P.P.S. MC Lars is awesome. These are highly amusing:
yeah! He's right in the midwest touring right now (he'll be in chicago this weekend), but I don't have time to go...too bad. He does a lot of this stuff on his own, so I'm not at all surprised he's already cooking up some new material. Sweetness.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Minor cool stuff to show off.
For the Wind Turbine project, we need to design it such that it will actually operate, right? It needs to be designed around a windspeed which is reasonable for the area it's going to be operated. If we pick a design speed which is too high, then the ambient wind won't be enough to actually turn the generator over - and the whole thing will be useless. On the other hand, if we design it for a wind speed which is too low, then a huge amount of available energy will go untapped and we'll probably lose the competition. Long story short - we need to know what kind of wind we can expect in the WL area.
So I contacted the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), a subdivision of the NOAA, for some data. Apparently, at every operating airport in the United States, they take hourly weather data measurements which are stored. This is AWESOME because the intramural playing fields, which is where the turbine competition will be held, is less than 1/10th of a mile from the Purdue Airport. So, I got hourly measurements on windspeed and direction at the site for the past 30 years. Pretty cool, huh? Well, it turns out that's way too large a data file for EXCEL or MATLAB to handle all at once, so I chopped it down and only looked at the past 6 years (January 2000 to December 2005 still represents about 65000 data points). Naturally, I wrote a code that does some statistics and makes some sweet graphs which reveal the results:
1) Polar Plot. This shows data for one year, windspeed and direction. It's a little difficult to read because there are many data points on top of each other so you don't really know the frequency that one windspeed may occur in one direction.
2) Statistics Plot. This shows the average (mean) windspeed and standard deviation of the windspeed value as a function of direction. Now you can start to see that there are definitely some directions where wind is more likely to come from.
3) Mass Data Summary. This one is really cool. This surface plot shows the information that was used to calculate the numbers in the statistics. This is raw data and it's awesome:
Keep in mind this is especially cool because of how accurate this information is for our group. These graphs are based on public information and basic statistic analysis, but the code to make this stuff took a while to get right. Basically, I'm guessing the other team doesn't have this. So, if you know anybody in the other group, don't tell them about this, k? I'm just really pleased with how clear the trends came out and wanted to show off......
For the Wind Turbine project, we need to design it such that it will actually operate, right? It needs to be designed around a windspeed which is reasonable for the area it's going to be operated. If we pick a design speed which is too high, then the ambient wind won't be enough to actually turn the generator over - and the whole thing will be useless. On the other hand, if we design it for a wind speed which is too low, then a huge amount of available energy will go untapped and we'll probably lose the competition. Long story short - we need to know what kind of wind we can expect in the WL area.
So I contacted the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), a subdivision of the NOAA, for some data. Apparently, at every operating airport in the United States, they take hourly weather data measurements which are stored. This is AWESOME because the intramural playing fields, which is where the turbine competition will be held, is less than 1/10th of a mile from the Purdue Airport. So, I got hourly measurements on windspeed and direction at the site for the past 30 years. Pretty cool, huh? Well, it turns out that's way too large a data file for EXCEL or MATLAB to handle all at once, so I chopped it down and only looked at the past 6 years (January 2000 to December 2005 still represents about 65000 data points). Naturally, I wrote a code that does some statistics and makes some sweet graphs which reveal the results:
1) Polar Plot. This shows data for one year, windspeed and direction. It's a little difficult to read because there are many data points on top of each other so you don't really know the frequency that one windspeed may occur in one direction.
2) Statistics Plot. This shows the average (mean) windspeed and standard deviation of the windspeed value as a function of direction. Now you can start to see that there are definitely some directions where wind is more likely to come from.
3) Mass Data Summary. This one is really cool. This surface plot shows the information that was used to calculate the numbers in the statistics. This is raw data and it's awesome:
Keep in mind this is especially cool because of how accurate this information is for our group. These graphs are based on public information and basic statistic analysis, but the code to make this stuff took a while to get right. Basically, I'm guessing the other team doesn't have this. So, if you know anybody in the other group, don't tell them about this, k? I'm just really pleased with how clear the trends came out and wanted to show off......
