Hi Guys. I’m David

I will live in Munich this summer for three months.  I was accepted to a research internship at Technische Universität München.  The research is in the area of telepresence and teleaction. This technology is basically the ability to remotely interact with an environment with the advantage of force feedback. The force feedback transmission is done through simple mechatronic devices. Given my current work in the Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces lab, I am looking forward to get a different perspective on a simlar area of work. The only downside to the work this summer is that I will not get any funding for my living costs. However, I have decided that this opportunity is worth the cost of living in Germany this summer. I asked the Dean’s office here at the Brown School of Engineering for a possible source of funding for the summer, but I am not hopeful, since I will not be working at Rice. Either way, I am fairly confident that I will have the time of my life this summer living in Munich.

Munich is the capital of Bavaria, the southern-most state of Germany. Bavaria is famous for a few things in which I am very interested. First off, both BMW and Audi are head-quartered in the state and have manufacturing plants scattered about as well. Secondly, although I won’t be there for the actual festival, Oktoberfest occurs at the end of every September, claiming the title as the biggest party in the world. From what I have heard and seen in pictures, however, Bavaria has much more to offer than just cars and beer. The Bavarian Alps lie just south of the city of Munich, and will almost certainly be a weekend destination more than once during my visit.

I will also certainly buy a European Rail pass, so I can travel throughout Europe for relatively low prices. I have taken five years of French classes, and one year of German class, so I should be able to get around in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria at the very least. The working language of the internship is English, so I shouldn’t have a problem getting work done in the lab.

The next thing on my mind for the summer is a new hobby I would like to pick up. Aside from driving on the Autobahn to fulfil my need and want to drive, I would really like to take pictures. I would love to learn much more about photography so I can get very high quality photos. My plan is to buy a digital SLR camera, and learn how to use it to produce the best results before leaving for the summer. I know the landscape will be beautiful there, so I should have some nice places to take pictures. Also, I know that BMWs will be much more frequent in Munich than in the United States, especially older BMWs.

1989 BMW 318i

One of my biggest soft-spots is for the older BMWs, such as the one above. Personally, I think they are one of the most gorgeous vehicles ever created, and I can surely see myself spending hours taking pictures of old cars, from old, beat-up and dusty cars to shiny new ones, fresh off the assembly lines right in Munich.

There will be a lot of learning to do before purchasing a digital SLR, but I think it will be worth it to spend the time and produce some beautiful photographs.

I know that my parents and three of my friends will be coming to Europe as well this summer, and I hope to meet up with all of them.  I will, as always, be updating my blog with pictures and stories from the trip as well.  Until then, I still have four more weeks of classes to get through before I leave in mid-May.

While I was playing around (working actually) in GIMP last night, I found a great way to create ASCII art. GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program, and is basically a totally free image processing software, similar to Photoshop. Its a great program for anyone who wants to do image editing without dropping several hundred on Adobe’s product. One cool thing about it is, you can save any image you have as ASCII text, and when you open the text file, you actually have ASCII art.

Actual Matlab Icon

ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, and is basically a way of storing pure text files on a computer. ASCII art then is a way of representing graphical images using text. For example, a person with headphones on would be as follows: d-__-b

Other emoticons are also examples of simple ASCII art, but what you can do with huge amounts of text is amazing, and also really easy to do using GIMP. Just check out the two different pictures of the Matlab icon.  The one to the left is the source image I used in GIMP to save as ASCII text, and the image below is a screenshot of the text.

ASCII Art Image of Matlab Icon

The title says it all.  The Bakershake stage for the production of The Tempest has been constructed.  It took us about 3 days with a crew of six to seven people working for 8 hours each day.  This is actually record time and efficiency for a Bakershake set-build; we really blew all previous builds out of the water in terms of quickness.

Completed Structure of the Bakershake Stage

I think the CAD model really helped the director and producers visualize the stage before construction.  The final stage turned out looking just as everyone had guessed it would.  Not only that, the CAD really helped plan out the construction, since I knew what pieces had to go where, and what order they needed to be put in.  THe trickiest part of construction was definitely the mast which, as you can see in the picture above, extends all the way into the rafters of the commons, and has no support from the ceiling.  The wire hanging off of the mast in the middle of the picture is for some special effects that will be unveiled during the show.

Construction of the Ship's Mast

The most difficult part about building the mast was placing the Sheptube (used for pouring concrete footings) over the lumber support structure.  Since the structure extends about 15 feet into the air and the lengths of Sheptube we have are about 10 feet long, I had to climb the ladder with the Sheptube to slide it over the support structure.  I ended up having to lift the Sheptube up so the bottom of it was about as high as my chest was.  Needless to say, I needed a bit of a break after doing this to bring myself back down.

We only had to put two lengths of Sheptube over the structure, but the second one we gave two coats of paint before putting it atop the first one, since painting way up there would be nerve-racking at best.  The coolest thing is that the mast extends above the stage lights, so with the house lights off and the stage lights on, the mast seems to go off to infinity.

There were some really fun, much less dangerous tasks that I also got to do.  For example, some screws needed grinding down so actors don’t cut themselves.  Just taking a Dremel tool to grind down screws and make some sparks is quality entertainment with a purpose.  Note that the only reason for grinding down screws is because the support on the side of the platform is only inch-thick lumber.  To future stage builders, don’t use one-by for anything.  Always go with two-by for support, and plywood for surface.  Brown College learned this lesson the hard way, when they used one-by-fours for legs and their stage collapsed.

