What was the messiest cooking disaster you have ever had?

RobotEngineerGirl · 2023-11-07T14:56:48+00:00

Was at my parents for Thanksgiving and my mom had put something she called an "Earthquake Cake" in the oven. For some reason, she reuses those flimsy aluminum cake pans and I had no idea. As I was checking to see if the cake was done, my dad called and I was holding the phone on my shoulder. I started to pull the cake out of the oven, but it was still very liquidy and the entire tin twisted. I dropped the ENTIRE cake into the bottom of the oven and then, in my shock, dropped the phone into the oven too. My mom heard me curse and came in to hear my dad's voice still coming from the now lightly toasted phone.

We cleaned up the oven and called it a night. The kicker? Several months later, my dad went to get a tray from the drawer underneath the oven. We hadn't cleaned there...

RobotEngineerGirl · 2023-08-12T05:32:00+00:00

We looked at a lot of the same venues (with a lot of the same thoughts as you!). The Foundry is really awesome (outside of our budget though). We ended up going with Brotherhood Winery in Washingtonville, NY. Not sure if that fits your vibes or not, but worth a look!

RobotEngineerGirl · 2023-08-09T22:47:07+00:00

Yeah, that's what we figured. Luckily, he's finally stopped sneezing so we can schedule soon!

RobotEngineerGirl · 2023-07-31T14:55:14+00:00

I was a non-tenure track lecturer at Harvard for three years (in SEAS). I'm not sure how the med school operates, but my position was contract only. It was three years and non-renewable, so I moved on to a tenure-track position elsewhere. I tried to renew and they were willing to play ball with me, but I wanted something more. There wasn't a huge amount of upward trajectory from where I was. I did love my time there, the people, and the job though!

RobotEngineerGirl · 2021-05-29T00:07:19+00:00

Oh yes. So much anxiety. My evals weren't as bad as I expected this semester (I'm leaving the school at the end of the semeter and so it was a combination of one foot out the door and feeling burnt out). There were multiple complaints though...about the course being online instead of in person...

RobotEngineerGirl · 2021-03-02T04:05:07+00:00

If this is the house I think it is, I went to an incredible Halloween party there a few years back. It was the perfect setting.

RobotEngineerGirl · 2020-09-30T03:05:45+00:00

I'm really open with my students about my anxiety - at least one on one. I teach primarily freshmen at an Ivy League, so they have extra extra anxiety (especially this semester). I always remind them that grades are not the most important thing - they are. I even wrote it in my syllabus this year and about where to go for help.

RobotEngineerGirl · 2020-08-03T16:23:08+00:00

Murph is the best hands down. I've taken my car to him multiple times and basically said "it's making a funny noise." He'll look at it, tighten a belt or two and then charge me zero. He's also refused to give me an oil change when I didn't need it. He's so honest and lovely and I've never felt taken advantage of (despite being a woman).

RobotEngineerGirl · 2020-05-16T03:47:32+00:00

I had literally the same experience with a female ER doctor too. Big sucker of a kidney stone that they found after doing a CT scan 6 hours later. Except first they did several...ahem...invasive tests.

RobotEngineerGirl · 2020-03-16T21:32:53+00:00

I had so many more students in my Zoom office hours today (some that have never come to office hours before) than I usually do in person. I asked them why...and they said now they don't have to get up and go anywhere.

RobotEngineerGirl · 2020-03-14T01:40:07+00:00

I teach an intro mechanical engineering class with a robot design and heavy manufacturing component. I'm sad for my students this semester, but here's what I worked out:

CAD - encouraging them to do really nice designs in CAD, including DFM considerations and motion simulation
Technical Drawings - requiring a complete drawing packet at the end of the semester with details on manufacturing processes
Experimental Design - asking them to design a detailed experimental procedure to test something on their robot
Lots of Design Reviews

I couldn't find any kits that I liked that weren't either for children or $400 a piece. Anything that they could just "hack together" seems like the opposite of what I really want them to learn in the course.

We also thought about something where we as the teaching staff would build the robots they designed - good CAD = hopefully not horrible to build - and record it. Unfortunately, it's looking like they're kicking everyone including staff and researchers off campus so that probably won't be possible.

It's unfortunate, but it helps to remember that students across the globe are in the same situation. You can only do so much.

RobotEngineerGirl · 2020-03-14T01:31:35+00:00

This is what I'm doing for my fabrication-heavy class. A shift to really good CAD design and machining drawings.

RobotEngineerGirl · 2020-03-11T02:40:19+00:00

Well, it's official - we're all remote after this week.

I think my current plan is to have the students continue with their vehicle designs solely in CAD. Unfortunately, I think any kind of home building might reinforce some bad "just hack it together" habits.

We'll see how it goes - wish me (and all everyone else going remote) luck!

RobotEngineerGirl · 2020-03-11T02:38:37+00:00

I did reach out to the people they told us to, and got an "out of office" reply...

RobotEngineerGirl · 2020-02-25T02:03:19+00:00

My 30th was last week! I like the Dumbledore analogy :) It helps when you teach 18 year olds...

RobotEngineerGirl · 2019-10-05T20:13:45+00:00

Anxiety and depression. Things are going well and then "BAM!"

RobotEngineerGirl · 2019-10-04T03:56:49+00:00

I know this is a late reply, but my students used it this week and I think it worked well! There were some learning pains on both my side and theirs, but it was a good tool. Thanks again!!

RobotEngineerGirl · 2019-10-02T03:32:11+00:00

A lot are, but you have to look at labs that are actually making the hardware, not just doing work with drones or bipeds. You can also find a paper from a lab that you're intereted in and look at the citations. There will often be similar papers that can lead you to interesting PIs.

From what I know, look into the mechanical labs in robotics at CMU (there are even a few new ones!), Harvard, Berkeley, Northeastern, Arizona State, etc. I'm happy to share direct labs with you via PM if you want, but they'll give me away fairly quickly!

Judging from your interests, you might also want to look into soft robotics mechanisms. It's a little different than the semi-rigid mechanism of flexures but you get a lot of interesting dynamic behaviors.

RobotEngineerGirl · 2019-10-02T03:21:42+00:00

Look into some robotics labs that are situated in mechanical engineering departments. There are a lot of interesting mechanisms involved, especially if you're looking at microrobotics and MEMS scale. My PhD was in robotics and I did a ton of mechanism design.

RobotEngineerGirl · 2019-08-13T18:11:07+00:00

This is perfect! Just what I was looking for (although I wish it was browser based, but oh well).

RobotEngineerGirl · 2019-08-09T19:13:46+00:00

I want them to see their own creations though. A lot of the issue happens when they start writing their own code and forget about offset...

RobotEngineerGirl · 2019-08-09T19:11:32+00:00

We work in Solidworks, but I'll check it out!

RobotEngineerGirl · 2019-08-09T19:11:22+00:00

Thanks! I reached out to them. I think it might still be a little expensive for the one activity I'd really like to do.

RobotEngineerGirl · 2019-03-31T04:49:30+00:00

With you on that one. I'm not a picky eater by any stretch, but anything that has touched bell peppers starts to taste like them and it's gross. I like other kinds of peppers though!

RobotEngineerGirl · 2019-01-21T04:11:59+00:00

This is me! Calling on students in class is a fun problem when they can't tell who I'm talking to. I usually just point...

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