a life, time, and a wheel

Ten,

Ten years ago I woke up to leave for Denmark for the first time.  Ten years later I woke up next to my wife and daughter.  Just like that, they were there.   Just like that it became a family, a family that I hope will continue the pursuit of happiness and dreams and the like.  Its a new journey, a wonderful cycle of new and renewal.  That this day fated so many sunsets ago i would begin a new life to watch it blossom into an amazing world and career, and now i begin again to a new life in the most literal sense of the world.  I cannot wait to see how this life plays out. 

some 5 years ago, i started a project that i really called 'project caveman' and really it was a name i gave myself and it wasnt anything super official of a name.  It does live on a few internal documents, but i'm sure they all gave it a much more minor, mundane name.   I mean, who was trying to reinvent the wheel?  I spent almost a year on research, which led to almost another year on development of prototypes and eventually presenting my results to a team which would take it further to market.  It was almost a solitary effort at least when i started and with a lot of help when it ended.  Driving it was a complete learning experience. 

That wheel finally came out, not so far removed from the original but hey, i'm proud of it. 

I built it into something for my daughter.  The model would gently rock her back and forth and I hope it would put her to sleep.   Lots of fun details in it and the like.  The part designed ended up being the part that her head would rest on.  In function, i would have to put a pillow and a blanket to make sure she was comfortable (and you'll never see it for fear of any ethical repercussion).  I found that to be an ultimate parable. That my projects would hold her head, and i hope they do, and i hope that thats how she sees the work that i do and maybe thats how i should see the work that i do.  It was pretty cool, the lights of the hub would shine through the pillow and would make a halo effect.  I took it apart already, to build more cool things. 

Be assured young one, rest your head amongst daddy's world, to help hold you up and bring you your dreams. 

8 years - Work like you mean it

Another title for this post could have been, Staying Hungry, eluding to the lack of bacon in my apartment today. 

Even though my first real day of work in Denmark was in September, it's this weekend where I actually came to Denmark for the first time.  It was a 5 week 'freelance' and 'interview' process.   All those emotions and feelings and fear and the unknown, bottled up into a 35 day blog sprint. 
These days, man, I hope its me channeling that passion and hunger that I had back then.  I hope i haven't been jaded by age and corporation, but I still find myself digging into the hours and and the bricks.   I can tell myself that I'd do this forever, that I'd do it for free as long as they'd let me.  I can tell myself that its not work, but practice or rehearsal - for a show that will be as grand as ever.   Whatever I do, its mine, and I want every hour and every dream to be seen when its eventually out. 

This is the longest I've ever been anywhere, it was only 5 years in university, just short of a full 7 years at home waiting for the right opportunity after that and now a full eight years living a dream.  Only the fact that it could all change, that life and its beautiful moments are temporary keep me on a teetering edge.  I can't take it for granted, so i give everything i've got, and remember doing so, so many years ago.  I placed brick after brick, even humbled by the amazing talent that sat in front of me.   My how they've all grown and how we've all been impacted by each other.  Maybe I havent taken any courses since I left New York, but i've surely learned  a lot.   I do hope to be here longer, there's still so much to do.  I've learned patience, and persistence.   I remember starting a project almost 2 years ago and now finally seeing the real plastic,  I cant wait to share it with everyone else!

There's no turning back, there's only forward.   There's only a new dream that may come, a future still wonderfully uncertain.  What I like to remember, especially when reading back in the last years, is to keep that passion alive, keep the hunger and will to surprise and WOW, and more importantly to continue that honest self expression through this wonderful medium, and maybe many other mediums.   To keep learning and being a child, and remember that even though you can be at a place and point of wisdom, true experience will dictate that only the openness and willingness to change is what will keep you going.

Here's to staying hungry, outworking yourself..and
time to find some bacon.   

Coming out clean on the other end.

One of many stories, but I think I wouldn't tell it if it weren't so personal.  With this year's FIRST LEGO League season being called HydroDynamics and me designing the models, it got deep, it got personal and one model really brought me to the brink.  It was that long personal connection to a time gone by, and a crazy challenging mechanic to make sure it would work pushing me to edges.