Sparks are Fun

Building things is a great stress reliever in general.  It gets the mind off of the relative monotony of documentation and other paper work in lab.  I have always wanted to something like Habitat for Humanity, since I would really enjoy it and it would benefit those in need.  However, during every Spring Break, instead of going on a Habitat trip I end up building the Bakershake stage.  Its not quite as selfless as Habitat for Humanity, but it does give me more independence with my project, and also great practice for potentially working as a project manager in the future.

The 2009 Bakershake production of The Tempest will be showing March 19th - 21st, and March 26th - 28th, at 8:00 PM in the Baker College Commons at Rice University.  Tickets are not free, but the price will be low enough for college students, so it won’t break the bank.  Please stop by to see a great show.

So, it is time now to pause and take a moment to remember the things in life that are always there for you.  This past weekend, while I was moving stage platforms from the Baker basement, I tripped on a sandbag and broke my shoes by ripping the sole off.  Now, these shoes aren’t just any shoes; these are Samba Classics that I had been wearing nearly every day for two and a half years straight.  Freshman year, when I bought the shoes, I planned to wear them straight through college, all four years, but at last they have failed me.  I went out to buy new ones hours after I broke them since I really needed some work shoes for this weekend.  Below is a comparison of the new shoes, which are exactly the same as the old ones.

Samba Classics, Old and New

Although, I must mention  that even though the old and new shoes are exactly the same model and size, they are distinctly different in every way.  Two and a half years did a lot to those shoes, as we can see.  The heel is worn out on the old shoes, there are tears in the leather in the old shoes, and the sole has been worn down about a quarter inch.  Not only that, but the old shoes fit my feet perfectly, and were much more comfortable than the new ones are.  But most of all, I loved those shoes.  The shoes were there for me in every situation.  Sure, I was rough on them, by playing racquetball, soccer, and floor hockey.  But there were also times when they got to swim with me, like the time I ran across the inner loop not realizing it was flooded up to my knees (I tripped and went swimming… in a road).  We were a great pair together, I test drove all of the cars I looked at in these shoes; they were so good because I could feel the clutch pedal so nicely through the paper-thin sole I had worn down.  Now I can hardly drive because the clutch is a quarter inch further away from me.

After looking back on all the great things those shoes and I did, I realize that it was indeed getting to be time for a pair of new shoes… to look to the future.  The new shoes will get to know me, and I will get to know my new shoes.  They too will wear in, so they fit my feet, and I will get to know the sole, so I can more carefully feel the ground beneath me, and the pedals of my car.  Instead of thinking about how comfy the old ones were when my feet don’t feel right, I will bear through it and wear in the new ones.  And I will still try to save my old Sambas (as soon as I can get some ShoeGoo).  Those who have ever owned Samba Classics know of what I speak, and also that there is nothing better than a good old pair of beat-up Sambas.

Over the past 6 weeks, I have been designing a stage for the Bakershake production of The Tempest.  Even though I was reluctant at first to take on the job, I have really enjoyed putting the ideas of the setting of the show into a stage.  It starts out with a basic idea of the setting of all of the scenes in the show.  Since we can’t really do set changes in our commons, we really needed a set in which all scenes of the show can take place.  We ended up deciding that the basic set should resemble a ship with a mast and a hold underneath a raised platform on one end.  Not only that, since Baker Commons is very long and narrow, we needed a bridged stage, which means that the audience sits on both sides of the stage.  After many trials, I eventually came up with this drawing below.

CAD Drawing of Proposed Stage in Baker Commons

The hold and the mast are the two main elements of the set.  The hold will double as a cave for one of the scenes, and a entrance point for actors.  Other entrance points include the stairs on the side of the stage, and two ladder that will come up from the floor on the backside of the raised platform.

Construction of the set will begin this weekend and continue into the first part of spring break.  On Friday and Saturday, I will be hanging the lights (a design I still need to finalize).  This job is pretty much a one-man job, since the lift that reaches the ceiling of our commons only holds one person.  On Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, we have various members of the community and cast act as a construction crew that I will direct in building the stage.  I am most nervous about the mast that will extend from the floor, through the stage to the rafters.  This is the biggest construction hurdle for the set this year, and it will certainly be a feat if I can pull it off.  Hopefully within the next week, I can take a real picture that looks something like this drawing.

My Bleeding Eye

Getting sick sucks, especially when you wake up one morning with a horrifying red spot on your eye. Firstly, an entire weekend was ruined by this fever I had.  I went to bed at 10:00 on Friday night, and since then have been out of bed maybe a total of 12 hours all weekend.  In addition to missing Baker College’s annual Faire event, I did not do any of the work that I needed to do this weekend, and now have an ugly spot on my eye.  Although it does make me look way more badass than I actually am, it still freaks most people out when I look at them.  I could always come up with some cool story about how I was working in the machine shop and a piece of aluminum came flying off of the mill and hit me in the eye, or how I managed to stab myself in the eye with a soldering iron, but in reality, I am not that cool.  The spot is actually from a blood vessel that has broken in my eye, probably from high blood pressure or something… when I was sick I thought my head would explode. The internet (which never lies) said that the spot should be gone in 7 to 10 days, which will bring me back to my normal less badass self.