A Game of Firsts

My first presentation of my first paper at my first conference.

I certainly helped that the CSCE (Canadian Society of Civil Engineers) 2013 conference was held in Montreal, QC. After a bit of a shaky practice the day before in front of Sriram and Scott's research teams, I fixed things up majorly on Tuesday ready to present on Wednesday afternoon. There were a few other people from the civil department going, but Scott and I didn't happen to coordinate transportation with them, so we rented a car and drove down early on Wednesday. Plans for this trip also included doing the same type of field work that I did at the bridge in Brossard but at the bridge that lead to the spa Bota Bota (also built by MAADI Group), see Turlough, and go dancing at Cat's Corner.

After some really great and enlightening talks along the way, in the last few hours of the drive I finally pulled out my laptop and went over the changes in my presentation with Scott. Arriving within good time for my 3:30 session, I had to change and get ready (after a 6-7 hour drive) in the hotel bathroom since I couldn't check in. We weren't in the conference hotel, but we got bumped to each our own executive suite, which was ok with me!

A familiar view

Due to some mix ups, Scott was not able to attend my talk, and it turned out to be a very empty room. The one person I did know that was in the room was Jacques from the Aluminium Association, so I had a good presentation, but not too many witnesses, but that's ok. From then on, I could enjoy the conference!

The first night at the young professionals social, I met Kevin and Matt, two recently graduated UW civils that were in the dynamics class I TAed. There was apparently a new competition at the CSCE conference to present capstone projects and UW sent them. Hanging out with and a few others from University of Saskatchewan at dinner, the evening ended relatively early because everyone was very tired. But now that I had found to UW students I knew, Scott's conflict the next morning with chairing a session with the time slot we arranged with Bota Bota do to accelerometer instrumentation on their aluminium bridge would no longer be an issue.

The next morning I woke up, I meandered to the conference for breakfast, gathered the guys and took the car to the Vieux-Port with a heavy bag of big accelerometers (the kind we had before), accelerometers the size of sugarcubes, my laptop, the DAQ, and the mounting blocks we built for the last field test.

Portfolio picture from MAADI Group's site

Having a few extra hands around was a huge help, and it would also would have taken a much longer time had I also had to jump on the bridge and collect the data. After a few hours of us collecting tests and moving the accelerometers, Scott came by after his session to check out our installation. Scott and I later met with Alex at the office for a bit and got to hear about some really neat things he has in the works. When I responded yes to whether I brought my swim suit with me, Alex gave me a pass for the Bota Bota spa. Already planning a run the next day, I now knew how I was going to do my cool down.

Returning the equipment back to the hotel, I returned to the conference to listen to more talks and meet some pretty interesting people. Dinner was at the 3 amigos for the young professionals group, and I found out that many of the organizers or older people of the group were GNCTR captains or on the committee when it was at their university in recent years. Needless to say, that was a really awesome dinner table for me because I'm still very interested in being in the loop (UW Alumni team!).

I made a slightly early exit from dinner to go visit Turlough who originally invited me to the Rialto, but did not feel well enough to go in the end. So I went out on the metro to see him at his new place by Jean-Talon. We drank tea, chatted, and watched classic Doctor Who. It was a very comfortable evening!

Saturday morning I woke up early (like every other day during this conference) and went for a run down Peel to the Lachine Canal, along the water past Bota Bota, into Old Montreal, and back. Still catching breakfast at the conference, I went to the morning presentations and at an early lunch I scooted out to the spa. It was my first time at a spa and it was very tranquil. The sauna was peaceful and I just lay there for a while trying to let go a bunch of stress that had built up in the past few weeks, the driving, and presenting. I had to say, looking out over the edge of the jacuzzi and seeing all of downtown Montreal was pretty unique and awesome.

I eventually left and made my way back to the conference (I felt I should at least make a token appearance that afternoon?). Scott had his second and final presentation, which was nice that we didn't have to stick around on Saturday when people would be leaving the conference throughout the day.

Attempts to meet up with my cousin fell through sadly, but I made it out to Dunn's to have a victory smoked meat sandwich, walked up and around Mount Royal, had a small nap, then walked over to Cat's Corner. So ensued a really awesome (as expected) 4 hours of dancing, along with meeting new and old faces. After the run, lots of walking around Montreal, and dancing, my legs were getting pretty tired. On my way home, I came across a café that was still open and had some tasty looking macarons, which made a nice treat on the way back. Second super late night of the conference, I crashed and woke up 3 hours later!

Saturday was just a pack stuff up, get a little breakfast and head out, where we made it back to Waterloo around 1pm. Oh! and the one day I only had a coffee as a lunch, but I won another free coffee, so there were lots of happy things that happened on this trip. Oh yes, and I bought a pillow from HMV that looks like a TARDIS, I would have kicked myself if I assumed the small HMV in Waterloo had it and then didn't.

I miss Montreal. Is there a way I can live in multiple cities at once?

Research field work in Montreal

I've noticed that since I started grad school, the next question is often 'So...what do you do?' Well, in short, I do this:

A well-thought out setup. I'm serious, it worked out really well :D

Reusing covies, thanks GNCTR!

Promotional picture worthy, couldn't have done it without Richard

It can hold a car!

The subject for our running tests

Those are the 'yay for good weather and successful experiment' smiles

So, a bit of backstory, I had just returned from New Orleans 9:30 pm on October 1st. I was to meet Sriram at 8:00 am on October 2nd to get the last of things to pack in the CPATT Sprinter van before we departed for Montreal at 9:00am. Needless to say, all of my planning had to happen before I left for NOLA Thursday, so I was super prepared, and yet I still forgot my pajamas (don't worry I packed spare clothes and I didn't embarrass myself).

Sriram and Scott left in the rental car to take care of some errands and they would be meeting us at the ONroute stop past Toronto. They were also in charge of picking up the a 12th cable to run from an accelerometer to the signal conditioner. I couldn't find the last one in the lab so we unfortunately had to order one. Upon calling the supplier than morning, I had a bit of a panic when the receptionist said 'Oh ya, we shipped it'. Luckily they also had one at their office which we had to get before 5 pm.

Richard, Pampa, and I tossed the rest of the equipment that Richard had not yet packed on Monday into the tall van (as wide as a pick up truck but tall enough to stand in). We knew what we were generally getting ourselves into thanks to some pictures and dimensions courtesy of Alex's people at MAADI doing some surveying for us in the summer. We knew we needed long ladders to reach the midspan of the bridge from the underneath complete with fall arrest equipment for Richard (the only one trained). We had our non-destructive accelerometer mounting brackets all machined and ready to go. Toss in our personal luggage, about 4 laptops, Sriram's bicycle and all the cabling we'd need and away we went. Driving to Montreal was so uninterrupted, we forgot to point out the CN Tower to Pampa (this also happened on the way back!). Even just driving on the 401, Pampa was impressed by the colours of the leaves, which reminded me that she's only been from Pearson to Waterloo since she moved here on September 1. Well, she was going to drive through/visit Canada's two largest cities, a great outing for her!

