HET225 (Electrical Machines) and HET228 (Electrical Actuators and Sensors) Notes

I’m doing Electrical Actuators and Sensors again this semester after very sensibly deciding to fail last time.

As the lecturer has been saying that he’ll try to put something up on blackboard for at least 3 years I don’t hold a lot of hope. As a result I am publishing the notes that I take in class so that any students who miss a class for whatever reason can catch up.

I should add that I’m a much better student now than I was 3 years ago when I failed. My notes will be accurate to what is on the board and also contain annotations from what is said in class 🙂

You can find these notes by clicking on the HET225 & HET228 Notes tab.  I will try to stay as up to date as possible.

*Wave* At My New Ventures Classmates!

I just finished my first New Ventures tute and given we’ve been sent off to Google each other a number of them will be visiting my blog shortly.

So hello, welcome. Feel free to have a poke around, you will leave in very little doubt about how I tick. My earlier posts are far more entertaining than my later posts because I temporarily lost my sense of humor during IBL but other than that it’s chock full of ranting and the occasional insight.

I will be Googling a number of you shortly. It should be entertaining. I have already Googled our tutor and as it turns out I have 5 common friends with her on facebook, only one of which is a uni related friend. Guess that’s what comes of hanging out with too many entrepreneurs! This exercise has reminded me to get off my butt and start adding people I know on LinkedIn because logic says she should be a 2nd degree separation with me and she’s 3rd which means my network has big fat gaping holes in it.

I guess we’ll see whether I discover any similar unexpected links with my classmates 🙂

A New Direction In Life

IBL has taught me many things, most importantly that I’m kinda heading in the wrong direction with all of this automotive engineering stuff. I love cars but its just not my thing. So, in an attempt to figure out what is ‘my thing’, I sat down and had a little think about what I’m good at, what I enjoy, what I’m interested in and suchlike. The upshot of all this is that I’ve decided to take a slightly different direction to my original intended one.

During my pondering I noted that almost without exception my best marks every Semester have been in my software subjects. I also noted that I really like programming. Programming is one of the few things that I can just sit down and do. My ADD seems to go into hiding as soon as I get into the swing of a bit of coding. So at this point I’m thinking ‘aha, perhaps something relating to software could be a good plan.’

I then considered what I’m interested in and, looking back on all the information I used to devour I realise that neurobiology seems to be more heavily represented in my bookcase than any other subject. I’ve also always been fascinated by automation. Not boring manufacturing style automation but proper intelligent automation, like cars that drive themselves for example.

By now you can probably see where I’m going with this. I have decided that after I finish my Bachelor degree I will do a Master of Software Systems Engineering specialising in AI. I do of course recognise that I may not be able to work in AI straight away which is fine because everything I’m doing up to and including the Masters degree will give me enough generic programming skills to get me by for a bit. In the mean time I shall try my hand at programming little web apps and suchlike. Got to do something with all the spare time that my remaining years at uni will provide.

Uni Marks

I am feeling rather justifiably smug (or at least I think so) today.

Machine Design (learn all about cogs, and gears, and levers etc) – 77% (Distinction)
Machine Dynamics 2 (force analysis of moving things) – 99%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (High Distinction)
Control and Automation (do some silly maths to figure out how to control stuff) – 65% (Credit)
Object-Oriented Programming in C++ (self-explanatory) – 85% (High Distinction)

Woot!!!

Apparently studying really does pay off 🙂