Week 3

            As presented in John Delaney’s talk, the future of oceanography is promising. The idea of setting up an autonomous underwater base is very cool. It is definitely advantageous to use automated and remotely controlled instruments when working in the ocean, especially on the floor of the ocean. These instruments can remain on site and can be controlled day and night from almost any location. The convenience of this is amazing. The speed and amount of data collected can be increased significantly by using remotely operated stations, such as the ones in Delaney’s talk. I was amazed when he said that we have the capability of doing in-situ DNA analysis. I can’t wait to see remotely operated stations on the floors of all the world oceans.

            As far as my scratch project is concerned, I am getting a bit frustrated with my simulation. The bacterium is having a hard time find the food source. The issue with particles moving diffusively (Brownian motion is what I’m trying to simulate) is that no information can be gained by sensing the direction of the moving particle. If a particle touches the left side of the bacterium, this does not indicate that the food source is to the left of the bacterium. I do have the bacterium moving further in the same direction when it encounters more particles, however it can still be moving up the concentration gradient diagonally and miss the food source. It’s a hard problem to solve. However, I have some time this weekend to figure it out. My next step is to figure out what to have the bacterium do when it senses it is going down gradient.  In this case it is definitely moving away from the food source, so turn 180 degrees? Add or subtract 90 degrees? I am not sure what to do. This is a thought problem not a programming problem, I will not find the answer by look at my scratch program. What would I do if were blind and contacting randomly moving particles? How would I find the source? Lastly I may have to make more particles in my program in order to increase the concentration gradient, this should make it somewhat easier.

Week 2

            I enjoyed watch Ken Robinsons talk, however I don’t think the education system is a flawed as he thinks it is. He believes that our education system is impeding our progress as a civilization and destroying young peoples creativity. No matter what I agree there will always be room for improvement in the education system, however in my experience I have found the current system to be satisfactory. The major flaw in education as I see it, which he did no mention, is the cost of education. People do not have the opportunity or choose not to attend a university because the costs are so high.

            He also mentioned that there is an emphasis on math and science and not art or dance in our schools. I may be somewhat bias because I am interested in the science, but I believe that science is much more important then art or dance. That’s not say that people interested in the arts should not peruse it. There are institutions specifically for the arts, and that’s how it should be. However in elementary school and high school, students should be taught a significant amount of math and science (with some freedom of choice to take more or less of a specific subject). It is my opinion that it is unacceptable for people to be ignorant when it comes to the sciences. In my eyes, understand the world around us is currently the most important and pressing task of all humans.

            It is also people who are uneducated in the sciences that are impeding the progress of discovery. I watched Randy Olson’s film Flock of Dodos a couple months ago, and it brought up a good point, which is what I am trying to get at. There are people who believe the earth was formed 6,000 years ago. These people do not understand modern science and are interfering with the teaching and progression of science. However, now I have gotten onto an even larger subject of debate, so I will leave it at that.

            My second scratch project is already going very well. I have made most of it last night because I couldn’t stop tweaking things in the program. My simulation is going to be a flagellated bacterium that has to find a food source that is emitting small molecules. At first I had the molecules leaving the food source on a strait trajectory, however I found this unrealistic. So now I have the molecules moving diffusively, the x and y positions of the molecules changes by a random number every 0.5 seconds or so. In the final product the user will be able to move the source to any point in the stage (top left, bottom right, center, ect.).

            I am now in the process of designing the bacterium “brain”. As of now I have colored each of the four sides of the oval shaped bacterium with a different color. The different colors act as sensors, so the bacterium will know what side the molecule touches. However, this design was originally for the strait trajectory molecules, so I may redo the code for the bacterium. I may take a sum of the number of molecules that touch the bacterium over a certain time period and if the sum increases over two successive time periods it will continue in that direction. If not then it will turn and move another direction. This will make the bacterium move up concentration gradients. I look forward to showing this simulation in class.

Week 1

After a couple months of absence, I am back to writing weekly updates here on Trials and Tribulations of a Lab Tech. The weekly updates will be on my progress in and thoughts concerning my class this semester (Engineering Literacy For the 21^st Century).

            I am excited for this class and expect it to be much more engaging then most of my other lecture-based classes. So far I am enjoying the first scratch project. I have a pretty neat idea about how I can make an interactive advisement for Sustainable Fisheries Foundation (SFF). In essence it will be a game that demonstrates increased fishing intensity over time, and will be ultimately impossible to beat. The message being that everyone losses when fisheries are not managed.

            So far I have found scratch easy to work with and I have been able to do most of animations I had in mind. It is becoming a bit more complex then I had planned, but I’m still having fun with it. There is a timeline included in my advertisement that will have to run a little fast. I suppose I could make it run slower, but I would have to make a lot more sprites, you’ll see what I mean next week. Overall, so far so good!

            Randy Pausch’s last lecture was very inspiring. One of the points he made was that, brick walls are there to stop people who are not willing to try again. Also, on one of his slides was, “The best gold is at the bottom of a barrel of crap.” I found this funny and true. I think that these ideas would definitely give me motivation when I feel overwhelmed or defeated. I liked the entire lecture and his overall optimism; I would suggest this lecture to just about anyone.