Angelwyng

52 Productive Weeks 11 and 12 (16-29)

Week 11 (16-22)
I had the chassis and forward housing for Felgen r2 printed via a friendly hub on 3d Hubs. The prints turned out great and, more than that, the hub had some great suggestions about how to optimize the design for DFM. Enter Felgen r3 (with an emphasis on being DFM friendly.)

Week 12 (23-29)
Normal students received a Spring Break this week. I intended to catch up on my German Hausaufgaben and did, to some extent. If next week (Lucky Week 13) doesn't result in an autofail and wide swaths of misery I'll be all caught up. Totally unintentionally, I received a large dose of Gundam and Shadowrun this week. I had forgotten how much I love those mobile suits. And the ever utilitarian 'punk' part of cyberpunk may always call to me, even if my anxiety about classes meas I'm not a true punk at heart. In my anger towards my school, I started writing more SR fiction so there may be some of that on here before long, too.

In line with news about school-induced anxiety and Shadowrun, I've finally committed to Soykaf (<2mg of Caffeine per 6 oz.) rather than the regular coffee I've been drinking so many pots of (~70mg of Caffeine per 6 oz.) in an attempt to make the tightness in my chest not kill me. 

Week 13 (30-5)
All my base are belong to Wednesday this week. I have a meeting at 10:30 which will decide the rest of... well, likely forever but at least the week. So yeah, consider this a non-update.

Pre-update explanation: These four are being packaged together because the day before I published 7 & 8 I got an offer for a freelance gig (or two) so I've been running like mad for a month getting everything put in its proper location. The only visible fruits of this labor is being hosted at my home, accessible at EaglesLandingPetHospital.com Check it out; Cringe harder. I did actually get all the fundamental research of week 7 done but after that it was all noise and no signal. (All work, no play.)

Also, since I'm apparently now running a hosting service from my home I'll likely have my own personal site going up soon. (Soon should not be misconstrued to constitute any measure of time.) This drivel will no doubt find its way over there.

Anyhow, the long version follows:



52 Productive Weeks 7 and 8 (15 - 29)

Before the general update, first a project update:

Felgen v1 (a branch of the Autodrive project for SSE122) was, essentially, an experiment in 'can it work?' Versions 1.2 through 2 have been incrementally less-terrible iterations that didn't really further the original goals of the project's namesake of carrying stuff around behind me. To that end, I've begun a new variant-in-principle I'm calling the Felgen BOOST (or Fatty Buccha; I haven't decided.) Almost literally putting the cart before the horse, this new 'follow' variant is designed with the intention of transporting me rather than transporting things while following me.

I've chosen a new (feet-friendly) chassis, doubled the number of motors, increased the battery life, and picked (yet-another) new method of steering/course-correction.

Just to recap the project:

Felgen 1:
Basic Stamp 2
6.4v Battery (Propulsion) + 9v Battery (C&DH)
2x 6v Motors

Felgen 2
Raspberry Pi B + Custom EPS
2x 6.4v Battery
6v Motor
Parallax Servo + Custom Gearing

Felgen (Olympian Variant r1.2)
Raspberry Pi B + Custom EPS
2x 6.4v Battery
6v Motor
Parallax Servo + Custom Gearing
Pneumatic Rod + Actuator

Felgen (BOOST Variant r0.0)
Raspberry Pi Zero + Custom EPS
2x 11.1v Battery
2 TBD Mystery Hub Motors
1 TBD Mystery Load-shifting Motor

52 Productive Weeks 9 and 10 (1-15)

Work, work, I'm bad at javascript, work, no one wants to have their photo taken. If I'm ever done I'll upload this journal and work more on the Felgen BOOST. I've decided it would be better to control it with differential steering. I also discovered my chassis is the right size to add a NERF Vulcan and call it a mobile weapons platform... so that's slated for a variant already.

52 Productive - Week 5 (1-7)
Before Classes

As a side-effect of my newest employment I've made the acquaintence of Blackbear, and offered to help him learn Adobe Premiere. Hopefully that means I'll be publishing some videos at some point but that might be extra tricky considering I still don't have anything resembling a camera. I guess we'll just see.

a?) locate camera?

Additionally, my laptop, loved thing that it is, is now in its final death throes it seems. I've found a reasonably priced replacement that should be able to handle the workload so also expect some pictures of that (when I scrape up the cash to purchase it.)