Arriving to Brossard, we park the van up on the path and we have our first look around. The first impression while walking along the bridge was that 'wow, this is bouncy, yay we'll have data!'. We all got excited because we have known about the bridge for almost a year but we finally got to see it in person. Due to the embankments, 3 of the 6 locations (1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 bridge lengths on the north and south side) were easily accessible from the ground without a ladder. The centre north location required the long ladder off of the embankment and the centre south location was over the water. For this one, Richard put the base of the ladder in the creek and used the step ladder horizontally from the channel side to walk out to the ladder. I trust he knew what he was doing because he worked extensively as a rigger on telecommunication towers.We decide that since they're easily accessible, they could easily be taken/vandalized during the night, so we waited until the morning. Sriram and Scott met up with us with the crucial cable. Apparently there was a giant traffic jam and Sriram walked the last 1/2km to the supplier to get it before they closed (and it was still after 5pm but we got lucky). We had a nice relaxing dinner, talking about the future of the structures lab, planning and such (not that I could really contribute but it was informative none the less). Oh yes, and Richard (and Scott somewhat) gave me grief for not letting them know that the hotel had a pool and a sauna. :P

Wednesday morning we wake up nice and early, get breakfast at the hotel, and head out to site. Unloading stuff bit by bit, we all have our own tasks to do, and it worked out really great. Richard got the mounts on the bridge, Sriram installed the accelerometers on the mounts, I laid out the cabling with Pampa's help, while Scott fielded questions from Jaques from the Aluminum Association and Alex from MAADI. Alex was a really interesting person to talk to because he's the owner of the company that made the aluminum pedestrian bridge that we were working on, and that would also be providing UW with our own 70' aluminum pedestrian bridge. He's clearly excited about his work and puts all his effort into his company. It only took a couple of hours to set up, checking the working condition of the accelerometers, signal conditioners, low-pass Butterworth filters, and data acquisition software. I didn't want something to bugger up and not know where it was coming from.

Tests we did were; heel drop for free vibration, single person walking, two people walking synchronously or asynchronously, a runner, a cyclist, jumping off the railing, a walking crowd, a running crowd, ambient vibration, and (our favourite by Alex's request) driving a car. What I found funny was that I was left on the bridge for an extended amount of time to wait for random pedestrians and run the data acquisition for them. Meanwhile, everyone else went for lunch, though they also picked something up for me, I felt funny being exiled to the middle of the bridge. Then when Sriram saw someone coming he'd yell and point saying 'Ann! Random person!'. Now, being Montreal, not everyone would speak English, so I thought that it was rather funny for pedestrians.

By mid-afternoon we were done collecting data, cleanup was fast and we were all done. I'd say it was a super successful day, especially since even the evening before, it was calling for rain. It was dry and fair all day. It looked a little cloudy towards the end but we got lucky. We headed back to the hotel where we regrouped and went downtown to join Alex at a pub. We first dropped in on the MAADI office, which was in a tech incubator-type centre like the Accelerator Centre in the Research and Technology Park at UW. Since Alex was crazy busy, we decided to meet him downtown later, and went for a walk. This is when Pampa got really excited about being in Montreal (which made me proud of my hometown). Walking along Peel and then St. Catherines, we stopped for a few pictures.

Meeting up with Alex, he talked about some of the interesting projects he has been a part of, including floating barges in Florida and pedestrian bridges around Quebec. We were able to stop by his one project, which were bridges leading from an old boat renovated into a floating spa docked at the Montreal harbour. Needless to say, the pictures show that it is a very high-end trendy place now.

Bridge to Bota Bota, a floating spa in Montreal, actually I didn't realize this picture has me (left), Pampa (center), and Sriram (right)

This also meant that we walked through the old part of Montreal, cobblestone, European buildings, and all. It was great, I hadn't personally been there in...ages really. It was great for Pampa and a bunch of the others either hadn't been before or hadn't been in a while. I love Montreal <3 p="p">
The next morning we took at a leisurely pace where Scott took us to see his family house. The Walbridge family had a large plot of land near Bedford, QC, about an hour south of Montreal in the townships. On the land is Quebec's only 12-sided barn, still standing from around the 1880's. It was really neat to see because inside the barn, the centre platform rotated to allow easy entrance/exit of horse and wagon, but also easy loading of hay bales into the stalls. The roof work on the barn was complex and quite remarkable. Richard was very interested in the history and was gushing over how things were built. We went for a bit of a walk in the forested area, passing an old sugar shack where they made maple syrup. Since the trees were changing colours it was really something special. While Scott had to meeting at the family house, the rest of us ventured to the café in Mystic (the hamlet). They had an extensive set of chocolates, preserves and everything made form scratch. This is where Richard found maple syrup pie that was closer to my mom's tarte au sucre than the one we had the first night. I was all excited, yay French Canadian dessert that's pure sugar.

Oh yes, and to Bedford and almost all the way home, I drove the Sprinter van. That's right, on the 20 I drove the van, and confidently at that! :D I was proud, though I did have a bit of guidance from Richard to start since I had never driven anything bigger than my family's Chevy Malibu. Getting home at 9:30pm, I was tired from having travelled over 4000km by plane and 1200km by car, but I had a lot of fun, and the research trip seems successful (from what I can tell so far). Of course, here's hoping that the data looks nice, then it'll all be worthwhile!

Beginning of grad studies!

So this post is a little delayed, which would correctly indicate that I have been super busy (not just school but yes school's taken a big chunk of time). I'm still working for Walterfedy partime when I don't have classes, lab work or meetings. I enjoy the two types of pace, academic and industrial, I feel it keeps me grounded.

I'm taking the only civil structural grad course being offered this term called Risk and Reliability, as well as an ECE stochastic processes course in relation to signal processing. It's something different but I'm trying to get a feel for where I could take my master's thesis afterwards. So far both courses are good, had the same first 2 weeks if lectures since they have to review statistics. The ECE course will definitely be higher math, should be interesting.

So the big news is that We were finally able to nail down a date to go to Montreal to instrument MAADI's aluminum pedestrian bridge spanning 44m across a ditch in Brossard. I'm super excited because we've been planning this since June but the date would get pushed back. We're hooking up up to 12 accelerometers on mounts that will be clamped on the underside of the bridge, hook them up to a data acquisitions system, and collect data on the laptop. An added challenge is 1) we needed to bring our own power and 2) we're leaving the day I get back drom New Orleans. :P

I'm also excited because some of the coolest people from my graduation year stuck around for MASc too :)

My office has been frequently frequented by my friends/people hungry for baked goods. :P

So yes, things have been going exceptionally well, busy, but very well.

Convocation!

I finally got my degree yesterday morning. Not much to say, the ceremony was nice enough, about 2.5 hours so I was getting pretty hungry by the end (so was everyone else). The speech was given by the chair of the Cambridge Toyota plant with the message of 'if you can think it, you can build it', though I found the speech kinda overly focused on his work on the Lexus. O well! Here are pictures!

I have two offices!

Last week I started working part time at WalterFedy, a consulting engineering firm in Kitchener that I had the pleasure of working with for two of my co-op terms, once in the mechanical department and the other in the civil department. Had I not been able to get NSERC funding for the USRA in the fall, I could have gone back to them for a co-op job since I liked their scope of work, the quality of work, and the office environment. When I had figured out that I'd have some time to spare before and after my travels this summer, I contacted them to some work, provided it would would around travels plans, finishing up my research work with the viscous damper and the new research work concerning the aluminum bridge as my masters' project.

It felt comfortable coming back, so much so that Brian taped a note to my monitor with the projects with work to be done, some of them were the same jobs as I had worked on 2 summers ago, though instead of the prelim design, they are now in the construction addenda stage. I got paraded around with the co-ops so that made me feel a little funny. Civil definitely has a busy summer ahead, I definitely won't be lacking in work despite there being one CAD student and one field/engineering student. The department is about 30% bigger than I remember it 2 years ago and the work is just increasing because they brought in some people with some pretty interesting niche talents.

