Well everyone, I finally made it. Despite the lack of blog posts in recent months, I somehow survived my final terms as an undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo. Its been a long time coming (4 years now), which is why it deserved the Starcraft 2 trailer quote you see. Of course, my undergrad wasn't as long as the gap between SC1 and 2, but still, it feels fitting.
For my most recent winter term (starting back in Jan 2011), I actually ended up doing pretty well. It was my first term in my university career where I actually managed to get an over-80% average. I know for some people that might not be much of an accomplishment, but for me that was a lot of work. It took a long time to make up for the mistakes I made in first/second year. As an added bonus, I finally was able to bring my academic standing up from satisfactory to good. My overall average was pulled down from my earlier mistakes, which took a long time to pull up.
This spring term, I ended up taking 2 courses. The first I mentioned in my last post, Digital Signal Processing (DSP), and the other was Intro to Computational Math (CM). Now, before I mention how much I disliked CM, let me say that DSP was a great time. I had an amazing professor who was extremely enthusiastic about the subject. It was one of the best courses I've taken during my undergrad. Although the final hasn't been marked yet (it took place on Aug 13, which was also my last exam!!!), I feel that I will do fine. I did after all, get a 94% on the midterm.
Now, CM. What a waste of time that was. Now of course, I picked it because I wanted to hopefully learn a little bit while also not working too hard. I went into the course expecting a programming focused course, where our assignments mostly consist of us applying various computational methods to different problems. It wasn't that in the slightest. Our assignments mostly consisted of theoretical work. Any and all programming problems we had our hand held, told step by step what to do. We spent the first 6 weeks on GEPP. In the end, I learned a few useful things, but overall, it was not what I wanted.
On a positive note, I'll be starting graduate school in Sept! Yeah, that doesn't leave me much time to go on post-undergrad vacation and whatnot, but that's not a problem. I'll be a student in Prof Cory's research group. It should be a good time.
Last thing for now, I plan on changing the URL of this blog. I was never really happy with the current URL, so I'm going to just change it tomorrow or so to scasagrande.blogspot.com . If anyone reads this, update your bookmarks!
Friday, August 19, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
Analog Project
So this morning I gave my analog electronics project presentation. Yes, I did extremely well. If I didn't get 100% I would be surprised.
What this means is I'll soon be in a capacity to upload the schematic to this very blog for all to enjoy! Hurray! Until then, I'll just leave you with the circuit concept.
For my project I designed a audio level trigger. It uses the intensity of the sound picked up by the condenser microphone to trigger a secondary circuit.
Expect to see the details soon!
(that said, there are some improvements I would like to still make)
PS: Long time no post?
What this means is I'll soon be in a capacity to upload the schematic to this very blog for all to enjoy! Hurray! Until then, I'll just leave you with the circuit concept.
For my project I designed a audio level trigger. It uses the intensity of the sound picked up by the condenser microphone to trigger a secondary circuit.
Expect to see the details soon!
(that said, there are some improvements I would like to still make)
PS: Long time no post?
Monday, January 17, 2011
Work work work...
Its been nearly two months since my last blog post. I didn't get anything done on my app during that time. Thankfully, it wasn't because I was lazy.
Shortly after my last post was my 21st birthday. Carolyn got me a record of ACDC Back in Black and a ring that say "one ring to pwn them all". ISN'T THAT AWEOMSE?!
I wanted to get some work done on my app, but I just didn't really have the time. Sure I could have spent my weekends, but I also wanted to get *some* video gaming in. Exams hit shortly after my birthday. After exams, I went to my parents house for a lovely time.
When I got back, I was working on finishing my research project. Experiments to run, presentations to prepare for, reports to write. No time for app development.
The presentation for my research project was last Monday. It went extremely well, and my supervisor seems to be pleased with it. Today, I handed in my written report, so I hope that it also goes well.
With reports and all that jazz out of the way, I can return to my app. My course load for this term is lighter than last, so I'll have more time to spend in the lab and more time for my app.
I made some development progress tonight. I removed the "main menu" screen and made the app boot straight to the root browsing directory. I decided to do this based on feedback, and because you can access search from anywhere in the app. In its place I added a png "loading" image. This image is displayed for the few seconds (~2 sec) it takes to load the app on my iPhone 3G.
Since I removed the main menu, I moved all the additional buttons that where there (rate this app, tell a friend) into an "about" screen. This is currently accessed by clicking "About" on the root directory of the browser. I'll include a screenshot of this later because I'm sure that was not clear.
On the academic front, I'm taking the following courses this term:
Anyways, enough talking. Going to get some more work done!
Shortly after my last post was my 21st birthday. Carolyn got me a record of ACDC Back in Black and a ring that say "one ring to pwn them all". ISN'T THAT AWEOMSE?!
I wanted to get some work done on my app, but I just didn't really have the time. Sure I could have spent my weekends, but I also wanted to get *some* video gaming in. Exams hit shortly after my birthday. After exams, I went to my parents house for a lovely time.
When I got back, I was working on finishing my research project. Experiments to run, presentations to prepare for, reports to write. No time for app development.
The presentation for my research project was last Monday. It went extremely well, and my supervisor seems to be pleased with it. Today, I handed in my written report, so I hope that it also goes well.
