Posted in Engineering
Porters with PHDs
There are some perks to being a professor.
The other day I was walking out of lab in the basement of Anderson Hall (the engineering building) when I saw a couple of mechanical engineering (ME) graduate students walking the other way carrying large stacks of books. I didn’t think too much of it – there’s been a lot of shuffling going on in the basement due to the construction of the newly-completed Environmental Sustainability Laboratory, but as I turned the corner I saw that far from being lone movers, the students I’d just seen were merely the advanced guard of what I can only describe as a circus parade of students and staffers carrying bits of equipment, pictures, office supplies, and many many more books.
I asked one of the students what was going on.
“Chris Rogers is moving into his new office,” she replied.
Chris Rogers is an ME professor who specializes in fluid mechanics, robotics, music, and engineering education. He is the founder and director of the Tufts Center for Engineering...
Testing what you know, not how you test.
Have you ever taken an exam and spent an exorbitant amount of time trying to remember something that you know you know, or trying to figure out a problem that is hovering right out of your grasp, and then when you walk out of the exam room (or later that day) suddenly realize how simple the solution was?
One of my professors - the world-famous Ben Hescott (but actually)- gives exams in Computational Theory that help ease the pain of this agonizing test situation.
We took our Computational Theory midterm last Wednesday morning. It was four questions, one very tough matching section, and three proofs. We took the exam during our normal 75-minute class block, but unlike many other exams we received a copy of the exam and a relating assignment as we walked out. Our (somewhat optional) homework assignment this week was to redo a problem on the exam. We were allowed to take the problem that we were most unsure of, and spend more time thinking about it, and rewrite a solution to be turned...
All's Fair in Love and Prank War
One thing that can get frustrating in engineering school is that all the coursework tends to feel somewhat removed from reality. Because students need to be able to complete their assignments in a reasonable amount of time and their solutions need to be somewhat uniform and grade-able, engineering homework and test problems will often be very narrow and/or unrealistic. For this reason I think it’s beneficial to pursue extracurricular projects related to engineering, both to solidify concepts learned in class and also to remind oneself of the usefulness of the information. While there are a variety of such activities that students can and do engage in, perhaps none are more entertaining or satisfying than messing with your friends.
One of the guys I live with enjoys waking up in the morning to the smooth intonations of NPR personalities. As such he has a radio alarm clock permanently set to the local public radio station. Unfortunately he is an early riser, the walls of our house are...
Tusks of Steel
Welding is inherently awesome.
Welding is a method of joining two pieces of material together such that the two pieces are formed into one on the molecular level. Certain types of plastics are weldable, but that’s boring. What’s really cool is welding metal.
Welding two pieces of metal together is fairly straightforward: you clamp them against one another, then superheat their junction so that they melt together and cool into one piece. Simple enough, however as soon as the metal liquefies, it will begin to behave like any other fluid; flowing, dripping, and generally deforming; and the entire process should be isolated from oxygen and other atmospheric reactants since metal in a liquid state can bond with impurities very easily (re: corrode very quickly).
I learned very basically how to weld steel in high school, and as a freshman at Tufts attempted to hone my skills by practicing in my garage over break. Unfortunately I didn’t realize that arc welding (using a small, sustained...
Bennotations
Yes, it's true: I'm stuck on campus until the twenty-third. But that's not just because I'm an RA (um, yes it is?); I also have my final final exam the day prior. So which awful scheduling decision from eight months ago is keeping me here long enough to experience Boston Logan the night before the-night-before-Christmas?
After one semester at Tufts, I realized that I could study computer science as an "arts and sciences" student; by selecting to go to a small liberal arts school in New England, I hadn't given up entirely on the path to a practical education. So I was determined to give it a try, what with my knack for all things computers. But upperclassmen warned me, "Wait for the fall. Take Hescott!"
And so I delayed my plunge into programming until my sophomore year. Perhaps one of my most important course selections yet, COMP-11 (Introduction to Computer Science) with professor Benjamin Hescott was well worth the wait.
The following presentation is the book I would...