Post Gavin Disorder

Yeah baby! -> disturbance estimation looking good!

2011-09-24T00:41:00.000-07:00

Howdy, ya'll!

It seems like I only blog when I'm back at Ames Research Center, here in the Bay Area. I had to post something quick 'cause Scott (my cousin) is asleep and I can't tell him right now... =) Those of you that know me well, know that I have to get things out of my head and told to someone, partly so that I can stop thinking about it and go to bed, but of course part of it is for your own edificiation. "Yes," I reply, this does apply to everyone, control theory is general, thus generally applicable.

As a special bonus today, if you read slowly though my monologue and see all the pretty pictures, I will let you see the pictures at the end of some satelite stuff that cousin Scott showed me today.

Right. Well, here is the state of the union on the helicopter project: I have designed a new, truly high performance controller for the rotor. This new one uses a more advanced algorithm with an algorithm called receding horizon control or Model Predictive Control (MPC). Basically, it predicts what the flap will do some steps ahead (15 steps in my case) and then optimizes some "control" commands (5 steps in my case) to make the predicted response as close to what the setpoint reference (my desire) is asking it to do... In order to do this, it has an internal "sense" of how the model will react to its commands, and then it plans out the next 5 control steps. When the next control step comes, it does the whole optimization again and plans 5 more control steps ahead.

When you stop and think about it, this is much like we act every day. We have a plan of all the wonderful things that we are going to do today and how we will be very efficient with what we want to do. Then when life actually happens, we have to re-optimize our day as different things come up that make us change our plan. This controller is just a mathematical version of that.

Example: when you are driving a car, you look forward maybe 50 feet when you are moving slow, right? you don't plan out what you are going to do and then close your eyes and do it, you watch 50 in front of you, then you drive a little bit and you are still looking 50 feet ahead of you. This "receding horizon" is the essence of the controller, it optimizes inside a reasonble window of time into the future.

Above is the "natural" response of my system. This means that when I suddenly tell it to go to the value of 1, this is how it reacts. My new controller interacts with this natural response and predicts what the system will do, so it can make it settle down quicker. See below

there are little "steps" in the model output and the command because this is how a computer see the world... in little steps that are contant between the times that it measure them/changes them.

Anyhow, this new type of controller has the advantage of taking my control bandwidth from something like 15 Hz to now more like 250 Hz. (not a bad improvement!). This means that if you ask the little flap to move back and forth 250 times per second, it can and will do what you ask.... fantastic!

The biggest problem at the moment is that while the control bandwdith is great (I only needed to make it to 89 Hz), I still have a low disturbance rejection bandwidth. disturbance rejection means that when I tell the flap to move to a particular spot and there is something else, external to the assembly that interferes (like aerodynamic forces in my case), how well does the controller deal with that, and at what frequencies will it stop responding. Up until this point the highest disturbance rejection bandwdith I've been able to achieve was in the 15 Hz neighborhood. I would really like the controller to be able to get up to 89 Hz disurbance rejection bandwidth to fulfill the purpose that my boss needs it for, so I've been working furiously to try and find a way to accomplish that.

Now, with that context, you can appreciate my accomplishments today (with the Lord's help). After much research and consideration, I came to the conclusion that much of the problem is seperating what part of the measured position was due to response of the model to my command and what part was due to external disturbances. This is a tricky thing though, because there is only one position signal that is being measured, so it is combined. What a wonderful world that we live in that we CAN actually seperate these signals!! I will not bore you with all the gory math details (unless you ask me of course), but I thought I'd show you some interesting results. Here is the situation: I want to control something at 75 Hz. Meanwhile, some external force is affecting the flap at 120 Hz and then, to really mess things up, gravity is suddenly reduced by 50%, which produces a sudden step in the measured output. In order to have the flap do as commanded, I have to seperate which parts of what I am measuring come from something that i told it to do (the 75 Hz) and everything else. Below is a picture of what this would look like.

So this is the result of my work in the last few days. The blue is the real thing happening, the red dased line is the system's best guess or estimate about what is going on. Notice how the guesses are not very good in the beginning but once it locks in, it really a great job! Now that this portion has been somewhat addressed, I need to figure out what to do with this newly found information in the controller itself (this result is only a small part of the control system; it estimates what is going on that we can't measure directly). Ideally, the top should be the sum of the bottom two.

Thanks for hanging with me long enough to get through some cool stuff.

As promised, here is the super, top-secret satelite pictures that I took when I visited one of the labs that Scott was working in today. Some of the stuff in this picture is real flight hardware that will be in the final spacecraft.

Objective Successful

2011-07-18T00:22:00.000-07:00

I am proud to report that I and the many other people helping me were successful this evening in "closing the loop" of the controller here at Ames. This means that we can now issue a command to the assembly, say something like, "please oscillate at 35 Hz and at a magnitude of 1 degree." and it will do so, but you have to say please and ask in a nice voice. =)

This is a huge step forward for the team in general and for me personally. This evening marks the first time I have been involved with a closed-loop control project wherein we have gone through the formal experimental and modeling stages and closed-loop control design and had a reasonably high performance controller. While I didn't get to be involved as much as I would have liked to be in the controller (due to time), I was able to add a modifying controller (an "outer loop") that boosted one of the weaknesses of the inner controller, which was nice to be able to contribute.

One of my mentors, Hossein, and I spent this whole weekend working through the varioius implementation details including safety mechanisms, etc and we finally got the system breathing Sunday evening at about 9pm! whew! (the demonstration is taking place at 2pm on Monday...)

This is a funny cartoon kinda showing what closed-loop control is all about, a good reference for those reading this who have no idea what i'm talking about.

Well, I'm gonna hit the hay. Happy trails partner!

Gavino

one more turn in the bay

2011-07-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

So after 6 months of hard work at ENE and Army/NASA, I still do not have a finished product to show off, but progress is being made. I am now back at Ames Research Center in the Bay Area spending about a week to demonstrate some control algorithms for the helicopter blade flap that I've been working on. Pray that it goes well... if it does then we can continue on our project, otherwise, we will have to give up one of the more challenging tests, which would be a shame.

On the ENE front, the Case machine is coming along nicely (the 6-wheel, fully independent suspension pruning machine). I have almost completely finished detailing the hydraulic system and my colleague Alex is nearly done with the mechanical design. I'm very excited about that. My current estimate is that we will be painting in 4 weeks, put on hydraulics in 5 weeks and be done in about 8 weeks, Lord willing. I'll definitely post some pictures of that bad boy soon.

On a personal note, I'm still a bit socially constricted due to two (too) busy work schedules (sche-duels). But every once in a while I get to do something fun and blow off some steam. I had a wonderful afternoon this last sunday, getting to spend time with some friends I haven't seen in a while (just hangin' out and drinkin' smoothies) and then going to soak up some sun by the pool with family and friends... it was great. very relaxing.

I still haven't found the truck i'm looking for yet. I hope to find it soon though. It's funny, I find the right make/model/year/mileage without the extras, or a find all the extras without the year/mileage... In case someone reading this (by chance) has my truck, here is what i'm looking for:

chevy silverado
crew-cab
2004-newer
less than 100k miles
4" lift
33x12.50 tires
alloy wheels
the longest short bed (I think it is 6.5')
good paint, good body

so if you have such a truck and are in the market to be rid of it, please drop me a note ( gavin.nielsen@gmail.com )

------------------------------------------------

in other news, I'm also looking for a good place to live in the country where I can keep track of a nice big dog... again, if you have a place, I have some cash! =)

------------------------------------------------

I guess last on the list is that other thing, which must not be named. I daren't say it out loud, for fear that its report may be heard. No, I must keep it secret, I must keep it safe. LOL. This is called dramatic bluffing. as far as this public address goes, I'm done. I hope to post some pics soon of the goings on here at Ames, but until then, Adieu! =)

Gavin

Some poetry from my past

2011-02-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

Howdy sports fans!

Today has been a housecleaning/room-cleaning day, and I have had great success! One benefit to going through things is that you tend to find all sorts of historical treasures (treasures by my measure at least), and today I wanted to share some with ya'll. I wrote this poem sometime around 1990, so I think I would have been about 10.

Every Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter my family makes a massive amount of food. Do we need all this food? Probably not, but I guess it is tradition at this point. Somehow these mountains of food do finally get eaten, sometimes weeks down the road. LOL. One of my favorite memories was the competition (when we were younger) to try and steal fudge before dessert time, and this little poem is to that effect. I hope you enjoy it.

A TASTE OF THE PAST

Some I think of days gone by
I think of me as a little guy.
A man of questions, acquainted with thought.
Thinking of the Christmas war, about the be fought.

Our primary objective was the fudge to robe,
But the restraining dilemma was big uncle bob!
We'd round the corner, innocent as could be,
But he knew our intentions and forced us to flee.

Casey suggested a diversion and I was inclined.
Off went bob, but twas in his arm reclined.
As we watched him go we thought of our plan
And watched with remorse as he dipped into the pan.

It was my turn for an idea and my comrades held their breath
Because my plans of daring usually ended with their death.
To fail was not an option and to quit not a thought;
Fudge was at large, and it wasn't the kind bought.

My plan was perfect. It had no mistake.
My plan was for Garrett, the fudge, to take.
Garrett wanted to please me, on my every word did he dote,
And he made, by far, the best scapegoat.

We sent out "The Kid" with unprecendented anticipation
For we knew that to succeed meant unparalleled sensation.
Little "G" was sneaky; we had to admit
But compared to uncle Bob, it was bit to bit.

We were linked by walkie-talkies, a clever touch of min.
But really just another tool toward the chocolate taste divine.
Casey took the forward position and I took the rear,
Because if we got caught, Bob'd have them by the ear!

I am a blessed man! =)

2010-12-14T22:31:00.000-08:00

Howdy there peeps!

Hmm... well, here I am with less than a week left in my southbay adventure. It has been a long ride, but a good one. reflecting a bit on what has happened since I moved to the southbay, I can't help but thank God for his blessing and provision throughout the year.

I would like to believe that I am a brilliant individual. Truly I would. But the reality of the situation is that I feel more like a delivery boy. Okay, hopefully a delivery man, but you get the idea. What prompts such a random comment? I was thinking back on the problems that arose this year at work... definitely some tough ones! At each step of the way, I feel like the Lord inspired me with ideas to solve the problems as they arose. Kinda feels like that game ("wack-a-mole"?) where you bonk moles when they poke their head out of a board and you have to bonk them quick or you lose the game.

Enough problems came up this year at work that I truly believe that without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the refueling and renewing of my mind, that I might be in mental shambles. I will not bore you with a list of all of the things, but suffice it to say the list makes me a little tired! =)

Work aside, it has been a tremendous blessing to live with my cousin Scott. Beyond just getting to know that chap better, it has been fun goofing off with him. In some ways we are good for each other since we have some almost opposite tendencies, but then we have a lot in common as well, which makes it fun to talk (and sometimes complain) about work problems since the other can understand them a bit better.

Then there is the whole housing thing... again, what a blessing! I got to live in a perfectly central, beautiful apartment complex in Sunnyvale that was very relaxing to come home to (and even had a jacuzzi and pool). For these last few months I have been blessed to live with Scott in his new home in Santa Clara where I have been the proud occupant of the master bedroom (Scott will soon rent it out, which is why he didn't want to move in there).

I had the opportunity to get to know a girl from Santa Rosa (Elisa) which ended up not working out, but was still a learning/growing experience for me. I am often torn when I think back on relationship history-types of things, since all relationships that one invests in that do not work out do take their toll, but thinking back I can praise God that he is teaching me these things so that my future wife will hopefully be shielded from them. I guess you could say that I have a long way to go, but hopefully I can accelerate and make up that distance fast! =P Speedracer! lol

Since I spent time going back and forth to Santa Rosa / Petaluma, I have had the chance to hang out and have some great talks with one of my closest friends (John). It is amazing to me that I can know someone for such a long period of time and still misunderstand them. It would not be appropriate for me to fully explain what I mean by that statement here, but let me just say that I am blessed with close friends who find me worthy enough to share part of their inner-selves with, and this encourages me beyond measure.