At the same time, I have been looking to get the lab tests done on the viscous damper at UW. Apparently the department may already have some of the gear so I may be able to just patch the pieces they have rather than ordering all new stuff. Chances are it'd be a shorter wait time, ha.

I had made a quick stop at my office after my physio appointment, and sitting there made me sad that the shelving above my head was so dusty and disorganized. That is no longer a problem :) I like have a clean and organized work space. Taking care of both offices is kinda fun, I'm building up my emergency food reserves, the way I arrange stuff for super maximum efficientcy.

On the topic of arranging stuff, I should start thinking of how to pack smart for my trip... :D I'm so excited it's so soon!

Weeks 2-5 tl;dr so now by topic: Research

Following a bit of work done during the Christmas break, I have returned to work for Sriram now as a part time researcher. The first couple of weeks were quiet because I had passed off my bridge model to Asim for his thesis. Though offering to help him, Asim couldn't pass much off to me, though I got the occasional code modification to my short span bridge. Though I was not able to attend his thesis presentation due to GNCTR, I heard it went smoothly. A few days later, Sriram, Scott, Asim and I celebrated his finishing of his masters at the Grad House. It seems like he won't be around much longer, which is sad and also means I need to figure out what he did on the long span bridge if Sriram ever needs modifications done during the term.

Last week I got an awesome surprised. Sriram called me to his office and as I was walking down the hall I was smelling chip board (which was nice). I get to his office and it's from from having a 10"x36"x10" ish box on the floor. Inside was a very shiny, 80 lb viscous damper that he just got delivered. This damper was not the kind found in the industry because it had a modification on top that allowed for an adjustable orifice. Taking a step back, a viscous damper is basically a piston with two oil chambers. As the piston moves in either direction, the oil gets pushed or sucked into the other chamber through an orifice. Since the oil is thick and the orifice is small, this creates a lot of friction and thus resists the speed of the displacement (doesn't restrict the displacement so much). The adjustable knob added for Sriram's purposes then permits the damper to have a different damping coefficient where normally this is taken as a constant value for dampers installed on bridges and buildings. Eventually, the hope is to have the damper attached to sensors to collect real-time data and build/program it so that the orifice is controlled by actuators to adjust the damping coefficient based on the recently attained loads. The damper itself can function up to 7000 lbs, a relatively small damper when considering large bridges and skyscrapers where you'd need many of these (at about $3000-$5000 a piece).

Turns out that this will be my toy for this URA term, which is just all too awesome! With Richard's help in the structures lab, I'll be building the mounting for the damper, creating and running the tests, and managing the data collected for the tests to hopefully have something meaningful by the end of the term. The hope is to get up to 2 Hz on the load cell, which from my conversations with Richard, should be doable. The biggest hold up right now is actually getting time to use the load cell since there are many projects on the go. This week, I had been calling around to machining companies looking for a pre-made rod clevis that would attach the damper to the load cell. The clevis itself is like a fork with holes drilled through the sides of the forks to allow a rod to be put throughout he clevis and the hole on the end of the damper. Though because of some sizing issues, it looks like a custom piece would be the best option from the UW Machine Shop.

Anyways, I'm really excited about this since I haven't done as much lab work (well moreso now after GNCTR), but paired with the programming I did last term, it feels well-rounded.

All of life's little updates

A combination of being under the weather and being busy has prevented me from posting for a while, but here's a short recap of the past month.

 From the 14th to 21st, Anna stayed at my house on a visit during her fall break. She got in to town in time for the Chester Whitmore workshop, we did some vintage clothes shopping in Toronto, shoe shopping (which I bought a pair of sexy vintage Fluevogs). Sunday was swing club and curling where Anna pointed out that curling is the most Canadian sport ever, ha. Monday was the weekly dance with a jam for Anna (went on forever, poor Anna). The rest of the week we found stuff to do, including shopping for baking supplies at Ayres, winter boot shopping, and similar touristy things. I had a bunch of fun, and it felt like I had a sister for week. Definitely missed her around the next week.

Chester Whitmore workshop in Toronto - Having worked with the Nicholas brothers, Chester is known for his tap and jazz experience. He was a really fun instructor, you could definitely pick up on the older black-style of swing in his dancing, plus he was always joking and smiling. His beginner and intermediate lindy workshops were good, and the solo jazz one was awesome. I definitely listed the moves on a txt file in the car with Anna later.

After much banging the head on the desk (literally), I've made great progress in my OpenSees model of the Essex county bridge. I have been focusing on this one since there has been interest from the MTO to obtain results. It'll be really exciting to visit the bridge this month and install the sensor (accelerometers) that was built in Sriram's lab to get and analyze real vibration data. Essentially, the framework is there, I just have to debug it, the annoying part. I really want it to work. While I was sick 2 weeks ago, I stayed at home as to prevent my officemates from getting sick. I got the most work done in weeks, hah. Looking forward to having it correctly spit out the correct mode shapes in Matlab. Also, I found out halfway through debugging my own Matlab code that the node, element, and mass generation is eons easier in Matlab than in OpenSees. So I just need to pass files between my mbp and HP (where I can run the Windows based remote desktop). I should be getting back to the Abaqus, though it's been crashing my programs of beams on a cube of soil, which is very annoying.

So two big student teams for next term are GNCTR (concrete toboggan), and Troitsy. Both have made progress by leaps and bounds in the past month. Despite issues about trying to organize a team via electronic communication now that it's established that there is a race, I just submitted initial registration for 8 people, where the minimum for racing qualifications is 6. IRS is on the same day as the race, so none of the 4th years want to go to concrete toboggan. It's great that we're getting support from the 2014 graduates because then they'll have experience and prepare their team. I'm happy that we have a theme, a name, and Liz from chem eng has been very good at designing costumes, swag, and ideas for the tech exhibit. Sponsorship stuff is hard work to contact lots of people and politely ask them for money.

As for Troitsky, Tim and I had a build session where I made a parallel strand block and he did an orthogonal pattern popsicle stick block. My block was clamped dry, Tim's air dried. Both were machineable two weeks later by Tim, Griff and myself. The parallel strand block also did very well in the lathe to make a dowel, which should become an integration part of our construction. I am really looking forward to this event because I enjoyed it last term. As a benefit, we're going to be well prepared and contenders for placing.

On Friday, I went with John to the Boathouse by Victoria Lake to listened Douglas Watson, a well-known Canadian blues musician from Kitchener. Liz, Jay, Vanessa and Brooke joined in from Toronto and Nigel from swing club came around. Though the floor was kinda tiny to dance and often filled with other dancers, it was really fun to see them play. I hadn't seen that band for 2 years and I was quite new to dancing at the time.

Last night was Swing Out to Victory at the Hamilton Heritage Warplane Museum. Dean ran it for the past 10 years, but this year Mandi took up the reigns so that Dean could relax and enjoy the event. Featuring the Toronto All Star Big Band, it was a bunch of fun to dance with so many Toronto, Hamilton, and Waterloo dancers all in one night. Everyone looked spectacular, Erika being very well dressed, Dean in his New Orleans hat (and he noticed my New Orleans shoes), and many people in vintage Canadian uniform as part of the living history enactment group. I wasn't sure if I was going to go after my meh experience last year, but this year was way better for me. More than just a few reasons, since I've now lived in Toronto and know these dancers a lot better, the event felt so natural and comfortable. The performances went all together well, and the flow of the evening was much like when Dean did it, minus a big theatrical thing where Dean's in a cardboard tank that he built.

