During the course of the break, Fred and I have been working on a tube amplifier (for me). During this, I learned how to lay out a single-layer PCB and I will be learning how to be a craftsman. Of course, I will have to order the tubes from eBay, and it so happens that I ordered them from Russia! I received the package yesterday:

I am quite surprised that this did not come up until after I attended the logistics webinar with my faculty advisor, but I now have a dilemma on my hands. While I feel like I am one of the most valuable assets on the solar car team, I also feel a great amount of pressure to get an internship so that I will be more marketable when it comes time for me to obtain a full-time job. Considering that scrutineering, qualifiers, the race itself, and the trip back will take about a month, the two are mutually exclusive — I cannot have my cake and eat it too.

So far, my friends, family, and professors said things along the lines of:

• Do what you will regret least.
• What is your opportunity cost? (about $7,000, although travel expenses will come out of team funds)
• You will have all your life to work, but you only have this one time in your life to participate in a race.

Please feel free to offer your advice in the comments section.

Update (2/3): I am currently considering graduate school as a way out of this dilemma.   I can get an internship after my senior year and continue on to graduate school, which has some pretty nice courses about power.

When I told my parents about my project to build a set of speakers, they tried to talk me out of it by telling me that I can get something cheaper, better-looking, and (possibly) better-sounding than what I can build. As Elizabeth mentioned self-imposed desires in her post here, they definitely have a pre-conceived notion about how consumer electronics should look like. Nevertheless, I proceeded because I believe that I would learn craftsmanship and more about electronics out of this. As parts started rolling in, I started wondering whether this is a good idea or not, but I continued because I placed confidence that my end result will be good (and because I have already plonked down a good bit of money). This weekend, Fred and I pulled an all-nighter putting the set together between Friday and Saturday. I went in thinking that I would make perfect measurements and that the machinery could make precision cuts, but I had to let go of my desire for perfection.

Four hundred dollars and many hours later, this is the end result:

I had to borrow one of Fred’s amplifiers to drive these speakers, hence the silver box on top of the right speaker. The speakers sounded so great, Fred said that he will have to one-up me soon.  Indeed, this pair sounds too good for only one person to enjoy. All I did was build The Encore from Parts Express, which I chose because of its choice of speakers. I will be building tube amplifiers to supplement these speakers soon.

I moved back to Austin early again to help the solar car team with the Edison Lecture Series. This year’s topic was TV, Image Processing, and Surveillance. People thought it was funny for us to be on display, but solar power is definitely useful when it is impossible to get a connection right off the grid.

This semester, I am taking the following classes:

• EE 351K - Probability and Random Processes
• EE 360 - Special Problems in Electrical Engineering
• EE 362L - Power Electronics
• EE 364D - Introduction to Engineering Design
• EE 366 - Engineering Economics I

As I have said for most of my other semesters, this semester is going to be the hardest yet. However, I somehow manage to make it through each and every one just fine. What is this force? I think this force consists of faith, my willingness to do anything ethical to get my EE degree, and the wonderful people around me. One is rooming with me next year, and another one is teaching me how to build a tube amp and speaker set.

To top off the first week, I went to Bridge Point Elementary with the team to participate in their Science Day. We talked about what we do, solar power, why it is useful, and how electricity works. After the talk, the kids got to wire solar panels to the toy cars. We got the cars from a dollar store; and although the wiring is a trivial task, making sure they work is not!

Fast to fail, fun to diagnose! After all was said and done, we were left with a huge pile of carnage!

Unfortunately, the weather was not very suitable for the cars to go outside and run, so we had to make do with halogen lamps. Nevertheless, the kids had a lot of fun and walked out of the room exclaiming, “That was awesome!”:

Not long ago, I received notice that I was not accepted as a mentor for next year. Put in a PC way, I am very disappointed in their decision; but frankly, I felt what some people call “shafted.” I could say that my saga with the first-year interest group (FIG) program started off when I got accepted as a mentor. Out of luck, I was able to land myself into a residential FIG mentor position… with a group of liberal arts majors. I was a bit overwhelming, but I did whatever I could to help them out.

When the time came to reapply as a returning mentor, I sprang for it because I was enthusiastic and really wanted to continue helping students after my experience as an orientation advisor (which I thought was even better than FIG). Even after everybody received their assignments, I did not receive mine. I pushed on it every month or so until the beginning of the Fall 2007 semester when I received notice that there were not enough FIGs for all mentors to be a mentor (a claim which some folks thought was suspicious because some had two FIGs to mentor). Instead, they made an offer for me to photograph FIG events because they wanted to keep me in the loop. To be a good sport, I agreed in hopes that they will take that gesture as me being serious about the program and take that into consideration when I reapply, which I did, hoping for nothing but the best.  As a matter of fact, I felt that I would be doing future students a disservice if I didn’t put my name into the hat.

I think that I was not accepted because my leadership style is different from something they wanted and that I tend to do a few things that could make people uncomfortable. Indeed, I tried things like taking a class with some students in my group of students, and there were other things I fell flat on my face with. With everything said and done, this is my post to say that I’ve fulfilled my end of the contract. I do not plan on continuing as a photographer because I feel that better pictures come from those who are actively engaged in an event. Instead, I will focus more of my efforts on the solar car team and some personal projects which I hope will make me a better engineer.

Note: This is a response to a friend’s blog entry, located here.

Sometimes, I feel like I am missing out on something because I do not have a mainstream item.  There is no doubt that we all have desires, but it’s the motive and method of satisfying or controlling our desires that places us in our situations.  It is one of the many ways we are accountable to our actions.  With respect to money issues, I heard accusations such as the notion that the only thing that matters is the bottom line and that people’s appearance of being affluent is riding on credit.  The latter came from my Dad; and as much as I resent hearing his opinions every now and then, there are times when he is right.

Read the rest of this entry »