On top of all these things (I sure am glad I didn't list the problems, I wouldn't have had room for this list of blessings!) I have felt much more at peace with my future and future directions, which I would definitely call a miracle in and of itself. For someone like me who is constantly over-analyzing everything and trying to optimize, feeling at peace with the unknown future and being content to see a few years in advance and settle on a path is no small feat! Yet, the Lord has seen fit to grant me this insight/direction. For that, I praise Him!

I look back and wonder how else I would have come to the same conclusions without spending this time here... I have often wondered why I am here since I am somewhat isolated and I hate watching my family grow up from a distance. Don't get me wrong, I knew that I needed to be here to finish my formal education, but one can't help but wonder if there isn't another way when you feel lonely... But, the Lord has a plan and I am more and more willing to let Him lead and watch the beautiful things that result from letting the omniscient One have the reigns. How ludicrous that I think I can do better sometimes! =)

Check back here on the blog soon for an update with some pictures. I promise to get some pics/videos of the people I've been working with and post 'em (with their permission, of course). Yet again, a great blessing that I need to praise God for... so many people do not enjoy the people they work with, yet I generally can't wait to get to work and interact with these people (and when I'm not excited to be at work, it is generally because I am tired).

Okay, well that'll do for now, pig. I hope wherever this post finds you, you are doing well and the ways that you are currently being blessed will be revealed to you also. "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28)

-Gav

On why I love modelling...

2010-11-11T23:39:00.000-08:00

Howdy there sports fans! =)

I am pleased to report that I have had some great success with a long-time project of mine. I have simulated a very rough approximation of a tree under forced oscillation! This is something that I have been pondering how to do for about 10 years... Boy, to write that down makes it seem, well, like a long time. First, a little backstory...

A few years into college I began mathematically modeling the shaker head that ENE uses for harvesting prunes, pistachios, etc. After making a few assumptions and idealizations, tt was a relatively simple set of parametric equations, and served as a wonderful application and exercise of the concepts in calculus that I was learning at the time. Essentially, those equations parameterize the configuration of the shaker head and predict the output pattern. With a bit of doing (and a few major mistakes in derivation), I had a reasonable, closed-form approximation of how the shaker head would react to different weights, speeds and arm lengths.

Below is a plot of the predicted output pattern for the configuration
freq1=10 Hz, freq2=7.14 Hz, arm1=2.5 in, arm2=3.5 in, weight1=40 lbs, weight2=30 lbs.

For a while, I was very enthralled by this set of equations and what they might mean for tuning and understanding harveting better, but I soon realized that the real problem was not what the shaker head was doing, but rather how the tree was responding to what the shaker head was doing. In short, it is necessary to understand the behavior of the shaker head, but only from the standpoint of guiding it into a behavior that is useful for successfully shaking a tree (e.g. getting fruit off, not damaing the tree, etc, etc.).

Since the orginal equations were derived symbolically they are easy to calculate and easy to analyze, but I could not wrap my head around a good method to symbolically model a tree. As I progressed through my schooling and various work projects, I spent more and more time in numerical simulations (mostly Finite Element Analysis-type (FEA) and dynamical systems (for control system engineering). It has taken me a long time to realize that the answer to my problem could be approached in a numerical way, but even after I realized that, I wasn't sure the right software package to use to tackle the problem.

**************** so much for the back-story... on to the present *****************

Since while I'm here in Santa Clara, I decided that it was the right time to go to a workshop for a software package called COMSOL Multiphysics. They have an office in Palo Alto which is only a few minutes from work, so it all worked out beautifully. My cousin scott was nice enough to come along for moral support and may have just enjoyed himself a little along the way... =) As part of the workshop, we recieved a trial license for the software which is a great match for my brand-spankin' new computer... =)

So that was this Tuesday, and for the past two nights I have spent a few hours trying to figure out how to model a tree and simulate it in a flexible way. This evening I finally had success and thought it would be fitting to share the results of my labor with you. Below is a very simple tree's response to the input of the shaker head (given the same configuration as listed above). Hopefully this video uploads correctly... it took a long time, so I'm not sure if everything got to the server ok...

That is pretty cool I think. The coolest part about this might be that the solve only took about 2 minutes! Granted, when I have a tree model that is sufficiently more complicated and takes into account more effects (Such as the damping due to leaves, etc.) that solve will take longer, but this was a simple example and it solved very quickly.

Another quick little video which breezes through the first 50 (or so) eigen-frequencies and eigen-mode shapes (the natural frequencies and vibration modes of the tree structure). I would slow this down a bit, but the slowest I could do was 1 frame per second, so just check out the frequencies listed in the upper portion of the screen to get a feel of the frequencies that are causing the shapes...

On top of that, I found the COMSOL environment to be very well thought out and even capable of some post processing tasks that didn't need to go over to MATLAB to handle... namely looking at the pattern input that caused this type of purturbation... I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, "Hey Gav, hang on. Just a few paragraphs ago you said that you had closed-form equations that could predict the shaker heads position (and thus the pattern input to the tree)..." to which I respond, "Yes, that's true, but remember my qualification: "After making a few assumptions and idealizations..." The first assumption was that the shaker head was "free" and not being affected by anything else. That isn't quite true, because while the shaker head is big and powerful, it is still affected by the tree... remember, we can push on the tree, but the tree can push back! So, without futher ado, I give you thee updated pattern that my simulation yielded after taking into account the tree's "push" back on the shaker head...

There are a few things that need be said here... first of all, you have to look closely to find that it does have many of the same characteristics of the idealized patter, but the idealizations might have been a bit too much from a rough accuracy standpoint. Note that I didn't include any mass for the shaker head, so this isn't as accurate as it could be. Also notice that the new pattern output is not as wide as it is tall... this I believe to be due to the trees asymmetrical response (which in turn is due to it's asymmetrical topology).. What we found here was that it was much easier to move the tree in and out vs. moving it left and right, which might make sense when you stop and look at where the branches are on this tree... =)

Man I love modelling!

*********

On a more peronsal note, I am doing well and things are moving forward with my thesis. Slowly but surely. I will post again soon with more personal things, but I better get some sleep tonight!

Thanks for reading! =)

A title formerly known as "Yes, sort of..."

2010-10-24T19:26:00.000-07:00

******
"Comrades! I am proud to sail with you on the maiden voyage of our motherland's most recent achievement. Once more, we play our dangerous game... a game of chess against the American navy... only now the game is different..."
******

Had I an orginal thought here I would have opened with it, but as things stand right now, I am very unoriginal. =P But I'm working on it.

I find myself single once again. I suppose that is a strange thing to mention in a blog, but I feel like saying it, so there ya go. I suppose that as far as break-ups go, this one was as ideal as they come since both people felt at peace with the decision. Still, that sort of thing is never very much fun.

Life is definitely different since my last post. I, my family and many other people were deeply saddened with the loss of a great friend, mentor, father, husband, etc. in Jose Luis E. I could go on and on because he was many things to many people, but suffice it to say that I am deeply in his debt and his absence will be felt most acutely.

Here in Southbay, I am proud to say that I have made some decisions. My new plan is to work for the Army up through mid-December and then take two weeks off. Starting the beginning of January, I will be an ENE employee for most of the week and then for part of the week I will work on Army stuff. This will be a good balance because I can begin to help with the family business, but still finish the project for my master's thesis (on-blade control-surface closed-loop control on an experimental rotor). The tentative plan is to graduate in June 2011.

As far as work on that goes, I am very happy to tell that I have made significant progress on several fronts there, and it becomes more exciting the further I go. Last week I completed my goal of adding specific functionality to the data system ("Dexter"), so that I can now see the frequency spectrum content updated in "GUI real-time" so that I know what is going on, and can see the frequency content (y'know, which frequencies are present in whatever I'm interested in...) Very cool stuff. =) I have also made significant headway on the automation required to make data acquisition and processing streamlined. The further I go in this development, the more I realize how much automation of mundane tasks really does speed you on your way to a result; often it is the only way to remain sane and get something done!

I was also happy that my funding has now been approved all the way through June, so I can definitely count on that as a plan. (up until now, it was a tentative plan, but now that approvals have gone through, it is just a matter for me to sign a contract).

hmmm.... what else can I tell you... Oh! I'm very excited that I will be getting a new laptop very soon. I had high hopes of getting an extremely high-end workstation (like $8k) but that purchase gave way to good council and soul searching. My new system will still be a powerful workstation, but a bit more mainstream and affordable for a bear of small means, such as myself. Yes, it is true, I have other needs that I could spend money on (perhaps most notably a truck...) but for my current purposes, a laptop is the most pressing need. I guess for the moment I'll just have to fend off the onslaught of women clamouring for my affection from behind the wheel of a minivan!! It's tough bein' a sexy soccer mom! lol.

In all seriousness though, I am very excited to save (and spend eventually) for items that might fall in the classification being of more "grown up." As you've no doubt noticed, I have a penchant for electronics, software and books that is nigh unquenchable, but this old dog is still learning about what is important... Who know, maybe I'll buy myself a house sometime... but I will not need to invest in a security system, 'cause I can "kick the guns out of their hands!" =)

I think that pretty well brings you up to date on my goings-on. This weekend has been pretty chill, so I have had some time to muse and reflect on things. Here are some of thoughts in a "formatted" version:

-----------------
"That I thought I thought"

That I thought I thought, I thought I knew
that I thought I knew, I built my house
now I shiver in the rain, for my house is cold
but my thoughts are known.

To maintain the house, is on-going;
never finished, never painted.
Its walls are fluid and doors are swung easily,
though they remain transparent, reflection is necessary.

That I harden its foundations, I have before me.
That I maintain its flowing walls, I have ever before me.
But where are the walls affixed the floor?
That that flows, meets the Rock.

This problem eats at my mind, a meal without end.
What when there is no food for feasting?
My hope is ever the Rock, for He is ever constant.
I can trust not the walls, nor the doors, for they move.

Lord, that my mind works, You know.
That I can help, You know.
That I am in need, You know.
That you are not finished with me, I know.

-Gavin Nielsen
gavin.nielsen@gmail.com

Quefrency, Lifters, New House and Fine Dining

2010-09-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

Howdy y'all!

So now I'm moved. Scott and I are settling into the new place and refactoring our organizational methods. Before I get into the house/food stuff, I wanted to tell you about something kinda cool that I learned today. Like anything worth learning, this tasty morsel requires just a tad bit of background...

Signal processing is the science/art of modifying or analyzing some sequence of values for useful purposes. An example might be checking the stock market value of some particular stock every day for a year, then taking those values and taking the moving average of every week of values as they come out to have a better "Feel" of that stock and then making some decision based on it. Here is a wikipedia article with a little more precise language if you'd like to explore (I would if I were you =) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_processing

Some more interesting (to me) applications of signal processing are things like filtering an audio signal so that you can turn up the bass and really "bump" in your car or house... lol. At any rate, like any technical domain, there are plenty of cool terms and a few that are just made-up because whoever invented it had a good sense of humor.

For example, in signal processing we talk about the frequency spectrum (a range of frequencies we are interested in), we talk about low-pass filters who "allow" low frequencies through and "stop" higher frequenices (this really kind of a generalization a moving average, when you think about it).