When I graduated University - two degrees, all fancy on paper, green as i'll ever get, no experience, and hoping for a better future. I'd think my first job was just at a LEGO Brand retail store, but the first real  Engineering job was a civil service position at the Department of Environmental Protection in New York City.  They stuck me with the Wastewater treatment division.

New York City has a mixed sewage system, with all rain water and sewage from houses eventually converging before going to the treatment plants.  Thirteen plants in all, and I was able to visit all of them in my short stay there.  It didn't take long before  I made the decision to leave.  I was on top of a sludge tank on the fourth day, I knew I wouldn't last long there.  There were tours of old sludge pipes, three and four meter tall pipes of old sewage tracks, and small cracked pipe replacements due to erosion from the inside.. think about that one.   And some of the normal HVAC replacements, new installations, simple replacements, site inspections just could not compare to the smell.   They say smell is the sense closest to memory, and believe me, I'll never forget.

Can you imagine my horror of doing a site visit to a water treatment plant, twelve years later and eventually deciding that the big complex model would be a water treatment plant? It made so much sense to do, being one of the most complex parts of the human water cycle.   It also leaned a bit on that experience from that long ago.

The model itself, going down to details, has a fun function.  You need to flush the toilet, and hold it down to activate the treatment plant, where once completed clean water and a sludge cake would come out.   So one action, with a delay, to release two objects over the span of a meter of axles with ramps running over those axles.  There's counterweights, locks, long axles with U joints, a non dual locked model and some clever design choices to match what would be part of the real thing.

You can see the counterweight should be sludge tanks, the fly wheel is an oxygenation or chemical treatment tank, and then the sludge release actually mimics the solid separation tank skimmer.  The water is released under everything via the skimmer as well.  The rest of the mechanism works via a clutch and release through the long pipe activated by the toilet.  When you flush, the mechanism can start, but if you don't hold down long enough, the model will lock itself again.  I mean its the real thing, you should flush a bit longer to get the solids out.

It took forever to get it to work, the timing was wrong, or there was an unknown friction somewhere in the system.  So many of my sketch models worked and then it came to testing.  The balance between time and weight was an issue.  Down to seconds and grams ! It felt like I had gone back to the shit back then.  I never thought i'd have to go back to it, but its funny how life goes in that cycle.

I remember when I left that job, it would actually begin an 18 day road trip around the US, by myself. The life risk was there, and I was young enough to take it.   I told myself I'd look back at it and laugh.  It took some years, but maybe it came back to laugh at me.   I'm proud of the model, and I hope all the FLL kids enjoy it too.  You get another piece of me here, how rare is it that we get to put that in our work.

*photo from the Building instructions and setup  of FLL Hydro Dynamics, courtesy of firstlegoleague.org*

5 years

Sitting under this cool, but artificial light, wearing relics of even further behind; my mind is reflecting upon the happenings of my last five years, its a smile on my face, sighs of relief,  a contentment and relaxation in my muscles, at least until my mind returns to the amount of work that needs to be done in the coming days and weeks.

Gosh the number of adventures, broken hearts, miles, and milliliters of ink.  So many bricks, beers and lost nights.   I cant think of where else i should be right now.  I cant imagine where life would be if i wasnt here.  I only dreamt of this.  But still, i want more, and theres so much left to do, so much left to share.   My goals continue to grow, as does my spirit.  My heart will continue to search, my body willing to learn.  I'm determined. 

i wonder who would even read this, to imagine the elation in my soul at making it here.   But brick by brick, building this life, constantly trying to express myself.  And even at this age, at this moment, learning how to punch again, to walk again, to display a card and still finding that the more I experience, the less that i know.

here's to the next 5 years, or even the next 5 minutes.  life is fleeting, life is short and everything can change so quickly. 

Inspiring young minds

Shortly,

My puppy inspires this awesome thing

http://www.us.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms/community/robot?projectid=91ccda72-7b20-45aa-b98b-6f56d2569a01

now this is a cool direction for this blog.