Upcoming swing events include the Naomi Uyama and Gordon Webster night in a week and the Waterloo Holiday Christmas dance.

Gordon Webster, Toronto based now New York based pianist will be acoompanying Naomi Uyama, who will be giving a 1 hour workshop before the dance. This is unfortunately the shortest workshop that I've seen, also because I know she's good from the time I was in Vancouver. It will be a really fun night though it's a shame that it's on a Monday and Toronto people can't make it out for a work day. Also, I really want there to be more workshops in Waterloo, so I hope this one is well attended.

The Holiday dance is a joint project between the Hep Cat Hoppers and the UW Swing Club and it'll be featuring Jordan Klapman and the All Stars. Typically the UW Swing Club will host the dance, but David was able to help raise funds to pay for a bigger and better band than in past times. I just had a meeting with the exec today, and stuff like volunteer lists, decorations and DJs are quickly being settled. It's great having co-operative and energetic people in your club executive :D.

As for this week, it's relatively quiet. Monday is the weekly dance with Sandy McDonald, so New Orleans-y type guitar stuff so it should be fun and fast. On Wednesday, I'm contemplating going to the Hamilton dance since there's a few people there that I'd like to see more of since I didn't get to talk to them as much at SOTV. On Thursday, I have a ballroom social with Giulio, Arianne and Dan on Thursday. Saturday is the Christmas dinner with Sriram and the team, same day as a blues worksbop in Toronto that'd be well regarded, but I'd need to make it back by 6 pm. I don't think I have anything Tuesday or Friday, unless I'm forgetting something, which is entirely possible. I've been enjoying the crazy amount of dancing, but it does tucker you out faster.

Alright, that's it for me, time to sleep!

Settling in, modelling, and frosh week

And thus concludes this year's frosh week, folks! For once I was actually involved in it since my sparse attendence of my own frosh week four years ago. I was going to take a picture of the engineering frosh teams that I could see through a window down the hall from my office, but then I realized it was not entirely impressive. I definitely heard the chants, cheering, and praise of Ed Com, I saw the strings of yarn taped along every walkway and lots of hard hats, pink ties, and lanyards.

This past Tuesday I co-taught swing dancing lessons for the frosh Variety Night. Since this event is so free form, there's just a whole bunch of student everywhere overloaded with activities. Even a basic lesson of jig walks in 30 minutes is super speedy. Though it seemed like people enjoyed themselves, tried something new, which for frosh week is what counts.

On Thursday was the student team lunch where the engineering frosh got fed after their morning of junkyard wars. The whole week I was trying to work out how to get the concrete toboggan out to the V1 green, but I didn't know how the display case was locked and who was in charge. After much running around and the people seemingly in charge being away on vacation, I threw in the towel because I didn't want to take off the whole morning from work just to figure it out. When I got to the GNCTR table though, Richard the lab tech pulls up in the CivE truck with the toboggan. It seems the 2013 team got enough people to lift the display case - yes, lift, it's bolted together to slide the panels out but it's not secured to the floor - and loaded the 300 lb sled into the truck. The luncheon turned out great, I conveniently had my laptop so I had the GNCTR 2011 highlights and the RMR segment on loop for people to watch. It was overcast but the weather held out which made it more pleasant, windy as heck though. It's definitely fall now and I'm enjoying it tremendously. Heading out to a forested area for a hike in a few weeks will be very pretty.

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As for work, I successfully got keys for my office on Tuesday. It's quite silly how the whole process to acquire keys involves civil eng. deparment, student accounts, civil eng. department again, then key distribution. It was a lot of biking around campus for something so simple. Though I had fun parting the crowds of froshlings with my speedy bike while ringing the bell. They have to learn and there's no time like the present!

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Work-wise, I'm beginning to get somewhere in my work. I understand the basic of Open Sees and I've been using their well-laid out wiki page and examples as a framework for that I need. Turns out that all that the MTO would require is a stick model of the bridge, which avoids me trying to get the 3D slab models to work for the bridge deck. Like any program, you can go into more detail, but at this point, only a theory-level model is required. Due to Open Sees having its own commands, the error messages are complex and hard to decipher, so I've spent a lot of time trying to understand where and what goes wrong.

Since I mastered the 2D framing system, I moved onto a 3D frame and I will be sculpting it to the shape I need. Rather than a simple, equal dimensioned bay 2D frame to use as a basis, the 3D frame example incorporates complex cross sections, being the actual concrete column dimensions with geometrical accurate rebar. This adds a few text files to the program, which I feel some information that I would still require would be buried in there. Another issue is that while I'm currently just augmenting my 2D frame model with 3 dof to a 3D model with 6 dof, I feel that some commands may not operate in the same way or work at all. It's hard to tell with the cryptic error messages. The only way that Asim said you can find the error is just to return a line to the command prompt so that you know if the error happens before or after that ouput.

The end of this week also boasted the installation of and tinkering with Abaqus, the FEM software. The pretty convoluted setup included a static IP to my machine and transferring of an unused license. Now that I think about it, the process was simple enough, it's just that no one who takes care of this type of thing was around for the past two weeks. My first impression is that it's like AutoCAD and Photoshop in the sense that its GUI is complex, technical, and insightful once you know what on earth is going on. I look forward to it :P

They're going back!

Labour Day weekend marks the end of summer vacation and the beginning of school. The back-to-school advertising innundates the radio, the mall, even Uptown Waterloo (and television for those who are familiar with this technology).

I went to Staples today to get UW Swing Club posters and flyers photocopied and definitely saw the kid-dragging-parent-to-gadgets happening and then parents-dragging-kids-to-loose-leaf. I used to work at Staples in the summer of 2006 selling computers, electronics and furniture. I definitely worked the back-to-school week (the pay was great). As I crossed the store to the backroom, I would approached by several frazzled parents about paper and stationary. Good thing I used to go to Staples a lot so that I could help them. I couldn't imagine actually working in this section at this time of year though. In electronics I did get the funny occurrences of parents asking if their elementary school child needs this calculator holding up a TI-89 graphing calculator.

Even though I started work last week, it will definitely feel busier this upcoming week with the frosh running around doing their orientation. This also means that the administration will be back in their offices after their vacation from those impetuous students who had academic terms in the spring :D. This also means that I can get a key for my office and keep the number of times that I'm locked outside my office to a justifiable two.

Tuesday evening, John and I are teaching a few beginner lindy lessons as part of the frosh Variety Night in the basement of the SLC. With these kind of events, the focus is to get the people socializing and having a silly time. It'd be awesome if they get excited about swing dancing and want to join the club, but I feel it's a fun event to be a part of regardless. Plus it's a chance for shy mathies and engineers to hold a person of the opposite gender. In other UW Swing Club news, it now has a twitter account at UWswing.

Thursday at lunchtime is the teams lunch for which I will be there with the 2013 captain to do a presentation, answer any questions the first years may have, and hopefully pick up a few members. As opposed to swing dancing for Variety Night, recruitment is more essential for GNCTR because we can use all the helping hands we can get for design/build/costumes.

On Thursday night, Giulio and I are going to try Tango/Cha cha at the Fred Astaire dance studio in Kitchener in light of a groupon that sold a group lesson, 2 private lessons, and a dance for $19. I have been interested in trying ballroom without the term-long committment of the UW club and I also didn't feel like spending much on this endeavour. Trying it out with a friend should be fun! :D.