So now to the funny part. I have been working on a rather challenging filter for a while now (I posted about it a while back), and I keep my nose to the grindstone trying to research and find the right solution to the problem. Since I had some time today, I was looking at something called the "Cepstrum" which is sort of an odd animal. its name originates from rearranging the word "spectrum," reversing the first four letters. I have to tell you the definition because even though it's abstract, it is kinda funny to say (copied from wikipedia):

"verbally: the power cepstrum (of a signal) is the squared magnitude of the Fourier transform of the logarithm of the squared magnitude of the Fourier transform of a signal"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cepstrum

lol. But wait! there's more! for only $19.99 you can hear the other terms associated with various cepstrum operations! (okay, fine. I'll give it to ya for free!)

Instead of talking about time, even though strictly speaking, the unit is time, but we went into the frequency domain and then back to the unit of time but not the time domain) so we are not in the frequency domain either, the independent variable of the cepstrum of a signal is called "Quefrency" (mangled version of frequency) of the signal. Further, whereas in the frequency domain one has filters, in the quefrency domain there are "Lifters" (mangled version of filters). Which is another whole pun in and of itself because you can use lifters to "lift" particular frequency components and their harmonics from a signal.

Let's say that you are recording audio signals and somebody is talking in the room next door.... very annoying. now you have someone else's voice that you didn't intend to have in your recording. You can use lifters to lift that voice out of the signal and kinda erase it. Or maybe you wanna know what the person was saying, then you could isolate it! Super cool. I am of course very new to the concept, but it is almost as if the cepstrum is like a second order frequency transform, allowing you to see the spectrum of the spectrum. Here is a cool pic of a spectrum and the cepstrum of that.

So that was great find for the day. Thanks for reading though that bit of techy stuff, I hope you enjoyed it.

On another note, my girlfriend Elisa is now in Switzerland on vacation for about 10 days, but before she left she stopped by to see the new place (and maybe to see me too). Since I had recently failed at a dinner I intended to make, I thought I'd give it another shot and make dinner for both Scott and Elisa... and the result? Success baby! haha, it ended up being very good, in spite of my inexperience. I fixed penne chicken alfredo with black olives and artichoke hearts, with brocoli, cauliflower and carrots. 2% milk was also available as a beverage. See, see, see!

I suppose presentation leaves a little to be desired... all I had were sippy cups and plastic plates and silverware, but I think everyone enjoyed the meal. That makes me happy. So that you can see the house, I decided to give you a "flash" tour that wasn't too long. so I basically ran through the house with my camera. Here ya go.

And I guess that will conclude my remarks for this afternoon. I'll be sure to take some nice HD pictures when I get my room more organized and cleaned up. Until then, via con Dios, my friends!

Dapper dudes, miss-bowled and flexible filtering

2010-08-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

Hey there partner! =) Glad you took the time to head my direction...

This weekend was fun. Elisa came over on Saturday and we had some great talks. I had promised her a surprise activity, so she thought it was great when we finally arrived at Sunny Bowl in Mountain View to do a little bowling... here is Sunny Bowl...

Yes indeed, it really looks "Sunny" in there, but you should've seen the look on their faces when I walked toward the door and turned right around seeing that there was no way that they had a bowling alley "in the back!" =) I suppose I had the funnier/confused look on my face though. I should've done my homework a little better!! Well, we finally did find a place to go bowling (Palo Alto Bowl) and really enjoyed ourselves. Hopefully you get this quote, but I felt much more like "King of the Lanes" than "King of the Trolls" for this pic...

I think I need to do more manual labor or something because we only bowled two games and my hands were a little sore from gripping the ball... No good! =(

Elisa was sure that she could beat me at this game... (we have an ongoing competition when we play games). As it turned out, I beat her the first game and she beat me in the 2nd. Just 'cause I'm so proud of our high scores, I thought I'd post the frames for everyone to see (this is for you James!).

It was E-Train vs. G-Dog, and the battle was a fierce one! I even have the play-by-play for you with this next video, lol

So, we had a good time there. That was Saturday, on Sunday, I needed to accomplish some things for work, so I have been researching and designing a variable-frequency, variable-order filter to address that problem that I posted a few days ago. I think I have it conquered, but I wish I could simulate the thing... that always gives me more confidence. Here is the rough block diagram

It is kinda neat how variable frequency filters can be realized these days... the one I'm designing is based on something called "Switched-Capacitors" which emulate resistors.... kinda cool really. Even though it is an analog filter, it is actually discretely sampled; that is, even though I can put a very precise amount of water in my bucket, I'm still getting a fixed number of buckets every second... like everything, it is a tradeoff, but with a little pre-filtering, and at high speed "bucketing" (like 100 kHz) I can get very nice looking, accurate filtering done... way cool. =)

Lastly on my update agenda is the fact that this is likely my last post from my current abode (in Sunnyvale). Cousin Scott closes escrow on his home tomorrow, so we'll be moving in this week! =) yay! so next time I should have some pictures of the new place. In a nostalgic bid to remember this little hat-hanger, I took one last pic of the bathroom... only because it had two mirrors and I could doubly reverse my reflection and show you the cool new CSUC pride I have!!! LOL, I'll miss something things about this place, but I sure wont miss the family below us that get in an argument at 11:30pm every evening.... anyhow, here is the new duds

pretty snazzy, right? Even some nice baller Chico State shorts... Garrett, you're afraid of these shorts, aren't you? Well, you should be. personally, I'd give you one chance in three. More tea anyone?

Okay, well that's it for now... one last thought, tho: you should really drink more water, it's sooooo good for you!

What's in a name (or a tree)?

2010-08-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

I think this might be a record for my blogging frequency! Only just yesterday I gave you a lengthy update and here I am back at it again... =) too much good stuff to say, I guess.

Since I decided to not work on work over the rest of the weekend, I decided that maybe I'd see if I could make some progress on tree modeling (another back-burner project that's been cookin' for awhile now). I have been reading about fractals and their recursive nature, and I was inspired that trees seem to show this same nature in the structure as well. Since it has long been a goal of mine to mathematically model a tree, a logical place to start is to generate the static structure or skeleton of a tree automatically (this takes forever to do by hand).

Today was my first shot at trying to actually implement some code to do this in MATLAB, but low and behold, it worked out alright. This is only a 2-dimensional version, but you'll get the idea. It can be easily extended into 3D. After some trial and tribulation, here is a tree to chew on... this tree has 3 branches per level and is 4 levels deep.

by changing a couple of numbers, I can very quickly generate a new tree with very different structure...

I am of course still working on the details, so these are only rough-draft trees, but it is exciting to get some visual results so quickly. Part of why these trees don't look familiar (Beyond the fact that they are perfectly generated and perfectly symmetrical) is that a real tree has gravity acting on it which pull weaker branches down and makes it look a little less upright. this algorithm is really generating trees that you might think of as having grown upside-down! of course, it would also help to have thicker lines for the bigger branches, etc. but all in good time.

Just a few more variables to throw in their for me to get pictures that will look more like the trees we are trying to model, but this is a good start for today.

I hope y'all have a great week! G-out

On the state of "Gavin-a-roo" =)

2010-08-14T18:05:00.000-07:00

ey there, sports fans! I am right in the middle of a relaxing Saturday afternoon, so I thought that I'd post an update on how things are going around here...

Work is going well (though one of the other guys in the office remarked that he didn't see too much going "well," rather he saw it as "well, I've got more to do..."). I have to admit, though every project I've ever been involved with gets complicated for reasons that are outside of my control, this project has seemed like a can-of-worms at almost all turns. I guess that means that I'm learning a lot (which makes me happy), so this is how I replied to my pessimistic co-worker. =D

Hilary, I haven't yet gotten the approval I need from my supervisor to post the video, so hopefully that will happen next week. I'll "do it up special" so that it has more footage and better explanations than the other one too! lol, far be it from me to just "get'r'done". I guess I use a lot of quotes these days, but "it is what is!"

I can share some things from work. This last week, I was working on troubleshooting an amplifier and realized that the major problem was not with the amplifier at all (it was due to a component in my model that was doing exactly what i told it to do). I was thinking how funny that is that when things aren't going right, we sometimes don't look at ourselves as the culprit until there are no more "outside" places to point at. Kind of a get-the-spec-out-of-your-own-eye thing (or maybe a you-shouldn't-use-so-many-dashes-thing).

Anyway, after that round of toubleshooting, I had several conclusions. first that since my system operates at a fixed frequency (somewhere between 4000 and 8000 cycles/second) and the signals i'm generating can range up to rather high frequencies themselves (92 cycles/second under normal conditions and possibly up to 1000 cycles/second) this means that the number of "points" that my system is generating get kinda sparse in the output waveform. Here's an example. If I want to generate a nice clean waveform, I'll use a lot of points (500) along it so that is is approximately smooth.

a plot like the one above would happen if we were using a 4000 cycles/second signal generator to generate an 8 cycles/second waveform (4000/8 = 500). But since my system is generating signals at a fixed rate (approximately 4000 cycles/sec), as we increase the waveform frequency, our points/cycle decreases. below is a plot of 100 points/cycle.

Notice the "stair-step" like appearance. This is because we have fewer points, and in-between points the signal generator does not update it output value. If we push this further to 43 points/cycle (below) we see that the signal is looking less and less smooth.

This is the problem I am running into (one of them at least). Since my signal is not smooth at higher frequencies, I need to smooth it out after I generate it. This is done with what is called a "low-pass" filter (which means that it only lets the low frequencies pass through it and attenuates the higher frequencies). In the picture below I have made a cool Simulink model (part of MATLAB) which does two things: it generates exactly the same signal as my data system (my data system was prorammed using the same code), and then it simulates what effect a proposed analog low-pass filter would have on that generated signal.

Here is the plot this model produced (below)

See how nice and smooth the red is? very nice! =D So I've been playing a little with that today, trying to find a reasonble filter design to handle my needs (the output amplitudes are similar, as in this one, but also the phase shift can't be too much, notice how in this one the red output signal is shifted to the right...)

Yeah, so that's what I've been working on lately. There are some other cool things that I've been playing with, but I'll save 'em for later. In other news, I have been thinking a lot about a new truck! It has been awhile since I have really seriously considered buying a new vehicle, but things are at a points where it seems reasonble. I have been doing some research on it (that is what I do, I guess), and come up with the following spec that i'm looking for: 2007 chevy silverado extended cab, 1/2-ton, supersport, lifted with 35x12.50 tires and nice alloy wheels. With a little snooping around on the net, I found a picture of *almost* exactly what I'm looking for... :P

Wow, that's pretty, eh! So I've been pursuing that a little and watching some different ads to see if I come across anything interesting. It is so strange to actually have some money to think about these things, I'm really not used to having any money! :P

On the topic of money, I've also been thinking about a killer workstation laptop. This isn't a popular idea with any of my advisors, but man, how sweet would it be! For those of you that are into the techy stuff, I'm thinking about a Lenovo W701, 2GHz, 16GB RAM, 256GB ss hard drive, 1TB secondary, 17" uwxga display (FHD, LED backlit), blu-ray burner onboard, Quadro 3800 video card with 1TB of memory. Pretty much maxing everything out the way I like it there. Of course, the major problem is that it is so stinkin' expensive. Ah well, for the moment, dreaming is free...

On another front altogether, I have made some great strides in my eating habits this last week.

This here picture is a sandwich I made for myself at lunch. Now, mind you, making food is not all that difficult a task, so I'm not expecting a bouquet of roses, but for some reason I have something of a mental block about making my lunches, cooking at home, etc. this week I only eat out twice; both times because I needed something to eat for lunch and I didn't have time to make it the night before or the morning of. Other than that, this week has been completely "homemade." Yay!! ...and there was great rejoicing!

There is often more going on that I can't blog about, but there is a similar phenomenon that there is more blogged about than you are interested in, so I think it balances itself out. I'm missing all you friends and family out there, but I'm trying to be content in my situation and take full advantage of it.

