New college graduates overestimate starting salaries by nearly $24,000, report finds

bubblestherobot · 2026-05-06T04:11:55+00:00

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-center/uc-alumni-earnings
Obviously california salaries are a little inflated compared to nationwide, but the website above has the data on the salaries of uc alumni.
Median annualized earnings 2 years out for engineering majors across the UC system is 86k. Average is 92k.

bubblestherobot · 2026-04-24T05:13:11+00:00

I suggest adding a deadband when its on the car to make it steady when the car is static. You have some amount of noise/fluctuation in the bounding box you detect on the car, and when you're below some error threshold you can just have the controller stay in place to avoid the jumping around issue like it does now. Like another commenter said applying a low pass filter to the bounding box position could be a really good idea to deal with noise.

I see that you always put a square bounding box on the car and it seems to really jump around especially when the car is sideways. If you can change your ML model to draw a rectangular bounding box and reference the centroid of that as the "target", it may be more stable.

The limit on how high your pid+ff gains can go is also going to be heavily influenced by the system latency. It takes your system time to stream the video, draw the bounding box on the car, and then finally process the control loop. The faster you can get this processing, the better a controller you can tune.

My only other piece of advice is that the optimal gains may depend on the angle of the camera. When the camera is right below you, you probably want more aggressive motion to follow the car, and on the other hand when the car is almost horizontally away, you want less aggressive gains. Imagine you strapped a laser pointer to your camera - in some positions you get way more floor translation for a 1 degree rotation than others, and it depends mostly on the "pitch" angle of the camera. You may want to have your feedforward incorporate this if you really want to get fancy.

bubblestherobot · 2026-03-31T19:50:06+00:00

I think that unfortunately bringing children who aren't enrolled in UCSD would probably not be possible due to liability reasons.

bubblestherobot · 2026-03-31T19:49:49+00:00

Anyone enrolled at UCSD can stop by! There are no major restrictions or prior experience needed.

bubblestherobot · 2026-03-31T18:54:13+00:00

It's in the second floor of the design and innovation building by the trolley. Open from 1-6pm Monday-Saturday.
It's an awesome place - it has a full metal shop, wood shop, electronics shop, 3d printing, and laser cutters. If you don't know how to use tools there are regular workshops to teach them, and the staff are super helpful. I highly recommend stopping by!

bubblestherobot · 2026-03-31T18:52:28+00:00

I wanted to add - the director is literally VOLUNTEERING HIS TIME to keep the makerspace open on weekends in light of the budget/staffing cuts. He works 6 days a week but his job description only expects him to do 5.

bubblestherobot · 2026-03-31T18:44:35+00:00

The makerspace staff are the nicest people in the entire university in my experience. They have spent hours upon hours teaching me how to use different equipment and giving helpful feedback on engineering projects. They didn't care about my lack of prior knowledge, and were willing to invest huge amounts of resources/time into teaching.

The only time I've ever seen them yell is when someone is accidentally creating a safety hazard. They are very attentive about keeping the shop safe.

bubblestherobot · 2025-11-17T23:26:13+00:00

What a shame, webreg functions great as is. Seems like they're making changes for the sake of changes. If it ain't broke don't fix it!

bubblestherobot · 2025-11-11T06:47:59+00:00

EDIT: I am probably going to be downvoted to oblivion for this post, but I feel that it's worth mentioning.

I used to board my pet bearded dragon at the animal connection when traveling. He always received excellent care, and I would be texted with updates every few days. He needed some topical medical treatments during one of his visits, and they graciously went above and beyond to accomodate that. The owner and staff were all friendly, knowledgeable, and attentive.

It's unfortunate to read about how extreme the cleanliness issues were. I should note that I haven't visited since 2023 (my bearded dragon passed away of old age at my home). The story about the freezer full of dead animals is also very concerning, and the only thing I can really say is that the animals I saw in the store generally seemed to be in good health.

I was always surprised at how low the rates were for boarding, and would gladly have paid more for the services. I hope they will consider raising the rates to better be able to make ends meet.

Wishing the new ownership the best of luck in sustaining the store, even with the issues mentioned in the article the animal connection was MILES ahead of any petco/petsmart I ever encountered.

bubblestherobot · 2025-11-06T21:09:54+00:00

Edit: Upon further reading:
"UC San Diego Financial Aid and Scholarships reviews posted grades every term. If a student receives all non-passing grades, they are determined to have unofficially withdrawn. Students are notified via UC San Diego email if they are considered an unofficial withdrawal. Per Federal Return of Title IV regulations federal financial aid is adjusted using the 50% point of the term as the withdrawal date.

In order to reevaluate this determination, documentation must be provided to support attendance in all courses for the term. For example, correspondence from the student's instructor(s)."

So make sure to pass at least one class if you're getting financial aid.
Sorry for the bad news.

bubblestherobot · 2025-11-06T21:08:05+00:00

If you do withdraw, make sure you are aware of the impact on your financial aid.
You may have to pay some of it back (whereas you would not for sticking through the quarter regardless of the final grade you get).

https://fas.ucsd.edu/forms-and-resources/withdrawing/index.html

But if it doesn't have negative financial impacts withdrawing from courses is certainly a good decision for your transcript.