Monday, February 26, 2007
After an inspiring post from Bre Pettis, I decided to write my own rasterbator program in Matlab a few months ago. I'm sure after reading that first sentence, you're going to be angry and clueless about what I just said, so I'll wait for you to click on those links and then come back. Go on, I'll be waiting.....
And we're back! So it turned out great. It's a really simple code (although mine is a little inflexible, it works.... so whatever), so fellow matlab users, feel free to rasterbate your way into the history books:
% Joey Gerondale 1/22/07 Photo Splitter a.k.a. RASTERBATOR!
% The purpose of this simple program is to take a
% large JPEG file, split it into 16 equal sized
% pieces, and output those files as JPEGs.
% INITIALIZE
clc
clear all
IM=imread('your_pic.jpg','jpg');
[H W Z]=size(IM);
h=floor(H/4);
w=floor(W/4);
% COMPUTE
for k=1:4; %hblock
for r=1:4; %wblock
v(:,:,1)=IM(((k-1)*h+1):(k*h),((r-1)*w+1):(r*w),1); %assign red
v(:,:,2)=IM(((k-1)*h+1):(k*h),((r-1)*w+1):(r*w),2); %assign green
v(:,:,3)=IM(((k-1)*h+1):(k*h),((r-1)*w+1):(r*w),3); %assign blue
eval(['pic_out_' int2str(k) int2str(r) '=v;']);
end
end
% OUTPUT
imwrite(pic_out_11,'pic_out_11.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_12,'pic_out_12.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_13,'pic_out_13.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_14,'pic_out_14.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_21,'pic_out_21.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_22,'pic_out_22.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_23,'pic_out_23.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_24,'pic_out_24.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_31,'pic_out_31.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_32,'pic_out_32.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_33,'pic_out_33.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_34,'pic_out_34.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_41,'pic_out_41.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_42,'pic_out_42.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_43,'pic_out_43.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_44,'pic_out_44.jpeg','jpeg');
I tried it out on this picture of a fish:
And (after I glued the 16 pieces back into one single picture) it turned out like this:
So, it works. In the very short-term, I think I have convinced Mike to scan his hairy ass...then we can use this to make an enormous-hairy-ass-poster and hang it somewhere on campus. A bit juvenile, I know, but I'm tempted nonetheless.
School is still stressful. This is a time of flux - I'll explain more later.
And we're back! So it turned out great. It's a really simple code (although mine is a little inflexible, it works.... so whatever), so fellow matlab users, feel free to rasterbate your way into the history books:
% Joey Gerondale 1/22/07 Photo Splitter a.k.a. RASTERBATOR!
% The purpose of this simple program is to take a
% large JPEG file, split it into 16 equal sized
% pieces, and output those files as JPEGs.