Oh, one other thing. I almost forgot to tell you... I have changed a little! See if you can find the difference in these next too pictures (queue the music, "one of these pictures is not like the other")

And of course, my post wouldn't be complete without mentioning that I've been having a great time with my girlfriend Elisa. This pic was taken before we went out to eat a few weeks ago... it's funny, the stairs do a tolerable job of holding the camera, but I still can't get them to take it where I look as good as she does! Oh well, I guess I'll just keep workin' on my guns and hope for the best! =P

Adieu!

As usual, after the disorder, the post...

2010-07-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

At the behest of my younger (and wiser) sister, I come to you again. It has indeed been quite a while since I've updated the old bloggy, but a fair amount has transpired since the last time, so an update I will post.

Back a while now (Sometime in late Feb, early April) I started dating a girl from Santa Rosa...

Her name is Elisa, and I kinda like her (just a little bit though) =)

We both like exercising, and sometimes we help each other out...

Lol. Sorry, I had to post this one. It's funny cause if I claim to be strong, then I'm implying she's heavy (which she isn't), but if I claim she's light, then I have no claim to strenth (and who would want to claim that!!)... hahaha. What a fun way to workout! =)

Strength and weight aside, we have a great time together. This last weekend, (July 4th weekend) I had the pleasure of spending 4 days with Elisa and her family at their place in Tahoe, which was lots of fun. Unfortunately, I completely forgot my camera, so I don't have any pics of the trip to post... = ( fortunately, there were other cameras there, so hopefully I'll be able to get my paws on those later, but for the moment, they are memories that are only in my head. We spent some time floating around on rafts near the dock, took some bike rides around the area and even got some reading done (fractals, baby! I really should get some fiction books though).

At work, I am steadily moving closer to finishing my thesis. I have moved past the theory and have been elbow deep in bench testing various circuit and hardware. Here are some pics of the various tests that I've been workin' on...

(I need to check and make sure the picture can be posted)

This pic (above) is my test setup of an isolation circuit that I designed... and it works! =) that's always a good thing, don't you think? This little darling let's you connect with something that is "floating" 1500V above or below where you are, and not damage either side... kinda cool actually. And it accomplishes all this magic optically (Light Emitting Diodes to send the signal (LEDs) and Photo-Detector Diodes to recieve it (PDDs)).

This next circuit is my most current setup. It is kinda gettin' crowded on the bench, eh? ;)

(I need to check and make sure the picture can be posted)

This setup is allowing me to pump some power through resistors (located on the shiny heatsink in the middle) and some capacitors (inside the black box, so they don't blow up in my face). The rack on the left is a set of instrumentaiton amplifiers, and the setup on the right is the power supplies, the power amplifier, and my isolation circuit in the shiny aluminum case. This test was to find out how "well-behaved" the power supplies and amplifier really are.

I designed the cooling setup (sort of) and simulated it to make sure that I had sufficient cooling capacity for my situation. That makes some pretty pictures, so I'll show you one. This is actually using muffin fans instead of a squirel cage fan like you see in the pic above, but the same idea.

I am now nearly ready to start on the "real" data of the atual actuators and do some real experimental work. I am hoping it goes well, and definitely hoping it goes quickly, but either way, I'm sure I'll learn a lot.

So.... Who cares, right? what's "really" going on in my life besides girlfirend and work. To be honest those two things take an inordinate amount of time. Not time that I begrudge, but still... lots of time. In related news, I did upgrade to a new phone. I got one of 'em fancy phones, the Motorola "Droid." That has been fun, downloading all sorts of silly little apps like a "soundboard" of quotes from Zoolander or Charlie the Unicorn. Also, more serious apps like the Star Trek soundboard. Now, whenever some emails or texts me, I am greeted with a cool little computer beep followed by Spock saying, "Captain, incoming message." lol. gotta love Star Trek, right? Then there are the somewhat useless but fun to show off apps like Google Goggles which are very handy for identifying things that you already know that they are (it can read bar codes and occasionally gets a painting right). I'm not meaning to sound negative at all. There are some really useful apps, like the map app, which uses GPS and can get me whereever I need to go and the browser app which lets me surf the web and figure stuff out without my computer. Yeah, gadgets are good.

Garrett, you will be happy to learn that i have not increased my bench lately, but I have started do dumbell press (inclined and standard) and liftin' some hefty bells. That's what reall worker-outers call 'em... Bells. =) Didja see what I did there? I left off the "dumb," cause, well it doesn't sound as cool. Right.

Nate, you will be happy to know that I have now gone on a 22 mile bike trip (Tahoe to Squaw Valley and back). Man, you really don't realize which muslces are gonna be sore! But I wasn't feelin' too bad afterward, I definitely needed a little break though! :)

Mom, I'm trying to eat healthier, and I think to a large extent I am succeeding. I have gotten completely burnt out on Arby's... so that kinda helps in a wierd way. =)

Ash, thanks for the reminder to keep this little beauty up to date. I fully intend to, but sometimes I don't accomplish my intentions. =) thanks for the update on you blog as well, I read it and it was very nice

Just a quick aside, I had vanilla pudding tonight for dinner. I usually skip dinner, so it was just a fun treat. Don't worry, 2% milk, and sugar free pudding, so I can maintain my feminine figure. lol.

Hm..... What else to say... I guess that's pretty good for now. As always, I will try to be more consistent with my blog updates. There are times (as everyone knows) that my life just doesn't seem all that interesting to the outside world from my perspective, but I'll give you a boring post now and again, just to make sure you've had your "Gavin Fix" for the period. ;)

With that, I bid you adieu. Family and friends, I love and miss you guys. When I left, I was but a cabin boy; when I return, I will be a cabin man.

Yours very truly,

Gavin

P.s. just for fun... a little video that I captured on my camera. Don't show it to the police... hahaha I was bored (back in March sometime) and was playing with the video options on my phone. This little drive is where I often go to grab groceries, chinese, pizza and movies. (not all at the same time usually though). I really am a safe driver, I swear! lol

P.p.s. these videos take forever to upload!

A few fun pics and work update

2010-03-06T11:27:00.000-08:00

Howdy.

Last weekend I had some visitors since Leanne's b-day party happened in S.F. On account of that, Garrett stayed with me here at my place while they stayed in a hotel in the city. Now, seeing as I now have a shiny new camera, I had to "test out" some new features and when better than when my little bro is in bed??! :P

First, I'll give you glimpse of the tired crew that came to my pad soooo late... (past Scott's bed time)

When all the ladies left, Garrett and I talked for a bit (between the pounding of our noisy neighbors.... we weren't being loud, but the apartment has relatively thin walls). The we slept, and the next morning, wonder of wonders, I was up and moving before little bro. Now, I'm warning you, these are very rare pictures of a sleeping Garrett in the wild, so don't just go giving these out to anyone... :)

Much to my surprise, Garrett had been coated with a shiny new coat of paint during the night. The bandits who did this didn't do a real good job though (see how they just shot him from the top?)

At first the little dog was a little scared to be in a photo shoot so early. Here you can see his inner feeling amplified by my new camera. Everyone is "yella" sometimes...

That shade of fear quickly evolved into a darker shade of emotion: embarrasement. I told him that he should not be so embarrassed and pretend I'm not here. So he went about the normal morning task of eating yogurt in bed. Between you and me... I think he was still a little embarrassed... the camera doesn't lie.

Finally, after much persuasion and practice, he shed his fears and embarrassment to be the Garrett i know: the Garrett who is larger than life and whos lively color outshines the surroundings he's placed in..... I don't know what to say about that expression though. Quite frankly, it's a little disturbing, but gotta love the bro!

So that's it for the wacky morning pics, but I thought I would share kind of an interesting pic from work. I have been "hunting" for the right model of the phenomenon happening in the dynamic system that I am modeling. Late this week, I saw my first glimpse of that model in kind of a neat way. This pic below is a rendering of a possible surface that represents the hysteresis (or "lagging behind") of my system compared to the input. Kind of neat looking surface I thought. Who knew I'd be constructing landscapes while I was here?!?!

This is kind of neat thing.. .to visualize something that you've only seen in your mind's eye and on academic papers.... I wont go into detail regarding what everything represents, 'cause that would probably be a little boring, but for those of you who have read some of the things I've written, the "left-to-right" dimension is "alpha", the "front-to-back" dimension is "beta", thus the triangular section of beta vs. alpha is the Preisach plane. The height of the surface represents the gain of a particular hysteron in the plane.

Okie-dokie, I guess that's just about enough math stuff. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and catch up on what's happening in my life. ;)

Laterz->Gav

New Camera!!! Hoo-rah!

2010-02-26T20:49:00.000-08:00

What a lovely Friday this is! Well, in order to motivate myself to blog a bit more often, I decided that I need a better tool for describing my life... a shiny new camera! For those of you who are curious about the specs, it is a canon SD3500 "point and shoot" type of camera (14MP, 5x optical zoom, IS, 720P movie mode).

I am very impressed with this little camera. Sure, it isn't near as fast as my Rebel, but I can't fit the rebel in my pocket either! :) on top of that, this camera has a very cool feature: the back of the thing has no buttons... only a 3.5" touchscreen! wow... i was gambling with this one to see if i'd like it. So far, I'm very impressed. I had assumed that the low light performance would be marginal, but as you'll see from these first shots, it doesn't do too badly at all (our whole house is low light 'cause we're too cheap to buy more lights). This is a typical evening in our newly-chair-populated living room. Cousin Scott is relaxing in one of the all-American lounge chairs.

And here is our kitchen. This shot is looking the other way in the house. See? we now have a table! What a huge difference that makes! My room is down at the end of the hall... Scott's room is halfway down the hall, then up the stairs on the left.

So, if you go all the way down the hall and poke your head into my room, this is what you'll find. Lot's of whiteboards and lots of books! The window actually looks out on a rather nice scene, but since it is now dark, you really can't appreciate it in a picture tonight.

Finally, we have a great shot at the spaniard himself, Scott-E. The man is getting ready to go to bed. We were going to go to the movies tonight, but I flaked out. This week has been crazy busy.

So I guess that's it for the pics. I shot a funny video with Scott too, but I don't have a quick way to get that onto the blog right now since it's in HiDef. As far as other updates go, I'm officially registered for graduation (Thank you Mom!!!) and my grad clearance form should now pass muster as I added a one-unit course to fulfill the 30 units necessary for graduation... I'm gonna work on a DSP algorithm to do object tracking, which should be a lot of fun. Maybe I can post some of the cool tracking footage on here so you guys can get a glimpse of "the light." And, just in case there was any doubt, when I say "the light" I mean the fun business of DSP and digitial signal analysis... gotta luv 'em! :P

Ok. Well I think we're back up to speed. Oh, btw, my thesis is going well and I now have 8 weeks to turn it in. It should be noted at this point that I have 0 pages written. Time to start crankin' i think! Take care. Gavin out.

***** Late Breaking Update ******

I did find a quick way to get the video up here... the built in windows video editor... and now without further ado, I give you scottE!!

-----

okay, well that ended up being a dud. for some reason the upload video button has disappeared from my little WYSIWYG toolbar here in the editor. what a bummer. I'm sure I'll figure it out later. Have a good night, peeps. --Gav

Southbay state of the union

2010-01-25T22:58:00.000-08:00

Howdy y'all. I think my blog is the only place that I have a twang and a southern drawl, but I'm reachin' for country when I'm living in the city! I promised a few weeks ago to post some pictures of the new place, and I would like to say that I've made progress toward that, but alas I have not. My phone (which doesn't take particularly good pictures anyway) is not working quite right, so I am without device here in silicon valley. The ironies never end, do they.

I suppose on the bright side, if I were to post pictures, you would just be looking at bare walls, sparse living room, and a generally spartan, bachelor existence anyhow. But all that is about to change (queue the mysterious music for dramatic foreshadowing). I am in the processing of reinventing Gavin. This old dog is gonna learn some new tricks, and break some old habits in the process.

