I've moved!

blog.marcotuts.com is where I'll be writing from now on. I may or may not transfer old posts from here over there....

Bringing everyone up to speed...

hey everyone.

it has been a long time since I last wrote to people back home. Here's a bit of what has happened since the end of last semester.

1.) IdeaTree Design, the company I helped co-found last summer when I stayed at Olin, officially closed its doors as a student-led design firm of sorts. The whole process from start to finish is arguably one of the more complete projects I have been a part of, covering many areas spanning education, design, business, and more.

2.) I finished my second semester at Olin, and now I'm starting a one year long leave of absence to hopefully get a better sense of what I want to do after Olin, get unique project experience (with some sort of engineering/entrepreneurship mashup) , and generally get a sense of what the "real world" is.... we like to call it life beta. :)

3.) moved into 6 bedroom house with 7 other Olin students. The house was previously leased by students from a nearby college which will go unmentioned who absolutely thrashed the house. I don't feel like writing about how dirty the house was...suffice it to say that amidst layers of grime and between the biohazards were parts of the house that required only intense scrubbing. In the end, it should be a nice source of projects and good old home improvements projects, and maybe even look really nice.

4.) started working at Solidworks and I absolutely love it. Solidworks is a CAD Software program, essentially letting you model any kind of 3-D object using a computer...

anyways, I'm actually at Olin right now...I just finished using the microscopes with camera attachments from the materials science lab to get up and close pictures of small parts from a Norelco 8160XCLL automatic/self-cleaning shaver for a modeling project at work.

until next time,
tuts

A “Myspace High School” Mindset

This post was taken from one of my courses I've mentioned before called "Vital Ideation."

PROBLEM: It has happened in elementary, middle and high schools across the United States,

Principals, teachers, school districts have complained that every day students would waste valuable "computer time" during school hours looking at Myspace, updating their profile or something of the sort. What's the value in that anyways? Right? …

SOLUTION: The result is that popular website such as Myspace, Facebook, and other social networking sites have been blocked so that students cannot go to them at all.

REACTION: The reaction, many students are bitter with the administration of the school, their teachers, who previously "nagged" them to stop using Myspace. Still other students have found one of the many ways to go around these blocks and still go to their favorite sites while professors aren't looking.

Am I advocating that schools allow students to use Myspace during school hours? No, not really. Actually not at all. What I'm actually going to write about has to do with how useful applying beneficial system-level patterns and behaviors such as those found in social networking sites to other contexts where the benefits should be translatable, such as schools. To do this we'll look at a sample scenario in the online social networking world and try to envision what a school environment would have that add similar benefits.

John comes home after a day of school that wasn't particularly interesting. He sits down at his computer at home, skims through his junk hotmail email that he left open this morning before school, then clicks on his myspace bookmark and quickly logs himself in to see what's new. No new messages it seems, but he has a handful of comments on his recent blog post titled "why I don't like math class" or something. He replies to the comments, then glances around some of his friend's profile pages for updates. He received a group event message for his "I love llamas" group, which he skimmed over but didn't really reply to. I could go on about John and his interactions on myspace, but that's not too exciting. …*etc*…

MySchool. (Yes, I know the name is silly.) Mary spent most of the day the same as any other school day. Her school had computers in every classroom, so she spent about a third of every school day working on projects and other things on the school laptops. This Friday her two last big social science blog entries on genetics are due. She almost finished one of these posts titled "my family history of diabetes." Not many people had yet uploaded their blog entries, so she wasn't able to get started reading the other 5 blog entries she was assigned to read and evaluate. She got home and went back to check her class's points in the intramural basketball league which see could track on the group page for her "MySchool." The school page let you chat with other students in your classroom during your open period of class, during lunch, as well as before and after school, but it wasn't active during other classes that might be having a lecture or a focused work day. For example, that day during Biology they'd had their final talk on genetics, and a couple times they'd been asked to quickly find a biology topic they though was interesting and upload a couple links to a new assignment page in their biology class folder. They had to stand up in small groups and present two of the articles they had come up with, and then the entire class had to write a short biology class bulletin on two of the topics they found interesting. The idea was that some students who hadn't started their genetics blog posts could get a head start themselves or with the help of others during these activities. In fact, Mary's second post was going to be about this bizarre epidemic in Papua New Guinea someone presented on that was aggravated by the cannibalistic tendencies of the tribes that were afflicted. Now that she was home though, Mary could stop worrying so much about class work and instead signed onto her school page to chat with some of her friends that were still at school or even home at this point. She was supposed to meet with a handful of people yesterday that she didn't get a chance to meet with about their final Math Podcast on their calculus topic of choice, which of course they hadn't gotten started on yet. …*etc*…

