and written that long ago!

Also to note, there was a Discovery Channel film crew in the lab for most of the day today, getting footage to do a spot on Evan's Fab@home project. He designed an open source 3D printer, where anyone can go online (to www.fabathome.org) and get the plans, parts list and software to make a working 3D printer, all for about $2500 dollars (commercial systems like this go for at least $25,000). It's a flexible, open source platform that may open up the world of personal 3D fabrication in much the same way as computers opened up the world of personal computing in the 80's. (And look where that has got us now!) Anyhow, there's plenty of info on the site. My contribution so far is a custom flames graphic design that can be etched at the same time the structural parts are laser-cut (under "Styling" section). There are already people building these around the world (US, Europe, South Africa, and even a professor I know back at U of WA!). Unfortunately the TV show will only air in Canada (so far), and about my only contribution today was staying out of the way of the film crew.

So besides all that, classes are still going well. I've been doing a lot of practical research into building robots (like to the point of hopefully ordering parts for my own custom automated machine in a couple weeks) so that has been fun. As part of this, I spent a couple hours tonight figured out how to program the microcontroller in a little 4-legged robot that the lab has. In that (relatively) short amount of time I got it to do a basic walking gait, so I might play around with it more tomorrow optimizing that and/or adding sensors into the control loop. Too much fun. Sometimes I wonder how I am getting paid to get an education AND play with robots.

Winter busyland...

Well, the semester is off to a roaring start. I'm taking three classes again (robotics, mechanical vibrations, and multivariable control), but without linear systems is should be a quite doable load. Except that research just got notched up bit. But, that's good news because the first proposal that Professor Lipson and I sent out got accepted! For those of you not familiar with the structure of academic research, that means someone is giving us money to do this digital manufacturing research--lots of money from an individual perspective, although from a research perspective it's not a huge grant.

But, the goals for the next year were set pretty far out--I had envisioned more like 2 years to get to that point. Welcome to the research world of chucking the ball as far as you can, then running like mad to go get it so you can throw it again, I guess. But I'm quite certain this mentality is why America leads the world's technology. So, no wasting time. Its time to make the proverbial (and maybe literal) chips start flying, which I'm more than happy to do. I feel like I just might be starting to contribute to the scientific world.

Anyhow the weather's been nice here. Its only gotten above freezing a couple times in the last week or two, and we've been getting snow flurries here and there that drop an inch or two of snow. I've decided I like having "real" winter... at least more than the "rainy-er" season in Seattle.

Hmm... I just noticed all my posts seem to end up talking about school and the weather. I suppose because my days consist of waking up, walking through the weather to campus, being on campus, and walking back through the weather to my apartment, then sleeping. With some eating in there. Lets see... Bible study started up again on Monday, and it was good to be with that group again and dig into the Word. (There we go... not about school OR the weather!) Anyhow, thanks to anyone who's checked out my website. Definitely let me know if you notice any bugs/typos/ideas to improve it.

New Website Up

I just finished putting together my personal webpage here at Cornell. You can find info about my research and hobbies/projects there, at http://people.cornell.edu/pages/jdh74. This is, of course, separate from this blog which I will keep updating as time permits.

Back in the Heat:

OK, so right now there's freezing rain outside, but a day or two before I got back here to NY they apparently had a couple 65 degree days. Looks like some more seasonal weather is on the way though, with snow and highs in the 20's. I'm looking forward to it.

The rest of break was nice. In a quick summary since last post: Christmas was a nice, quiet family affair. I got a CD, cold weather running gear, a headlamp, and an REI gift card. All very useful. I also spent New Years with the family, down at some family friends' place south of Seattle. Nothing too exciting to report... just some fun jamming (on electric guitar for me.. making up for 6 months without one) and some fireworks at midnight. Later that week, I spent a couple days hanging out with the crew in Seattle (UW friends). I crashed at the Shop (guys house I lived in last year) and had an awesome time around Seattle just hanging out, watching a movie, playing guitars, etc. A bunch of us also went out to Port Orchard overnight (across the water from Seattle) to visit some graduated friends for more hanging out, games, etc. The only other thing to note is playing electric guitar at my parents church one week in a sort of special worship band. It was a lot of fun and received better by the older folk than I expected. Seattle's been getting crazy weather this winter: windstorms, snow, tons of rain, but I missed out on most of this--except all the rain.

But, the title of this post was referring to more than the weather around here. I caught an overnight series of flights back from Seattle Tuesday night to Wednesday afternoon. On top of a cold that further inhibited sleeping on a plane, it was none too pleasant. That evening, I checked email and found out that my big qualifying (Q) exam for the Ph.D program was scheduled in under a week. (I knew for sure it had been moved from May to this month only a week before that.) When I went to campus the next day (obviously before any kind of studying), I found out that the practice exam was in two hours. Talk about needing to get back up to speed quickly. Oh well, break was nice. For the exam, we are given a problem and 24 hours to prepare a solution in presentation form, then are grilled at a blackboard for up to an hour by professors asking questions. I'm not too worried... the pass rates are high, but I doubt it will be pleasant. I'm still studying quite a bit to bring all that knowledge up to where I can get it when under the gun at a blackboard.

Then after the Q, there's another fellowship application due, a big proposal for my research stuff going out a week after that, and I'm supposed to be writing a paper somewhere in here. Classes this semester? I might have time for one or two... At least they don't start for another two weeks, so I'll have time to figure that out after the Q.

It's a good thing I dislike being bored.