This week will be spent doing massive amounts of coursework, regrettably, and trying desperately to make some kind of contact with my advisor about this SIDS, SUID, and Machine Learning in Medicine project. Still no word back from him, though, so... yeah. It's not looking hopeful.

And, as a parting shot to this week I'll be doing some final research on the new Pi Zero (which looks a bit beautiful) and whether I could adapt it to my VCClone and Felgen projects. (I think it's hopeful.) If I can, it will give me plenty of fodder for sprucing up the C++ portion of my resume.

52 Productive - Week 6 (8-14)
Before Classes

Still no camera so that's unfortunate. I'm in the process of replacing my home computer (the waiting is always the hardest part) and driving my direct supervisor to madness. Apparently I'm too 'by-the-books' for my coworkers' (and supervisor's) taste. Having come from a support background, I document everything, refuse to commit FERPA violations, and am willing to spend more than 5 minutes helping a client before deciding, "welp, I guess we should just reimage it. That'll fix your problem."

Onward to the coming week, though:

I've started seriously considering a job at a major company and, in order to get that job, I'll need considerably more flavorful implementations of C++ code to show off. So this week will be dedicated to C++ projects, specifically Felgen's Pi C&DH implementation and the beginning structure of Neomi (which I think I'll also write with the intention of sticking on a Pi.) If I can figure out exactly how I want the VCclone Tanks to imitate the combat system in VC, I'll write up an implementation of that in C++ too. Come to think of it, I think I've got the fledgling origin of an NERF auto-turret I never finished in C++. I'll spend a couple days trying to dig that out, too, I suppose.

These projects alone will be pretty considerable task for a single week, considering I'm also balancing school, work, and, potentially, a video editing project with Blackbear. Not to mention the SIDS, SUID, and Machine Learning in Medicine project which currently consists of trying to establish contact with my professor to get his data set.

01/27/16 – Weeks 3 and 4
Before Classes

Week 3 (18-24) was exclusively devoted to not freezing to death in my home. Who doesn't love a surprise snowstorm? Really, though. If it weren't for service outages I could really have spent the week doing something productive. On Monday I managed to connect with a professor about a grade from last semester not being submitted correctly (resulting in an 'I' on my transcript which now, mercifully, is gone) and Financial Aid about my employability. I was also going to speak with the department I was going to be working for but, surprise surprise, no one was working because a snowstorm was coming.

Week 4 (25 to 31) has, so far, been about catching up work from last week. I am now employed (more or less gainfully) and enrolled in all the classes I will need to graduate. Most of the remaining week will be spent
a) getting coursework completed for next week,
b) arranging a time for my Tutorstunde (required by my German course) that doesn't conflict with my work schedule,
c) revisiting the hardware design for my VCclone tanks. I recently found some sketches that I know never made it to PCB but I can't recall what I didn't like about them,

d) perhaps most importantly, I intend to start doing some scans of the myriad notebooks and journals I have lying around. Most of them contain notes specific to a semester or course but, hidden among these notes, are smaller sketches and project designs that are presently useless because of their non-categorization. I know this isn't a project I can complete this week but between this week and the next I hope to at least make a dent in them,

and in whatever time's left over I'll be celebrating the Lunar New Year on Guild Wars 2 and trying to get together a game of Star Wars d20. So yeah, good luck to me on that. Nothing says scheduling conflict like a roleplaying game.

01/14/16 – Week 2
Before Classes

Since week one spilled over so ungraciously into this week, I'll try to keep my goals manageable.

From last week I still need to a) Duolingo and b) Chase my seasonal job on campus. Both of those I can do pretty easily even in the time I have remaining this week.

Additionally, I've been asked to do some laptop repair by a family member so.... yeah. I'll be trying to find a cat-free, static-free workspace for the next couple of days. Here's hoping it's salvageable. While I'm in the process of working on laptops anyhow, I'll try to finish repairing my own laptop, since I can now no longer do many, many of the things I intend/need to for these little projects of mine. Little things like compiling code, running solidworks, Adobe Premiere, or MS Paint.....

So that's the bill until the 18th. 5 Weeks (including the preparation) and I'm still marginally productive. Isn't it amazing?