For example, those of you that know me pretty well, know that I was a huge proponent of mac'n'cheese in my former bachelor ways... but not anymore. I BOUGHT LETTUCE. Why is lettuce so important you ask? Because lettuce symbolizes the type of food that you buy at the store that really only works with moderately healthy to very healthy meals. Lettuce is something that is very perishable, which means I'm not just planning to eat it, I'm planning to eat it soon (no, I haven't eaten it yet, but I would have had it with my sandwich on Sunday had it been in my posession). So, in summary there, I've have taken the lettuce step. I big step for Gavin-kind.

I am seriously considering buying a slick little point-and-shoot camera to capture some of the fun things goin on around here. I wish I would have had it earlier tonight: Scott and i took a little drive down Washington st. to a basketball court there. We shot around and played horse, it was fun. (I won, muwahahahahah). But it was cool of him to let me play coach a little bit and help him with his shooting form. Once a coach, always a coach I guess. I was actually very impressed with the court: it has really good lighting, not bad backboards and rims for a playgound-style court, and the court is nicely surfaced/leveled for playing. It's not half-bad! :P

In my workplace, I've been trying to finish a security/background check set of paperwork. What a pain that is. I think i finally finished everything today. Those things scare me, when the have plastered reminders all over the forms how they can sue you for $10k or send you to prison for 5 years if you get something wrong. I did my best, hopefully I don't have to go to prison... In some ways it's kinda fun: I had to call up a lot of the people I used to work with/for. It's kinda cool to hear how they're doing, I was glad to hear that one place in particular was happy with a database i setup for them 8 years ago or so. Cool peeps.

On the workout front, I got myself in gear and got a membership to Gold's Gym. It's very inexpensive here (like $15/mo) and the facilities are pretty good. I'm trying to go early in the morning, so that helps me go to bed earlier too. Wow, it's already 10:50pm... I gotta get there at 6am... I'm gonna "do the math" in my head here and say that I should probably stop writing and get some sleep.

I hope that all of my loyal readership are doing well (wow -> that sounds so impersonal, eh?) I mean the people that care about me enough to read my text-only blog about my adventures here. I love you guys. But all good things must come to an end (I don't really know why there), so I'll keep my date with mr sandman. He keeps wanting to go steady, I keep telling him that I have to get up... our relationship is a work-in-progress. Oh yeah! really quick! I don't know if I've mentioned this here or not (i think not). I was talking to Scott and he asked me if I was a night owl (since it does seem to be my tendency to go to bed late and it does not seem to be my tendency to wake up early when I don't have to)... I told him that it's not that I'm a night owl, I like the morning and the evening, it's just that I am transition challenged! Think about it!! I think that may be the difference between "night owls" and "early birds", the early people have less inertia to transition to the new state while the late people always lag behind and it takes time for them to transition into the new state. (yeah, I'm gonna publish this theory in my thesis for sure).

Well, without further ado, I bid you all good night! Gavin is leaving this waking world, in favor of it's nocturnal reflection...

Back at NASA! --> Round two. Fight!

2010-01-04T22:50:00.000-08:00

Howdy there! Well, I'm back in Mountain View, CA at NASA/Ames center working on finishing my thesis. Hopefully it will be a quality piece of work. I am signed up through May, but the lease on my apartment goes through the middle of July... after that, I don't know quite where I'll be.

So, what do you say? Am I now the city slicker? I don't think of myself that way, but in the last few days I've been pondering what that means... there is something to be said for having all kinds of consumer items at your fingertips! Then again, at the moment it seems like people are stacked in here so tight they may not be able to enjoy the "perks".

I had really hoped to post some pictures of my first few days in Mountain View, so without further ado...

here is a great shot of the Best Western that housed me for the first two nights. very exciting. (!)

And next we have the super comfy, Comfort Inn. This is where I'll be staying for the next 2 days. (!?)

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "Gavin, why are you such a complainer?!" "But wait," I interject, "there's more!" As it turns out, I cannot charge my phone because of a mixup with the adapters I brought. I have been trying to buy a new one for the last two days, and as yet have been unsuccessful. But today was close, I came only 5 minutes after VZW closed. (!)

Firstly, you might think I'm whining right now. But no, I am relating the simple frustrations of a few days in the city. My first day at work went really well (actually, one might not have known I was gone, my desk was just like I left it) and it felt like routine before I even got to my office. I don't know if that is a good thing or not, but that is what it is. Dad, you will be happy to know that I wore that ENE hoody today, and got several comments on it... (they were positive) ;)

My apartment will be ready to go in a few days, so I really can't complain too much, and I am blessed to have found a great place. The rent is higher than Chico, but it's not bad for Mountain View. I'll post some pics of the new place when I get over there on Wednesday. In the meantime, know that I am well, tired, pondering and inconsolable. (Smiling most of the time, but I miss my family)... Hey Garrett, is this what Hawaii felt like?

Missing all you guys... =) Any ideas for what I ought to do this weekend? Maybe sleep would be good, but how can you sleep on the weekends?!?!?!?! No, we must party! (okay, at least go have some fun).

-City Slicker out

sickness, thoughts, classes

2009-11-17T13:11:00.000-08:00

Howdy there.

Well, to cut to the chase, I am now sick with bronchitis. That is a bummer. On the upshot, it does give me a lot of time to think, which is unussual these days. So how can I update you on my current status? My room is now surrounding my bed, (about 20" on all sides) now that I've gotten all the electronics/computers from NASA to continue my thesis research, my laptop has no more (storage) room, so I'm considering re-formatting and starting over (Windows 7, hopefully), and my schedule goes from booked to rediculous. All in all, I think I'm doing well. I just need to keep my head up for about 4 more weeks to get through.

Every semester, I am struck by the psychology of classwork and finishing projects. Every semester I am very excited to sign up for x number of new classes (cool class names a must) and always arrive the first day with eager anticipation of what I will learn and be able to do when I finish. Then, about 1/3 of the way though, I get distracted by something that get's me a little behind or off track. at about 2/3 to 3/4 I become very aware of this and buckle down again, and by the end I keep my grades up (hopefully). Every semester this pattern shows itself, but to varying degrees of distraction and recourse. Thankfully, I seem to be getting better at it (distracted less, recourse more), but the pattern is still there. Very strange.

I guess I could tell you about some of the cool things I'm learning in class these days... c'mon, I know you're wondering! ;) Very well, I shall tell you then. In my electro-mechanical conversion class, I've been learning about electric motors... we've finished synchronous AC machines and DC machines, and now we're working on Induction machines... very cool stuff. Did you know that an induction motor first induces the current flowing in the rotor (the inside, turning part) and then provides the magnetic field that interacts with that current to produce a torque? The coolest part is, the magnetic field that induces the current is the very same one that the current interacts with to produce the torque! outstanding!

In my High Frequency Design Techniques class, we have been learning about clock distribution on (of course) high frequency designs... clock signals are the on and off signals that all of the other chips need to see to know when to process and when to stop, kinda like the drummer guy on the row ships, so that everyone stays synchronized. Anyway, when you try to distribute this signal at very high frequencies, the time it takes the signal to get to it's destination can be quite varied, because the speed of light is finite. think about it like if you wanted 5 cities to shoot fireworks at the same time, but you had to send out runners to tell them when to go and they would shoot the fireworks just when the runner arrived. Now make the cities various distances apart... if you had to arrange the "drop off" schedule for those runners so they arrived at almost exactly the same time, you now know the challange of clock distribution... ;) yay!

In my chaotic dynamics class, we have been learning about bifurcation. bifurcation is how a system changes its characteristics qualitatively when parameters in the system pass certain points. my prof had a good example: if a class is composed of one student, he could teach that student in his office. more than a few students would force him to teach the class in a classroom. if the class grew beyond 30 or so, he would have to find a lecture hall, if the class grew beyond 400 or so, he might have to record the lectures or broadcast them live... see how the class changes at certain points because of the number of students (28 to 29 was the same, but 30 to 31 changed dramatically in a qualitative sense)... this is leading up to why mathematical catastrophes happen and some other cool things (like hysteresis and chaos). Needless to say, I'm enjoying myself there. Below is an animation of a vector field undergoing bifurcation (Hopf).

My networking class is okay, but not very exciting. it is nice to see how the internet operates and what is happening "under the covers" but to be honest, it is a bit boring.

Lastly, I have an electromagnetic compatibility course which is all about design devices to "play nice" with each other. That is, the electric fields and magnetic fields they produce should be regulated and contained. Otherwise, wierd things can happen... for example, did you know that in an industrial setting, where many high power electric motors are operating, there may be cases where the motors are actually inducing high currents in the steel beam structures of the building because their magnetic fields are "reaching out" and pulling/pushing the currents back and forth? interesting, huh? in the same way, electronic devices can affect other electronic devices by inducing current that are unintended and making those devices fail to work... wouldn't that stink if the brand new playstation 3 you got caused the new 65" LED TV to stop working because they were electromagnetically incompatible? ;) exactly. so that is a very challenging class, and I definitely see the challenge there.

Okay, well thanks for reading this far. If you're not bored yet, maybe you should get into elec/computer engineering! fun stuff dude! I think I should probably stop here, but thanks for listening. Until next time gadget...

On why the world is flat

2009-11-04T00:21:00.000-08:00

Hello there, noble patrons!

How do I know you're noble? 'cause you are reading this blog, of course! ;) Actually, I am interested to know who reads this thing... I hope everyone feels free to leave a comment -> free of charge! "Talk to me goose..."

Why is the world flat, you ask? I answer: because that is the only way I can wrap my head around it. Think about it, if the world were round, then we'd have people in far off distant lands that are standing at 90 degrees and even 180 degrees oriented to us! That's crazy talk! I think a more logical explanation is that we are live on a nice flat plane that allows us to teleport to different regions directly depending on which edge of the map we happen to be... of course, then we'd have to believe in teleporting, but then that seems easier to swallow then this round world nonsense anyway...

Okay, enough of that. I am doing well these days and really trying to stay alive and finish my classwork. I was very happy to recieve my first paycheck for working on my thesis, so that was really great. It's wonderful to be paid for working on fun projects! Speaking of which, I have so much to do in that arena, it's crazy. Not round world crazy, but still. Very strange to be thinking that this is the last round of classes that I can take. I think they'll kick me out if I try to come back again! :P

I hope y'all are having a great day/night/whenever you read this, cause I am very encouraged. I am encouraged for strange reasons; today when i went on my little run, I ran into a couple that was walking along the road. The girl asked if I was jogging (I was currently waiting at the light), and when I answered in the affirmative, she said that it looked like I was doing a good job (I was sweating). That in and of itself it not a very significant comment, but the idea goes a long way on its own power! ;) It made me happy! The human psyche is amazing.

Well that's all for now, sportsfans. Tune in soon for the next episode.

A poetic muse

2009-10-27T02:11:00.000-07:00

2:08am – the muse.

Of misery and happiness, on encouragement and grief
Through mischief and adventure, when light itself grows a shadow
This is how I am.

Sadness follows the happy as rainclouds follow bright balloons
That when the laughter has subsided the cold shower can begin.
Of this flood? Think it only a bath.

Profess your ying and yang, tell me the balance is to be kept.
Light were not but for the darkness in contrast, says you.
Confused, says I.

The world in its intricacies and delicacies, it variation and pattern;
Would be a mirror to the structure that is beneath?
Yet, I speak without knowledge.

But spoke it right he, that simple is truer often;
The page with less written oft affords the clearer view.
See I this, over and over.

How to argue with him that sees true unreal but believes false reality?
His tongue is sharp, what blood his mouth contains!
He is content with his thought, without his life.