Well now. I'd be very interested to see what else people have to say about connecting social networking with the current student learning environment in high schools. There are certain school districts that are moving towards what is called "electronic portfolios," including the entire state of Rhode Island, where in 2008 15 schools have piloted a program which has begun to digitize the student learning experience. Who knows? Maybe US education would benefit from fusing the "biggest waste of student time" that is Myspace and electronic student portfolios.

Carrying a Design Notebook is a Fad.

(This post was written for a 1-credit course I am taking this semester called Vital Ideation for your everyday life. It is a small course developed and created by students!)
__________________

Well, isn't it? Maybe not a fad, but it is at least an idea that has caught on for one reason or another. For what it's worth, 'tis a "sticky" idea at the least. What is the value of a design notebook? Part of me feels that individuals walking around with a notebook feel better about the fact that they carry one than about how much usefulness they get out of carrying it. I mean, it can be a hassle. Get changed, get stuff for class, oh yeah! grab my design notebook :). What makes someone do that in the first place? Well, carrying a design notebook is a sticky idea. Hopefully by the end of this post I will have made a bit of sense out of why this is the case.

So, I decided last week that I would hold out on writing about design notebooks until I thought of something interesting to write about. The topic of the second Vital Ideation lecture was "Stickiness," and part of me feels that the act of carrying a design notebook is something that falls in line with many of the principles we discussed when talking about a product's stickiness.

The first things that come to mind...
First off. I think that the act of carrying a notebook around is the sticky part of this whole idea. The "design" modifier is really only a specific case of this phenomenon. The carrying of some sort of notebook, whether for ideas, doodling, sketching, tasks, or some combination thereof is what can be considered "sticky." The first things that come to mind when I think of a design notebook are the following:

1. Moleskine --

   "the legendary notebook used for the past two centuries by great artists and thinkers, including Van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway and Chatwin. With an elastic closure and an expandable inner pocket made of cardboard and cloth, which contains the history, they are ideal for students"

   It is actually kind of ridiculous how many different types of notebooks they have on their website. There is something special about this personal notebook idea. Something that makes people pay lots more than they should for bound paper for your pocket. Notice the sketch-book of Vincent Van Gogh himself to the right. How it shimmers with knowledge, uniqueness, genius and who knows what else. Is this what makes personal notebooks so sticky? Here is one of Olin's very own on personalizing their Moleskine.

   "I just retired a Moleskine and got a new one that I have to set up - I figured I'd take you guys along for the ride. "

   So begins the blog post, which describes the act of setting up the notebook as a "ride" itself. From tables of contents to specialized lists and such, the customization that goes into this moleskine rivals that of a personal computer. Crazy huh? It's only a notebook you might say, but it seems to be more than just this.
2. Lifehacker. Oh lifehacker and other such "tech trick tips for getting things done" websites. If I actually listed all the posts on maintaining, purchasing, improving, creating, modifying, and streamlining personal notebooks, I would be spending hours compiling all the posts and linking to them all in this lowly blog post of mine. If you pass the lifehacker test* of being described in more than 3 or so blog articles, I think you qualify to internet and/or nerd sensation (see also: fad & obsession.) Well, maybe not. (*note this term has never been used before and will never be used again in any formal writing)
   
3. PDAs, the Internet, and all other Electronics. Funny that this is one of the first things that comes to mind when I think of (personal) notebooks, but it is true. One of the intrinsic values of the personal notepad, whether for design or otherwise, is that it isn't a technical gadget, but it can be as personal and individualized as a computer, cell phone, misc. Apple product.