% INITIALIZE
clc
clear all
IM=imread('your_pic.jpg','jpg');
[H W Z]=size(IM);
h=floor(H/4);
w=floor(W/4);
% COMPUTE
for k=1:4; %hblock
for r=1:4; %wblock
v(:,:,1)=IM(((k-1)*h+1):(k*h),((r-1)*w+1):(r*w),1); %assign red
v(:,:,2)=IM(((k-1)*h+1):(k*h),((r-1)*w+1):(r*w),2); %assign green
v(:,:,3)=IM(((k-1)*h+1):(k*h),((r-1)*w+1):(r*w),3); %assign blue
eval(['pic_out_' int2str(k) int2str(r) '=v;']);
end
end
% OUTPUT
imwrite(pic_out_11,'pic_out_11.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_12,'pic_out_12.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_13,'pic_out_13.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_14,'pic_out_14.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_21,'pic_out_21.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_22,'pic_out_22.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_23,'pic_out_23.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_24,'pic_out_24.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_31,'pic_out_31.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_32,'pic_out_32.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_33,'pic_out_33.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_34,'pic_out_34.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_41,'pic_out_41.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_42,'pic_out_42.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_43,'pic_out_43.jpeg','jpeg');
imwrite(pic_out_44,'pic_out_44.jpeg','jpeg');
I tried it out on this picture of a fish:
And (after I glued the 16 pieces back into one single picture) it turned out like this:
So, it works. In the very short-term, I think I have convinced Mike to scan his hairy ass...then we can use this to make an enormous-hairy-ass-poster and hang it somewhere on campus. A bit juvenile, I know, but I'm tempted nonetheless.School is still stressful. This is a time of flux - I'll explain more later.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Stressed Out. Bigtime. This week is supposed to be CDR, or "Complete Design Review" for Senior Design. I'm still behind on the turbine blade analysis. A couple of days ago, I thought I'd found the solution, but I was wrong. The damn thing is just so hard to de-bug. The solutions to the equations are so damn non-linear, it's impossible to reason your way out of it. Check this out:
And you might say "yeah, I guess that looks right", but damn! The solver function just seems to converge on two COMPLETELY SEPARATE SOLUTIONS for most of the regime we're interested in. It's so frustrating. I'm really happy I've been getting some help from Wes on the project - he's been very patient and helpful, plus he's a good matlab coder.
The only good thing I have going for me in Senior Design right now is that we've basically already decided on what to do about the turbine design. Some hippies already make some really cheap, really perfect blades for a turbine just like our application. Plus it comes with a pre-manufactured central hub. Perfect. The only thing is that the blade pitch angle isn't adjustable, but I would assume it's already nearly prefect... so that's ok.
I'm really falling behind in my other classes because of this. I barely finished the 452 project on time (I turned it in 10 minutes before it was due, and I definitely am NOT going to get a 100 on it...), plus frankly I'm clueless on the lecture material for 475. I go to class EVERY time and I just feel like he gets up there and gives his lecture in sanskrit. I have HW and a Prelab due on Tuesday I haven't even started yet. Yay.
I'm really stoked for spring break because of how crazy this semester is. The time is REALLY flying by. It's 2 weeks until spring break, and then the semester ends just 6 weeks after that. Gah. Madness. I really need to call up some of the apartment complexes recommended so I can make some appointments to check it out. I'm not worried.
I've also really been enjoying my subscription to Make Magazine. There are some really cool projects in there. I only wish I had more time to tinker and fool around. Ah well, I guess that will just have to wait until after graduation.
Long term goals for after graduation:
i) stop slowly killing myself with food.
ii) get a workshop/workroom full of cool tools.
iii) use it/them.
iv) join Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
v) learn more about electronics.
And you might say "yeah, I guess that looks right", but damn! The solver function just seems to converge on two COMPLETELY SEPARATE SOLUTIONS for most of the regime we're interested in. It's so frustrating. I'm really happy I've been getting some help from Wes on the project - he's been very patient and helpful, plus he's a good matlab coder.
The only good thing I have going for me in Senior Design right now is that we've basically already decided on what to do about the turbine design. Some hippies already make some really cheap, really perfect blades for a turbine just like our application. Plus it comes with a pre-manufactured central hub. Perfect. The only thing is that the blade pitch angle isn't adjustable, but I would assume it's already nearly prefect... so that's ok.
I'm really falling behind in my other classes because of this. I barely finished the 452 project on time (I turned it in 10 minutes before it was due, and I definitely am NOT going to get a 100 on it...), plus frankly I'm clueless on the lecture material for 475. I go to class EVERY time and I just feel like he gets up there and gives his lecture in sanskrit. I have HW and a Prelab due on Tuesday I haven't even started yet. Yay.
I'm really stoked for spring break because of how crazy this semester is. The time is REALLY flying by. It's 2 weeks until spring break, and then the semester ends just 6 weeks after that. Gah. Madness. I really need to call up some of the apartment complexes recommended so I can make some appointments to check it out. I'm not worried.