Blessing after blessing is granted, though no deserved deed.
A plan thwarted with goodness is failed though it succeed.
Rhyming wasn’t the plan.

Does the plan mean ill? Its end to darken? To who is it owned?
Yet there beauty is found, and smiles that shatter scolding.
Her eyes that pierce.

Why that I strain to miss yet aim to succeed? Can I unravel?
Constant effort to dodge paired with significant work to conquer…
Strange bedfellows all.

Finally know that conclusion dances laughing round my head,
Teasing my senses and staying near reach.
Only to be told.

*********************
by way of explanation, don't take anything too literally or figuratively. I enjoy writing about thoughts in my mind, but this is only a stream of consciousness... nothing actually fully digested. take it for what it is, a window into my mind.... ;)

My musings

2009-10-12T22:33:00.000-07:00

Hello friends!

sorry about that... my bro was messin' with me. :P a new, REAL post to follow shortly.

Cabins, Software and Life

2009-09-30T00:50:00.000-07:00

I think I said I'd update every week last time... that didn't work too well, did it. Hm. Well, against all odds and of course against my better judgement, I've decided that my blog needed an update even if it just so happens to be 1am. So, without further ado, here is a snapshot of what's goin' on in my life and some fun pics as well.

This pic is of my friend and co-worker Robert sitting inside of one of the shakers... we had great success with the latest "Precision-controlled shaker head", and I must say, that man deserves most of the credit! What a great showing! This week we will see how the shaker head does on some olive trees for the official demo, but things are lookin' up!

I had the opportunity to contribute to the project by modeling the electro-hydraulic/mechanical system in MATLAB and designing/implementing one of the amplifiers, which was really fun. The first, real multi-domain modeling I've done that was for a practical purpose. The amplifier was a voltage-controlled current amplifier (for those of you who care) and had tunable gains dead-band compensation built-in.

This next pic is of Ash and Nate's two cats. I am definitely a dog person, but it was a pleasure spending a few hours with these two characters! This was the only shot that really captured the drama that they were acting out, but they moved way to fast for my little camera phone to see the action, weaving in and out of the chairs! ;)

This is a pic of Garrett and Stephen (my brotha and my roommate) on our little 4x4 trek on Lassen a few weeks ago. That was really fun, and (looking down, toeing in my right foot) the first time I've been 4x4ing with the crew. Definitely a great time with guys.

Garrett and his Jeep. This picture captures their relationship well...

The cabin that we are working on bringin up to snuff up in Mill Creek. I can't say that I loved the sleeping arrangement, but I think I must be spoiled on my super-comfortable bed here in Chico.

This pic is my mom and dad and brother inside the cabin. They hauled up a dryer so that we can stay for more extended periods here. Very relaxing place, that cabin. I defnitely am planning on spending some time there.

Garrett, me, Dad and Mom in front of the Mill Creek Resort Store. This is right before dinner, so we are all excited to get some shakes/malts inside. Stephen was with us too, but he was taking the picture. (Thank you, sir).

I guess that wraps up the pics, but there are a few other portions of my life that I can tell you about here. I'll be brief, because your time is valuable and my sleep is necessary...

Work:
I am currently juggling two jobs: ENE, where I am doing various electrical/computer/mechanical engineering tasks and helping with other things in those veins, and the Navy Research Group at school, where I am trying to wrap my head around the intricacies of modern computational fluid dynamics (CFD). If all goes as planned, I will be essentially stopping both of those jobs and starting to spend all my gainful employment on thesis-related tasks for NASA/Army, which I am looking forward to.

School: At school, I am taking too many classes, but in a strange twist, have had very little homework for the first 5 weeks of the semester. This semester I have 4 classes for credit and 1 class for audit. I am taking Networking, Electro-mechanical Conversion, High Frequency Design Techniques, and Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC). I'm auditing a math class called Intro to Chaotic, Dynamical Systems, which is really interesting, but I'm glad that I am not being graded there... I like the challenge, but grading can sometimes interfere with the sheer enjoyment of the subject matter. I'm happy that these classes have the content that they do, but I wish I had more time to delve into them and work on some project related to them so that I could really absorb the material fully.

Play:
I have been trying to work out by running and lifting weights and have finally (as of these last 10 days or so) been successful. Not enough basketball, but I am working on shedding a few pounds to get back to where I can really enjoy the running there. Not a crazy amount of movies, but a few good ones (notably, "Fist full of dollars" with Clint Eastwood).

Thought:
Why is it I can't dance... I have been thinking about this because I went to an Indian dance festival recently and had a really good time hanging out and dancing. Now, just to be clear, I am aware of the fact that I can't dance well, but there was some video shot by others so I could actually observe myself... wow... I am terrible! :( But, I keep telling myself, "you just need to practice"... Idunno, still pondering that one.

Tech:
I have known about a program called COMSOL for a while, but have not thought about it's "place" in the world of simulation until recently when I was thinking through the relationship that MATLAB and Solidworks have to each other. I have posted before about the wonderful symbol tool that Mathematica can be, and the wonderful simulation tool that MATLAB can be. This summer I learned what a great platform it is for code generation and also for rapid prototyping. Solidworks has long been my favorite environment for generating 3D geometry and such for mechanical engineering problems, and it just keeps getting better, but it lacks the multi-domain, coupled PDE (partial differential equation) solving abilities that COMSOL can provide. MATLAB with Simulink allows multi-domain solving with a very nice block diagram editor, but cannot really deal with the 3D geometry, collisions, and especially the PDE side of things (As I understand it, Simulink is concerned with ODEs). Anyway, COMSOL find a place right in between these two packages and is useful for interfacing with both of them bi-directionally. I have no idea how much this costs, but it would be great to get a copy to play with.

Well, I guess I better call it a day. Maybe if I posted more often, these posts wouldn't get so long! Oh well, I hope that YOU have a great day!

Back in the Saddle

2009-09-01T22:50:00.000-07:00

It is that time again: the weather is hot, school's back in and I am once again in a brand new house! Yes, I am back from the NASA/Army internship in Mountain View and plugging away at a brand new set of classes.

It is strange to think that this might be the last semester that I am actually attending lectures, but that is the way life goes, I suppose; old seasons bend to the will of the new. I thought it would be fun to post a few pics and videos of things I didn't get up while I was in Santa Cruz, so here is a quick recap of a few things that happened that I didn't post about. By the way, I have been aiming to make one post per week, but the last month or so (and especially the last two weeks) at work were killers!

Here is a random selection of where I am now, a few things that happened since my last post, and some cool shots of NASA that I hadn't posted yet.

First off, this is the new digs... I am happy to be riding the Steed once again, my favorite truck!

Next up, my mafia-born nephew Zach-Attack. Okay, just Zach, but all this little hombre needs is one of those hats that the dudes with the tommy-guns had... he was a little stand-offish the first few days, but he'll give me a smile now. What a cute little gangster! ;)

This is a pic of how I took over one of the rooms in the house with Sharon and Scott. They were kind enough to let me spread out my computer stuff and "dig-in". This was so helpful in getting work done at home... Thanks guys!

Y'know how sometimes people ask you to solve silly puzzles and mind teasers? Well, normally I just shrug these buggers off and say, "That's okay, you can solve a meaningless puzzle..." but this particular morning, I was victorious! :) This task was to figure out a way to use these three knives to form a support structure that can span the cups, even though any single knife cannot span a single spacing...

How did I do it? Okay, I'll let you in on the secret... Just don't tell anyone I told you!

I didn't get a chance to run/exercise nearly as much as I was hoping to this summer, but I did go for a run a few times a week. Occasionally my cousin Scott would join me. This is my last run. Scott told me that this one was for "old time's sake"... meaning, I suppose that as time goes on we ought to run more often... =)

A few weeks before I came back, Nate and Ash came down and visited for the weekend. It was really cool to have them hang out and we did a few activities as well. We went kayaking in Elkhorn Slew, which was really fun (Scott was attacked by an otter! [yes, he's fine]).

Nate's Birthday was on Friday, and so we celebrated it on Saturday (they came up on Saturday). Cool cake huh? Yeah, that right... I picked it out myself. Happy B-day Nate!

From time to time, when we were car-pooling, I would need to drive by this spot on base to pick up Scott from his office. Occasionally the doors were open and you could see how large everything really is... This is the world largest wind tunnel (80 feet tall, 120 feet wide) and it can pull air through the test section at 100 knots! I think I posted something about the intake for this puppy in an earlier post, it is larger than a football field!

This video is inside the model loading area beneath the test section of the 40x80 tunnel (the world second largest). The fellow talking is Bill Warmbrodt who was kind enought to give us interns a tour. The tunnel is 3 stories up...

These next three videos are just a funny task that Scott and I had to do... split logs into firewood. Normally he is a wood-splittin' fool, but this particular time (on a particularly tough log), I got him on video having a hard time getting through... pretty funny this.

Intermediate progress...

The grand finale!

Well, that's it for now. Thanks for checkin' in. I hope to post a bit more regularly from here on out, but I know I've said that before.

Work, Bonnie Doon, Downtown, Swimming

2009-07-19T18:49:00.001-07:00

Howdy everyone! This last week was a fun, if very busy week. At work, I just finished my 2nd prototype for Dexter, and though I didn't push it quite as far as I was hoping, the model did meet all of my goals, but I kinda ran out of time to get everything I wanted into the GUI (graphical user interface). Lots of good progress and extra capabilities going into that, and I'll post some cool pics when I can.

Other than work, there were a few other goings on in my life which I thought I would share some pics of... First of all, I did little bit of house-sitting for a fellow that Scott and I carpool with. They live in a little area called Bonnie Doon. Below is a pic of some of the road that gets me to his house. It was a magnificent drive, and hopefully this first pic can capture some of that beauty. It did add about 50 minutes to my drive, but it is a fun excursion to change up some of the monotony.

This second pic is of the house that I "sat" in. Or is that sat on... I don't know, but anyway this is a very picturesque place, and surrounded by a big redwood forest. They have a very affectionate cat named tom, and he kept me company, or maybe more accurately, I kept him company because he was definitely the master of the house. ;)

After a tough week at work, I slept in 'til about 10am and Sharon and I went on a little trek in downtown Santa Cruz. That was pretty cool because she got to point out some interesting landmarks and architectural things as well as do a bit of shopping. This pic (below) is of the Holy Cross chuch which is right next to the original Santa Cruz mission. I took some pictures of both, but the church has more interesting architecture, so I included that pic here.

Then we continued to do some shopping and did a little downtown exploring and sightseeing. Below is looking down Pacific Avenue (so named 'cause it leads to the pacific ocean). You can see the Marquee of Santa Cruz Cinema 9. I have to say that felt a little like a poodle going in and out of shops like Bunny's shoes (okay, I didn't go into Bunny's... but I dutifully stayed outside). I did follow here around in Macy's, so I think that counts. Anyhow, it was a fun trip to see what was there.

One of the shops that we needed to go into to get Sharon's watch fixed was this little watch shop that had some not-so-little furniture. I sat in a chair that was from the Land of the Giants!

So that was Saturday. That evening, we got some round table pizza (the ulti-meat, it was super good), and watched Stargate Atlantis, which I am starting to get into a little bit, but that was the end of this season. On Sunday, I went to church with Sharon and Scott, and then went to an early lunch with cousin David Lundberg and then went to his house and went for a fun hike in the San Lorenzo Valley along the San Lorenzo river. Here a few pics of that journey..

The end of the journey was at a fun swimming hole called "The Garden of Eden" which, as the name might suggest, was super relaxing and actually a very popular place considering how long the hike was to get there... (about 2.5 miles one way). So we spent some time basking in the sun and getting some swimming in, and then hiked back out. Very fun.