So, I started carrying a notebook myself. sort of.
I started carrying my own notebook mostly because I thought it was nice to be able to keep track of tasks, add tasks and then rip them out when I was done. It was also a convenient source of doodle space and paper during French class. But the real reason was that I had finally convinced myself that carrying a personal notebook wasn't completely a "hey they do it, I should do it too!" thing. Additionally, I found that carrying a notebook could be particularly useful personally as a way of keeping track of tasks from random things I am involved in which I sometimes forget to do/not put into outlook or any other-sort-of-reminder format.

The idea of carrying around a notebook to write down random thoughts on was one that I'veheard suggested for about a year now. ...Moleskine this, ideas notebook that... Maybe being at Olin has something to do with this....ok fine. It has a lot to do with this. I know my friends from back home would scoff at the idea of carrying a notepad around. "What the hell for?" they would surely tell me. Often times in this past year I have thought--"Wow that would be a really cool thing to keep track of, maybe in an ideas notebook!" Finally I have one, but I don't use it for ideas.

Most people don't use notebooks for idea generation.
That's odd. I don't actually use my notebook for idea generation. And I don't think many people do either. I supposed I am very biased in this, but I generally don't sit around by myself and come up with ideas. If I'm sitting around thinking about something that is interesting enough to warrant being copied down in a notebook of ideas, then I'll find people who I know would be interested and talk to them, who will not only potentially polish the idea if it isn't a horrible one, but the discussion that the idea will kick off will likely be of the variety that keeps me up for hours longer than I should instead of doing "coursework." Silly academics.

I suppose the only time that I have used my notebook to jot down random stuff has been during lectures from cool speakers, or while I was supposed to be doing other things, like during French class, when I sort of do other work I find more engaging in my notebook while i sort of interact with the rest of the class. I guess my notebook has been useful to me. And I guess in the end that's the point right?

A low-tech! personal ___(insert word of your choice)___ notebook is a sticky idea. For me, it allows me to _______ and also _______ wherever I am, sort of like a PDA or something. The best part is that when ____ happens, I can _____ using my notebook. How sweet is that?

My notebook represents who I am as a designer, engineer, over-committed student. Tis my PN. "Personal Notebook" :D


-Marco

hospital and other such nonsense

hey everyone. not much to say for this blog post but here goes anyways.

I went to the hospital last night at about 4am. Wound up havign surgery sometime around 6-7am. I'm back at school though, taking painkillers that put me to sleep and make me tired even when awake. Email me if you want more details, but i'm not putting anything else on this blog :) Sorry internet crawlers, no medical information here ;)

I'll have an actual post put out about 10 minutes after this one though!

this past semester: IdeaTree Design

So, this summer I spent 10 weeks working full time for IdeaTree Design, which you may not know much about if you didn't read this post.

In any case, we came back only to realize that running a non-profit organization as a full time student = not reasonable. Not only that, at 500 dollars of incorporation costs each year, you better be making enough to stay afloat, even as a non-profit. In any case, the five/six of us who are still active on IdeaTree (many of our members are taking time away from school or studying away) have decided to scale back, for our sake's.

The goal of IdeaTree now is simple. Connect people to projects, involve students in social entrepreneurship and "Awesome" opportunities, and maybe even give them the chance to do a project for credit that will ACTUALLY get implemented in the real world. For a definition of Awesome (with a capital A), you should know that IdeaTree came out of an Olin club called "Olin Students for Awesome." Their definition for Awesome is below.

awe·some (ô's?m)
adj.

1.Inspiring awe: an awesome thunderstorm.

2.Expressing awe: stood in awesome silence before the ancient ruins.

3.Slang. Remarkable; outstanding: “a totally awesome arcade game” (Los Angeles Times).

4.Of or relating to human rights, social entrepreneurship, sustainability, or the general saving of the world.

The fourth usage of Awesome, which is always capitalized, is not actually in any dictionaries anywhere. Yet. But a group of students from Olin College of Engineering decided saving the world was just that— Awesome— and worth some time and a club.

OSA has a general mission of bringing together students and others who want to make a difference, do something to help, and save the world. Dealing primarily with issues such as human rights, social entrepreneurship, and sustainability, we thrive on all things dedicated to making the world livable, green, and, of course, Awesome.

