The first flush
With fancy computer equipment comes annoying computer maintenance. Today has been a challenge! Thankfully finished, mostly. It’s been roughly six months since I took the plunge and built my own custom watercooling loop for my computer. Since today is the first flush, I figure I can tell the story and talk about how it went. Spoiler, it went both better and worse than I expected.
(more…)The lab brain drain
Today was another proposal defense! No, not mine thankfully, but one of my labmates who’s been in the lab for some time now. As the term is coming to a close, I think a lot of us are in the proposal defense phase, which means things will be changing dramatically in a year or so for the lab. It made me realize that there was a rather large gap between those of us finishing and the new members, which means big changes once we graduate.
(more…)Iteration engineering
Well yesterday, after four long years, I got to open up about the robot I built and it made me realize just how many design changes I went through to get the final product. Technically it’s not even the “final” product, it’s just where I stopped and the next person took over. There’s still a lot of work left to be done with the design, but looking through all the photos of the process, I realized just how much work that robot really was.
(more…)So you want to build a humanoid robot
IT’S ALIVE, ALIVE! Robot paper is live that is and to celebrate this achievement, I’m giving away all my secrets. My poor robot was two long years of work to get right and four years to publish this. But as of this writing, it’s possibly one of the most advanced platforms around, if not the most advanced. That’s a bold claim, so let’s talk about how I did it, why I did it, and what makes it so advanced. This was four years coming, so forgive me in advance for the long post. I’ve REALLY wanted to talk about this.
(more…)The cost of research
I’m not sure why, but lately I’ve been tasked with gathering quotes for new equipment. It’s not even just with the hospital side of things either, the school side has suddenly asked me for quotes as well. I understand the logic of having gather the quotes like this, after all it’s a huge time sink, but I’ve learned a lot over the past month or so from dealing with all this and that is research isn’t cheap.
(more…)The return of last paper
If you love something set it free, if it comes back it was meant to be. What a bunch of garbage. Well maybe just in this case. I’ve slowly gotten out from under the weight of not one, but four different first author journal papers I’ve been working on. Three of the four are published (with one going live any day now… I think?! That should’ve happened a week ago…), but one paper, last paper, has been a struggle all its own and now it’s back with a vengeance.
(more…)3 aims, 2 experiments, 1 year
It’s now official, I have a rough timeline for everything I want to do and I’ve got the greenlight from my committee that the work I propose to do will be enough to earn my PhD. I’ve spent the past day trying to plan out the rough outline of what the next year will look like in context with all the other work I will be doing and it will be busy!
(more…)Weekend outreach
It’s been a super busy week, but we’re not done yet. That’s right, my inability to say no to things has come back to haunt me! It’s not that bad though, two 15-minute talks to two different groups and that’s the extent of it. So you know not too bad, but I do enjoy doing some science outreach when I have the chance anyway, so not totally a bad deal.
(more…)The last project
Today was my proposal defense day and I would like to say it went well. I would like to. Kidding, I think things went okay. I’ll leave that to the handful of people who read my blog regularly to judge. My committee members all thought the work was interesting and my plan of attack was good, so now the real work begins. It’s the last project before I get my PhD.
(more…)The main event
Well tomorrow is D-day, proposal defense day that is. Technically there will be one more defense day after that, my actual PhD defense. The difference being, when that’s all done I’ll have a piece of paper to show for my efforts. That won’t come until next year… hopefully. But in the meantime, tomorrow is the (other) big day and I’m getting just a touch nervous! After all, it’s only the next year or so of my life I’m laying out for my committee members, what could go wrong?
(more…)An ounce of preparation
What a week. It’s only Wednesday and it feels like it’s just never going to end. There are three major events coming up this week, meaning I will be working this weekend unfortunately, but at least I made it through the day. Tomorrow will be a major event for me, dare I say bigger than my proposal defense just two days away.
(more…)The return of big idea
I had hoped to discuss robot paper today, but something more exciting has happened so today we’re talking about the “big idea’ I had a while back. It feels like it’s been forever since I had the idea, but things were moving slowly lately so we’ve had to wait. I’m happy to say the wait is finally over! If all goes well, by the end of the week I’ll have the first dataset from big idea and I am very excited!
(more…)The new papers
With three out of four of the papers I was working on published — or at least in the case of robot paper, about to go live any day now — I’ve got a new batch of papers I’m working on. Thankfully I don’t think I’ll have another pileup of work like that again, hopefully. Currently I’m working on two different papers and I already have plans for at least six more, so it will be a busy year for me.
(more…)Old wounds
You ever wake up anxious and wonder what the hell happened? It occurred to me upon further reflection that today is Easter and while the day itself fluxuates I will always associate Easter with loss. Sometimes you want to forget something, but for whatever reason your brain won’t let you. Not that I ever really forget, or that I didn’t know the day was coming, but in the fog of waking up, you don’t generally expect such intense feelings.
(more…)The audacity of anonymity
Peer-review can be brutal. For every one positive reviewer you get one that would rather be doing something else and they WILL let you know and WILL take it out on you. Maybe it’s because I’m still getting used to the journal publication process, but behind the veil of anonymity people can be cruel. We see, and these days somewhat expect, it from public forums like facebook, twitter, or even linkedin, but maybe I’m naïve enough to have thought it wouldn’t happen in the world of peer-review. Afterall, we’re all professionals here, right?
