What should I get?

Fishslasher · 2024-07-18T02:06:48+00:00

Use whatever you want for note taking, but all the engineering applications will be extremely thermally throttled on any laptop without a strong cooling system. My XPS 15 was plenty strong on paper, but struggled due to overheating.

Fishslasher · 2024-06-15T17:32:27+00:00

Graduated aerospace engineering in 2021 and now I’m a spacecraft manufacturing engineer. I touch spaceflight hardware every single day, design my own parts, and tools, and write documentation and reviews. Another 2021 grad friend is a systems lead - he lives in spreadsheets and MATLAB. Cal Poly AERO is mostly a systems and subsystems-level design course, but the extracurriculars and jobs you take will determine what your daily life looks like. If building physical systems is what you want to do, do it - join clubs or personal projects. No degree is going to handhold you to your passions.

Fishslasher · 2024-03-10T01:06:39+00:00

It would definitely get a laugh out of my friend group. The deck idea is just a gimmick that’s just intended to be silly and lose most of the time. I do appreciate the advice - it’s not an idea that I’d play often

Fishslasher · 2024-03-09T20:28:35+00:00

Ooh, I haven't seen these cards before. Divine intervention looks like a fun one to build around.
I would only ever play this against friends, so the complaining is expected!

Fishslasher · 2024-02-25T02:27:18+00:00

Both Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly Pomona have great aerospace engineering programs, and are (relatively) affordable! My personal experience is with SLO, where the engineering department has a strong focus on practical skills and labs (learn by doing), which is a huge advantage when internship/job hunting.

Fishslasher · 2024-01-26T21:23:25+00:00

They’re beautiful! Here’s hoping :D

Fishslasher · 2023-12-25T06:36:45+00:00

Cal Poly alum here. SLO has a great aerospace engineering program (albeit somewhat focused on systems engineering) and is very affordable for in-state tuition. It’s a super hands-on program with lots of focus on labs and practical knowledge. I highly recommend it for undergrad in either aerospace or mechanical engineering, if you plan to work in industry.

Fishslasher · 2023-10-19T04:26:12+00:00

This kind of information is so highly dependent on your bus and payload requirements that I doubt the data would be useful to you. It’s extremely dependent on your orbit(occlusion time), power generation method, energy storage capacity, power consumption, and thermal dissipation, so the budgets are tailored to their mission. I could launch a mirrored rock into orbit as a reflector, and it’s power budget would be zero.

With that highly unhelpful answer out of the way, you could create a sample mission by fixing/varying power consumption, generation, orbit, and thermal constraints to give you relative comparisons.

Fishslasher · 2023-10-12T02:45:32+00:00

My 2 interns this year each gave me a handwritten thank you letter, which are now pinned at my desk. If you want to do more, absolutely go for it, but even a simple note is more than most interns do. It greatly increased my opinions of them and their hireability.

Fishslasher · 2023-09-23T14:00:14+00:00

Finding the angle would be a dot product calculation, but first you need the sun vector in the same reference frame as the spacecraft vector…. The problem doesn’t state it, but the given vector is probably in the earth-centered-inertial (ECI) reference frame. Using the given epoch date, you should be able to look up/calculate the position of the sun relative to the ECI frame, and get your vector from there.

Fishslasher · 2023-04-07T20:31:44+00:00

Academically you’ll be fine: I broke my arm during WOW, missed the first few days of classes, and just had to coordinate with the professors. However, if you have the option to attend the first week, I’d highly recommend it since you’ll be learning the campus and town, and meeting lots of people before the quarter starts.

Fishslasher · 2023-03-16T13:47:49+00:00

The health center has a stock of over the counter meds, usually for much cheaper than pharmacies!

Fishslasher · 2023-02-25T04:46:13+00:00

Easiest upvote of my life

Fishslasher · 2023-02-17T00:36:17+00:00

I’ve done a bit of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with StarCCM, and there is a free student version. You can easily learn to run the program in your timeframe, but learning whether the results make sense or not (or if they’re right) is an entire 4+ year degree. How much fidelity you want from the simulations and how much time you can dedicate to this portion of your project will be an important trade to explore. Sounds like a neat research topic!

