The first time we attended an ROCC Launch event was March of 2009.  This was an interesting experience, as one larger size rocket malfunctioned.  Its parachute failed to open and it torpedoed into the ground.  I followed the crowd that embarked to find its landing spot.

Another time we attended an ROCC Launch event and took lots of picture was January of 2010.  This is a good time to mention that rocket launches are a great venue for budding (or professional) photographers.  You have lots of opportunities to get that perfect launch shot.

The command center.

One of the greatest part of launching your own rockets is that your launch is announced by the Launch Control Officer (LCO) over the loudspeakers.

Rockets line the launch pad.

The launch pad is filled to capacity before launching.  This means periods of dead time between launches.  It is much like a tailgate during these times and many people grill hot dogs and hang out.  When launching happens, all of the rockets are launched consecutively.

Discussing a launch.

Many high school and college groups come to events like this for trial runs of rockets they have created in preparation of competing in rocket competitions.

Launching a rocket.

Many of the launches are quite impressive.  The larger motor sizes lead to launches that look like mini Nasa launches.

A launch with black smoke.

It is an interesting surprise to see what type of reaction will be caused by the motors – red and white flames are common.  Occasionally a launch will have black smoke instead of the traditional whitish color.

Another great rocket launch!

Looks like a great day, doesn’t it?  I will admit that I wasn’t really into all this rocketry geekery – but I went at Adam’s request.  I wound up enjoying myself even more than he did!  (*Update* After reading this, Adam claims that he had more fun than I did.)

Find a local rocketry club near you through the National Association of Rocketry.

Oh yeah, for those of you curious to Adam’s home-made rocket endeavors, here you go!  I advise to not try this at home.  (Apparently we aren’t the only ones using a creative license when it comes to rocketry. On a related crazy note, watch a child get his tooth pulled out by a rocket here!)

From a teacher’s perspective, four makers in particular presented things I just “need” to have in my classroom.  This is my wish list:

• Classroom Visits for “Scrap” from the ScrapExchange
• Leatherbound Books
• ShopBot Tyro
• DIY Multi-Touch Screen

Find reasons and more information about each of my choices after the jump.

“Scrap” from the ScrapExchange

The pre-party for all the makers involved was held at The Scrap Exchange, and I admit I spent over three hours in this creative reuse center perusing all of their wonderful and random items.  Some items of interest for potential classroom application range from the obvious to the obscure:

• Lab Equipment (All teachers that teach science need to use tools scientists use!)
• Paper (Large Rolls for Art Projects or Collaborative Group Planning)
• Folders (I like to use folders with educational programs like MathPals)
• Notebooks (For taking notes, duh!)
• Stickers (I couldn’t resist buying some sparkly sticker paper myself!)
• Corks (One of the many materials you can find there to test bu0yancy or density)
• Old Posters, Newspapers, and Magazines (Comparing yesterday to today.)
• Mylar (Creating kites to study the physics of flight)
• Doodads & Whatnots (Whatever your mind can imagine!)

I think either a teacher field trip or student field trip to the scrap exchange could be an amazing creative journey.  They have giant blue bins that contain all sorts of random items you knew (and never knew) you wanted and needed.  All of their prices are very reasonable, and for a mere $3.50 you can fill a shopping bag size bag with all the bin items you could ever want.  The only stipulation is there is a item limit for each of the bins.

Leatherbound Books

Of course a name like Leatherbound Book Works is bound to get an educator excited.  The books here are bound by bookbinder and shop owner, Michael Greer.  The journals he creates are sure to inspire any child and would make great writer’s or reader’s notebooks.  Michael shared that the maps in the stories by famous author J.R.R. Tolkien influenced him to go into book making, and he now even creates his own maps to be included in the pages of the books he binds.  His passion for bookbinding makes me want to help my students create their own professional books from scratch, much like this instructables post I found.  Have you embarked on a similar venture?  I would like to here how your own bookbinding endeavor turned out.

ShopBot Tyro

I don’t know how anyone could NOT want a CNC Router.  With such a piece of machinery, you could create virtually anything.  The ShopBot Tyro is looking to release in the next few weeks for about $3995.  Every middle and high school shop class should have one of these in their classroom.

DIY Multi-Touch Screen

Already having a promethean board (which means I essentially have all the more expensive raw materials already available – like a projector and computer), I am VERY much wanting to create one of these to use in my classroom.  Can you imagine fifth graders working together with such a surface to share and create?  It would be impractical to use everyday, but this surface makes it ideal for groups to share computer resources.  The software is open-source (free!) and active support is available through the NUI Group Community.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I think the best impression that any teacher, or person, can take away from the Maker Faire is that if you can dream it, you can create it -  so go out there and make!

I’ve had a FTDI cable for a while for testing serial communications between my microprocessors and my computer and for that job, it works great. However, I recently grabbed a couple Ardweenies from Solarbotics and decided to use my FTDI cable to program them.  The FTDI cable doesn’t have an automatic reset, so you have to push the reset button on the board at exactly the right time when trying to program it from your computer.  This causes tons of frustration.

Oddly, a few days of experimenting with the arduinos, my cable got a short in it. While fixing the short, I was surprised to find out that the FTDI cable uses the same chip as the Sparkfun Programmer (which has automatic reset) so I went about modifying my cable to include this feature.

Modifying the cable is much easier said than done, but since I got it working, I figured I’d do a write-up on it in case anyone else wants to give it a shot.

The first thing you must do is remove the molded plastic housing around the USB connector.  This is made by placing the PCB into a mold and pouring in liquid plastic, so it is literally molded to the circuit board.  I opened mine very carefully with an exacto knife by slicing along the seams.  Once the seams were slices, I peeled the plastic back to reveal the PCB.

At this point, I found the problem with my cable, the ground wire had broken off the board.  I quickly fixed that problem and began trying to find out how to modify the circuit.

The problem with this cable is that the end connector has all the correct outputs for arduino programming except one.  The Green wire on the connector connects to the RTS pin of the FTDI chip instead of the DTR pin.  The DTR pin is used to automatically reset the arduino board before programing.  I looked up the chip and found it to be the same one as on the Sparkfun Programmer.  This was great news.  It meant that I could modify it to auto-reset my arduino so I don’t have to push the reset button every time I try to download a sketch.  So I looked up which pin on the FTDI chip the DTR pin was.