So, anther thing we look to keep active is an event called the Flash Conference which was originally started as an OSA activity. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, I'm now a part of two more student businesses, officially now :)

I'll write more about Olin Services and Olin Tutoring Squad (tutoring service for local high school students with Olin students hired as independent tutors) later, but for now, I'm back to working :)

learning how to make a website

so over break I decided I didn't want to work on the french that I wanted to get done over break, so instead, during the last 6 days of my semester break I decided to make a website.

I accidentally opened Adobe Dreamweaver, a program which facilitates the creation of websites, and decided I would learn how to use it. I felt like I should make a personal website as an online project portfolio, so this was a great excuse to do so. The problem was that I didn't know how to use Photoshop either, and in order to do what I wanted to do with the website's design, I needed to know how to use Photoshop. So, I learned how to use dreamweaver and photoshop while i learned how to code up a website using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. (I also used some XML stuff but whatever.)

In any case, I have a final product!!! Check it out at http://students.olin.edu/2010/mmorales


hurray!

My fourth semester: overloading again?!

So, I'm back at Olin for my fourth semester. This semester, as during my second semester, I am taking more courses than a "normal workload" of four courses. Oops! :) This time should be a lot easier than my second semester, however, when I basically never slept.

This semester I'm taking Intro Biology, a Foundations of Business Class, and Intensive French 203, (the second year of french compressed into one semester). All of these courses are easy enough, and won't actually account for 12 credits of work, as they should. For French I spent hours over semester break watching videos for the course, since the class if video based. Now I won't have to do that much work during the semester! I'm also taking a Linear Algebra and Probabilities and Statistics course which I sort of took last semester but didn't get credit for.

I'm also taking UOCD which stands for User Oriented Collaborative Design. The class is great :) I'll write more about it later, but in short its a design class where project groups take on a user group, like bartenders, bike messengers, tattoo artists, and try to design for this user group by immersing themselves in the lives of the users.

I'm also taking a 1 credit student led course, a 1 credit of engineering pedagogy research, and I'm involved in three businesses this semester: Olin Services, Olin Tutoring Squad, and IdeaTree Design.

this past semester: Principles of Engineering

So, I said in my last post that I would talk a bit more about this past semester. Overall the semester was hectic, even though I took less of a course workload than ever before. This past semester I tried to, as usual, bite off more than I could chew. It was a lot less work than my second semester at Olin, but unforeseeable events this semester took up a lot of time and energy and resulted in this 12 credit semester.

In any case, one of the best courses I have taken so far at Olin was this semester. (It still does not top both Paul Revere: Tough as Nails or my MetaOlin course though) Principles of Engineering!!

The course website gives an overview for the course, which I have included below.

Through a significant project experience, students will integrate analysis, qualitative design, quantitative optimization, experiments, and simulations to improve their abilities to engineer real systems. The course will focus on electronic systems through the design of a low-speed universal serial bus (USB) peripheral.

My project was an autonomous four rotor lifting body platform thing we named the "Tetracopter" just because. :) A more formal description would mention how during this project we (there were four of us) designed a custom-built fully autonomous four rotor lift body. The final deliverable for the course is a website (Tetracopter.com)!

Anyways, I had a whole lot of fun working on this project! (If nothing else, check out the video on the electrical page which shows one of the times the tetracopter tore itself apart during testing!)

Looking back on multiple semesters

Well, I am in the middle of winter session, (also: I'm on break) . I will be back at Olin sometime around the 20th of January, but for now I am home. Next semester I will be once again taking more courses than I should. My second semester at Olin I took 5 courses instead of 4, mostly on accident. That semester one of my courses was double the workload of a normal course, and I didn't want to drop the independent study I took called MetaOlin, which I have written about before.

This past semester I wound up not adding a course I intended to, which left me with 12 credits instead of the normal 16. Last semester I took a French course, a course called Principles of Engineering, (which I will describe later), and an upper level material science course called Thin Films and the Design of Experiments.

Next semester I will be taking the foundations of business course at Olin which everyone must take to graduate, the second year of French condensed down into "Intensive French 203", Linear Algebra, Probabilities and Statistics, a design course that teaches user-oriented design (User Oriented Collaborative Design), and Biology, which everyone must also take to graduate.

In any case, I could talk more about the courses I'm taking/took last semester, since I haven't addressed them at all yet, but I'll wait for another time.