I've heard really great things about Chantelle's initiatives to start a swing club at MUN in St. John's. I can't wait to see it when I go (eventually). She's got lesson plans, a website, a contact email, and spreading the word. That's really awesome and I hear there is a lot of interest.

Diary of a grad wannabe: Day 3...

After a good Tuesday where I got a desk, got briefed on what I'll be doing for the term and starting to find out what to do with my computer situation. Abaqus needs a static IP for the license to work, it's also a Windows only software. The available towers are old and controlled by the univsersity, not so desirable. Still working this out, but it might work on my Mac on boot camp, here's hoping!

Day 3 was nice. Started off at home with more readin on OpenSees and doing practice work. I headed into my office where we I got a bunch of papers to read over and get acquainted with the soil-structure interaction project. There was one paper in particular that will be very helpful because it studies the surface vibrations of trains on structures using Abaqus.

What was particularly great today was my discussion today wit Sriram about grad school. He knows that I'm interested in continuing education, but that I don't know where yet. Asking where I'm interested in going (I mentioned Berkley, Cornell and Austin for the US, and Waterloo, UBC, and UofT for Canada), he give his open opinion which resonated with what Rob had told me a while ago. Apparently one of his colleagues from Cornell is due to arrive in Waterloo at the end of October who does stochastic structural analysis. Apparently he's super nice and I'd get to see if I'm interested in his work. I'm told I should also check Michigan, Standford, and Illinois, this is a corner of the states that has so many colleges that it just confused me a bunch and I gave up (so this helps). Like Rob, Sriram made an indication that he'd like me to stay here but that it's my choice. What was really great of Sriram was his attitude that he'd help me with my application even if in the end I chose not to stay at Waterloo working for him. I guess that's the kind of nuturing behaviour that would attract people to stay.

[Thursday's update]: I got boot camp to work on the Mac so I have Windows 7 and Lion on one omnipotent machine. Also I got locked out of my office again and I locked my bike but failed to lock it to the bike rack. It was still there though. I supposed I was distracted today.

Sorry and I need to point out the shoes I found. I don't wear heels unless it's a special occasion, and even then! But when I was in Uptown Waterloo once I saw those and I had liked the style but hadn't found a pair I liked. I waited until they brought in my size and I'm so glad I did! They're lovely and they smell great! (and look pretty darn awesome too!)

GRE - check, Dovercourt - check, end of summer - ...check

After much procrastination throughout, I finally studied and wrote the GRE exam in order to apply to American graduate schools. I have been talking about doing this for a while mainly because everyone I've talked to has always been late themselves and have suggested to me to start early. The reason why I chose to write the GRE now is that since the GRE is being significantly revised (even in the marking scheme), the test was being offered at 50% of the price. I'm assuming the new test would be a deterrant for those inclined to treat it like the SAT and study for a year. I commend anyone who would do this for their patience, I could not do this.

This Saturday was Jack Layton's funeral at Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto at 2:30, which meant my travels to Toronto had to factor this in. The test centre is at Bloor and Sherbourne, so I figured avoiding the Gardiner and just taking the 401 to the DVP was the best option. Leaving at 10 am, I got super lucky and got there at 11:20, the test being at 12:30. I had brought snacks for the road because the test centre didn't allow food/drink, which for a 4 hour exam is pretty cruel. I also had the Kaplan book (for the old GRE), in the car with me, but I wasn't compelled to read any more, 'whatever happens, happens' I thought. Sitting in the Timothy's on the ground floor of the building, I Facebook my friends online to let out my nervous energy through typing. At noon, I popped on the internet and signed up for Followlogie, a follow-centric workshop in Montreal at the end of January. I went last year and I was very happy with my time there. It was also my first major out-of-town workshop. I'm not sure if I'm going to sign up for the solo charleston competition, very likely though. I definitely signed up with Jo Hoffberg's performance team class, who's style I really like because it's fun and quirky (As seen in this year's ILHC performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT2h5WiJ7Qc&feature=related).

Now about the exam, I don't know how much I've agreed not to disclose, which is kinda funny. It started with the issue essay, a bit of a slog right at the beginning but looking back it's the best choice. It was about technology in schools, which was pretty solid. The argument essay was about replacing butter with margarine in restaurants...it felt so weird to write about this for half an hour. So I think I started writing a bit sarcastically, I hope the markers enjoy the break from mundanity. Next was the verbal analysis, oh no! This is my most dreaded section, some fill in the blanks I was like 'what?', some I saw words that the GRE's known to use and I thought 'ha! I was ready for you!'. Next was the math section, I had 35 minutes, I totally finished with 17 minutes to spare :D. Another verbal section, 30 minutes of slight uncertainty and just generally being blazé by this point. Another math section, yay I feel better about myself, starting to wonder how my score's shaping up and when I get to leave. The test has 2 math and 2 verbal sections that counts, but they toss either 1 verbal or math section where they test questions out, doesn't count but they don't tell you which one (obviously). My last section, verbal again, .___. but whatever, I don't bother checking my answers and I'm done. I go through 4 screens of clicking 'Yes, don't cancel my marks and please grade me', I guess if people know they didn't do well and they don't want Harvard to see. They report it was an approximate grade according to the old system (new marking scheme not ready yet). With a possibility from 200 to 800, my verbal was 450 - 550, and math was 750 - 800 (the writing needs someone to actually read it, though I bet a dart board is involved. Kidding.)

Enthralled with my results, I go to the Eaton's centre, walk around for a bit, I go to Martha's house, have sushi and dance at Dovercourt where the night concluded with fried chicken and vegan jambalaya.


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First day of work today as a research assistant. The morning started off with a bang because I guess my alarm clock wasn't set and last night was a fun (but late) night watching Doctor Who, playing Mario Kart, and watching the stars. Then I realized...I can work from home. So I install OpenSees, an open-source earthquake dynamic analysis software that I'll be using for the existing bridge modelling project. In the afternoon I picked up the ABAQUS DVD I'll need for the subway vibration project, but I do not have a PC for that yet, therefore no static registered IP, therefore no installing the software yet. So today was a bunch of reading of manuals, reading through the original drawings of the bridge, shop drawing-level of rebar detailing and all. OpenSees can be see here. It's finite element analysis with special features for dynamic analysis of structures, it's like a structural engineer just decided, ok I'm going to share the code that I used to augment the basic finite element analysis so that other people can get to work faster. It just makes sense.

I have to say the oddest thing about today was its happily productive and comfortable pace. I corresponded with everyone I needed to, I got lots done, I understand way more about my projects. Normally the first day on the job in the industry involves an office tour, signing a bunch of agreements, the tax papers, a bare desk, sometimes a pile of drawings in order to understand the way they operate, and trying to meet a bunch of people. No suits, no pretentiousness, no HR. Sure, I don't have my PC yet, but I have other stuff to work on. The masters and PhD students that I'm working with (Maria and Asim) are nice and helpful. I don't know, I was worried about like, making sure I show that I'm working, but I suppose that's all based on what you produce, the kind of format I appreciate (I find some industry jobs too stiffling and not concerned with end product). I think I will enjoy this term. A lot.

Now off to dry cleaners, then Maxwell's Music House.

Waterloo dancing, Hamilton dancing, GRE, and Toronto dancing

My dancing shoes and new crinolin for my swing dress

Waterloo dancing
This past Monday was the first dance at the Button Factory in a while. Though it's more work than the pre-setup Maxwell's, that's the new location of the weekly dances starting in September. We get one more dance at Mxwell's music house so that we can hug our favourite bartender Brandon one last time. I had a couple of great dances that night and the ever-growing trend of Pepi's Pizza afterwards with Turlough, Dean, Eva, and John.