In the datasheet for the FTDI chip, It shows that the DTR and RTS pins are side by side (pins 31 and 32.)

Here you can see the view of the bottom of the chip (mirrored form the top perspective)

Finding this on the actual chip was complicated.  I had to pull out the Macro lens for the camera just to see the pins.

Testing with the multimeter proved that the DTR pin isn’t connected to any vias or solder pads on the board.  The connection would have to be made directly to the pin.This was no easy task.  The thinnest wire I had available is from an old wire wrap kit.  Even this was too large to connect to the pin.  I tinned the tip of the wire carefully, and attempted to use my home made hot air reflow pen, which didn’t work at all.  Then I tried a heat gun, which neatly melted all the parts on the board.  Finally, I had to manually solder a wire to the pin.  The thinnest soldering iron tip I have is about 5 times the size of the pin.

After a couple of hours of trying, and even a couple of good solder connections that broke because they were so thin, I decided to put the wirewrap wire through one of the vias on the board for support.  This helped, and after about another hour of attempting, I finally got a good connection.  As soon as I verified it, I coated the whole thing in a couple layers of super glue to hold it fast.

The final solder connection covered in super glue.

After the glue dried, I then desoldered the green wire from the board and connected it to other end of the wirewrap wire.  To get things to fit back into the plastic housing, I had to mill out the inside a bit with my dremel.  Then put the housing back together and super glued the seams.  To hold this tight, I wrapped it with a few zip ties until dry.

Now my FTDI cable is better than ever! All I have to do to program my Ardweeny now is click the download button in the program.

In the first part of this two-part series, I went over some of the basics of graduate school applications.  In this part, I’ll go over some more detailed aspects you should consider when choosing a program and tell you some tips that might help you get in even if you don’t fully meet the requirements.

After each detailed section, there’s a “TLDR” notice. This stands for “Too Long; Didn’t Read” and gives just the basics of the section.

Program Selection based on Financial Support:

Graduate schools in America are considered “Extra schooling.” By that I mean that many times Undergraduates can qualify for financial aid in the form of grants. Graduate students, however, don’t get this option very often. Unless you get a fellowship, or assistantship (and even if you do many times) you will likely be taking loans to pay for school, and it ain’t cheap.

If your program has enough money (and if they want you bad enough) they’ll offer you a fellowship. This is basically a grant, but it isn’t from the state. It is directly from the school. Sometimes you have to meet certain requirements for them, such as promise to work on certain projects for a certain time period, etc. Be careful and read the fine print some require light work duty, but pretty much all of them say how many credit hours you must be registered for.

You should look for programs that have lots of active projects and grants going on. These programs will likely be able to hire you as either a Teaching Assistant (TA) or a Research Assistant (RA.)

Here’s how it works:

A professor or group of professors at your program will write a grant. If they are awarded the grant, they must research what they wrote in the grant request. For instance: A professor writes a grant to work on a flexible tentacle robot. He gets the grant, and now he has a a few hundred thousand dollars a semester to spend on parts and labor. The labor includes paying someone to do menial tasks such as grade papers (the job of the TA) and it includes paying people to actually actively work on the grant (the job of an RA). RA positions pay more than TA positions, and the work that is done on an RA benefits the worker. If you are an RA working on the tentacle robot, any research you produce that is published has your name on it, and can help you get jobs, money, women, etc. (Joking, but only slightly.) Many times the research you do helps you with your thesis.

When you are a TA, you have to take time away from your current studies to grade some undergraduate’s midterm. Clearly RAs are the rock stars in this scenario. The good thing about a TA is that you can work for any professor, while an RA usually works for their advisor, or another professor on the grant.

You should research who has money, and what kind of money they have. You can speak with professors directly and ask them if they think they’ll have any positions available, and you can see the Graduate Student Services Coordinator to ask about fellowships. Here is some more information and some tips on fellowships and assistantships.

The last thing to consider here is not in any rulebook. Make sure you can write coherently and speak good English. This isn’t a racist thing, but you are less likely to be hired if simple communication with your boss is hard. If you are a RA, make sure that your writing skills are up to par as well. You need good grammar and good style to write effective papers. Your Adviser doesn’t want to have to rewrite everything you send him before he submits it to a conference or journal. These are little things but they must be taken into account. Too many students are passed over for jobs because of this. Again, its not racist, its usually subconscious on the professor’s part.

I was forced to take loans for Grad school, and my very first semester cost me more than all 5 of my undergrad years together. This was in addition to the fact that I was luck and already had an assistantship lined up.

• TLDR
• Look for where you can afford to go.
• See if you can get a Fellowship.
• Try to find Assistantships (RA is better than TA)
• Speak and write well, and in English.

Portfolio, Resume, Curriculum Vitae (CV):

A portfolio shows you past projects and in a way your experience and proficiency in whatever you do. In this type of portfolio, I’m including a resume and a CV.

The resume is simply your past work experience. It should be about a page or two long and it basically shows what you’ve done, how long you did it and who was paying you to do it. You can even add what skills you have and past class experience. I always add this because if a professor sees what you’ve done professionally, then he gets a better sense about you. If he likes you he can pass this resume along to people he knows in industry.

If all you have to write about is that you worked fast food during high school, don’t bother. This is more focused on work in your field. But if you’ve started a company, then by all means, write that down. You want to have 3-4 good jobs at least on there, and list out tasks you performed at each job and how long you worked at it. Spend some time with you school’s career adviser. Mine was a huge help.

The Curriculum Vitae (CV) is basically your academic resume. Whereas the resume is only work experience and should only be a page or two long, the CV shows academic as well as industry work experience, teaching experience, community service, achievements, awards, publications, conferences attended, the name of your sister’s cousin’s uncle, etc (joking again of course.) Where the goal of the resume was to be only a page or two, it seems like the goal of a CV is to be as long as possible but without being redundant or extraneous. Again, have your school’s career adviser look it over and give you tips.

My portfolio is one of the main things that got me into Grad school. I may not have had the best GPA, or the best GRE scores but throughout my entire undergraduate career I had been designing and building projects that were on the level of most people’s Senior Design projects. I still had all these projects, and I searched through all my hard drives to find images, videos, code, descriptions, anything at all on them.