I guess that brings me to now, when I am just kicking back and relaxing before another week of workin' hard. Lots of fun here, but gettin' lots of work done too. Kinda missin' home and family back in Orland, but gotta keep on track. I hope everyone reading this is havin' a good one.

It been long... too long... now to summarize! ;)

2009-07-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

Long time no talky, folks... My bad there. I found out that I can't publish some of the work photos I've been taking due to security issues (that's kinda fun, huh?), which sorta set me back in how I was going to organize the blog entries, but that is really no excuse. My public needs me, and I now understand that I must give the public what they want! So, without further ado, and with little chronological order, I give you some snapshots of my life lately!

First off, last night Scott, Sharon and I all went to a muscial production called, "I love you, you perfect... now change." Very funny production basically making fun of (and celebrating too) relationships and the whole idea of dating, love and various thing associated with them. I was laughing the whole time! ;)

Several days ago, (I think it was Thursday night actually) I went with Barry (a fellow we carpool with) and Scott to a Jazz band performance at a club called Kuumbwa Jazz (http://www.kuumbwajazz.org/index.php) I didn't know it was such a big deal, but apparently it is a big name in the small jazz club circuit, and we saw a great show from the Gillian Harwin Band... very cool stuff. The pic below is not of that band, more of just how the inside and stage look since we weren't allowed to take pics when we were there.

Ah yes, lest you think that all I do is work on groovy electronics, hob nob with NASA scientists and go to jazz and theater performances, this is my weekend job! As I mentioned, these pics are not in very good chronological order, because I don't like the way blogger uploads them and orders them and i refuse to bow to their methods! (and i'm lazy). Anyway, the pic below is showing the bark that we moved from one end of the property to the other. I didn't realize that my cousin/aunt were quite so hardcore... some people recycle cans and paper, we are litterally building a mountain out of the wood chips that were pruned from trees surrounding the house! very cool stuff, more specs a little later!

Here is another pic of the part of the hill that we were building up. you can see how many loads of chips we brought to build up the hill compared to what was there before...

This, of course is my amazingly hardworking family that I am living with... taken a few weeks ago when we working on the same thing. They make good farmers, eh? :P

This is yesterday (Saturday), and a recap on some of the things we accomplished. we are sitting on a pile of wood that Scott and I gathered from all over the property. I think I hurt my back a little 'cause I was throwing wood up to him from lower parts of the hill, and then throwing wood down to him from higher parts: lots of wood throwing going on. Then, if you look to the other side of the pic, you will see part of the pile of wood chips that we moved. This was not particularly exciting work, so we decided to keep track of statistics so we could brag about what we got done, so here ya go: it took us 61 wheel barrow loads to move the pile. each wheels barrow load took an average of 16 pitch fork scoops to fill. Every round trip with the wheel barrow averaged about 140 paces (up-hill and then down-hill). In summary, Scott scooped 976 pitch forks full of wood chips. I pushed that wheel barrow 8,540 paces in the process of moving things, and Sharon spread 366 cubic feet of wood chips! We were all pretty tired when that was done, but we felt accomplished!

So that is the update for now. I am doing well with my summer project, and last week marked the finishing of my first prototype system. My sponsor was pleased with it, and next week hopefully I can make at least one more prototype to get things really cookin'! It is definitely a lot of fun learning the intricacies of MATLAB, Simulink, xPC and the graphical user interface constructs associated with those packages. Maybe soon I'll get my blackbelt in MATLAB! ;)

Until next time, gadget!

NASA/Santa Cruz Update

2009-06-05T23:27:00.000-07:00

Whew! one week down! Here is a small bunch of pics from your long and frequently lost brotha! (though I have to say, I thank God for my GPS... it has been a life-saver).

This pic is of my accomadations... pretty nice digs, eh? I feel quite at home amongst the shelves of books, it reminds me of my room. In that vein, I found out today that we have to move out of the chico house by July 4th, so we gotta find a new place. That was fun while it lasted, but it is always fun to change up too... Anyhow, without further ado, I give you the pics!

I arrived early Sunday morning, and Scott and Aunt Sharon let me sleep through church (at home), but after the service, we all had lunch together and after running a few errands we worked on the plane.... it was fun!

notice the cart with screws on it? that was most of my job... put a buch of screws into the wing and call it good. And to think, this fellow flies! Amazing! I think it is tradition to have peanutbutter m&m's when working on the plane because I was rationed a few handfulls for my efforts. Unfortunately, one of those handfulls fell prey to a certain marauding pilot who spotted them unattended. this next pic was taken just minutes after he confessed to such a grievous crime. See the remorse in his eyes? :P

the first couple days, I didn't have an office of my own, so I kinda tagged along with Scott to his office and lab to read and research. Pictured below is the building where the lab he works in is, taken essentially from the building where his office is.

this picture (below) is a cool shot of the big wind tunnel inlet. It is taken from the perspective of Scott's office (facing the opposite direction from the pic above). This tunnel (in the smallest part) is 120' wide by 80' tall! It is the largest in the world, but it is hard to get a feel for the scale until you are standing next to it! I thought this pic (below) showed the scale rather well. if you click on the pic, you can see there is a hockey game going on and you can see how small the people are compared to the inlet... crazy, huh? I kept chuckling thinking about some prankster quickly turning it on and sucking all of the hockey player to wall for a bit... that'd be funny. ;)

this next pic, below, is another shot of the big tunnel, but this time from behind Scott's office building.

This is the building where I work. It is an army building that specializes in rotorcraft. Location, location, location... this buidling is nicely located directly across from the research center's cafeteria... and they have good food! oh yeah! ;)

If you were to turn 90 degrees left (counter-clockwise) from the pic above, you see the pic below. this is another shot of the big tunnel, and what it looks like down the street I'm on. (doesn't that song from my fair lady spring to mind?) Also, they have some sand volleyball courts there, which I think would be a lot of fun to join in on soon... Hopefully there are some ballers too, I have been told that there are some courts on the other side of the base.

Going into the building, my office is on the 2nd floor. Here is a shot of my desk and the development hardware that I am working on. Very cool stuff.

My office mate's window looking out on our little wind tunnel (7' x 10'). One thing that is kinda cool about the office is that the windows are like 8' tall, so if you open the blinds, you can see planes coming and going. Today we had an F-18 making low speed passes testing out something or other...

thanks for catchin' up with me, I'll post some cool pics of the model and helicopter tunnel when I can, that is really cool lookin'! Please forgive my lack of posting/calling this week -> I have been on the tired side, trying to get used to my new life for the summer... once I get more in sync, I'll be a little more social.

One more thing, I really need to get some pics of the three of us and our dinner/movie setup... it is really fun spending time with family that I've never really gotten to know. What a great thing to know your cousin and aunt better, and to have a nice place to live as well! I feel very blessed!

NASA ho!

2009-05-30T01:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I have announcement to make:

I have been honored with acceptance into a graduate internship position with NASA/Ames Research Center over the summer! ;) Below is a shot of the center...

Ames is located in Mountain View, CA and specializes in wind-tunnel related research, but they do a lot of other things there too. My job is to design and implement a data acquisition system for an experimental helicopter rotor blade. Essentially, it is a trailing-edge flap (there are two per blade) that is independently controlled and will help reduce main hub vibration loads and noise as well as possibly increase power efficiency. I am very excited about it! I leave this evening (Sat) to go and stay with my aunt Sharon and cousing Scott in Santa Cruz, which will be a lot of fun.

I really love the unknown adventure aspect of this, it is very cool. Though, I haven't really had much of a chance to philosophize to the extent I might normally because I've been working really hard on trying to finish the Blackbox project this week. Okay, when I say finish, I mean phase 1 complete at least. That (As always) is proving to be a challenge, and I am looking forward to a time when I can relax slightly more on the weekends!

Anyhow, it's late and I need to sleep (I don't know what my sleep debt is, but I know I'm in the red!!) I just wanted to give a big shout out to all my peeps (yeah, I DID use that word) and let everyone know the good news. I wish you all a merry summer!

-Sir Gavin out!

P.s. I finally walked! yay! just to comemorate commencement, I (purposely?) forgot to put on sunscreen so I look a little darker than usual. But its all good, I hear the ladies like 'em tall, dark and handsome... two out of three ain't bad!! (:-P

The Gavin (up)date

2009-05-04T10:12:00.001-07:00

Yowdy!

Welcome back loyal fans and patient family/friends! ;) Are you ready for yet another unpredictable and (odds are) inappropriate post? That what I thought... Let's get ready to RUMBLE!!!

Alrighty, the truth of the matter is, I thought that I should post something since I have remained silent for so long. While I can't announce anything tremendously earth-shattering (yet), I do in fact lead a full life, and can share some of that with you. So here it is, the goods, the juice, the dirt that makes this humble little blog a world-wide phenomenon!

I have about 3 weeks left (2 weeks of class and then finals week) which is followed by... (And the room fell silent)... commencement! ...the part of the show where Gavin puts on a cap and gown and walks down an aisle with a whole bunch of people and... formally graduates the life of Bachelorhood (soon to be a master!). Very exciting. I wasn't orginally going to walk since I will be walking again in spring 2010, but I was convinced otherwise. That will be on the 23rd or the 24th of May.

In other news, I have begun work on my thesis (which is turning out to be very enjoyable). though I haven't spent much time on that lately (classes and other pressures have been crankin' up the intensity). it is going to be a very cool, "smart" shaker head to shake olive trees (and anything else it grabs onto). Sorry about all the parenthesis here, I guess I'm in a parenthetical mood. =) I am really enjoying grad school. It is almost like the transition from high school to college where, all of a sudden, you could study the subjects that interested you and pick your own classes, except in this case, now I know what I like and I don't have to take general ed! it's great! ;) I should really be a college recruiter or something, eh?

Well, there is my quick update, I hope all you sportsfans enjoyed! hehehe, have a great day!

A Video is worth a million words...

2009-04-10T00:06:00.000-07:00

Current Update

2009-04-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

Hey Y'all:

Here is the latest update from the world of Gavin:

1. I went to the embedded systems conference last tuesday... It was fun, but there were no booth babes to see! ;) oh well, next time I guess. (jk). I actually won a few prizes there, including a Blu-Ray for Dad (independence day) which was pretty cool, and a T-shirt from another place... it was really good to see what people are selling and what some of the trends in the community are. It makes me feel a little less rookie, if you know what I mean.

2. I am going crazy with classes, at the moment. I enjoyed my trip down south, but it really put the pressure on in the other classes for this last week. So much so, that I barely got any sleep during the week, and missed a final on Friday. Not my finest moment, but then you live and learn I guess.

3. I decided to switch majors to art this week also... ;) Okay, not really, but I am going to help with tutoring in one of the art classes since they are using electronics to add intelligence and flash to their projects... that should be pretty cool. My professor accused me of helping just because there are good-lookin' women in the class... I think he just disagrees with my philosphical position on "outsiders" learning high-level theory. (But it doesn't hurt to have girls in the class either) ;).

4. I (finally) got my workstation to be stable at work (it's been crashing every few hours), which makes me infinitely more productive! I actually got some video stuff done this weekend for dad and he made his first DVD on his own (phone support only). That was really good.

5. I have some working models of trees (they are currently 2-dimensional), hydraulic cylinders (not totally finished, but they have control, mechanical, and hydraulic elements), and high-level, linear, mechanical shakers. On the whole, there are many good things about what the models are telling me ("the gold speaks to us, poppet"), but I am still getting used to the way that you build models in simscape and how to be smarter/more natural with my constructions.