Monday also included a small lesson for new masters student at Perimeter Institute all thanks to Luca's organization. The squash court was full and the sound bounced off of the slick white walls like there's no tomorrow. It was brilliant fun. I hope it gets people out to the park on Thursdays, Monday nights, or UW swing club. If they are all like Anna, Giulio, and Luca, this city just got 10 times happier.

Hamilton dancing
It's been too long since I've been to the Hamilton monthly dances. Something called law for civil engineers had an evening class this summer on Tuesdays. It was really fun, danced and socialized with those that I haven't see in ages, also I'm a huge fan of the London Tap House, it's a very neat building. After driving home with Jimmy and Turlough, the night concluded with watching Doctor Who, how awesome.

GRE
This Saturday I write the GRE in hopes to be free to apply to American universities like Cornell and Berkley (my two top US picks). The reason why I picked now to do it (other than the fact that the application deadlines are fast approaching), is that the revised GRE came out in August, and they're offered 50% off for attempting it in August. I figured, why not try? Best of all, the silly language questions like the analogies have been scrapped, and they now have the ability to skip over and come back to questions. After the 3 and something hours writing the exam, I have a bit of time to grab some food then off to...


Toronto dancing
Dovercourt week 3 of 3. It is very obvious that I am no longer in classes given how much I am able to do during the week and the amount of Toronto travelling I get to do.

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I other news I am off to Vancouver on the weekend of September 23rd to visit profs at UBC and for the Rhythm City Mess Around 2011 (with Thomas Blacharz, Alice Mei, Peter Strom and Naomi Uyama). The weekend after is ULHS that will be fantastic. Southwestern Ontario people, among others, include Steve and Caitlin, Dean, Anna (and ex-Ontarian), John, and myself.

4A, 4B, fall RA, grad studies, blogs, and more dancing

Having my last final on the 9th, it was a while until I started getting the marks back, and all is well! The only one to have not updated yet is law (typical :P). What I proved is that I could totally overload my schedule and still keep on top of everything. By no means am I doing this ever again. Managing six courses, part-time research, swing club, concrete toboggan, and travelling to Miami and Chicago were more than enough, but it was a really fun summer. If I am tempted to make a third term with a sixth course, for my sanity and yours, please stop me :).

The next academic term is shaping up to be

• CIVE 401 - Project course 2
• CIVE 405 - Structural dynamics
• CIVE 415 - Structural systems
• CIVE 422 - Finite element analysis
• CIVE 460 - Engineering biomechanics

The last one is the most iffy, it will be either biomechanics or geotech III, both of which are nice but I'm not overly thrown one way or the other. The term will be very structural based (more than enough courses for the structural certificate), and very math heavy. Due to the high level of interest in the topic though, it should be an interesting and perhaps even fun term. Seeing as this will be the standard course load, it might be a nice break (plus once the Iron Ring Ceremony comes in February, the tone will totally change).

I met with Dr. Narasimhan today to figure out what I'll be doing this upcoming term, and it looks interesting. The two projects lined up are:

1. FEM modelling in Open-Sees of existing MTO highway bridge (either steel or reinforced concrete in Ottawa or Toronto). Later in the term, the team will collect dynamical data and compare it to the models.
2. Modelling of soil-structure interaction using ABACUS from dynamic vibrations of subways or light rail in the sonic frequencies.

The first month will be starting to dig into the software, the topics, and find reading material to get my foot in the door.

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One thing I noticed recently is the explosion of blogs in my close circle of friends. Chantelle made a blog to recount her experiences in St. John's, Nfld for her masters. Mike has had and is currently improving his site. John is also totally revamping his blog site by hand without templates. Turlough is interested in a blog as well. I guess we've all hit points in our lives where experiences are worth noting, be it school, work, or hobbies.

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Recently, I decided that with my work keeping me in Waterloo, I will have time for my hobbies (even moreso than if I was in Toronto). This definitely includes curling and swing dancing. In particular, I decided to really step up the dancing. My aspirations are to gain the experience to teach and to maybe try competing someday. I suppose I miss part of that from figure skating where it was a reoccurring goal. So while maintaining the president position at the UW Swing Club, I'll hope to work more with John, Krister, and Dave/Amanda (through the Hep Cat Hoppers). I also got asked by Turlough if I'd work with him as my dance partner, which sounds like a great idea. I'm very excited! I've got some ideas for this term's upcoming UW Swing Club for fun lessons, cool moves (and maybe an event?). There'll also be beginner lessons for the UW frosh week Variety Night which should be fun and a whole bunch of socializing :).

Next dancing workshop in the wings (still deciding) is the Nick Williams and Sylvia Sykes balboa workshop in Montreal on the weekend of September 24th. Another one for sure is Followlogie in Montreal on the weekend of January 20th. I went last year with Martha, Dave, Amanda, Charlie, Kathleen, and Phil and it was tons of fun.

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As a side note, I really miss Anna and Chantelle, I got too used to them being around, in particular during the summer.

TARDIS and Kitchener Bluesfest

Finding the TARDIS

While on a excursion to C&D while studying law, we were told there was a TARDIS on the lower floor of EIT. All excited, I grabbed the only decent camera I had (ipod) and went looking for it with Kristine and Tim. We found it.

Kitchener Blues Festival

Last evening and night was full of great free blues music, dancing, and a late night party to continue the dancing. Running into Arianne, Melanie, Alex, and bunch of others, we ended up super close for the Jimmy Vaughan concert at the main stage. Finding dancers later, it was great to see some faces that have been gone for a while like Chris and Jillian.

[Photo credit: Arianne Villa]

The end is nigh!

This morning marks my second-to-last set of finals for my undergrad. Steel design, concrete design, law, timber design, all in a week. Then it's done, well, onto more studying for the GRE and figuring out what the heck I'm doing with myself after April 2012.

It's a great feeling, provided I'm ready. I remember starting university and some of my friends telling me of their last year and how mentalities change, which I see it as partially true. I feel it's because the nature of the courses narrow in scope and become more practical. There were some people that I didn't see other than in law (if that) because we actually do have options for specialization. On the other hand, there are some people you see for 10 hours a day (luckily they're nice people).

This weekend I got my event and plane tickets to New Orleans for the Ultimately Lindy Hop Showdown which is September 29th to October 3rd. So far it's just Dean and I but we hope to accrue more people. 3+ days of entirely dancing to New Orleans jazz with some of the funnest people around? Count me in!

In other news, two University of Waterloo engineering teams are starting up. The first is the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race 2012 to be held in Calgary, Alberta. It's a weekend of meeting other university teams, games, themed teams, races, and general nonsense. For more info contact uw-gnctr-2012@googlegroups.com.

The second is the Troitsky Bridge Building Competition, held at Concordia University in Montreal. Check out our Facebook Group!

Research, research, research!

I've neglected this blog. I found that after a few school and co-op terms that I did not have the same quoms with engineering as I once did. I believe it was just a few odd experiences in my early co-op terms that made me cynical of an organized profession. At this point, I've established that it's the societies and practices on the periferi of engineering that I'm concerned with (such as the Tool in the UW engineering circles), and involvement with these groups is voluntary.