I went to Open Source Web Designs, picked out a nice design and stared hacking on it until I had made myself a well organized portfolio website. I uploaded it to a web address and burned copies of it (as well as an autorun script) to CDs. It included contact information, a general introduction, resume, CV, videos, pictures, and even presentations of past projects and my publications. I linked this in my Personal Response and handed a CD out to any professors I met in a program. Since most people don’t do this, its rather impressive to have a full body of work there. The professor just pops it in the CD drive, and the webpage automatically runs off the CD.

Even if you haven’t done a lot of outside work, you can still put projects and presentations from your undergrad classes. Any big project with a powerpoint file or a final paper should be documented and used. In my case on the CD, I actually provided PDFs of descriptions of what each project was. You can browse the files to find more projects than were presented on the HTML pages.

Don’t worry if you don’t know HTML, neither do I. You can use a WYSIWYG editor to drag and drop things. Kompozer, Nvu, Seamonkey are all great free WYSIWYG editors for every platform.

• TLDR
• Make a good resume
• Make a good CV
• Collect some projects form undergrad you are proud of
• Create a simple but appealing and well organized website showing all this.
• Put it online as well as burn it to CDs to hand out when you meet people.

Face to Face Meetings:

One big thing that I feel helped me get into Grad school was face time with the professors in the program. These are the people who will be on the graduate committee. They are the ones who go through all the applications, read all the personally responses and will ultimately decide who gets in and who doesn’t. The best thing you can do is to meet with these people and make a good impression on them. This is quite possibly the most important thing you can do.

The first step here is to research the professor on the school’s website. See what kinds of projects they have. You have to do your research, otherwise you’ll just waste their time and that can piss them off. You should be able to ask intelligent questions about their projects, etc. Many times their websites are out of date. Be prepared for this as well. Search for their names in Google Scholar and try to find some papers they’ve published.

For instance, when I was checking out Clemson’s Intelligent Systems Program I got online and researched every professor in the program. I set a day that I could go to Clemson, and meet with them. I set up appointments with each and every professor in the program. Basically I sent a cold email or made a cold phone call to each one of them.

Dr. X

I am an Undergraduate student in <topic> at <your university> and am interested in pursuing <Dr. X’s program> in graduate studies. By searching the <Dr. X’s school name> website I found your project on <whatever Dr. X is working on> and am interested in learning more about it. If you have the time, I would really appreciate a meeting at which we can discuss your project and my prospective Graduate school plans. I will be visiting the <Dr. X’s school> campus on <give a date.> Please let me know at your earliest convenience whether or not we can meet that day; and if so, what time would be best for you.

Regards,

Name

This isn’t exactly what I wrote, but it’s close. You need to be professional and state exactly what you mean to discuss. Most professors will reply favorable to you taking the initiative like this.

I set up 7 meetings for the one day I planned on visiting the campus. I gave 30-45 minutes per meeting with time for lunch. I left my house at 4:00AM, drove straight there, wore a suite, met with some people, ate lunch, met with more people, and left campus at 5:00PM and arrived home at like 9:00PM. The entire night before I had stayed up putting finishing touches on my portfolios.

At each meeting I introduced myself and knew exactly what topics to discuss with each person I was meeting with. I even met with some people I didn’t expect, such as the Graduate Student Services Coordinator and the Chair of the program. Be prepared for this kind of stuff too. I was taken on tours of research labs and met with a few RAs.

They may ask you questions such as “Why do you want to work in <whatever they teach>?” Be prepared also to mention some projects you want to work on. Don’t be afraid to get kind of specific, these people know your field, and can easily carry on a conversation. Don’t B.S. them either.

I was once chatting with the head of a Computer Science program I was applying to. I was talking about neural networks and image recognition, and talking way over my head. Someone interrupted our meeting for a few seconds and while they chatted up the professor, I looked at her bookshelf. There were titles such as “Neural networks and Vision recognition.” The bad part was that these were book she had authored! She had literally written the book on what I was trying to B.S. about. Imaging my surprise. Once we were alone again, I quickly changed the subject to more familiar territory. (That program accepted me in the end, and had I gone there I would have had to do a lot of extra work to keep up with my B.S. I was talking.)

I ended up not even applying to Clemson, as I wouldn’t be able to afford to move there at the time. That was a mistake because I would have lost nothing in applying but had I gotten in, I’m sure I could have found a way to work things out. I think with fair certainty that all my work would have paid off and I would have been accepted there.

The whole trip took its toll on me, as that weekend, I had a pretty bad panic attack from all the stress it put me under. I had chosen a terrible time to go, I had an exam that week, as well as Valentines day, and a huge project for work the same week. Be smart and plan ahead on all this stuff, to avoid the same fate.

The best thing I can say is to imagine you have their job. What would make you remember someone, and make you want to work with them?

After you meet with the professors, way a few days and send a personalized “Thank You” email to each of them. Mention how you appreciate their time and effort, and thank them for mentioning <whatever thing you talked about that you hadn’t heard about yet but are now really interested in>, etc. This goes a long way with them as well.

• TLDR
• Research each professor in the program you are interested in
• Try to meet with them in person, otherwise through email (this is why your portfolio should also be online.) It is easy for them not accept a name on an application form, but much harder for them to deny someone they’ve actually met.
• Dress nice, don’t look like you’ve stayed up all night.
• Be genuine and don’t lie (you should do this always anyway).
• Introduce yourself and be confident and self assured while meeting with them.
• Ask the right questions.
• Get their names and projects right.
• Be ready to answer questions yourself, as if in an job interview.
• Be ready to provide some ideas you’d like to work on that are similar to their projects.
• Plan ahead.
• Send Thank you emails.

Numbers:

While it isn’t free to apply to graduate programs, you should apply to every one you can afford to that you are interested in. I only applied to two programs, and they were from the same school. I should have thrown my hat in the ring at Vanderbilt and Clemson, and even MIT. I might not have been accepted, but I would have gotten some nice letterhead at least.

On a whim, Jessica sent her GRE scored to Harvard. A couple of months later, they sent her a letter saying they got her GRE scores, but she had not applied. Based on her score they were surprised that she hadn’t. Word for word: here’s the beginning of the letter they sent her:

Greetings from Harvard… We have received your official GRE score report and believe you to be a strong candidate for graduate study at our school.

