Commented 14 years ago2010-03-01 16:34:06 UTC
in journal: #6423Comment #63435
I'm glad to see another engineer, or two for that matter. I am currently in my fourth year, last semester in completion of my Mechancial & Aerospace Engineering degree, and to be honest it is a little bittersweet. On one hand I'm happy that I don't have to derive shit that was derived 200-300 years ago, yet on the other I quite enjoyed the experience. I am sure you will too.
However, I have to stress to you how important your first two years are. Do not slack off in understanding your base Calculus, as you will see it again and again, and yet again. A running joke that my friends and I have is that with the amount of Calculus, Physics, and Economics courses we have to take we could easily earn a Quadruple degree if we stay for 6 years instead of 4. Every course you take, you will find, will have some bearing on your future courses. The same math that you derive in Calculus will rear its ugly head in your higher level Engineering courses. The same goes for your Engineering Materials course.
As for the oral presentations, don't worry too much about that. Your professors/TAs know that not everyone is a great orator (I guarentee you some of your professors are terrible at it as well). If you know your stuff it should be relatively easy to explain it, so you'll be fine.
MATLAB is amazing. It is a technical computing environment that is extremely fast, and can do everything from Calculus to controlling and running of experiments including data acquisition, as well as simulations of physical systems (electrical and physical). If you get a chance to learn how to program/script for it, make sure you don't forget any of it. It will come in handy for your Laboratories when you get 20 different data sets that consist of 10,000 data points each (Try putting that in an Excel spreadsheet and watch it choke on itself). If you ever get stuck with something in MATLAB, or want to do something but think its not possible, just Google it with "MATLAB" in the search field as well. Chances are, it has been done before, or at least can be done.
SolidWorks is a 3-D Computer Aided Design (CAD) environment that allows for the modeling of individual parts, integrated systems, and the physical simulation of those systems. Depending on the particular license your school has it is also capable of a decent FEM analysis. Overall it is okay, however its a little cartoony for my tastes and it wastes a shit-ton of resources (It has advanced shaders running throughout the entire design of a part, even while sketching). However, it is pretty easy to use and gives you a nice looking finished product. Although you probably don't have a choice in the matter, when it comes to being able to do things the way you want it done, I would recommend Pro/E.
Other than that you're in for a real treat, at least when you get to your upper level Engineering courses and start to see some of the real cool shit. Good luck, don't slack off (unless you're 100% sure you can do it and get away with it :P).
Commented 14 years ago2010-02-13 06:37:39 UTC
in vault item: CP TWHL3Comment #4271
Rim, I haven't had the ability to play the map, however, for the center cap point I still have a few ideas from the original CP idea to slow down the gameplay and/or create more of a team-based gameplay that I didn't quite get to the experimenting phase with before I tossed what I had to you. Granted they are pretty much only in the idea phase and remain untested, I don't think it would require much effort to retrofit the current setup. If you want them I'll toss them your way via email.
Commented 14 years ago2009-11-14 03:05:52 UTC
in journal: #6211Comment #51246
Long Answer:
Eh, its only been a month but yeah...
Perhaps you are unaware of the massive amount of data that an experiment such as LCROSS produces. Such a complex experiment does not just happen and "BAM!" you magically have your actual results. The data is taken over a period of time. Although it may seem short, with the processing speeds currently available even an hour's worth of data can more than fill a hard drive. Now I have to remind you that this is raw data, as in it is unprocessed voltage/resistance and other physical phenomena changes depending on the instrument used. That means you have to convert these readings into something understandable and usable. Now I have to remind you that there are multiple instruments taking data at the same time....
Do you see where I'm going with this? The actual amount of data taken is larger than you think. Sifting through it trying to make sense of it is one thing, converting it is another, then further analysis of the conversions to find out what your results are is yet another.
Then you get to repeat your calculations to make sure you made no mistakes and confirm your results.
To be honest I am suprised the announcement has come this early. For a result such as finding water on the closest celestial body to earth (this happens to be a "big" announcement), this day in age it is wise to make sure you are right before you go shooting your mouth off, only to lose credibility later when it comes out you made a mistake. Think of poor Galileo; At least all he got was ridicule and jail.
Short Answer:
It's only been a month and a half... but, yes, it did take them that long to get the results.
Commented 14 years ago2009-09-06 00:00:19 UTC
in journal: #6045Comment #51232
Believe me when I say that there should only be one case in which your TV would not be able to be used with a PS3, and that would require your TV to literally be from the early 80s.
If your TV has a coaxial cable port, the kind that connects your television to the wall (which there's 99% chance in which it does, the other 1% is for ones with only rabbit ears...), then you can use the PS3 with it.
