Week 7

To be honest, I never really understood why I wanted to become an engineer. I've always been a wishy washy person and never had a set goal in mind about my future. Math and science were my favorite subjects so I figured choosing engineering would be the most logical choice. I guess my interests in building legos or making awesome hot wheel race tracks are the closest thing to why I chose mechanical engineering. But pretty much everyone I knew loved playing around with toys like that!

The robotics REU student and I have finally finished building the prototype to rotate the arm. The next step is to test the pneumatic actuator as it is necessary to generate the muscle neuron response with precision of just several milliseconds. The largest challenge we are facing is finding an instrument that can give us confidence that the precision is indeed correct. We are currently testing various leftover accelerometers and encoders to determine which one has a sampling rate higher than a thousand per second. There are only two weeks left before my partner leaves, so we are trying our best to make the finished product fulfilling all the requirements.

And thanks for your post Don! The humid heat of the South is not nearly as bad the scorching dry heat of the desert. I'm at least willing to go out and sight-see in Atlanta's weather. I'm glad you're enjoying the plentiful breakfast foods in Milwaukee.