The only thing you loose in applying to more schools is the submission costs and costs to send them your GRE scores. The benefits are that you can go to a really great school with innovative projects and interesting people. You loose every possibility for these things by not applying.

• TLDR;
• Apply to all the schools you are interested in, and don’t sell yourself short. You just may get into the school of your dreams.

Conclusion:

All of these tips can only help your chances at getting into graduate school. Strong relationships with the professors are integral, and integral to that is a strong portfolio and some good face time with them. That being said, having good GRE scores and a high GPA, and good letters of recommendation are a lot of what they look for. They also look to see if you are a hard worker, and all of the tips above will prove beyond a doubt that you are. This is also a good exercise in working by yourself for a goal. You’ll be doing this in one way or another all throughout Grad school, so get used to it that kind of mentality.

If you they let you in it is because they believe in your potential. They don’t want you to fail. Your success helps your adviser get raises and promotions so they will do what they can for you. Your adviser is a great ally.

Good luck in your Graduate Program Search and I hope you get it!

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an expert on this subject. I don’t have the best people skills, and I don’t know all there is to know about Grad school, but I do know what worked for me, and my advice has helped a few people to get accepted so far.

I’ll begin with some general questions I get asked.  The second part of this series will go into more advanced aspects of Grad school selection and even some tips that may help you get in even if you don’t meet the requirements.

After each detailed section, there’s a “TLDR” notice. This stands for “Too Long; Didn’t Read” and gives just the basics of the section.

Timing:

This is a pretty simple one. Start Early! If you are interested in starting Graduate school in the Fall, then you should do all your research and apply as early as possible for that program. Another benefit of applying early is you may get your results faster. Many times a Graduate school might accept you into a program, on the contingency that you take some classes to bring you up to speed with their program. If your acceptance has a such a contingency, applying early give you a chance to make it up.

Degree Selection:

One of the biggest questions I get is “I got my undergraduate degree in X, what do I need to get into a Y grad program?”. The answer I give applies to all degrees, but my answer is going to involve a specific example.

Let’s look at a Bachelors degree student in Electrical Engineering Technologist (EET) trying to get into an Electrical Engineering (EE) program. You would think these two things are very similar, and in many aspects they are, however, there is one MAJOR factor separating the two degrees. Calculus. EEs have to take Calculus 1, 2, 3 and Differential Equations, then the Calc-based Physics classes. EETs on the other hand generally take a class that combines only the topics required for the degree from Calc 1 and Calc2 classes. EETs going for an EE graduate degree are many times in a bad situation, where they are required to take all those math classes Post Baccalaureate before being accepted into a Grad program. I only know of 2 cases in my Grad program that a B.S. EET was accepted. Both of us had first taken our first 2 years of our undergrad in EE, then changed majors. This is critical as we already had the math required. In fact I had to take Calculus 3 the summer before my first Graduate semester to make up the deficiency.

• TLDR

• Basically the rule here is try to find what programs your undergraduate degree works best with. For most EETs, Engineering Management is a great choice, and for those that like to program, Computer Science is good. I know people who I graduated with who have done both. Don’t fool yourself into thinking your B.A. in History will help you get into a Biology program or vice versa.

• No matter what program you are in you will likely have to take a deficiency class. It usually won’t apply to your graduating credits either but many times Graduate Directors use this to see how serious you are and how hard you are willing to work.

GRE and Acceptance Exams:

Usually, to get into a graduate program, you have to take an exam like the GRE. The GRE is basically like the college version of the SAT. Many schools require a certain score, but this is flexible. If you lack in this area, they will look at other aspects of your college career to decide your Graduate School fate.

There are other Exams, but I only have experience with the GRE.

There are 3 main sections; Math, Reading Comprehension, and Writing. Many programs have a minimum score you must get to be accepted. To check the program or college you are interest in, scour their websites. You can also check some stats at places like GREexplorer. I also highly recommend searching the net on your own. A simple google search yielded a free site, Number2.

When you sign up for the GRE, know that it takes about3 hours straight (a short break between sections) and must be taken at a test center on a computer. The company that makes the GRE has free software called Powerprep with example GRE tests in it that look and feel exactly like the real test. You can go there now, answer a quick survey, and download it for free before registering to see what it is like.

The fact is that you HAVE to study for this test. You cannot just wing it. Now as far as test preparation, There are many schools of thought. You can buy all the books, do all the practice tests in them, and take classes; or you can use Powerprep and the internet. Jessica and I both used the second method and did well. (I did OK, Jessica did pretty well…) I have a friend who tried to wing it the first time, and whiffed miserably. He bought a book in the campus bookstore, studied it and whiffed again. He said the book was useless.

Jessica and I used Powerprep and the internet to find old GRE-like questions. We each made above average on the exam.

There are classes for the GRE preparation, but I didn’t take one. They go over good test taking skills and how they apply to the GRE specifically. You can generally find classes at local Universities. I really likely should have taken a class, and will if I ever need to take another test like this.

As far as materials selection, go to Amazon or some other site with a lot of reviews and read the reviews for books you are considering. People have likely found that only certain sections of a book are relevant to the test, or that a particular book was completely useless for reviewing.

You can take the GRE multiple times, but there are a few rules. You can only take it once per month. Depending on your grad school they can choose to either take a single score, or the average of your scores. You have to check with them to see what they accept. If you take it more than once, they will only send the scores of your last 3 recent tests to the schools you choose. I took it more than once and it improved my score a good bit.

Since you can take it multiple times, some people study really hard for one section, then the second time they take it they focus on another section. This may get you an overall cumulatively higher score however, Grad schools will look at what makes up the parts of your score too if memory serves. Whether or not they do this, I personally find this method of testing unethical and therefore cannot recommend it.

• TLDR

• Find out what test your college or program requires, study hard using good materials and take it more than once.

• Find out if the Grad program you are interested in accepts multiple GRE scores.

• Take a GRE preparation class before taking the test if possible.

Two kinds of GPA?:

Some schools have a minimum GPA requirement. They might post this online to scare off lazy and timid people. Using the tips in the second part of this article might help you convince them to waive this requirement. But in many cases, if their minimum is a 3.0, and you have a 2.8, you may still be able to get in. These rules are not always written in stone, the decision is in the hands of the Graduate Director and the Graduate Committee. More on these people later, but for now just know, its usually a flexible requirement just like GRE scores.