What you would need is an RF Modulator, which you can get from a store like Radioshack. You would also need the component (Red/Yellow/White) cable that connects to the PS3. You'll probably also need about 3 feet of coaxial cable as you have to feed your wall coaxial through the RF Modulator, then from the modulator to the TV.
If for whatever reason the console didn't come with one, I would reccommend getting a Universal Component video cable. That way you should be able to use the same cable with most of the systems and pretty much any TV.
To give you an idea of what they typically look like and the general price range...
However, I have to stress to you how important your first two years are. Do not slack off in understanding your base Calculus, as you will see it again and again, and yet again. A running joke that my friends and I have is that with the amount of Calculus, Physics, and Economics courses we have to take we could easily earn a Quadruple degree if we stay for 6 years instead of 4. Every course you take, you will find, will have some bearing on your future courses. The same math that you derive in Calculus will rear its ugly head in your higher level Engineering courses. The same goes for your Engineering Materials course.
As for the oral presentations, don't worry too much about that. Your professors/TAs know that not everyone is a great orator (I guarentee you some of your professors are terrible at it as well). If you know your stuff it should be relatively easy to explain it, so you'll be fine.
MATLAB is amazing. It is a technical computing environment that is extremely fast, and can do everything from Calculus to controlling and running of experiments including data acquisition, as well as simulations of physical systems (electrical and physical). If you get a chance to learn how to program/script for it, make sure you don't forget any of it. It will come in handy for your Laboratories when you get 20 different data sets that consist of 10,000 data points each (Try putting that in an Excel spreadsheet and watch it choke on itself). If you ever get stuck with something in MATLAB, or want to do something but think its not possible, just Google it with "MATLAB" in the search field as well. Chances are, it has been done before, or at least can be done.
SolidWorks is a 3-D Computer Aided Design (CAD) environment that allows for the modeling of individual parts, integrated systems, and the physical simulation of those systems. Depending on the particular license your school has it is also capable of a decent FEM analysis. Overall it is okay, however its a little cartoony for my tastes and it wastes a shit-ton of resources (It has advanced shaders running throughout the entire design of a part, even while sketching). However, it is pretty easy to use and gives you a nice looking finished product. Although you probably don't have a choice in the matter, when it comes to being able to do things the way you want it done, I would recommend Pro/E.
Other than that you're in for a real treat, at least when you get to your upper level Engineering courses and start to see some of the real cool shit. Good luck, don't slack off (unless you're 100% sure you can do it and get away with it :P).
Eh, its only been a month but yeah...
Perhaps you are unaware of the massive amount of data that an experiment such as LCROSS produces. Such a complex experiment does not just happen and "BAM!" you magically have your actual results. The data is taken over a period of time. Although it may seem short, with the processing speeds currently available even an hour's worth of data can more than fill a hard drive. Now I have to remind you that this is raw data, as in it is unprocessed voltage/resistance and other physical phenomena changes depending on the instrument used. That means you have to convert these readings into something understandable and usable. Now I have to remind you that there are multiple instruments taking data at the same time....
Do you see where I'm going with this? The actual amount of data taken is larger than you think. Sifting through it trying to make sense of it is one thing, converting it is another, then further analysis of the conversions to find out what your results are is yet another.
Then you get to repeat your calculations to make sure you made no mistakes and confirm your results.
To be honest I am suprised the announcement has come this early. For a result such as finding water on the closest celestial body to earth (this happens to be a "big" announcement), this day in age it is wise to make sure you are right before you go shooting your mouth off, only to lose credibility later when it comes out you made a mistake. Think of poor Galileo; At least all he got was ridicule and jail.
Short Answer:
It's only been a month and a half... but, yes, it did take them that long to get the results.
If your TV has a coaxial cable port, the kind that connects your television to the wall (which there's 99% chance in which it does, the other 1% is for ones with only rabbit ears...), then you can use the PS3 with it.
What you would need is an RF Modulator, which you can get from a store like Radioshack. You would also need the component (Red/Yellow/White) cable that connects to the PS3. You'll probably also need about 3 feet of coaxial cable as you have to feed your wall coaxial through the RF Modulator, then from the modulator to the TV.
If for whatever reason the console didn't come with one, I would reccommend getting a Universal Component video cable. That way you should be able to use the same cable with most of the systems and pretty much any TV.
To give you an idea of what they typically look like and the general price range...
RF Modulator:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103095
Universal Component Cable:
http://www.madcatz.com/productinfo.asp?page=311&GSProd=2826&GSCat=119&CategoryImg=PS3_Cables