If you're interested a bit more into the process, click HERE to access my research document.
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For my term 2 community connection, I was able to get in touch with another engineering student that my brother knows from school. His name is Charles and he's currently in his third year at UBC studying civil engineering. Compared to last term's connection, my conversation with him wasn't as long, but I was still able to learn a lot and obtain a better understanding of what it's like studying to become an engineer. Below is a summary of some points of discussion.
Being in university and having opportunities to actually apply what you're learning Ever since his first year at UBC, he says that there are always going to be times and opportunities where you can put your learning in to practice. The first thing would be with labs and group projects in a course curriculum that test your knowledge of a concept and how well you are able to apply it. An example of a group project that he had done was having to design a wooden bridge to hold a weight, allowing him to apply his learning of physics with truss design, and overall bridge stability and where to enforce it. I told him about the paper bridge project that I had to do in my Physics 12 class, and he remembered doing it as well in grade 12. His thoughts on specifically doing the project in grade 12 was that it is actually pretty pointless because of how the physics concepts that are needed to maximize bridge strength are taught at the university level, not in high school physics. He also mentioned how there were engineering clubs where they participate building design competitions, another great way to apply our learning. CO-OP Experience After completing his second year, he worked an 8-month co-op work term with Metro Testing + Engineering Ltd as a concrete field technician. He essentially dumbed it down for me and told me he drives around to construction sites in the lower mainland to test properties of the concrete in order to ensure that it meets all the standards for the purpose it's being used for. He mentioned that going into the first few months, he was able to learn a lot about concrete materials as well as the work environment for construction type jobs. The experience was valuable, but he said that after the first few months, there was only so much to learn and it just ended up feeling like a labor-intensive job near the end of the 8-month term. A few of the construction site managers even tried hiring him to work for a longer term, but he told me that the he wanted to try a different area of work outside of construction, possibly a management/office position. He's now trying to look for a 4-month co-op term over the summer, but unlike just applying for all the open job positions, he wants to be a bit more picky since he's already had the entry level experience necessary. He told me that it's going to be a lot more difficult to find the position he wants, so he's trying to branch out to his other personal connections to see if he can find some work that suits his needs. Unlike last month's update, I've started to actually work with the Raspberry Pi (RPI) device itself. After horribly underestimating the Raspberry Pi Model 4's cost, I ended up just asking around and borrowed my friend's device (thanks Nathan). The next step in the project that I completed was actually installing the Raspbian Operating System on to the micro SD card (which I had to format as well). This was relatively simple as I had already done all the research and had taken notes on the programs and files needed (check out last month's post for details).
Once I successfully booted up the RPI with the operating system, I started researching commands that I could use in the Raspbian terminal to configure the microphone and speaker device settings. The next step in my project would be to figure out how to setup my Raspberry Pi so that it's able to utilize the Google Assistant API. Raspberry Pi Terminal Audio Commands arecord -l (shows a list of detected audio inputs with the card and device number) aplay -l (shows a list of detected audio outputs with the card and device number) speaker-test -t wav (plays a test sound to check that you have the write device selected) arecord -D hw:[card#],[device#] -d [duration] -f cd [name.filetype] -c 1 (records audio) aplay [name.filetype] (plays the recording) amixer (shows the current volume settings) Here are a few screenshots of some command lines that I used in the RPI terminal So far, a lot of the work that I've done has mainly just been research based, as I'm still waiting on my Raspberry Pi and a few other parts to ship. My research done has mainly been through online articles and videos relating to Google Home projects, as well as general usage and installation of a Raspberry Pi device. Something that I have done is created and registered a project device under the Google Assistant API, so that when I get my hands on the Raspberry Pi device, I'll be able to sync the device to Google's services (using the Model ID and JSON file that I created with my project device).
Below I've attached most of my research and online references (from my Google Docs). General Tutorials Most up to date (2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6LRa0M4LBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_qWTAXs77U General Article: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/diy-google-home-assistant-raspberry-pi/ General Tutorial Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoNjPXKaqSE Installing OS (Raspbian) on Raspberry Pi SD Card Video Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsi50bCo_W4
NOOBS download link: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/ SD Card Formatter: https://goo.gl/hTPGG7 Helpful Article (OS): https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-operating-system-raspberry-pi/ Main Hardware
For my term 1 connection, I networked outwards to try and find someone in the computer engineering field who could relate to my IDS project as well as my education interests. Through my older brother's network of peers from school and his co-op, I was able to interview one of his friends, Alfred, and was able to learn a lot more about what it's like in post-secondary to pursue a career in the field of applied sciences.
For some background information, Alfred is currently a student planning on going into his third year in computer engineering at Simon Fraser University, but is currently working a co-op term. I've noted down and summarized the main points of our interview together. Inquiring about the heavy course and work load in engineering. During his first year, he found the transition from high school to post-secondary to be a bit overwhelming. We talked about how it was essential to learn how to manage your time properly, especially with the 6 to 7 courses in the first year time-table. After developing and learning how to manage his studies, he found that when going into his second year, there was a lot less stress and the workload seemed a lot more doable. He emphasizes that along with proper time management, a healthy and consistent sleep schedule helped him function and absorb a lot more information during his class lectures, and that starting to improve my sleep schedule now in high school would be something to consider. Another thing that Alfred pointed out was that the overall course material and content was a lot more challenging compared to high school. He told me that it's important to meet new people in class lectures so that we could help teach and learn from each other, as well as finding study groups to be apart of. The CO-OP Program I first started it off by just asking what he does at his position and the general duties that come along with it.