In lots of cases, cumulative GPA is not taken as seriously as “in the major” GPA. Cumulative GPA counts in stuff like English 101, College Algebra, Calc, Physics, etc. These classes include everything you’ve taken from that art class you never attended to Senior Design. The classes you did poorly in because you hated the material haunts you here. My cumulative GPA is below 3.0 from my undergrad studies. What made up for it was the fact that my “in the major” GPA was higher.

“In the major” GPA comes form the classes that define your major. These are mostly taken your last two years, but can come all the way from freshman classes in certain programs. Since you specialize your knowledge more in Grad school, they look to see that you excel in your field more than in general classes.

Personal Statement:

There’s not too much to say about this aspect of the process. Here they simply want to know what your motivations are to be in their program. They are also checking to see that you are a competent writer (in English usually.) Don’t make it too long and don’t make it too short. I think my statement was about 3 pages.

Make sure to personalize it to their program. They HATE to read something that sounds generic, and they can tell when you’ve used the same statement for every school you applied to. Change it up a bit and if you’ve met with the professors there, mention something you talked about. Mentioning their research is helpful as well. Again the people who read this will be the Graduate Committee of the program you are applying to. If you follow all my tips in the second half of this article, you’ll likely have met some of them already.

They like to get a sense of your experience so far, as well as possible research ideas. Throw in some neat ideas you might have for your field. Don’t make promises, and don’t go crazy with the ideas.

I stressed out more than needed about writing the statements, but a just keeping these things in mind will make it easier to know what they are looking for.

• TLDR

• Don’t stress over this.

• Write in proper English with good grammar.

• Personalize the statement to the school.

• Why do you want to do (whatever field you study?)

• What is your motivation for continuing your education? ( mention life-long learning, improving concepts/projects/ideas/the science of <whatever>, etc.)

• What kinds of ideas do you have for research topics? (Robots for space exploration, sensor fusion, etc.) Don’t B.S. too much here or make your projects too fantastical. They are looking to see that you have ideas, and that you can make reasonably reachable goals.

• You can mention professors you have met in their program and what you may have spoken about.

Letters of Recommendation:

Usually you’ll need a couple recommendations from professors in your undergraduate program. This isn’t bad. Simply ask a few (you should have made friends with a couple of them if you got the most out of your time with them.) Most will be glad to help you if they believe in you and your potential. Its usually a simple process of printing out a PDF, and having them fill in some blanks, write a bit about you, and mail it in. Most schools nowadays offer this service completely online, and the professor can enter it at their leisure.

Conclusion:

These are the basics required of most Graduate program admissions. International students may be required to take a few additional exams to show proficiency in English, or to for placement in the program.

Check out the second part of this article for additional tips on getting into grad school.

For my book, I decided to order a 8.5″x8.5″ square photobook.  My reason for this decision was two fold.  One, the digital scrapbook backgrounds I used were 12″ x 12″, so a square book would be the easiest to create from my photoshop files.  Two, this was the largest book size that had a casewrap (wraparound) cover.  I really wanted to have a full color custom cover, so I went with this size option.

To get my files ready for upload, I simply exported all of my photoshop pages to a 8.75.25″x8.75″ jpeg image.  The site claims to resize images for you, but I am paranoid.  I wanted to make sure that none of my images would be clipped or cut in a way I did not want.

The viovio site is fairly easy to navigate (most of the time).  I uploaded my files in the order I wanted them displayed, which worked well, because viovio automatically put them into this same order.  To get my book ready for printing, I just dragged and dropped each exported jpeg onto the page I wanted it to be on the photobook.

Placing My Order

Placing my order was quick and easy. For pricing, I had assumed that one page would consist of a front AND a back, but it turns out that every front and back are considered one page.  By this calculation, my book was 44 pages long.  With the full color cover, the upgrade to what viovio calls “pro binding”, and shipping/handling/taxes, my order came to 42.43.  I considered this a small price to pay for a personalized keepsake and also considering many competitor’s pricing.  Shutterfly’s pricing for an 8″x8″ book (which is smaller than what I ordered) would have been about the same price I what I paid, but that is not including their $8 shipping cost or tax.  I really had wanted to go with Inkubook, but their hardcover options are currently fairly limited.

Waiting for My Order

I placed my order on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009.  The next day I received an email stating that my order had “been sent to manufacturing. We expect it to ship by Wednesday, August 19, 2009″.  I was so excited, I could hardly stand it.

Still Waiting for My Order

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009, came and and went.  Once it hit Friday, August 28th, I realized that 9 days had passed since my book was supposedly shipped and I had paid for 2 day shipping.  I decided to email viovio to find out where my book was!  The very next day viovio replied.  That same day my book had also arrived!

Finally Receiving My Order

Once I received my photobook I was enamored by its size.  It is portable enough to carry anywhere to show off or fit nicely on a bookshelf or table.  It is big enough to show off details in pictures.  The full cover cover turned out beautiful.

The colors on the cover are impressive!

I was also in love with the binding.  The photobook looks just like a book you would buy at the book stores.  I am in awe of the transformation that the book making industry is undergoing!

This is the view of the binding when the book is closed.

Just like a new book, the pages are crisp when you first open your book.

And this is how the binding looks when the book is open.

The coloration matched very well in comparison with my original files.  The quality of the printing was also very clean.

This was one of my favorite layouts in the book.

Some of the better photographs used especially popped from the pages.

Images from a higher quality camera produce the best end results.

I thought that my pages would be full bleed, but the center of each page was marked by a white stripe.

The white line was in the center of every page, but it did not distract from the book.

There were a few pages that are of concern to me.  It seems as though the glue from the binding splurged up into some of my pages, creating an uneven seam.

This particular page did opened about 1 cm less than the other pages due to what appears to be glue from the binding splured up into the page.

I did not find this out until after I was almost done ordering, but viovio adds a logo to your back cover.  It is a lot less invasive that I expected it to be.

The logo is about the size of two pennies.

