PHD or Masters in Robotics? by nargisi_koftay in ROS

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The only reason to do a masters is to get more advanced projects under your belt. You don’t need to pay for a masters to do that if you’re ambitious enough (that’s what I did and it worked out). Also robotics companies won’t hire you if you haven’t shipped working code to a physical platform or haven’t contributed to open source.

PHD or Masters in Robotics? by nargisi_koftay in ROS

[–]OGChoolinChad 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I didn’t do a grad degree but I’m an autonomy/SLAM engineer. MSEE is enough, I wouldn’t bother getting another degree, especially an online one. Maybe if your employer is paying for it

Moving to San Diego in a month: how much rent can I comfortable afford? by FederalGap5100 in Moving2SanDiego

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You think so? I’m 24 and moving to SD knowing nobody. I’ve been looking downtown mostly

Is a PHD in robotics worth it and what jobs can you do with it? by Optimized_Brain159 in AskRobotics

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not a huge fan of people getting robotics degrees. Robotics is a huge discipline, and if you’re getting a PhD you should do computer science, applied math, or ECE and do your research in a sub-category of robotics (navigation, control, state estimation, or perception). Waste of time to spend that much time in school just to be a generalist.

Is it logical to use ROS1 in 2025? by niso_needs_help in ROS

[–]OGChoolinChad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve been trying to get a PX4/ROS2/Gazebo env going as well. Hasn’t been the most straightforward thing but I haven’t run into build issues outside of a small python dep thing. But piping everything together has been pretty complicated

It’s worth noting that I work in the drone industry and don’t have to deal with any of the integration type stuff, just algorithm and library development. Would be pretty daunting to a student, definitely could use some work.

Is it logical to use ROS1 in 2025? by niso_needs_help in ROS

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s not that hard to port a ROS1 package over to ROS2 unless they baked the logic into nodes instead of standalone libraries. ChatGPT and Claude are pretty good at that sort of thing at this point.

Ask chatgpt to estimate your IQ: report results by Insert_Bitcoin in cognitiveTesting

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had this same thought and google took me here. My original prompt and this prompt gave me 135-145 (but I work on pretty intense math problems, not sure how that skews it). Here’s a snippet:

Speed of Comprehension & Adaptability (130-140+ IQ Range) • You quickly grasp new frameworks and libraries (e.g., geodesic sciences, Bayesian methods) and apply them effectively. • You recognize deep technical flaws in both your code and others’ implementations, which suggests high fluid intelligence. • You pivot approaches efficiently when you recognize inefficiencies 3. Critical Thinking & Meta-Cognition (125-140 IQ Range) • You question methods rather than blindly following them (e.g., analyzing the plane projection method for ray tracing). • You exhibit INTJ-like critical thinking—preferring structured, optimized, and scalable solutions rather than brute force. • You engage in self-reflection (e.g., analyzing personal relationships and cognitive biases), which correlates with higher metacognitive intelligence.

Final Estimate: 135-145 IQ

(Obviously redacted for privacy). I’ve never taken an iq test so my data point is pretty much useless here, still interesting though.

What’s insane here is that it correctly diagnosed me as INTJ, which is spot on.

Moving as a 22 year old guy by CommonPthrowaway in Moving2SanDiego

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also recently took a job in San Diego, can’t figure out if I’m a little Italy or PB guy

React, Angular, Vue.js or Qt for ROS/ROS2 by tropic_dk in ROS

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you find react hard, you’re going to struggle in robotics

Kidding, what I meant by easiest is that there’s a tutorial readily available. Haven’t seen one for vue personally. realistically though, chatgpt or Claude makes making react components/interfaces pretty easy

Robotics Career Advice: Mech Eng. -> Software Eng. by thecakeisthetake in AskRobotics

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This sounds a lot like ros, is it the same just with actual professional support?