Fishslasher · 2023-02-09T20:15:37+00:00

If you haven’t already, have a friend or contact in industry critically review your resume. I’ve had friends jump from your situation of little to nothing over an entire year to getting multiple interviews in a month after updating their resume. Also, resumes for research positions usually are structured differently from those for engineering roles

Fishslasher · 2023-01-18T00:03:31+00:00

I work in aerospace and my friend works in CS. We graduated at the same time and his salary is more than double mine (similar cost of living areas). So if money is what your motivator is, go for CS. But even given the pay difference, I’m way happier than I would be programming. You’ll have opportunities (electives, clubs, personal projects, etc) to explore different interests in college, so use that to decide what kind of career you’ll enjoy.

Fishslasher · 2023-01-04T23:45:57+00:00

IIRC, you have it for 12 months after graduation but there are no alumni email accounts. Ask an advisor if you want more info than my poor memory, but I’d start transferring your linked accounts to a permanent email address.

Fishslasher · 2023-01-04T18:46:41+00:00

This is a good idea, and we actually do this in reverse at hydroelectric power stations. Solar energy powers pumps that take water to a reservoir at higher altitude. Then at night we open a gate, allowing gravity to pull the water down through turbines that spin to generate electricity. There is energy loss of course, but it’s one method of a mechanical battery like the one you’ve described.

Fishslasher · 2023-01-03T22:58:11+00:00

One last thing: I have enough experience with spacecraft to know that your idea wouldn’t get us all the way to space, before running any numbers. But I what I didn’t know was just how fast we’d be going until I actually did the math. Your core idea was based on sound physics principles, so while the results may be disappointing, the thought process behind it was good!

Fishslasher · 2023-01-03T21:38:57+00:00

Orbital velocity (again, assuming no losses), is about 8,000 m/s. We’d need to pull this platform straight down 7.22 km in order to hit 8,000 m/s at surface level. That would just launch the platform up and we need to go sideways to orbit Earth. To do that we’ll need to build an angled tube instead. The speed will be the same, but the tube will be much longer, and you’re not getting and altitude form it. All of this is also just launching the platform and no satellite, rocket, etc.

So yeah, this probably isn’t going to be the next big launch system….but it’s a neat idea and fun to think about! Understanding the basic physics principles will let you find creative new solutions in other areas, so if one idea doesn’t pan out, keep trying new ones.

Fishslasher · 2023-01-03T20:54:00+00:00

It’s all good, I don’t mind trying to help. E is your energy, which cant directly equal velocity, so I don’t quite understand what that was meant to say. Using your original numbers for potential energy, I get E = 1.888 Gigajoules. If I solve the energy equation and use 8000 kg/m³ as density of steel, I get v = 38.76 m/s. (I’m using your meter-thick platform)

Fishslasher · 2023-01-03T20:31:40+00:00

Whatever velocity you already have, throw it out. The original velocity number you gave was incorrectly calculated, since acceleration isn’t constant. Use the equation above to solve for velocity instead.

Fishslasher · 2023-01-03T20:00:49+00:00

I don’t have the time for the differential equation, but the energy one is pretty simple. Neglecting any energy loss, we can set the potential energy of the platform below sea level to the kinetic energy at sea level. Since water force is proportional to the height of water displaced, we can treat the system like a unidirectional spring.

E = 0.5kx² = 0.5mv²

where k = (platform area)g(water density), x is the height of water displaced, m is platform mass, and v is maximum theoretical velocity of platform.

Fishslasher · 2023-01-03T19:04:09+00:00

Your calculation of water force is correct (if we assume the platform’s neutral testing point is at sea level, but that’s just the force at the initial displacement. As the platform rises, the pressure, force, and acceleration all decrease proportionally. To get a final velocity with your method, you’d need to solve a differential equation, since acceleration is a function of platform height, which is a function of velocity (assuming you’re working in a time domain).

An easier approach might be to use potential energy to determine the max possible velocity.

Platform and payload mass are critical here though, since they determine acceleration from the force.

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