Michael Brandon Scanlon's Page

So I haven’t actually posted something new here in a while, if you discount updating the previous entry umpteen times with new pictures. That got a bit unwieldy so I moved it up to it’s own page above (look up there at the top) and hide the entry that was here. Speaking of which this site was overhauled too. It was past time for a new look. I was never 100% sold on the previous theme I downloaded so this time I just made one of my own. I’m happy with it again. It’s not complete yet. I need to put the dynamic stuff back in, the background color changing with the time of day and the top image. Currently both are fixed to what you see. This weekend I hope to have the time to do it right. There will be fewer colors and the top image at the top will match the color of the page instead of being random. And I’m going to get rid of a bunch of the less then stellar images. The stellar ones are mostly from the Astronomy Picture of the Day, linked above. I’ve massively abbreviated everything up there, but it’s all still there plus lots of new stuff.

One of the big reasons I haven’t had time for this much neglected site is school. I’m into my final year of Mechanical Engineering. I only have my senior design class this semester. Or rather I did until I thought “hey I’ve got LOTS of free time, I should learn Mandarin!” so now I’m taking Mandarin too. Additionally I’m also relearning/refreshing Spanish and French and maybe, sort of considering Tagalog too. Tagalog likely won’t happen for me this year though. The senior project is great though. We’re designing a replacement for the MIT Handiboard. That may have been a good system at one point but it’s certainly seen better days: it’s too slow, big, heavy, error prone, and expensive. Our system will be small, lightweight, under $50 (preferably about $30), modular, and completely open. You can buy one or roll your own. We should have the beginings of a prototype here in the next week or so. Controlling a robot will come a few days/weeks after that. World domination commences with the new year. As it stands we have more demo ideas then time, effort or money will allow and we’re still coming up with more ideas. Come Design Day in mid-April we’ll hopefully steal the show! 

The FE is finally over. In case you somehow missed it, that’s the 8 hour engineering test I had to take in order to graduate, and later on become a P.E. Turns out that the studying for it was far worse then the test. Two 4 hour sessions today, 120 questions in the morning and 60 more in the afternoon. I hope I passed, I don’t want to have to go back.

The robot is nearly complete. It just needs software now to make it work well. I got the sensors soldered and wired up and tested the thing walking. It turns left ok, but on the right, it’s going to walk off the competition course. Speaking of which the competition is this coming Thursday, April 17th, 12-3pm, Saltaire Room in the Union at school. The races start at 1pm.

School is nearly over, other then the robot competition I have 1 lab left (until graduation no less), one presentation I need to start on solar concentrators (which I can do in my sleep now), 2 assignments and 4 finals. Not much at all, relative to what the rest of the semester has been like. 5 engineering classes and working wasn’t a bright combonation. Oh well, after April 30th, I’ll have 3 classes until I graduate, and I seem to already have an engineering job lined up, a year away. No too bad. Now if it could just be a solar/energy job in Santa Cruz/San Francisco with ….. Guess I shouldn’t get greedy.

Senior project will either be making a one wheel balancing rechargeable electric skateboard, or replacing the horrible Handyboard for the University of Utah. I’m sure then those MIT kids designed it, it was good, but computers have come a ways since then. Weird that I’ll be designing circuits for my ME senior project. Guess I really am going to finally graduate with that CS/EE/ME/ChemE degree I wanted when I first started college. Who knew?! Yeah, the ChemE part, I’m looking at adding some chemistry/eng classes in the fall. I’m a glutton for punishment it seems, plus taking 1 class will be a grand, 2 classes is only $1250, might as well.

It’s finally Spring Break, and for the first time I actually need the break! This semester is killing me, between 16 credits, 2 labs, 2 projects, and working. I went into work today, the power was out, so I left after a bit. When I got home I accidently slept for four more hours. If I could do that when classes are on, that’d be great! Tonight it seems like everyone is busy with family, work, concerts or other stuff. I should be working on one of the two projects I wanted to get going on, but I just can’t seem to find the effort to work on either of them. 

So I recently found a neat idea online and made it tonight. It’s a box to put all your power cords in to declutter your desk. I added a USB hub to it and now my laptop has all its wires neatly arrayed.

My friend Sheryll has a photography business. She is amazing, and I’m not just saying that because I’m paid to! lol I don’t get paid at all actually, I’ll have to look into that. Check out her work: http://www.sheryll-lynne.com/

So a while back I took some pictures right after a storm passed through. It was still breaking up on the mountains when I got these images. Just recently we had a major storm pass through and I was able to get some pictures from before it started. The sun was low enough it light up the mountains by shining underneath the clouds! The pictures with the flag: that’s one of those giant flags that you can see from 10 miles off. You can imagine the wind from seeing how actively it’s waving. The sound of the wind was incredible!

So I finally decorated. I decided not to be a Scrooge this year. Not a huge amount, but there is a stocking and some other stuff too.

Finally! Finals are over and surprisingly I think I did well! I was dreading the robotics final, given how the class went, but as it turned out he wrote an easy test. The first two problems were simple and nearly identical, the third wasn’t bad, and the last one was easy. Fluids could have been hell but turned out to be more like West Valley. Mechatronics I didn’t have a chance to study for at all, but still managed to do half decent. It was easy compared to the midterm, but not an easy test. Regardless, it’s all over now! I don’t have to Think about our robot for a few weeks at least! And for anyone who might be reading and forgotten, dinner Saturday night, 7:30 or so, Ethiopian place.

So the new blog is coming along pretty well. It’s not quite done yet, but once done will have a number of nice things on it. The banner image at the top will change each time the page is loaded. The sidebar and post header/footer will change color in time with the day, probably every 2-3 hours instead of every hour like it is now. That’ll involve some javascript-fu to make it happen. Mostly written but needs to be adapted.  There may also be a clock and/or a music playlist embedded on the page. We’ll see. I’m also going to see if I can make the page adapt to the seasons automagically, that shouldn’t be too hard but we’ll see how lazy I get. Also, my old sidebar of links needs to be fit in some how. Right now I’m really not certain how I’m going to make that happen. It’ll be figured out at some point. And I’ll likely put up a dedicated page for the robot. Also, the calendar will likely be linked up to my Google Calendar and my home computer / iPhone calendar. If I can get all four to autosync I’ll be amazed! Lastly, the webcam is in limbo for the time being. No idea what’s going to happen with that one. Time to go, I hear gliders roaming around…