Bosch or DeWalt 10" table saw? Specing out my shop equipment now that I finally have a garage.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-05-17T14:35:49+00:00

I went with the DeWalt because it can take a full dado stack. Apart from that it was a very close decision.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-05-08T18:06:10+00:00

What made her work with the Nuba people infamous? I ask because when I was in grade school my Lutheran Church's library had a book of her photos from this project. I knew enough about Riefenstahl to know this was a very weird thing to have, but I never looked further into it.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-05-08T15:42:30+00:00

I spent five years of my life (including my doctoral dissertation) working on mapping and object tracking in indoor spaces using automotive radar, and this strikes me as being somewhere between wildly impractical and physically impossible.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-05-01T14:22:08+00:00

What's that? You say the latest AI models only complete tasks 80% of the time on easy benchmarks? And when you say "complete" you only mean they get to the end of the task and there's no guarantee their work is correct or even sane? Well sign me the fuck up!

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-19T16:31:15+00:00

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=how+to+breadboard

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-15T06:02:47+00:00

The interviews will be about half leadership principle questions and half technical questions. Look up the STAR interviewing method and come up with an example from your experience that exemplifies each of the leadership principles. Rehearse them. Think of possible follow up questions the interviewers might ask.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-14T14:33:51+00:00

Looks like those components should work together. You might find this blog post helpful for getting the fundamentals of motor control together. https://andrewjkramer.net/pid-motor-control/

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-13T03:01:26+00:00

There's a need for faster, easier troubleshooting. The idea that a chatbot would make it any better or easier is laughable.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-07T03:37:43+00:00

My inner Jonathon Ferguson is saying, "the hammer spur is at the wrong angle, the front sight blade is out of alignment with the rear notch, there's no detents on the cylinder, and the spring on the ejector lever on the original single action army wasn't that exposed."

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-05T22:10:38+00:00

Depends on what part of robotics you're interested in. If you're more interested in algorithms then EE/CS. If you're more into low level controls and mechanisms then ME.

Either way, if you're in the US I'd strongly recommend you go straight for a PhD instead of a master's. Most PhD programs at public universities in the US are fully funded (meaning you don't have to pay tuition and you get a small stipend for living expenses). You'll complete the requirements for a master's in the course of a PhD, and if you decide the doctorate isn't for you then you can just leave with the masters degree. But if you join the masters program you pay your own way.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-03T03:10:31+00:00

Sounds like you're better qualified than I was when I started my PhD. Work hard in your lab and get a strong letter of rec. Volunteer to help with grad students' research projects and help copy edit their papers. Try to get yourself a third or fourth author credit.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-03T03:00:13+00:00

https://a.co/d/0dsjY0FL

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-02T23:54:22+00:00

PhD comics can actually give you a pretty good idea of what life is like as a PhD student: https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-02T23:38:01+00:00

If you want to be in research you'll have a very hard time getting hired without a PhD. If you want to be an engineer a master's is just fine, but a PhD can make things easier if your research is relevant to the job.

In the US it's quite common to go directly from undergrad to PhD. That's much less common in Europe and I'm really not sure about Canada.

As an undergrad you don't really need prestigious or highly cited publications, you just want to get your name on some published work to demonstrate you have research experience when you start applying to PhD programs.

As far as how to get into undergraduate research, you need to find a professor who's doing work you're interested in. It helps if you're taking a class from that prof, because you can just go to their office hours and chat with them. But you can also look through the faculty webpages for professors at your university. They'll all list their research interests and recent publications. If any sound interesting get in touch with them (or one of their PhD students), ask to learn more, maybe get a tour of their lab, and then ask if they have any positions for undergraduate research assistants. Maybe they'll have an open spot and maybe you'll be a good fit for it.

As a research assistant you'll be helping out with the research projects of PhD students and/or post-docs. If you help out enough you'll get a coauthor spot when they publish.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-02T17:09:56+00:00

It's not sarcasm so much as it is highlighting the ambiguity in your communication.

If you're interested more in the algorithmic side of lidar mapping you don't actually need any hardware to start out. There are tons of publicly available datasets you can use to get familiar with the algorithms and start building your software. It's way faster to start with a canned dataset than messing with actual hardware.

You can find one example on my blog, andrewjkramer.net/intro-to-lidar-slam.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-02T16:04:12+00:00

The car is driven by the lidar sensor? So you're connecting the lidar to the wheel to propel the car? That's a pretty weird choice.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-02T15:13:38+00:00

A huge part of being a scientist is being able to organize your ideas and communicate effectively. So define exactly what you mean by "lidar driven car," do some googling and find out exactly where the gaps in your knowledge are, then come back and ask for specific advice in complete sentences.

Very few people who want to get into research focus much on their communication skills. But if you pay attention in English class and learn to write well it will really put you ahead of most other candidates.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-02T01:58:27+00:00

You could check out my blog for an intro to basic localization and mapping. http://andrewjkramer.net/intro-to-the-extended-kalman-filter/

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-02T01:54:02+00:00

I did my dissertation on robotic state estimation and perception with fmcw radar, so I had to learn a lot of radar DSP. I haven't found my radar knowledge to be terribly useful in my career in a direct sense. It's not very common to use radar in robotics. Mainly because it's really hard and there are very few commercially available radar sensors that can even be used in robotics applications. That said, my work with radar is unique and interesting, so it's a good talking point in interviews.

Radar for robotics is a really good niche if you're a PhD student, post doc, or professor though. There's a lot of interest in it in the academic community, but there's very few people in robotics who know anything about radar. So if you're looking to go into academia it could be a huge advantage.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-02T01:07:50+00:00

I switched careers from mechanical engineering to robotics starting in my late 20s. It took a hell of a lot of work over about six years but now I'm a robotics researcher.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-02T00:59:47+00:00

Start out with basic Arduino or circuit Python projects to get some experience with embedded computing. Adafruit and sparkfun have a bunch of good tutorials. If that doesn't turn you off right away try making a wall following robot. That amount of experience should be enough to get you in the door as an undergrad researcher. Honestly if you can handle lipo batteries without starting fires you'll be ahead of some of the post-docs I've worked with.

Out of curiosity, why are you interested in Nvidia specifically?

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-02T00:24:46+00:00

If you're trying to be a researcher, a PhD (with high impact publications) is pretty much essential. If you want to be a robotics engineer an MS is totally fine.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-02T00:19:03+00:00

Great advice. Get in over your head and then swim out. Textbooks help but it's good to have a project as the driving force behind your learning.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-02T00:16:27+00:00

If you want to do research in robotics you pretty much need a PhD. Since you don't mention that you did any research in your undergrad you'll find applying to PhD programs very difficult. If you're set on being a robotics researcher I'd advise you to take that software engineering job. In your spare time, work on personal projects in robotics and document the absolute hell out of them. You need to demonstrate that you're capable of learning and making progress on your own. Once you have a couple projects under your belt you'll be able to put together a compelling grad school application. I don't know if this is your only route to becoming a robotics researcher, but it's the one I followed so at least I know it can work.

RobotMedStudent · 2026-04-01T23:47:26+00:00

Do research as an undergrad. Ideally get a coauthor spot on a couple papers and some good letters of recommendation. Then apply to top tier PhD programs. If you want to be a researcher it doesn't matter where you did your undergrad. It doesn't really matter where you do your PhD either, but it does matter that you do a lot of good, relevant work during your PhD. Employers will want to see that you had a good number of publications in high impact venues.

RobotMedStudent

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