Last dance

Somewhere in some warehouse in the world, a box is beginning it's last dance to its final place of rest.  Its journey continues out and through the warehouse to a truck making its way to a local distribution center.  There begins the search from the carriers or postal services, labels on bar-coded, tracked and ready to go. In some days this box will land on a doorstep, or maybe a receiving center of a school ready to be experienced.
The final dance of twists and turns and lift and drops; a waltz and whiz of whirling pens and stamps coming to a halt with the tear of the tape and snap of the plastic strap.  Oh it began with a simple press of a button: the plastic ordered, granules shipped and heated to liquid, molded and squeezed, electronics soldered; buzzing and burping.  Parts shooting to open plastic bags sorted and shaken then heated and sealed.  And as the bags land in the final box, shaken to level, and cardboard placed, the top snapped on.

For me its finally happening, as my work will finally land in ordered hands.

There's a new robot in class.. and i'm glad to have been part of that.

Robot Educator

This was the first model i was asked to design, I had been working on it basically since i was first brought in in May 2010.  Getting a chance to build a new version of the first robot everyone builds was a real great honor and a wonderful experience.
I started with just trying to copy the old NXT Edu base set.  The new motor shape really didnt make this easy, and the new EV3 brick also made it hard to look good as well.  The CMU Engineering Content pack had a really good design too, but that was just too complex, it took too long to build. So i had to break down what was good and wasnt good about the old base set model.  Constructive criticism was tough, I used that model so many times and had so much to say about it, also..the designer sat just two desks down from me.
The old robot angle was never good for me.  When you looked at the screen and pressed the button, and programmed the robot to go forward, the robot would fall into your lap.   I want the robot to go away from me when i push the button, and that was the first design decision. Still, the angled NXT made for great photographs, that angle would make it to other robots, just not this one.
I did an awful lot of research with FLL teams and WRO teams that year.  I mean really studying videos and competitions before really deciding what to do.  Though I dont have actual numbers, I thought that about 95% of the robots i saw were flat on top, so the kids looked down at the robot naturally, and when they pressed any of the buttons the robot went away from them naturally.  This was another major design consideration.
The rest fell into place, at least for the base.  All ports needed to be accessible, along with the USB, USB host and SD card slots as well.  The charging port for the battery also needed to be easy to get to.  This placed the EV3 Brick precisely where it was in the final model, and all the rest became structural .
One of our Educational Specialist Consultants made the suggestion to add the pointer to the wheel, so i had just enough axle left to place it there and it really made a great detail for educators and aesthetic as well.  Thanks Yannick, thats all you.
The front of the model had to allow for all sensors and extra motor, i wanted to make sure you could make many different configurations.  I had to compromise a lot of my designs to 'simplify' the build of the sensors, but in general it came out great.  The US sensor had to be in the center, and low to the ground.  We had a lot of worry that it would read the ground, but it worked out right.  Touch sensor could really have been anywhere, but i really wanted to have it be a wall follower, pointed to the side.  That never fell through, though its easily buildable. There was a lot of debate about having a line follower with an off set color sensor.  I know it works, FLL kids did it in so many models, it just took me a while to prove it to everyone.  The Color cube or cuboid had a really cool development, i'd need photos to show that one. The motor module had to be super stable and really be part of the robot.  I envisioned that people wouldnt take it off once they put it on, but they had the option to.  Being able to grab any object was much simpler than kicking a specific object.  The color cube just happen to fit, but it can get duplo balls, or anything that can be seen by the US sensor and fit within the confines of the mousetrap.  That connection was a bit strange though, but it worked, though i wanted something much simpler, and maybe more elegant.  The gyro sensor didnt need to be at the front, it didnt need to be anywhere really.  It just had to be visible and easy to put on.  The back of the robot seemed like a good spot.  Though I would have liked to wire it a little better.
Its really something i worked really hard on, this robot will be used by hundreds of thousands of kids around the world, i hope they like it.  So much more of my experiences went into it, and its also my first.  You'll never forget your first.