I've also really been enjoying my subscription to Make Magazine. There are some really cool projects in there. I only wish I had more time to tinker and fool around. Ah well, I guess that will just have to wait until after graduation.
Long term goals for after graduation:
i) stop slowly killing myself with food.
ii) get a workshop/workroom full of cool tools.
iii) use it/them.
iv) join Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
v) learn more about electronics.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
SNOW DAY! I was in a computer lab at 11:30 this morning when the official email was sent out:
"NEWS RELEASE
February 13, 2007
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University has declared a 24-hour snow recess
beginning at noon Tuesday (Feb. 13) and ending at noon Wednesday (Feb. 14).
All classes are canceled for the remainder of Tuesday and for the morning
on Wednesday. Most employees have been requested to leave the university..."
Hell. Yes. So I got a ride home from Kevin back up the hill.... where he got stuck. As he slowed down to drop me off, his front-wheel-drive Jetta got in too deep and he couldn't move - so I spent the next half out helping him back to the road (Go Lola Go!). I feel REALLY guilty for taking up so much of his time - but I'm also a little proud that the car did so well. But, seriously - it's pretty snowy out.
Ok maybe it doesn't LOOK like "the Day After Tomorrow", but the snow is obviously deep enough to drift so that cars get stuck and school is canceled (first time in 10 years?).
The snow day is a blessing. I have a TON to do right now. The first ME452 project is due on Monday - and I haven't really started. It's pretty in-depth. People tell me that compared to project 2, the first one is a breeze - so hopefully it won't be that bad. I need to call home to talk to my family. I need to call Spencer back to talk about my graduation trip plans (he's been calling for over a week... I feel terrible). I need to go to the bank to make a deposit for Stacey (after the roads clear). I need to do my taxes. Ok maybe all that won't happen today - but you get the idea. Maybe I should start by making a run to Ace Hardware for a snow shovel to clear the drive so that the guys can get out later this week.
On Friday, my Senior Design group gave the first major presentation of the semester: Preliminary Design Review (or PDR). Basically, we had to do every major piece of engineering analysis for every subsystem in the entire thing in a week - and prove that our design is feasible (ok, so not only will it work... how well do you expect it to work?). The portable Wind Turbine is proving to be a very interesting challenge. We have specialists for everything: a structures specialist, a gearbox specialist, an electronics/generator specialist, and an aerodynamics specialist (yours truly). Beyond the tit-for-tat question and answer during the thing, it went very well. So far it looks like it's really going to work! My idea for a cost-effective propeller is to use the main-rotor blades from RC helicopters. I'm not going to lie - last week was very stressful for me. I was on campus for 12+ hours a day starting on Saturday of last week - which culminated in a all-nighter Thursday night to be ready. Whew. We've still got a long way to go - but I'm confident in the group. Check out my initial rotor design:
Not perfect or elegant - but it's an interesting first idea. We've got about 3 weeks to make the final design (and I mean FINAL). I've been reading a lot about Wind Turbines, meeting with professors & grad students to point me in the right direction... you get the idea. Working hard. But I'm really proud of my group's effort - none of them had to pull an all-nighter to get their work done, and it was probably a lot less intensive than the stuff I'm doing. So I'm very happy and lucky to be working with them.
The first weekend of school I exclaimed: " I have SOOOOO much freee tiiime.... what am I going to do??? ". Yeah. It's changed since then. So that Friday night I started up one of my old hobbies - building model airplanes. I picked up a balsa Guillows model from Hobby Lobby for $10 - a Piper Super Cub. I spent the whole first weekend working on it and made a ton of progress - but since then it's been sitting on my living room table taking up space. Until today - when I put the finishing touches on it. Of course, it's way too cold & windy to go fly it now - but hell I can at least hang it up in my room for a while. Check it out:
Ok. That's long enough. Sorry it's been so long without an update. Spring break is just a few weeks away and I haven't worked on my plan for that at all. Right now I think I'll be going to K.C. with Stacey to figure out living arrangements and stuff. Also we plan visiting Mandy & Nate. Fun. Apparently, James & Jenni might be driving down on their own. Cool. Well - wish me luck! Tons to do!