My Experience (Thus Far…) with Customer Support

Since I was already in touch with customer support, I mentioned the glue splurges.  The representative asked that I send photos of what I was talking about.  That was today.  I will update on the outcome of my contact with customer support.  Overall, I love my book and customer support has responded quickly (so far).  It it were not for the glue splurges and very slow shipping, I would give viovio 5 stars.

**Update** Overall Viovio Experience

After 3 short and speedy emails with viovio,  I did not recieve any word about whether or not the glue splurges were “normal”.  What I did recieve about 3 weeks later was a whole entire new book!  It was a surprise when I recieved it in the mail because they did not tell me they were sending me a new book.  Although their communication was a bit lacking, I am definitely impressed with Viovio’s products and quality.   5 stars to Viovio!  I anticipate in using their services in the future and will share future experiences :0).

This is the second part in a two part series about how to design, build, and finish a simple woodworking project.  Please read Part 1 for more info and background on the project.  This section will mainly focus on finishing the bookshelf.

Staining wood projects is a hassle and you can quickly get in over your head.  When I first started looking for methods to stain my projects, I was bombarded with choices:

• Oil or water based?
• Which color should I use?
• How long should the stain be left on the wood?

All of these variables left me confused on what I should do.  With a good bit of research, I found the answers to my questions.  My solution may not be best for everyone, but I do have justification for my choice.

The Big Question: Oil or Water Based?
This isn’t the first time I’ve finished something, and in my experience oil based stain is nasty stuff.  While it does provide the best color in many cases, the cons of using them far outweigh their pros for me.  Oil based stains let off a lot of hazardous fumes.  These stains take longer between coats and also require paint thinner or mineral spirits for clean up.  This in itself is hazardous.  There are tons of stories of people improperly disposing of old rags with paint thinner on them,  which simply combust and start large fires.

Water based stains, on the other hand, offer fairly rich colors with short drying times.  They also release fewer fumes than oil based stains.  Clean up is a breeze as you can usually just wash everything up in the kitchen sink.

The stain we chose was a Vintage Cherry Water Based Stain Dye from General Finishes.  To seal it all in we chose to use a Satin Finish Water Based Poly/Acrylic. General Finishes actually has a youtube account with videos about how to apply their stains.

The previous projects I finished still didn’t have the lustre and look of a professionally finished piece of furniture.  A big hint I learned was that everyone uses wood filler and wood putty to fill in the pores of the wood and give it an even look.  Armed with this information, I went to my local Woodcraft store.  The sales associates there are incredibly helpful and have lots of practical experience with woodworking.  They pointed me straight to the Timbermate WB Wood Fill.  This goo can be cut with water to create a good wood filler, or could be used in its thicker form as wood putty.   Since the bookcase is made of Red Oak, I chose the appropriate colored wood putty. In the end, this really didn’t matter as the stain we chose was so dark it would overpower the color of the filler, but I chose this color putty for use in future projects as well.

Staining:
Make sure that you will be in the appropriate temperature range to stain your project (basically anything over 65° is fine.)   Since we built the bookcase in December, we had to wait until about April before it was warm enough outside to stain.  The first thing you want to do is sand the entire bookshelf with increasingly fine sand paper.  We started with some 220 grit and last used 320 grit.  This will smooth down a lot of the surface and allow the wood filler to even everything out.  With Red Oak, this takes a very long time if done by hand as it is a very hard wood and is resistant to sanding.  You may end up going through a lot of sand paper, but if you leave the piece rough, the stain will not look good.

With so many different sanding blocks, it is easy to get confused about which is which, especially if they have been used a lot.  We found a simple solution to this problem was to write the grit of the sanding block on the foam of the block with a Sharpie before using it.  This way they are always identifiable, even when the grit is wearing low in some areas.

To apply the wood filler you will need some type of squeegee.  We used old gift cards, supermarket points cards, and junk mail credit cards.  Each of these has a different rigidity, and therefore each is all better suited for certain areas of project.  The more rigid ones work best when trying to get into hard to reach spots while the least rigid ones work best on large open surfaces.

Get a clump of wood filler and mix it with just a bit of water to achieve a smoother consistency.  Then use one of the cards to smear and squeegee the filler along the grain of the wood. It’s okay if it’s a bit nasty-looking.  You will sand it down a couple more times.   Just make sure it isn’t too thick.  If it dries too thick, simply wet your finger, and rub the spot until it evens out.  Use it in its thicker form as wood putty to fill in any holes or cracks you might have from sloppy cutting, or sloppy workmanship.  When stained, this will go a long way in making your project looking more professional.

Once it is dry, sand it with it 220 grit paper, and then hit it with 320 grit sand paper and wipe it down with a clean dust cloth in preparation for the stain.  Never use tack cloth to clean the piece.  Tack cloth has waxes and oils in it that can make your stain look nasty in the finished piece.  The best thing we found to use for this purpose is a cheap microfiber dusting cloth.

Staining was an interesting exercise in finding what works best.  Everyone says to use little foam brushes to brush on the stain, and then wipe it off a short time later with a rag.  While this may be good for large sections, such as the top and shelves, we found we got a more even finish by brushing on the stain and simply rubbing it with the rag.   As the day went on, we eventually neglected the brushes all together.   At all times, though, you should apply the stain in the same direction as the grain of the wood.

The only thing to worry about when applying the stain is to make sure that you do not spill or drip any excess stain or any water on the wood.  If you do, it will either lighten or darken that area in the shape of the spill.  This can be very hard to fix, but gently rubbing with a stain-soaked cloth worked best.   Do one coat at a time if you can.  We found it practically impossible to do the entire piece coat by coat, and ended up doing different sections one by one because the stain dries so quickly.

When you are finished staining, allow it a few hours to dry.  It is best to read the instructions printed on the stain can for optimal results as different formulations require different times.  When it is completely dry, it will look rather dull.  This is because you have to put on the Poly/Acrylic Finish.

While staining, it wasn’t a big concern when tree leaves or a little pollen fell onto the piece.  Stain isn’t thick and won’t seal in impurities in the wood, but the Poly/Acrylic will.  We opted to do this step in the kitchen (with the windows opened for ventilation.)   We wanted to be sure nothing would disturb it while it dried.   The Poly/Acrylic topcoat takes 2 hours to dry between coats, and the more coats you use the better the finish looks.  Apply the topcoat with a foam brush with the grain, making sure there are no bubbles or drips in the finish.  The grain really starts coming through at this point.