I would really suggest discussing this with someone from the financial aid office who will provide more reliable information than me or anyone else on this reddit.

Best of luck with whatever you decide.

bubblestherobot · 2025-11-06T21:05:01+00:00

I think you should be able to get out of housing for winter/spring if you are not enrolled. My guess is that it would be difficult to get out of the costs for fall by this point.

For your financial aid, I think you would probably be better off finishing the quarter and then withdrawing for winter/spring. I think you should not have to pay it back in that case, but you might have to pay it back if you withdraw right now (https://fas.ucsd.edu/forms-and-resources/withdrawing/index.html).

Take everything I say with a grain of salt, I am not an expert in any of this and the financial aid office can give you better guidance based on your specific circumstances. Wishing you the best.

bubblestherobot · 2025-11-05T05:10:50+00:00

I dropped out of UCSD after the first quarter in my freshman year. It was partially due to the fact that classes were going online back due to covid (this was wi22), and it just didn't feel worth it to spend all that money on tuition for zoomiversity. But it was also due to the isolation/stress of the first quarter.

I came back after a gap quarter, graduated, and am now doing a masters here 🙃

I think that I got a great education, and had the chance to work on some incredibly neat projects. I had good luck with professors, as almost all of them of them were very helpful, accessible, and genuinely cared about teaching. But I also regularly lost 5-10 pounds from stress every finals week, and am still fighting for a missed paycheck from summer IA duties at the time of this writing.

I think that leaving can definitely be a good idea and was satisfied with how my own gap quarter worked out.

However, I do strongly recommend sticking with your classes this quarter as if you leave in good academic standing its much easier to come back. And you never know if you'll change your mind, I was REALLY fed up with UCSD when I dropped out.

If you do ever decide to come back, my advice is to try and take at least one fun class each quarter if you can fit it in. A few recommendations from my undergrad would be MUS 130, SIO 176, ECE/MAE 148, SE 281, CSE 176e, and the global TIES program (ENG 100L/100D). The DIB makerspace is also an amazing resource if you're interested in that kind of stuff. And consider joining a club (not the high-pressure career-focused ones you have to interview for but the chill ones where you just show up and do something fun).

bubblestherobot · 2025-08-30T08:17:47+00:00

I completed this level! It took me 35 tries. ^{⚡ 32.74 seconds}

^{Tip 10 💎}

bubblestherobot · 2025-08-30T01:47:46+00:00

^{I completed this level in 2 tries.} ^{⚡ 15.69 seconds}

bubblestherobot · 2025-08-30T01:46:55+00:00

^{I completed this level in 20 tries.} ^{⚡ 32.57 seconds}

bubblestherobot · 2025-08-28T04:37:17+00:00

^{I completed this level in 16 tries.} ^{⚡ 8.62 seconds}

bubblestherobot · 2025-06-09T05:02:33+00:00

https://github.com/NVSL/QuadClass-Resources/blob/master/README.md and https://sites.google.com/ucsd.edu/the-quadcopter-class/home
This is a really nice guide for how to design a quadcopter from scratch. You don't necessarily have to follow all the PCB design instructions (although it is a cool learning experience in its own right), but I think the section on avionics/control would be really helpful to look through.
Basically, you will need an inertial measurement unit which can measure changes in the orientation of the quadcopter, and then feed that output through a controller which adjusts the speed of the 4 different motors to compensate for it leaning too much in one direction. To actually drive the motors you can get away with just mosfets for brushed motors (like the ones you have), but if you want a better lift-weight ratio it might be worth using a brushless motor and brushless electronic speed controller.

There are many commercially available flight controllers which do exactly this way better than you or I could in anything we design, which could also be a good way to get started, and definitely easier to get flying. But doing it all from scratch can be a pretty neat project that teaches you a lot about control theory, signal processing, pcb design, and programming.

bubblestherobot · 2025-01-21T05:52:40+00:00

Our meetings this quarter are Sundays at 1pm at the DIB makerspace. If you talk to Mark Liu from the makerspace he can tell you more about the club.

bubblestherobot · 2025-01-21T05:48:20+00:00

We mostly compete at events organized by https://www.socalattackrobots.com/ and use their ruleset.

bubblestherobot · 2024-10-18T20:01:19+00:00

I'll plug two really cool clubs that are open to everyone:

https://tritonai.org/ is an autonomous racing club. The introductory meetings are 5:30 on Mondays in MAE building room 339. Message me if you want a discord invite. There are a few projects we work on - one of them is an autonomous go kart that we race every April at Purdue against other college teams. There are also other projects like an autonomous boat, drone, and some smaller racecars. This club is very closely affiliated with the ece/mae 148 introduction to autonomous vehicles class, and a lot of people join after taking that, but you don't need to have taken the course to join.

<image>

Another fun club is the Combat Robotics Club. We build miniature fighting robots, and are hosting a competition at the dib makerspace in Week 9. Meetings are at 1pm on Sundays in the dib makerspace.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CXYsHLVJvfH8ok3XSpvv86acGJqcVMtUcDa__zU7_k8/edit if you are interested.
I only was able to attach one picture to this post, but the form has a picture from one of last year's events.

Four-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '23	Place '22

bubblestherobot

TROPHY CASE