Regrets in Program/School Choices I essentially asked him if there was anything else he would've done differently if he could start over again, specifically in terms of schools/programs. He says that he's been considering transferring into computer sciences, since he's a lot more interested and passionate in programming/coding, and sometimes finds that the engineering components in computer engineering aren't necessary for what he wants to do. In terms of schooling, he has no regrets about going to SFU. At the end of the day, it's not about the name of the school, but rather the programs and learning opportunities that it's able to offer you. And as a computer engineer, he found that SFU was able to provide him with the proper education he needed, and that going to UBC wouldn't have made a huge difference to him. IDS Project We talked about my IDS project of building a Google Home. Overall, he really liked the idea of it and thinks that it's a great challenge to help me learn and develop skills that will be relevant in the future (eg. programming). A few things that he mentioned was to make sure to have everything planned out and learn all the required steps of the project, inquiring after any information that I needed. Idea: My idea is to build and program a smart voice assistant, specifically a google home.
Purpose: Smart voice assistants have been gaining a lot of popularity recently (Amazon Alexa, Google Home, etc.), so I'm curious in understanding how these small devices are able to compute and execute all these different processes. By pursuing this project, I hope to obtain a greater understanding as to how these kind of products function, and to maybe see how I can compare a stock Google Home device to the one that I can hopefully create. I find purpose in this project because it relates to Engineering, the area that I'm interested in studying for post-secondary. Connection to interests, strengths, and opportunities: As I mentioned above, the whole concept of having such a small device to be able to control and run all these different tasks amazes me. In terms of my own strengths, I do have a bit of experience in coding thanks to previous IDS projects, as well as a few Electronics Courses that I've taken in school. This project connects me to job opportunities in the Engineering field, such as electrical/mechanical engineering (mechatronics), which I believe to be in high demand right now with all the new technology that's being created. As of now, studying Engineering is my current goal for post-secondary, but it's a matter of what specialty I want to focus in on. Hopefully this project will help give me some direction into which specialization suits me the most. Process: In order to create this Google Home, I plan to mainly use online resources to help guide me through the process. From a few searches, I'll be needing the following hardware to complete the build: Raspberry Pi, USB webcam/microphone, External Speaker, SD card (for the Raspberry Pi) and LED Circuit. These are just a few of the things that I might need, but the list will probably grow as I get more in depth in my research. I need to do more research into costs, but hopefully I can get some help from school to cover some of the materials (I think Mr. Thind had some Raspberry Pi's). I think the main challenge for me in order to be successful is to stay on task throughout the year and to consistently be working on this outside of school time. Product: By the end of this project, I'd like to have created a Google Home replica (in terms of functionality) that I can even use for my own home. Growth: I've never even touched a Raspberry Pi before, so this project will definitely be interesting. I think the main challenge here will be figuring out the coding and the new hardware that I have to use. I've always been weak at coding, so I would like to take the time from this project to build on to that skill and to feel more confident in it. All of my previous IDS projects involving code were pretty much completed solely on my computer, so now that I'm incorporating a different piece of hardware, it's going to be a lot more confusing and challenging for me. Essential Question/Theme: How can I learn to build a working smart voice assistant device? The advice that I believe was maybe not helpful for me, but definitely interesting, was hearing from Emilie Wapnick's TED Talk. When Emilie was talking about multipotentialites having various interests, she mentioned one example of someone who was a violin maker and psychotherapist. Although I don't have any plans on making violins, it piqued my interest to hear about someone succeeding in two completely opposite career fields at the same time. I suppose it opens up a lot of possibilities in the future if I ever do consider a second career. What I didn't find helpful in this TED Talk was the large emphasis placed on generalizations. The way Emilie delivered her talk sounded like being a multipotentialite was like being a completely different type of person, and maybe it is, but it shouldn't be expressed that they always come with these set of values that are only unique to multipotentialites, and not specialists.
I would consider myself a multipotentialite, but I wouldn't say that I follow Emilie's definition of one. Sure, I have multiple interests and careers that I would love to pursue, but that doesn't mean I'm always a fast learner, or that I'm able to utilize skills learned in one thing and apply it to another, or that I'm versatile and able to work in any environment. I'm just interested in multiple things. Mark Manson's question: What makes you forget to eat and poop? I wouldn't say that I ever forget to poop, but occasionally I forget to make myself dinner. Honestly, sometimes I'm so invested into a game online that I'm not paying attention to time and it just passes without me noticing. Occasionally, I just don't feel motivated to make dinner because I don't want to cook myself a meal or maybe because I don't feel like eating leftovers for the sixth time this week. I guess I'm picky with what foods I eat after consecutively eating the same thing for multiple days. I require variety. |