In the Core of the PhD, Always Looking Forward

 

I feel that I am in the center core of my PhD, or maybe just past it now. I am working on a few concurrent papers and a couple of them should be published (at journals) this year hopefully. The mechanisms and foams will be made. It is only a matter of time. 

The first photo above is a deepfake of Brett and I. I was a bit surprised to find that people are warming up to this sort of stuff as much as they are. I am not used to it yet maybe. Or perhaps I would rather see real videos huh. The second photo is of Coyote and I's future kitchen. We are moving in together and I am looking forward to having our own special place. It will be cozy and nice.

Third, a photo of friends and I at Stowe VT ski resort. We got away during NU spring break for a couple days to relax and recover. Good times all around and some positive memories. My skiing has gotten a lot better since I started.

Lastly some Tiffany style lamps. My mom, Brother, and Buzz arrived in town this weekend. We saw the Charlie Berens show downtown and enjoyed one another's company.

Life is good. I will be at FormLabs this summer to learn more about SLS systems, help their development, and gain key skills for my future career as a mechanical systems engineer and scientist.

Featured PhD Student at Northeastern College of Engineering

 

I am happy to find that I was featured in the Northeastern College of Engineering website as a PhD Candidate creating change through innovation. There is gratefulness in my heart for the folks at the office who reached out to me and did an interview piece on the work I do with the Transformative Robotics Lab. It's a real pleasure to get the chance to talk about our work and how we hope to change lives for the better through it.

https://coe.northeastern.edu/news/creating-change-through-innovation/

In other news, life is going well and I got to go skiing last weekend and skating yesterday at the Frog Pond. The holidays are almost here and I am rushing to get data to process while away in MI. So this blog post is short so I can now run off to the machine shop :) 

Presented at BU Materials Day 2025

This is the view from the 17th floor of that blocky building that BU built two years ago. It's an interesting skyscraper and gives nice views over the Charles river and the Shawmut peninsula generally. I gave a 'lightning talk' at the BU materials day presented by Prof. Brown. It was a great event and I learned a lot about where engineers are advancing materials from a wide range of backgrounds. There were computer scientists, mechanical engineers, aero, electrical, chemists, biologists, and everything else in between there.

Last weekend, my mom, stepdad, and stepbrother were in town. I showed them the interesting side of Boston and ended up stopping by this nice exhibit on East Campus. It was well put together. Slightly offputting to see the student center bathed in so much bright white light and fresh trimmings. Looks a bit more artificial, but maybe I got too used to the 90's aesthetic that stuck around that building a bit too long.

 

Planting a Flag for QJoint

 This is vague intentionally. 

My advisor and I have used math also presented in this article: https://institutions.newscientist.com/article/2499647-mathematicians-have-found-a-hidden-reset-button-for-undoing-rotation/

We did so to produce a new kind of slipring. It does not rely on sliding contacts. It will change robotics and continuous rotation systems.

Flagstaff to Tucson and a few things in between

 

Last weekend was a great trip to Arizona. Coyote and I went to Flagstaff to see a friend of hers married and then we travelled to Tucson to see some of my family. Along the way, we got to hike in the Cactus Forest of the Saguaro National Park. Unfortunately the Cactus Forest Dr was closed due to broken gov. But we saw the cacti from the Broadway trailhead. Life is good in general. I am going to Atlanta next week... so much travel. I am looking forward to a few boring weekends ahead and some time to decompress a bit.

My perceptions on AZ are much different now, after seeing both Flagstaff and Tucson in this season. There is a great variety of life in the state and I hope to find a trip back to this corner of the country soon.

Finished the Pemigewasset Loop

 

Last weekend, I hiked the Pemigewasset Loop in New Hampshire's White Mountains. It's over 30 miles and I summited 9 mountains over 4000 ft in elevation. I could not have done it without my pals Ben and Noah. We camped on Friday night and slept in a shelter on Saturday night. The weather was perfect. Sunny and low winds. Temperatures were 60s in the day under the sun and 30s at night. The stars were magnificent.

Last year, Noah and I tried to finish the loop counter-clockwise but we were stopped by strong winds and I was thrown onto some rocks. We were welcomed by the great folks at the Galehead Hut of the AMC. This year, we got redemption and even summited West Bond.

I am well on my way to doing the 48 White Mountains of 4000+ feet in elevation. 

This trip tested me and I am happy to say that we overcame the challenge. It's a great thing for one's spirit to set a challenge and overcome it. I forgot about the whole world when I was sweating out my face and pushing over rock after rock. Some of the best treatment I have received.

I will be back next year for perhaps even more distance, nights, and camp food. I only hope that I'm not sleeping next to a snorer.

Wedding in the Family

 

Last week I was in Austin, TX, for an academic conference and the weekend before that I was at my mom's wedding. Only one more wedding to go this year in Arizona and then maybe a wedding break for a bit. Over the course of life, it seems that the rate of weddings, births, and passings is non-random in one's own attendance. People spend a lot of time with those who are in a similar age of life and this plays a part. I suppose that's why some people jokingly refer to the late twenties or early thirties as the era of weddings and babies relative to teenage years or one's fourties. But as far as I know, there is no perfect, externally set time time to have a kid, get engaged, or die. It's a rate of occurrence that is circumstantial and related to the pace of human life itself. Our actions and reactions to these events is tied to the age and time at which they occur. That is my takeaway from doing something, anything, at a certain time and age. 

As for my own academic journey and career, time is of the essence. There is always another project to consider and opportunity cost to evaluate. If you are not weighing one project against many others, maybe you need to seek out more ideas to compare against.

The castle that the wedding took place at.

Brett and I at the Solid Freeform Fabrication poster session last week