Sentry being brought back on board the Atlantis after a dive I'm a software engineer in the Deep Submergence Lab at WHOI, and I'm currently at sea with Sentry, a robot whose primary mission is to map the ocean floor. So, what do I do when at sea? And why are they sending software engineers out for operations? At sea, my job usually includes:...
A very partial set of butterfly and flower prototypes. It turns out that origami butterflies have a natural predator in housecats, and I found ripped-apart wings all over the place. As soon as I learned that I could order flexible PCBs, I knew I wanted to play with designing “origami circuits”, where the board itself is folded and soldered...
Designing a PCB1 and sending it off to fab is surprisingly accessible and feels like a super power. I’d been intimidated for years, but finally jumped in. Also, I love living in the future! For This post describes the path I took to get my first PCB manufactured, with an emphasis on not getting sucked into optimizing every decision. I’m assuming...
Don Blankenship's research group at UTIG has been collecting geophysical data in Antarctica for decades. Each season, we hire Kenn Borek Air1 to operate one of their modified airplanes, stuff it full of sensors, and fly around Antarctica. This post attempts to give a tour of the hardware involved, with an emphasis on its scientific purpose and a...
I woke up to hear the magic word “penguins” in the dorm hallway, so I grabbed my camera and ran down to the shore, which led to a lovely afternoon spent following them around the station. This was all in accordance with my research group's official "penguin policy" stating that penguin sightings have priority over anything but a flight. The...
We left the Xuelong for Zhongshan station a month ago, but we've been so busy since then it feels like much longer. I've finally gotten enough time to put together some pictures from our remarkably enjoyable and relaxing time on the boat. We departed from Fremantle, Australia on November 22, a few days ahead of schedule. Most of the people on the...
My colleagues objected to installing emacs on our robot and I find nano woefully insufficient, so I finally admitted that I have to learn vim. Until recently, all I knew was :q!, and I used it with extreme prejudice. It took me a while to not hate vim, and I still prefer emacs despite not being a power-user in the least. My problem with vim is...
I've been working with ice-penetrating radar data for years, and I still think it's so flipping cool that we can see through kilometers of ice using radar. This is possible because ice is mostly transparent to electromagnetic energy at radar frequencies. We see reflections at the air/ice interface, within the ice where its properties change, and...
As a student, I often heard that "networking" was the way to get a job. I didn't have a clear picture of what it involved, other than the oft-cited advice of "invite people at your target company out for an informational interview over coffee." The idea of setting up a coffee date with a stranger just because they work at a company that I'm...
I was just updating my official resume, and felt like making a more fun version. Here are all of the robots that I’ve worked with and could find pictures of. In chronological order: Bob was Team Caltech’s entry for the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge, which was a race across the desert for fully autonomous vehicles. I wasn’t involved in that...
Between my MS and starting a PhD, I did a few internships. One in particular stood out as a fantastic experience, and I've been thinking about what they did so right. Things my mentor did: When I showed up, he had a starter project in mind for me. It was a relatively concrete feature request that even had an interface stubbed out, which allowed...
Towards the end of our interview for the Hacker School study, Leah asked me an interesting question: Would you want to do Hacker School again? And, my answer is: I loved it, but no, not right now. Programming is no longer the thing I struggle most with. When I applied to Hacker School, my driving insecurity was that I wasn't a good enough...
My most sustained project at Hacker School was working through NAND2tetris. I finished the whole course, with the exception of chapter 9, because I figured I didn’t need to write a game in Jack when I’d have to write an OS in it later. After seeing a current student ask for peoples’ experiences with the course, I realized that I had more to say...