Current school term - I have been steadily progressing through 4A for the last (almost) 3 months. This term is was timber design, concrete design II, steel design, law, structural analysis, and 4th year project. My favourite course was structural analysis since it feels the most fun. Admittedly, picking up Matlab after almost 3 years was a bit intimidating, but it came together quickly. This was the first structural modelling course I could take in undergrad, and seeing as how I liked it, it will not be my last. Steel was a slog but definitely necessary. Concrete II was useful and I enjoyed/understood the complex components better than I ever understood Concrete I. 4th year project was fun, challenging, with a bit of luck tossed in there for good measure. Kristine, Ben, Tim and I were able to get Dr. Scott Walbridge as our advisor before the term even started. This helped a bunch with the first few weeks of class so that we weren't scrambling at the last minute. Even though this term's project was only to get a project scope, develop three alternatives, evaluate them, and choose the best, we kinda started with our solution and worked backwards. One of Dr. Walbridge's projects is the development of a reusable steel plate design for temporary roads. The uses can range from road washout, rockslide, or construction. Due to the 4th year project, we had to narrow it down to a road bypass while the realigned Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph would be rebuilt (thanks to Tim on that suggestion). The project went super well in my opinion, the lifecycle cost analysis was very detailed, it may have been in Kristine's dreams, but it turned out great. Now it's on to actually using that option and designing the thickness more accurately, road textures, plate connectors and all that jazz.

URA - During this term I worked with Dr. Robert Gracie on a computational mechanics project using magnesium. 'In situ TEM compression testing of Mg and Mg–0.2 wt.% Ce single crystals by Jia Ye,, Raja K. Mishra, Anil K. Sachdev, and Andrew M. Minora', describes the qualitative results of a micro column axial conpression test on magnesium. Magnesium is cheap and strong but brittle, so the hopes for car manufacturers like GM would be to find an alloy of magensium that would retain the first two qualities of the pure substance and yield in flexure. Setting up a model of a column of magnesium at room temperature and putting it under compression, I would hope to see how dislocations or twinning occur. At the moment, I'm still working on the rate of loading that will best show these dislocations. Almost there!

Swing dancing - During my previous co-op term in Toronto at MMM Group, I got to go to Followlogie in Montreal, which was very awesome. I'm in the process of planning to go to ULHS, which is at the end of September in New Orleans. I'm told it's a lot of fun and I can't wait to dance with a whole bunch of talented dancers and musicians. Currently the president of the UW Swing Club, I'm a frequenter of the 'dancing in the park' at Waterloo Park, Monday night dancing at Maxwell's Music House, and when I can make it to Toronto I pop into Dovercourt and the Imperial. Because of Tuesday night class (law), I've had to skip on the Hamilton dances (boo).

GNCTR - It started out as me being one of three design team captains, then Carleton University bailed on hosting the concrete toboggan race. Then a few UW students (myself included) looked into doing it in Waterloo or teaming up with Western to host (but Western never replied). In the end, Calgary volunteered so that the competition would not cease to exist for the 2012s. Problem is that the only weekend Calgary can do this event coincides with UW's Iron Ring Ceremony, so most of the 4th years are backing out of the toboggan race. Being as fond as I am for old secret traditions, I was one of the few 4th years to continue with concrete toboggan because I find it so awesome. I now find myself the new captain of the entire team. A little intimidating but I'm sure it'll be a blast!

Fall 2011 - So the job I had set up a while ago in Toronto fell through before I even started, which got me all a flurry to find something new. Since I'm interested in grad studies after undergrad and that I'm finished work reports, PDEng, and my work term credits, I set out to find a prof in the structural engineering field that would have a spot for me. With a bit of luck, my structural analysis prof had never taken on an undergrad before but was willing to take me on! I applied for NSERC funding a month overdue (obviously I applied when I found out I no longer had a job), the civil undergrad secretary put it on rush and I got it just two days ago. I'm very excited about this opportunity

Fall term -

Halfway through the term, disappointed in some respects, but not unpleased

This term has been a learning experience in more ways than one. Taking a course load with one more than required has made me a very busy person but I don't regret taking hydraulics. It's not something I'm going to commit to as a profession and neither is it a bird course, but it's the most interesting and out there so far. Provided that the extra education is free and that I can maintain decent marks, I don't see why I shouldn't try it out.

The engineering discussions course that I got admitted to is not what I had expected at all. Well not necessarily, I expected it to be a lot of mayhem and time stumbling trying to get its feet. A quick summary is that the class has basically been about designing a new university, what we'd focus on, what's the target group of students, how we'd hope for it to succeed. This was an idea of the prof's that we went along with, it seems a little random and we haven't done the best job at it really, though it's an overwhelming task to try and tackle. I've felt a bit odd that my ideas get shot down a lot when I try and suggest very out-of-the-box topics to discuss in relation to this new university project. The first day I stated my intention to learn more about the engineering society and try and find whether it is an honest group of people or if the problems in engineering are rooted in a flawed system. This was soon dismissed by the prof and I feel a bit rejected in that sense.

I did enjoy presenting bill C-32 about the Copyright Modernization Act that I felt tied into this university project's intellectual property (somehow) and I was able to expose the class to some vital information that I feel would benefit them to know. There was a coo in the second or third week of the class because there was no progression or direction, I think since then it's been better but I feel it spreading very wide now, by now I'm just watching to see what happens with this course, some people are being ridiculously committed to the course. This course is in replacement of a non-science course, which does not tend to impede on homework time. Though I commend people on being proactive, it's a bit much since the main focus of the course is to improve communication skills.

Another thing is that a lot of these students like to talk, I am convinced some enjoy hearing themselves talk, which is fine and dandy for them, but leaves little time for the rest of the students. I prefer to sit back and think for a bit so that I don't say something silly, but this course's marking would suggest that I need to speak up right away. Doesn't entirely make sense to me.

Therefore in summary, my protesting is being squashed, though I get some interesting comments in the conversations on rare occasions. We'll see how this course concludes, it seems its on the course calendar for next year.

I'm in, now how to get my answers...

It's been a while since I've posted, mainly since despite my digging for information, I've been on this side of fruitless in my search. All of the articles that I've come across on the internet regarding issues with engineers and engineering have been actually about the challenges that engineers face, which is entirely different. Nothing so far on the PEO and their model of their self-governing organization, other than what their site and Wiki have to say.

For Fall 2010 I've been accepted into the CIVE497 course that will discuss engineering issues in politics, environment and society in order to improve our communication skills. I have to admit, though I'm not insatiably excited about the course, I feel sometimes like this course could have a lot to offer and that this experience (if all goes well) could shape the rest of my engineering career. During the course, I really wish to be able to challenge the reasoning behind the structure of the engineering government and to fully understand their processes that I don't understand at the moment. Since the course is new, flexible, and presented as a course that can be altered in terms of the direction of discussion according to the students, it seems like I could get my questions answered and possibly spark some interesting debate about the existentialism of the PEO. A kind of 'taking it down from the inside' I suppose.

I have to admit though, discussion of politics and environment as it pertains to engineering (more specifically civil and mechanical engineering) is quite interesting on its own. Even as a recent example, today in Waterloo there was an intense rainfall where between the times of 8:00 and 8:15, 20mm of rain fell and as of the previous night, a total of 65mm had fallen. Pictures circulated the internet of local flooded roads, water gushing out like geysers from storm sewers, and the boardwalk at Silver Lake in Waterloo Park being completely submerged. Projecting the 20mm in 15 min rainfall would mean that this storm was in excess of a 100 year storm, a design criteria I know well from work this term. I can see that at this given amount of rain, the storm system was over capacity and the sediment-laden waters would run off the land straight into the water ways without any sedimentation or filtration. This poses huge environmental impacts since more suspended solids has temperature and habitat effects. I wonder if there's any political impact of this storm, such as water damaged properties or city infrastructure.

