Week 2!

       I can hardly believe it's already the start of my third week at the the U of M, the time has flown by so quickly. Last week, week two, Jose and I continued to read up in preparation for our projects. One of my favorite topics was the different strategies for controlling wind turbines, like changing the angle of the blades or adding resistance to the rotating shaft.  We also started working with MatLab and Simulink, which was interesting for me because they're both so similar to and frustratingly different from comparable programs (like Mathematica and LabView) that I'm more familiar with.
       I also learned about some of the past research into hydraulics in wind turbines. I thought it was really cool to see the progression of gearbox designs, from a purely hydraulic gearbox to a hydro-mechanical gearbox (incorporating both traditional gears and a hydraulic pump-motor system). Although I don't have a specific project yet (fingers crossed for next Wednesday when my adviser returns!), it seems like most of the research right now focuses on the hydro-mechanical gearbox. I'm really anxious to get started!

Sunset over the Minneapolis skyline, taken from across the river. I've been biking around a lot in my free time, exploring the Twin Cities.