6. I am now without the will to continue such a long list... therefore I will end thus.

On a more personal note, I am (as always) changing faster and more dramatically than before, so that makes it hard to give a "state of the union" type of summary as to where I'm at, but I'll do my best. Not knowing the future of my journey, seeing only that path that lies in front of me, I am struck with certain anomolies. First, everything I put my hand to (in terms of projects) seems to be going really, really well, so that hints to me that I am on the right track with my training and endeavors. As evidenced by my missing the exam last week, I see that my discipline needs a bit of work, but where I would have stopped there before, now I see some solutions to the problem. I think this is an appropriate level of depth for my audience (seeing as there are those that I'm unaware of reading my blog), so I'll not expound further than this. Hopefully I'll be able to share some further details/developments in these areas next post.

Sorry, no pics this time. Maybe next time I'll have some vids or pics to put up.

Sweet new stuff

2009-03-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all:

It has been a little while since I've posted, but the world does not stand still! ;) Yesterday I learned about two crazy new things: 1. FPGA soft core processor architecture/flexibility and 2. the new mechanical circuit element -> the inerter!

Okay, okay... here's the skinny: FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) is a technology that has been gaining popularity and acceptance and is being used increasingly in a lot of different applications. Essentially, it is a completely programmable digital chip that allows you to program it with whatever you want and it becomes that! Y'know how in the Transformers movie the robots could transform to be a bunch of different things? This is the digital equivalent! ;) You can quite litterally say, "computer, I would like you to be a 16 core processing powerhouse with a custom processor that I am giving you the schematics for... now how cool is that? It's like having the blueprints for a machine and then magically handing them to a device that builds itself! Here is a typical block diagram of an FPGA with an embedded processor (Nios II) and some peripherals... everything inside the box can be totally changed the next day!

I've known about these badboys for awhile, but yesterday I learned some key new things: 1) the newest versions that have come out recently have enough logic resources to implement something like 700 cores! (though there aren't enough pins to support the input and output... for 700 cores) 2) while I would have thought that since this is a digital chip, I could not use it for things like D2A (Digital to analog conversion) and A2d (Analog to digital conversion), but I was happily wrong again! There is an implementation called Sigma Delta conversion that can use 1-bit at very high speed to convert between analog and digital and back again. All else that is needed is a filter on the other end... The implication of this is staggering: Let's just say that I am making an embedded system here in 2009, and I decide that I want to make a system that has two processors cores and 4 D2As and 4 A2Ds plus some other peripherals like timers and what communications links... then in several years, I realize, "Hey, what we really need our twice as many D2As, and another type of communications link, but one of my previous comm links has become obsolete... no problem! All I have to do is reprogram the chip and my wish is granted! It's like christmas any time you want!

The second part was about the "Inerter" (Shown below)

The idea is essentially to make a mechanical equivalent to the capacitor (or inductor, depending on which analogy you use). Springs store potential energy, right? you push a spring together and it "stores" that energy to push you back later. This device "stores" kinetic energy so that if you start it moving, it wants to continue moving along that course. What is cool about this is that it was recently used in Formula 1 racing and the car that had this technology in its suspension won the race! Very cool stuff. We might be able to use this on Case Machine (The new six-wheeler machine). It also allows software to have a little more freedom in how to optimize your suspension! For example, I could model whatever vehicle we're talking about, then give Matlab a starting point and ask it to optimize given certain criteria like, "Make the road soft inside the car" and "give me good control on the ground for steering and braking". Super cool stuff. Here is a diagram of how they used it as an anti-roll (the red part in the middle of the frame).

More to come here, this is just the beginning. I'll maybe go into a little more detail on some of this if someone wants me to, but this post is getting a little long so I'll leave it at that. Catch ya later.

I'm not a nerd! Really!

2009-03-01T00:39:00.000-08:00

Well, I've alway hated that when people call me a nerd... not that it happens so often, but it's still a pet peeve. But I have to admit this one. At least it might come across nerdy (in a math way, mind you). This last Wednesday, I purchased a couple of software packages: Matlab (http://www.matlab.com/) which I need for software simulation and control system design and Mathematica (http://www.mathematica.com/) which I am planning to use for pure idea exploration in the math domain. I have used matlab for several years now, and it is very useful for the reasons I've listed above, but I had never used Mathematica before. That was Wednesday night.

On Thursday, I began to explore the functionality, language, etc. and get a feel for how Mathematica views the world. Much to my surprise, it views the world similar to how I do! ;) this is great because I have a lot of little tasks and things that I'm thinkin' about that I would love to explore in a natural way. The matchup was so close to how I think that I had some decent looking things going on the first day. I have spent a bit of time modeling the behavior of shaker heads and even written a few programs to easily manipulate/visualize this. Mathematica can accomplish the same thing that took me 10 hours before in one line of code! It's awesome! It automatically maps controls to variables and dynamically updates the plot window.

Friday, dad asked me a question regarding the design of a new topper/hedger and I was inspired with an opportunity to put Mathematica to use in a relevant project. The main thing is that it gets hard to read when you start putting in numbers first (it's easier to leave it symbolic for understanding's sake). That is where this app really shines! (can you tell that I'm excited?) In probably about 8 lines of code, I generated the following set of equations (sorry if it's hard to read, the points is that I didn't have to generate all those complicated conditions on the right by hand!)

So after implmenting these equations and getting to know the plotting features, I generated this beatiful little visualization of the cuts being made by a rotary topper (assuming certain constants like ground speed, bar size, tooth pitch, saw speed, star speed, etc.)... each color is generated by a seperate instance of the above two equations. This plot represents about 64 equations -- more than I want to type by hand!

I finished this functionality by noon on Saturday, which I think is an outstanding learning curve for software so capable. Not braggin here, I am just really impressed with how easy this is to use! $45 well spent! ($45 is the student rate, the commercial version is thousands of dollars).

So here is the bottom line: I'm not a nerd. I just love beatiful things! ;)

Don't believe me? Listen.

2009-02-22T02:48:00.000-08:00

People wiser than me have advised me not to write anything after 10pm... if I was wiser I would listen. Then again, they also advise that I should get some sleep; batting a thousand. I think it does present a rather theraputic/cathartic exercise for me to express myself with such a blog as this, but (as always) the question is of balance and appropriateness. So against better judgement and at the worst time possible (3am) I shall attempt the impossible: appropriate, balanced honesty in poetic form.

This is impossible because the very form of art feeds itself, beauty for beauty's sake; but then if it was so enraptured with itself in an outward way it would seem self serving, which of course is not a beautiful thing. No, I have resolved the issue: poetry is best and most honest when it speaks from a position without dependence. Allow me to rephrase that, when a man has what he wants, he can freely speak his mind. That is not to say that he has no interest in things further, only to propose that when he is currently satisfied, he can honestly babble the overflows of his heart wihtout the entangling mess of current agenda.

Outside my window, the rain reminds me of my roof, and teases my ears with the gentle sway of a breeze-tide from an ocean above. The ebb and flow of the rain remind me of time and its passing. The drops themselves slowly find their way down the window, almost longing to come in where it's warm, hands and faces glued to the glass in a subdued slide. We here, find ourselves both above and below this rain. Above, because our purposes are grander, our situation more complicated and our plight known to more than us. Below, because we see only the final milliseconds of what must be an incredible journey in the clouds, climaxing with a prolonged free-fall that automatically optimizes each drop to land with balanced attack on the cheek of an unsuspecting ponderer, not too hard, not too soft. That impact ends the journey of the drop, but sparks an idea. That idea swims long and hard past infancy, and if its strength is steady, gets promoted to thought. Thought, though hardened with experience, must also fight to outlive its usefullness. If the usefullness passes and a thought remains, it becomes a fancy. Fancies, if they are clever, can master the mind's paths to generate dreams and desires, which give rise to many more ideas, thoughts and fancies.

But why do you care? For what purpose do I articulate these notions? Because I don't know myself, and I am talking to my eyes through my hands those things that my mind would communicate with itself. You (much the pity) are a guilty by-stander. ;)

Birthdays come and go

2009-02-19T19:26:00.000-08:00

Well, it was my birthday, but now I am in a sea of un-birthdays. I had a marvelous day, lots of well-wishers and such. I thought I should post this funny little video that I took that morning with my phone (Samsung Omnia, courtesy of Don... thanks Don). My roommates are hilarious. ;)

I should mention that the reason Stephen's joke is funny is because there was lipstick on his jug of milk in the fridge (compliments of Leanne, I think), but he forgets to say that part...

I also had to ponder things, which is of course my way of emotional/mental digestion. All the ponderances do not belong on this blog, but one that I am currently sweating (in a good way), is my master's thesis topic.

I am currently deciding between a few different ideas, but after meeting with my two advisors (Ghandakly and Word) I think I am deciding between two possibilities. I could work on a control system for the shaker head, which would be a very fun project, and would involve a lot of fun stuff, and kind of be a capstone on the work I did when I started school (10 years ago...). That combined with the fact that I just saw an Israeli presentation of their digitally controlled shaker, and I know that I can do better!! (it's tough being this competitive!)

On the other hand, I could do a control system for active suspension for a 6-wheeled vehicle. This would be really fun, because it is another project that has been a long time in development and would be really neat to see work and could make some money for the company... always a good thing. ****Comments welcome on this***** Let me know what you think... ;)

Oh no! I lost my phone!

2009-02-15T20:08:00.001-08:00

I can't seem to find my phone, so if any of you call... I'm not ignoring you! ;) Happy late Valentines!

Why today could've been better but wasn't terrible

2009-02-12T18:44:00.000-08:00

No picture (definitely not video) today. Today I will tell you a story, and you will listen (if you know what's good for you).

It all began when i realized that I needed to wear a particular pair of jeans because my other two pairs were dirty (that is, they needed to be washed). So I am going through my (mostly) normal monring routine... brush teeth, put on clothes, etc. I have to work at 8am at the research lab, so I need to be in the truck by 7:40am. I am on time. This makes me happy. ;)

Then I park my truck, the normal 5 blocks away so I don't have to pay for parking over by the bus stop on 5th street. Hardly anyone is walking by since it is 5 blocks (about) from school. I continue to walk along my normal pathways, cut Orange before 4th, cut across the parking lot on 3rd, etc. Finally, I am about 2 blocks from my campus, people are quite a bit more plentiful by this time, getting to their morning classes across 2nd street. Then I feel a chilling breeze near my crotchal region... not good. I tried to quickly fix the problem, but there was no way to do that discretely - it was all the way down...

"Okay, game plan Gavin." I thought to myself. I quickly dodged between two parked cars and looked aimlessly around while my fingers tried to diagnose and solve, but to no avail. Realizing that time was the big obstacle, and I needed to get this finished quickly, I looked down and went to work. The problem was that things were stuck, so it took a fair amount of pulling (and a tad bit of jumping) to get things as they ought to be (up). When I had finally succeeded in my quest to close the barn, I looked up to find several people staring as they walked by wondering why I was jumping up and down and such. Embarrasing.

Finally, once said quest was completed, I continued my walk toward work. After a little bit of adrenaline (or whatever chemical is at work) wore off, I felt a stinging pain in my left thumb. Due to the temperature, and stiffness of the zipper, I had ripped half my fingernail off! So then I decided that the bookstore would be closesest place to obtain a bandage. Fortunately, no one asked me during the day how I hurt my thumb...

The rest of the day went really well, but I decided in the back of my mind, that the new jeans I am going to buy will be button-fly! (Yes dad, you were right.) I Hope you enjoyed my little story.

Senior Project Video

2009-02-11T21:22:00.000-08:00

This is the fina demo video for my senior project. I guess I might as well release it into the wild blue yonder of the internet... nothing to hide here. It didn't work quite the way I had designed it, but it did work according to how I predicted. 8 months on this puppy. Enjoy.

Numero Uno Posto

2009-02-10T00:56:00.000-08:00

I like to rhyme, so with this thyme
I will use the blog for a small flog.
Take one look at my post and its ghost
will find your tale, and nail
you to the wall, all!

(nope, not my best work, but y'gotta spit what's in your mouth, eh?)