After the first coat is dry, lightly sand the whole piece with 320 grit sand paper, wipe with a clean dust rag and apply another coat.  You will notice the lustre improving with each coat.

Once you get the look you want, you are finished!  We let the top coat dry for a few hours then moved it into position under the window in the living room to dry for the next few days. It actually takes about two weeks for the Poly/Acrylic to harden completely.  Once it was completely dry, we filled it with books.

This project was a big learning experience. I really enjoyed the whole process, from designing the bookcase to be built with the tools I had on hand, to finishing it.   If I had to do it all over again, I would probably try to find a local cabinetry place or woodworking shop and see if I could use their planar and joiner to flatten and straighten the wood planks.  This would have made it easier to fit together since a couple of the pieces are bowed a bit.  I would also like to learn to use a router to make a nice smooth decorative edge on the top and the footing of the bookcase.  This would make it look and feel more like a bought piece.   I‘d likely also stain it more of a mahogany color, as the cherry can be a bit too red for my taste.

]]> http://sheekgeek.org/2009/adamsheekgeek/large-floor-bookshelf-part-2/feed 0 http://sheekgeek.org/2009/adamsheekgeek/large-floor-bookshelf-part-1 http://sheekgeek.org/2009/adamsheekgeek/large-floor-bookshelf-part-1#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:51:43 +0000 Adam@SheekGeek http://sheekgeek.org/?p=29

This is the first part in a two part series about how to design, build, and finish a simple woodworking project.  This part focuses on the design and build of the project.

Jessica and I tend to collect a lot of books.   I mean a LOT of books.  When one of those cheap 7ft tall particle board bookcases we had finally bit the dust, and fell on me, I decided we would only get solid wood bookcases from now on.  I also decided that it was probably best that the bookcase we get to replace the broken one be rather short, something that would fit just under the window in our living room. With the cost of solid wood bookcases being pretty high and nothing available suiting our needs exactly, I decided we should design and build one ourselves. Rather than trying to fit a new bookcase into our living room, why not design one that already fits?

This project was a practice in two arts.  Firstly, it was an excuse to teach myself how to use Google Sketchup, and secondly I wanted to get more experience with woodworking.  Most of the earlier projects I did with wood were literally laughed at (and many with good reason), so I had plenty of room to grow.

The first step in this whole process was to design something to build. I researched a lot on the internet for the perfect bookcase style. I didn’t find anything that I could easily build with the tools I had laying around.  Being in a small apartment without a garage, it is hard to store table saws and the like.  The tools I have are power hand tools, a circular saw, a power sander, an electric drill, and other simple things like that.

I finally decided on what I would build.  I took elements from many book cases I saw online and started drawing up my idea in Sketchup.  The easiest way to do this, I’ve found, is to simply create a particular piece of wood, then make that piece a “component.”  Then you can treat the whole thing as a single object.  I will go into more depth about Google Sketchup and even the Sketchup physics engine in other posts, feel free to check them out.

After lots of playing around, and learning the basics of Sketchup, I ended up with this:

Bookshelf Front in Sketchup

Everything in the design could easily be bought from any lumber yard or hardware store. It consisted of 1”x2”s, 2”x12”s, and 1”x4”s.  Sadly, these measurements are the wet weight measurements, before the wood is fully dried.  When dried, the wood actually shrinks a good bit.  Here’s a chart that may help you find the actual sizes of dimensional lumber.  I already knew this fact; however for some reason I completely ignored it when designing.  So back to the drawing board I went.

I planned on making this out of Red Oak (which is a hardwood).  The dimensions of hardwood lumber are a little different, but since I’m cutting by hand, the difference of 1/16^th of an inch between the dimensions won’t matter.   I redrew the design to account for the different wood sizes.  This wasn’t very hard as I had made all the wood pieces components, and copied and pasted things that were the same size.  In Sketchup, editing one of a group of the same components changes all other components automatically.  For instance if I changed the height of one side, the other side will change automatically.  This speeds up corrections somewhat. There is also an option to make a particular component unique, so changes made to it only apply to that particular part.

Once I had the design, I had to figure out a way of connecting the parts.  Of course I would use screws and glue, but how would I connect everything together without showing the screw holes?  I stumbled on a neat joinery method called “pocket screws”.  Pocket screws use a jig to drill a hole diagonally through the end of one piece of wood, and into another.  This can completely hide the screw while still making a very strong connection.

How Pocket Holes Work

With all the wood dimensions I needed, I was off to the local super-hardware center.  At many super-hardware centers, they offer boards by the foot.  They’ll even cut it to length for you.  So I looked for the straightest, cleanest Red Oak boards I could find (there weren’t many).  Finally deciding on certain boards, I asked for help from one of the store associates who ran the saw. Now, anyone with common sense knows that when you use a saw blade to cut a piece of wood, you are actually removing a strip of wood the thickness of the saw blade.  Apparently, this is not in the training video for this particular super-hardware store as the associate proceeded to cut my parts “through the center of the measurement mark.”  Worse than that, he was inconsistent with it.  Sometimes he would cut the center of the measurement mark, and sometimes he would cut it a bit short, and sometimes a bit long.  All of this threw my measurements off again.

I grabbed a pocket hole jig kit and wood glue on my way out of the store after gathering all my poorly cut lumber.  The approximate price breakdown is:

• Lumber = $160
• Tools and Glue  = $30

It was a fairly expensive project, but completely worth it.  Overall, this project still cost less than buying a brand new solid wood under-window bookcase, especially if it were custom built.  Not to mention all the fun that was had and all the stuff we learned while building it.

Finally having all the parts, I knew I’d have to cut most of the boards smaller again to resize them all.  I redrew the design yet again in Sketchup to make sure it would all work out.  After this, Jessica and I got to work.  We cut and rough-sanded all of the parts.  Sanding took forever as Red Oak is a very hard wood.  It was December of 2008, and we were working outside on the back deck, so instead of taking time to take loads of detailed pictures of the process and freezing to death, we hurriedly put it together exactly as the Sketchup file shows.

The Final Sketchup file can be downloaded from the Google 3d Warehouse. Feel free to edit it and repost it (as long as you give us inspiration credit . )

Since it was winter, we couldn’t stain the bookshelf as it was way too cold outside for the stain to set.  The stain cannot be applied below 65°.  Part 2 of this article goes through the process (with more pictures) and the results of staining.