With reports and all that jazz out of the way, I can return to my app. My course load for this term is lighter than last, so I'll have more time to spend in the lab and more time for my app.
I made some development progress tonight. I removed the "main menu" screen and made the app boot straight to the root browsing directory. I decided to do this based on feedback, and because you can access search from anywhere in the app. In its place I added a png "loading" image. This image is displayed for the few seconds (~2 sec) it takes to load the app on my iPhone 3G.
Since I removed the main menu, I moved all the additional buttons that where there (rate this app, tell a friend) into an "about" screen. This is currently accessed by clicking "About" on the root directory of the browser. I'll include a screenshot of this later because I'm sure that was not clear.
On the academic front, I'm taking the following courses this term:
- Introduction to Quantum Information Processing
- Electricity and Magnetism: Part 2
- Analog Electronics & Lab (yes, this is the second analog class
- Research Project
Anyways, enough talking. Going to get some more work done!
Friday, November 19, 2010
More app features!
Hello everyone, I've been wanted to do another update on the app all week but I had some studying for a test to take care of. I had a test in my analog electronics course on wednesday. Pretty sure I got 100% so I'm pleased with that :).
Late last week I asked the iphone subreddit community for some feedback on what I had so far. I took the comments very seriously, and here is some of the work I've done.
Here what we have is the new modified equation view. This tab bar will allow the user to flip between showing the equation and other related material. The "more" button is currently a placeholder and will be replaced with the correct buttons, graphics, and text that I need.
Some things to note about this tab bar. I didn't take a SS of it, but when you rotate the device to landscape mode, the tab bar is hidden so as to not take up vertical screen space.
Now the reason I implemented this is because I've decided to add a worked out example for each equation. I just decided on this a few days ago, and have recruited the help of Carolyn. This tab bar will also allow me in the future to add support for things like derivations, interesting historical facts, etc.
My work for the next bit will be adding more icons and regenerating a lot of the equations for better alignment due to the change in screen size.
As usual, I'm always looking for feedback so feel free to leave some :)
Late last week I asked the iphone subreddit community for some feedback on what I had so far. I took the comments very seriously, and here is some of the work I've done.
So in this screenshot you can see two new features. First, there are little icons beside each category. I feel that they add a little to the experience of using the app, making it feel less like you're just looking at shoveled out tables and made by someone that cares.
The other new feature is the search button at the top. This way, search is readily accessible throughout the app instead of just at the home screen. I'm considering doing the "pull down to search" thing like you see in the Contacts app, but depending on time constraints that might be something for a future version.
The other new feature is the search button at the top. This way, search is readily accessible throughout the app instead of just at the home screen. I'm considering doing the "pull down to search" thing like you see in the Contacts app, but depending on time constraints that might be something for a future version.
Here what we have is the new modified equation view. This tab bar will allow the user to flip between showing the equation and other related material. The "more" button is currently a placeholder and will be replaced with the correct buttons, graphics, and text that I need.
Some things to note about this tab bar. I didn't take a SS of it, but when you rotate the device to landscape mode, the tab bar is hidden so as to not take up vertical screen space.
Now the reason I implemented this is because I've decided to add a worked out example for each equation. I just decided on this a few days ago, and have recruited the help of Carolyn. This tab bar will also allow me in the future to add support for things like derivations, interesting historical facts, etc.
My work for the next bit will be adding more icons and regenerating a lot of the equations for better alignment due to the change in screen size.
As usual, I'm always looking for feedback so feel free to leave some :)
Friday, November 12, 2010
Searching and Landscape
Yes that's right, I bring to you today some more updates on my upcoming app! Last night, as I was frustrated with my E&M assignment, I decided to spend some time on the app. Since I wasn't in the mood for starting some more equations, nor in the mood for graphics related work, I decided to implement a big feature that I had been meaning to do for a while...the search function!
As you might have seen from my last post, on the main screen there is a large search button. Until last night, it was just a placeholder. Every time I would show someone the work I had done on the app, one of the first things they would say is "the search button doesn't work". Well no more! Here's some screenshots of the search function in action.
It was a very exciting moment last night when I got it to work. So every time the user hits a key the search results update. Its pretty awesome.
Ah, but at this point last night I still had some time before bed, and since I was feeling awesome for getting the search to work, I decided to also add landscape mode support!
So now the menus, the equations, and search all have landscape mode support! When viewing an equation and the user rotates the device, it automatically zooms to fill the width.
So there you go, progress is coming along nicely.
Let me know what you think!
As you might have seen from my last post, on the main screen there is a large search button. Until last night, it was just a placeholder. Every time I would show someone the work I had done on the app, one of the first things they would say is "the search button doesn't work". Well no more! Here's some screenshots of the search function in action.
OMG SEARCH!!
It was a very exciting moment last night when I got it to work. So every time the user hits a key the search results update. Its pretty awesome.
Ah, but at this point last night I still had some time before bed, and since I was feeling awesome for getting the search to work, I decided to also add landscape mode support!
So now the menus, the equations, and search all have landscape mode support! When viewing an equation and the user rotates the device, it automatically zooms to fill the width.
So there you go, progress is coming along nicely.
Let me know what you think!
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