It was interesting to hear from my friend yesterday as we were discussing something as small as the environmental impacts of hand-drying alternatives initiated by Conestoga Mall, she commented on my obvious enthousiasm and knowledge on the subject. Though I feel I know so little and never enough (since the world feels like a limitless source of information). She commented how it got her to stop and think about the alternatives of cloth towels to paper towels to hand dryers (since electricity and industrial cleaners are not directly observable to the user, it seems like they are preferred options to paper towels, though this can be debated either way. I like the idea of cloth towels since one is not likely to use more than one and it's way too easy to take more paper towels than you need, and electric hand dryers are very slow and ineffective in most cases).

Also, I'm looking into this whole Engineers Without Borders and how it works. Since my boyfriend came back from a vacation to Tanzania, he's had a new humbleness for all of the fantastic things in his life such as running water and the ability to buy lots of food on a whim and make a large tasty dinner. As a civil engineer, I see how my studies can be used in the context to directly improve the quality of life for people living in developing countries where the access to clean potable water and sanitation are well defined and separated. I've gotten the urge to want to help, but I feel somewhat skeptical of development organizations. The type of work that I'd be doing in the Waterloo chapter would be to drum up interest in other people in town, nothing directly correlated to helping those in need since only a few people and students are sponsored each year. To volunteer so much as to be considered an involved member of the group in order to be more likely to be chosen seems like something I just don't have the time to do. I'm thinking that working for a firm or a non-profit organization that does civil and structural engineering work for post-disaster relief aid would be really neat and a great application of my skills to the real, deserving world (harsh I know). I quickly looked into it and it looks like it possibly exists.

Anyways, more on this later when I have some time to research.

The good, the bad, the missing

Having not posted for a while, I've been sitting around contemplating where I'm at with how I feel about engineering. After having talked to recent graduates from engineering programs and non engineers, I see that there are a few of the former that have come across the same weird feeling as I have, whereas the latter does not seem to see the reason for my concern.

I tried searching the internet for other people that may be blogging about their mixed feelings on the medical, law, or engineering professions, and there's surprisingly little about the profession group organization itself. Most things that come up are issues that engineers face, or how engineers have had to face a corrupt group that they had to work with. I'm wondering if the topic of corruption or issues with the governance of the PEO is just something I perceive, or that people aren't speaking about it. Recent graduates have told me that they've contemplated why the PEO acts the way they do, why their literature is packed full of "gossip" over who sued who over improper engineering practices (this seems like petty squabbling to me when engineering designs are not compromised). Apparently, I'll learn more about the PEO during the Iron Ring Ceremony that I will have in about 2 years time. Some of the information provides insight into why the PEO is organized as it is, and some information will make silly concepts even sillier. One of the aspects of the PEO that I find silly is how the PEO portrays itself to the public, requiring engineers to make the public aware of the profession, yet many of their resources and decisions seem closed-book.

Non-engineers have generally been of the opinion that these type of professional organization woes happen with multiple professions such as doctors, lawyers, architects, and anything with a registered organization. It was pointed out that at this point, what matters is that my life's work is what I am interested in, and that I just have to deal with the ridiculousness of the self-governed organization because I will get it almost anywhere. Essentially, I'm being told to, as in the words of my very good friend Chris, "suck it up, princess". Not desirable, but I see the truth in what they sat, I just have a hard time accepting it.

The good that I have concluded about the professional engineering is that it is essential to have a governing system to structure engineering design in order to protect the public. I see this moreso than anything in structural engineering. As a sidenote, it is interesting to see how the general media covers the consequences of the breaking of dams in Alberta. This type of catastrophe is the kind that an engineer hopes to never have associated with their name for the livelihood in the engineering industry. I have been finding through my co-op terms that your engineering reputation in the industry is extremely important as a measure of trust, though this is perhaps one of the profession's weaknesses. Engineers would rather jump through as many hoops as possible within the PEO to maintain a clean design history free of major errors. Therefore, I see nothing majorly wrong with the PEO Act which instructs engineers on their duties, roles, and obligations since I believe these are essential common sense (should this exist) ground rules. On the other hand, the human aspect of the PEO seems a bit flawed with respect to the information that I know.


And now for something completely different...

I may yet have an outlet for my engineering profession queries. During my next school term in fall 2010, UW is setting up a course to explore the current issues facing the engineering industry. These topics will hopefully branch into sustainability, economics, and politics. The actual purpose of this  course is to improve communication skills via conventional (written, spoken) and non-conventional (blogs, vlogs, audio recordings) means. Now, this course is by application only, which I had done (in a oh-so-boring conventional letter mainly because I wanted to use a form factor for my appliation that I was comfortable with). I hope to be accepted where I may be able to ask my questions about the engineering industry and the function of the PEO and other societies for engineers. This could be a good think tank pick-other-peoples'-brains opportunity that may strengthen the resolution of my questions. I have no problem in admitting that I was wrong about my feelings of the industry or the profession, I just feel like I have a lack of information available, or that it's just not a common enough viewpoint to be able to find that many others to discuss this with. Why are fresh ideas hard to find?

The real world of engineering

I happen to attend a friend's birthday picnic where a lot of my high school friends and acquaintances made the majority of the group. Through talking with a few of them, my friend Molly especially, I find I am really not alone when it comes to being disillusioned with the industry for which we are studying. In her case, she gets the concepts of honesty, fairness, accuracy, and integrity of journalism repeated to her, and she sees a lack of it when it comes to examples in real life.

Though I really enjoy learning the concepts of civil engineering (thus far), some of my co-op experiences have left a sour taste in my mouth regarding how the system works in practice. I've seen probably the more dishonest side of engineering consulting, where I've seen the engineers I work with make deals under the table with clients to win a bid, or to avert government fees, or even designing an aspect of a job in which the engineer has absolutely no experience. It just doesn't seem right, nothing stops these people, and their stamp seals the deal. The engineering stamp carries a lot of legal responsibility, meaning that they stake their job on the honest and integrity of the documents stamped. Through very strong objection, I've had major projects sent out to a city for permit where the engineer stamped and signed the drawings without review. Though this was a very unique and extreme situation with this engineer, I still can't believe there are such people practicing and designing infrastructure that society uses.

Another issue I find with engineering in the industry is how lazy everything is. We learn in school about new materials, new ways of approaching design and how they are more thorough than the tried and true methods. I get to my co-ops, and all the jobs involve a copy and paste of specifications, design ideas, or even parts drawn in AutoCAD from previous projects. What's even more interesting is that the projects they are being copied have been submitted, but they are not built yet, meaning that sure the idea passed the review on paper, but they could be perpetuating a bad idea or something the construction guys know from experience that cannot be done or that there's a better way. For example, pipes that would seem to fit in the ceiling together nicely may not jig nicely when it comes to the physical installation due to tolerances in error, which is very common.

This just all makes me want to return to university of grad school or more, because I'm not comfortable with the real world yet, I feel as an undergrad, I wouldn't have the expertise to be able to change it, because that is very much a goal of mine. I don't want the status quo, even if I make a very small bubble of influence around me, I want to know that engineers can be more hard-working than they are and put less emphasis the dollar values of their projects and their wallets at the end of the day.