(more…)Seven days…
Okay, I’m not going to do a countdown to my proposal defense, as much as I really want to do it. But since we’re a week away from the big day, I wanted to give an update on the plan and maybe recap a little about where I am. Yes, it feels like a theme, but with such a large milestone coming up, it’s basically all I’m focused on for the moment!
(more…)The OR waltz
It’s back to the OR I go! Which means exhausting times ahead, but also very exciting times. It’s been months since our last OR experiment and things have been shelved, literally, equipment has been packed away because we weren’t using it. So it’s time to once again to shake out the equipment and do our familiar dance with the clinical staff.
(more…)The first practice
My dissertation proposal date is fast approaching and I just barely set it! There’s still some work to be done, but today was the first practice presentation in anticipation of the big day. I’m happy to say it went better than expected, but there are a few things I need to change. Since, as usual, we can’t talk about the details of the proposal itself, I can talk about the changes. As an added bonus that’s a broadly applicable thing to talk about, so it may not just benefit me.
(more…)The proposal defense date
Okay not going to lie I had a minor freakout the past few days. One of my committee members wasn’t responding to my emails so I could not schedule my proposal defense. Last night out of the blue, reality smacked me in the face and it occurred to me that next week was the first week I was trying to schedule and time was running out. People are busy and I didn’t want any of the PI’s to have a conflict. But it all worked out…
(more…)New and old projects
It’s finally my chance to put my own spin on the stuff coming out of the hospital lab and I’m incredibly excited about what is coming. Unfortunately I can’t talk about it! However, I’m hopeful that this year will be an excellent year for me with regards to the research I’m doing. Things are slowly falling into place and while we’re still at the beginning, things are looking bright.
(more…)Education and mental health
I write about mental health a lot, full disclosure because my mental health is bad on a good day. I’ve found little respite from the depression, PTSD, etc. via pharmacological means or through therapy. I still try, but the results are the same and what’s that saying about crazy meaning trying the same thing and expecting a different result? In any case, there are few things in this world that tests my mental health like education. Because the system is broken and there’s nothing that can be done.
(more…)Slides, robots, and figures. Oh no!
Since there’s a mile long list of things I need to get done this weekend, let’s just grab the top three time consuming things and cram them together into one post! When I took on the full-time job while (hopefully) wrapping up my PhD, I didn’t expect for things to be so… busy? Okay, things are always busy, that’s a theme of any PhD journey, but it does feel a bit excessive lately!
(more…)The big rush
A while ago I had an idea, a “big idea,” but the second I had that idea the clock was ticking. Because ideas are not that unique. There is a gap in research and we try to fill that gap when we see it. I noticed a gap and because I noticed it, there’s no reason others won’t notice it as well. Now we’re in an unseen race to publish and there’s still some speed bumps in the way that are causing some issues. I’m hopeful we can get there first, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we had competition.
(more…)The other presentation
With just a few days to work on the project, I was asked to present the data we’ve recently finished collecting at work. The presentation will happen Monday, as in three days away Monday. So between now and then, I need to process the data, make some figures (so many figures), and generally draw some sort of conclusions based on the work.
(more…)The lost children
Can you mourn the loss of something you never had? Imagine for a second you were born without a limb. Can you miss it if you never had it to begin with? I’ve been struggling with this question a lot lately, not because I was born without a limb, but because I was born without a family and in some ways that isn’t too different. Maybe it’s wrong to compare a missing limb to a missing family, but I honestly can’t think of a better way to describe it, because family is an extension of you.
(more…)The finalized proposal
Well today was kind of a big step, I’ve finalized my proposal, got school-PI’s approval to send it out, and now I’m just waiting for a few people to select their availability so we can schedule the actual defense. I’m just a touch nervous! I still need to modify my slides and of course practice, but we’re now roughly two weeks away from the actual proposal defense!!!
(more…)Success! Journal paper 3 of 4
Days turned to weeks, turned to months, turned to years. I was slowly getting to the point that I wanted to give up and I honestly didn’t think this day would ever come. Yesterday night I got the news, robot paper was accepted for publication and I literally cried. I almost have a whole ass PhD and this was my Masters work, but we can now get things ready for actually publishing the damned thing!
(more…)Figure rush
Always with the figure making! Why do we need to make a figure, damn it I’m an engineer not an artist! Yet I’m in a tight spot for the moment because I need to start creating about half a dozen figures showcasing the stuff that we’re doing at work. Oh and I need to make at least one more for the dissertation proposal, not including any additional figures for my slides. It’s going to be a rush job for sure.
(more…)The proposal edits
We’re just a few short days away from the two week mark to dissertation proposal defense day, maybe, I’m still waiting for responses from three committee members, two of which I speak with on a regular basis, so I’m not too worried about them, one has been ignoring everyone’s emails, so I am slightly anxious to hear back about that one. Since the time is rapidly approaching I need to have both my written proposal and slides figured out, like now.
(more…)Practice makes… less terrible?
I wouldn’t say practice makes perfect, because unless I’m recording something it’s not going to be perfect and even when I record talks/presentations it takes hours longer than anticipated, multiple tries, only comes out somewhat decent, and are not easy to do in general. So I’m opting to think that practice makes presenting slightly less terrible. I enjoy giving talks and sharing science, which is why I’m here writing frankly. But it’s not all off the cuff.
(more…)
Lunatic Laboratories 