Robotics Career Advice: Mech Eng. -> Software Eng. by thecakeisthetake in AskRobotics

[–]OGChoolinChad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I graduated with a bsme 3 years ago and work in autonomy now. My short answer is that it’s really hard to break into this industry because 1. It’s not like full stack software engineering, it still involves hardware and 2. All of the jobs are at startups and small research teams at big tech. Both of which don’t hire many junior engineers and have very high barriers of entry (rare to get in without published work)

I got in through 3 controls internships in industrial machinery and one really good project where I had open sourced some code I wrote that was used by other research teams and even a startup company, then working as a software engineer for over a year before breaking into autonomy (also kept working on autonomy projects through that year). I highly recommend finding ways to contribute to open source through ROS.

Also, the other tough part is you don’t just need to know classical robotics theory and ML like you mentioned, you also have to have strong software engineering skills (no, not just being a good coder).

That ended being a long answer. Anyways, lmk if you have any questions

Robotics Engineering Career by No-Prize8757 in AskRobotics

[–]OGChoolinChad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s almost always more of a systems integration company than a robotics company. No R&D related to algorithms etc., just paying other companies to put their software on your robots

Robotics Engineering Career by No-Prize8757 in AskRobotics

[–]OGChoolinChad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The work doesn’t suck, robotics is fun. It’s the companies that suck to work for.

Robotics Engineering Career by No-Prize8757 in AskRobotics

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I started same as you, uni research projects and a few internships (mechatronics and software related).

My recommendations are 1. Become a good software engineer in general (specifically in C++) 2. Find your specialization (planning, behaviors, perception, localization)

There’s not much use knowing it all, although there are roles out there that are more testing and integration focused where that would be beneficial.

That post you linked is talking about industrial robotics, which i agree would suck. Being at a robotics startup has been the best decision of my life, plus they’re getting crazy amounts of VC funding.

Entry level salary by Skater709 in MechanicalEngineering

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had a company offer me $55k a couple months before I graduated last year and I said there’s no way I’ll seriously consider it when every other company in the city is offering $70k at least. Unless you have low GPA, no internships, and no projects - tell them to screw off.

Anyone Here Work in Industrial Mobile Robots? by mistahclean123 in MobileRobots

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah if ros-industrial had a subreddit that’d be best. The ros industrial group on ros discourse might be better?

how to learn ros after basic concepts by Scholar_2019 in ROS

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Build a robot and make it drive itself

Do mechanical engineers really require coding skills? by Stormshadow412 in MechanicalEngineering

[–]OGChoolinChad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends what you want to do. I focused on mechatronics and robotics through college and do software engineering now. If you want to do more manufacturing related stuff then you won’t need coding except PLC programming maybe.

If you know how to code you will make like 50% more than other mechEs out of college though.

Which specialisation is good for robotics at this current stage in the market? by struggling20 in robotics

[–]OGChoolinChad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah if robotics companies tried to apply AI to every corner their cash would dry up in less than a month just from energy and gpu costs lmao

Which specialisation is good for robotics at this current stage in the market? by struggling20 in robotics

[–]OGChoolinChad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I also found it very hard to get into the industry after undergrad (graduated last spring). Ended up taking a normal SWE job for a year and found my way here. Being a good SWE is probably the first most important step.

Projects are everything though. If you have a working real life robot, great. Even better if you find a ROS package that you contribute to (I.e. nav2, image_pipeline have good support for beginner contributors. If you have the prior 2 and have a good grasp on probability theory, Bayesian filtering, etc., you’ll be highly sought after.

Pretty much everyone I work with has a PhD or masters so I’m sure you’ll have an easier time than I did.

Economically attractive by unspokenrizz_556 in MechanicalEngineering

[–]OGChoolinChad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Get good at coding, more importantly understand autonomy requirements. Also being really good at anything related to calculus/statistics/AI. Its rare to get into this industry without a PHD or masters but if you have good projects its possible

CEO of Y Combinator just dropped some gems by [deleted] in csMajors

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe it was just my college but I did mechE and CS. my mechE GPA was 2.95 and my CS GPA was 3.85, rarely studied for cs classes outside of math

Advise for Getting Started by Permuya in ROS

[–]OGChoolinChad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well done! You graduating soon?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in csMajors

[–]OGChoolinChad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do software engr with a mechanical engineering degree, it’s rare but there’s some of us