"NEWS RELEASE
February 13, 2007
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University has declared a 24-hour snow recess
beginning at noon Tuesday (Feb. 13) and ending at noon Wednesday (Feb. 14).
All classes are canceled for the remainder of Tuesday and for the morning
on Wednesday. Most employees have been requested to leave the university..."
Hell. Yes. So I got a ride home from Kevin back up the hill.... where he got stuck. As he slowed down to drop me off, his front-wheel-drive Jetta got in too deep and he couldn't move - so I spent the next half out helping him back to the road (Go Lola Go!). I feel REALLY guilty for taking up so much of his time - but I'm also a little proud that the car did so well. But, seriously - it's pretty snowy out.
Ok maybe it doesn't LOOK like "the Day After Tomorrow", but the snow is obviously deep enough to drift so that cars get stuck and school is canceled (first time in 10 years?).The snow day is a blessing. I have a TON to do right now. The first ME452 project is due on Monday - and I haven't really started. It's pretty in-depth. People tell me that compared to project 2, the first one is a breeze - so hopefully it won't be that bad. I need to call home to talk to my family. I need to call Spencer back to talk about my graduation trip plans (he's been calling for over a week... I feel terrible). I need to go to the bank to make a deposit for Stacey (after the roads clear). I need to do my taxes. Ok maybe all that won't happen today - but you get the idea. Maybe I should start by making a run to Ace Hardware for a snow shovel to clear the drive so that the guys can get out later this week.
On Friday, my Senior Design group gave the first major presentation of the semester: Preliminary Design Review (or PDR). Basically, we had to do every major piece of engineering analysis for every subsystem in the entire thing in a week - and prove that our design is feasible (ok, so not only will it work... how well do you expect it to work?). The portable Wind Turbine is proving to be a very interesting challenge. We have specialists for everything: a structures specialist, a gearbox specialist, an electronics/generator specialist, and an aerodynamics specialist (yours truly). Beyond the tit-for-tat question and answer during the thing, it went very well. So far it looks like it's really going to work! My idea for a cost-effective propeller is to use the main-rotor blades from RC helicopters. I'm not going to lie - last week was very stressful for me. I was on campus for 12+ hours a day starting on Saturday of last week - which culminated in a all-nighter Thursday night to be ready. Whew. We've still got a long way to go - but I'm confident in the group. Check out my initial rotor design:
Not perfect or elegant - but it's an interesting first idea. We've got about 3 weeks to make the final design (and I mean FINAL). I've been reading a lot about Wind Turbines, meeting with professors & grad students to point me in the right direction... you get the idea. Working hard. But I'm really proud of my group's effort - none of them had to pull an all-nighter to get their work done, and it was probably a lot less intensive than the stuff I'm doing. So I'm very happy and lucky to be working with them.
The first weekend of school I exclaimed: " I have SOOOOO much freee tiiime.... what am I going to do??? ". Yeah. It's changed since then. So that Friday night I started up one of my old hobbies - building model airplanes. I picked up a balsa Guillows model from Hobby Lobby for $10 - a Piper Super Cub. I spent the whole first weekend working on it and made a ton of progress - but since then it's been sitting on my living room table taking up space. Until today - when I put the finishing touches on it. Of course, it's way too cold & windy to go fly it now - but hell I can at least hang it up in my room for a while. Check it out:
Ok. That's long enough. Sorry it's been so long without an update. Spring break is just a few weeks away and I haven't worked on my plan for that at all. Right now I think I'll be going to K.C. with Stacey to figure out living arrangements and stuff. Also we plan visiting Mandy & Nate. Fun. Apparently, James & Jenni might be driving down on their own. Cool. Well - wish me luck! Tons to do!
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