Adam and I had been in search for a drawer system for use in our office, and then there it was, the Ikea Alex.  Everything was right.  It was the perfect height.  It had plenty of long thin drawers, perfect for tool organization.  It even had wheels.  We excitedly perused our color options;  white, white, or white.  Hmm….

Our office is mostly wood tones and black, so white was just not working for our color palette.  At first we tried to find another option, but we just kept coming back to the Alex.  It had the barebones of exactly what we needed.  That’s when we decided to buy the Alex and give it a facelift.  Our plan was to paint it black and customize the drawer fronts.  This is how we did it.

Materials

• Ikea Alex (≈$130*)
• 2 Containers of Plaid Mod Podge Hard Coat 8 oz (≈$6 each, $12 total)
• Paintbrushes
• 3 Cans of Krylon Fusion for Plastic in Black Satin (≈$5 each, $15 total)
• Dropcloth (≈$1)
• Scrapbooking Paper of Your Choosing (≈$3)
• Scissors
• Razorblade Cutter
• Cutting Mat (Can be as simple as a piece of cardboard!)Drawer Liner (≈$10)

*Prices are shown only for items we purchased and include tax.  We already owned the other items.

The cost for our Alex facelift = $41 + Alex itself = $171.

Color Change
The first step for this project was the color change.  Although the Ikea Alex is mostly particleboard, it is coated with melamine, foil, and acrylic.  This made it confusing for choosing the right type of paint.  We wanted something that would be easy to apply, had even coverage, and would be durable enough to handle the wear and tear of being in our office.  This isn’t your normal office.  Mad science happens here.

After researching the many options, we decided to go with a spray paint made for plastic.  The container also specified it could be used on Wood, Metal, Wicker, Wrought Iron, Plastic, Hard Vinyl, Glass, Plaster, Ceramic, Paper, and Paper Mache.  We figured it would have the adhesive property to cover anything.

We opted to spray paint in our “back yard”.  Yup, it’s just a porch.  We laid down some plastic drop cloth that we picked up at a local dollar store (much cheaper drop cloth than at your local hardware store!).

Painting on our Back Porch

It took about 3 cans of spray paint to cover all the necessary pieces.  For time and material saving, we decided not to paint the inside parts.

We probably should have read all of the direction before starting.  After painting all the pieces we learned that the brand of spray paint we used takes approximately 7 days to “cure”.  We couldn’t keep the pieces outside for that long, so we knew would have to find some place in our house.  Our half bath room was out of service for the following week.  I wish we had a garage!  Also, we also

Pieces Curing in our Bathroom

When choosing a paint option, here are some things to consider about spray paint.

Pros

• coverage was very even
• dried to touch in only 15 minutes
• painted entire surface quickly
• practical color choices (we chose satin black)

Cons

• takes 7-14 days to fully harden
• may chip
• fairly toxic as shown in the msds
• paint excess sticks if you reuse dropcloth (This was my fault.  After painting twice already on the drop cloth, I laid more pieces over the excess paint.  That excess paint ended up sticking to the drawer fronts I laid on top of it.  It was an easy fix though.  I just sanded and repainted.)

Customizing Drawer Fronts
While we were at Ikea, we had also picked up some damask designed wrapping paper.  Our original idea was to use it to cover the drawer fronts.  How sweet would it be to do an Ikea hack almost thoroughly with items from Ikea!  Initially, we did go forward with this idea.

Upon using the wrapping paper for the drawer fronts, we realized two things:
One, it scratched easily.
Two, air bubbles in the glue were impossible to remove! Both of these were a result of the thinness of the paper.

Because of these reasons, we decided to use scrapbooking paper instead.  It was a cheap option as we only needed seven 12” by 12” pieces that cost 30 cents each (on sale!).

The paper was easily applied to the drawer fronts using hard coat mod podge.  We choose the hard coat variety because of the durability factor.

Steps to apply the paper to the drawer fronts:

1. Cut paper roughly to size.  It is easier to have extras hanging off almost all of the edges to cut off later.  I say almost all of the edges because I started the paper on the left edge perfectly to help keep alignment of the design.
2. Apply a very thin coat to the back of the paper using a brush.  I had some paint brushes laying around for acrylic painting that I used.  Just definitely remember to wash them completely after use.  I did end up with one solidified brush victim.
3. Using a plastic store discount card, push all the air bubbles out from under the paper.  I imagine this is much like what car painters have to do when applying decals.  One thing I learned the hard way: even if it doesn’t look like there are bubbles, there are!  It is important to do this process immediately, or the paint will start to dry and the bubbles will be impossible to remove.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 for all the drawer fronts.
5. Cut off the extra paper from all the drawer fronts using a razor blade knife or something similar.
   

   Cutting Excess Paper with a Razor Blade

6. Apply mod podge to the surface of all the drawer fronts.  The container recommends using 5-10 coats.  We applied about 8 coats.
   

   Using Mod Podge Glue as a Top Coat

Reinforcing Color
To be on the safe side, we also applied about 5 coats of mod podge over the spray paint.  We hadn’t planned on doing this in the beginning, but even after 7 days of “curing”, the paint chipped on one of the corners.  After investing so much time and effort in the project, we didn’t want to take any chances.

When applying mod podge, it is important to coat the entire surface each time.  This provides an even coverage. The mod podge will apply white but it dries clear. If you apply the mod podge haphazardly it will look splotchy.

Assembling the Alex
We only let the mod podge dry overnight since we were excited to see our completed project. Assembling the Ikea Alex was fairly easy.  Some of the screws were tough to get started, but overall, we have no major complaints.

Adding the Final Touches
After assembling the Alex we put liners in each drawer in order to minimize slippage.

Using Drawer Liners Maximizes Organization

Then we organized our tools in their new home.

Tools Organized in Drawer

Now a finished project, we have an Ikea Alex customized to our tastes!

Our Final Ikea Alex Modifications

UPDATE: December 1,2 2009:

We found a similar project to ours via Scraponomy Blog (German to English translation here.) .  This new project was done on June 26th, 2008.  We were unaware of this project until now. Check it out over at the Painted Fish Studio website.