This is the front wheel of my motorcycle. It's not perfect, but I've already learned a lot about SolidWorks by making this that I didn't know before. You can check out the CAD file here.
It’s only the first week of spring semester and already things seem to be moving at full steam. This semester I am taking three classes, working on research, working in the Rapid Prototyping Lab, taking an Independent Study, and topping things off with a Passionate Pursuit. My mentality is that I will probably be doing all this stuff no matter what, so I might as well get some form of credit for it. That being said, I may have to drop something if I get too run down. I am already sick, and I do not want to make it any worse. My overall goal for the semester is to be constantly busy, but busy working projects that make time fly. Last semester, I was certainly busy, but the time I spent working was neither enjoyable nor productive. Hopefully, I will not repeat that experience.
This semester, I am taking Stuff of History, Thermodynamics, and User Orientated Collaborative Design. Stuff is effectively two integrated classes, History of Technology and Material Science. It is taught by two professors, Rob Martello and Jon Stolk, both of whom are fantastic and engaging. Thermo is the class which leads into Transport Phenomenon, a class which I took last semester, so it will be interesting to take Thermo now. The class is being taught by Jessica Townsend and Brian Storey, and they tend to make an interesting combination. UOCD is the most ambiguous class I am taking, but I am excited for it nevertheless. That class will only start to take form once we settle on our user groups. If everything works out, I will be working on more things outside of class than in class. First, I will be continuing my research with the Ruby autopilot. Many of the seniors who were on this project have completed their required time, so I may be working more independently than before. Second, I will be working with the Rapid Prototyping machines, finishing the instructions I have been writing for the machines, and executing jobs people submit. I am not sure exactly how this will work out, but it will in one form or another. Third, I am planning on making an Independent Study on redesigning Lloyd, my electric motorcycle. Essentially, I am planning to CAD my entire bike. In doing so, I will gain a level of practice working with SolidWorks that I will not get from my classes. If I can declare it as an IS, I will gain academic credit for my work. Finally, my roommate and I are working with an arduino-based robot my professor gave me. I am trying to get the robot to talk to LabVIEW reliably, and my roommate is doing the same in Python. Once we have that working well, we want to use a few simple sonar and IR sensors mounted on the robot to have it autonomously map out its environment. I have no idea how far we will get, but it should be fun. As a final note, I changed my website around a little bit again, most notably adding a CAD Library. I will be populating it with files I upload to my GrabCAD profile. Cheers! The beginning of the New Year serves as a convenient time to pause and reflect on all the happenings of the previous year. It is also a convenient time to get an old ATC running again and have some fun. Sigh.
Now onto new stuff! Below is a very short list of all the projects and tasks currently on my mind:
I'm sure there will be many more that come to mind soon. |