Light at the End of the Tunnel (W26)

3B Term:

Winter terms are always the toughest. The long, dark days sap the motivation from your willingness to study. On your way home from class, it's dark outside, and you have to fight your way through a foot of slow on the unplowed University Ave sidewalks.

Combine the horrid weather with 3B, which has been one of the hardest terms to date. Every class feels like it has a project or assignment chasing you down every week, and you don't ever get a break for more than a day or two. Are the individual assignments harder? I would say no, it's mostly the tempo which gets to you.

Heading into the term I thought I would be able to take the term a bit chill, and not really involve myself in design teams. However, silly me, the first opportunity I got to lead a design team, I took it. This term was my first time on, and first term as mechanical lead for, Waterloo Space Soldering Team. Having to juggle a crazy complex design challenge and manage all these members on a tight schedule has definitely compounded my stress this term, but in the end I think it was really worth it. I've gotten to meet some amazing people, and work on a truly rewarding project.

Even when it's dark and miserable, you can still appreciate the beauty of winter.

Perimeter Institute is always stunning to look at.

One of the big projects this term was for MTE380. The challenge was to design a line following robot, which drives along a course and rescues a Lego figure, returning it to a safe zone.

As part of the project, I got to apply some of the computer vision knowledge I had just picked up in the previous co-op term! Line following, pickup, and dropoff was all done with OpenCV vision guidance running onboard a Raspberry Pi 5.

As well, I couldn't help but take on some electrical work - check out the sweet perfboard on the right, which hosts the microcontroller (Arduino Nano which interfaces with the Pi to run PID contol, and interfaces with all the motors and IMU), the IMU, power system, and motor drivers, all in a nice neat package.

Your Scheduled Cycling Update:

This winter was particularly terrible - one of the coldest and snowiest I can remember. Combine that with that feels like ever-diminishing quality of snowplowing, and it was definitely a challenge to bike for most of the term. Even when the bike lanes are clear, odds are the street plows will have pushed large piles of compacted snow into them, forcing you to dismount or attempt to blindly ram through. There was also plenty of rain and black ice this term. This all compounded in me being unable to ride for the first month or so of the term.

Thankfully, the fixie has been a trusty steed. It's been pretty maintenance free all winter long, and this winter I was finally able to run studded tires. They definitely do help, but they're not magical. As well, I only have enough clearance to run studs on the front.

Near the end of the term, it cleared up a bit and I was able to join UWCC for a few informal rides. Peep the beatuiful sunset shots we got at a construction site!

Drone shots, wow!

Another gorgeous Waterloo sunset... - shot on PowerShot S50.

Check the rides out! Fixie on the left :) - shot on PowerShot S50.

Waterloo Adventures:

Some beautiful scenes at St. Jacob's - shot on PowerShot S50.

Despite how hectic this term has been, I've been able to have my fair share of adventures around Waterloo:

I've managed to find and fix up my family's old Canon PowerShot S50 - an old early 2000's digicam which produces some truly beautiful photos. I've been able to run around the city and snap some wonderful photos with it.

Canon PowerShot S50 in all her shiny glory.

The old faithful Ion - shot on PowerShot S50.

As well, I've been able to keep up with some of the silly hikes, whether it be RIM Park in pitch black darkness, or hiking the entire ION line (minus Conestoga, kinda forgot about that stop). This term is the first term where Uptown Purrk has been open: Waterloo's first cat cafe! I will definitely be coming back.

Not pictured: my waterbottle literally freezing.

This is how life should be.

Projects and Team:

I've also gotten up to my fair share of design team and personal projects this term:

GRT Bustime:

With how horrible the winter was, I was forced to regularly bus to class. Inspired, I decided to build an arrival time display for my nearest stop. Using a Pi Zero 2W, it pulls the next arrival time for the 19 and 12 busses and displays them on two 7-segment displays. This is also probably my first project with thorough documentation, as well as a very nice and polished finish. Check it out here.

Waterloo Space Soldering Team:

This term, I've joined a smaller design team, Waterloo Space Soldering Team. Our team is competing in CAN-RGX 9, a competition run by the CSA/NRC where competing teams get a chance to fly an experiment they design onboard the NRC's parabolic flight aircraft.

Our team is developing a system to improve soldering in microgravity: Typically on Earth, gravity (buoyancy) allows flux bubbles trapped in solder joints to escape before the solder cools. However, this doesn't work in space. Being able to repair electronics in space would therefore be highly valuable in reducing costs and extending our abilities in space. Our team is designing soldering systems that work inside a centrifuge, simulating the gravity here on Earth.

In 2024, the team competed in CAN-RGX 7 using a hotplate and solder paste-based soldering system. However, the heating profile of solder paste is too long for the 20 second microgravity period we run our experiments in. This year, the team is trying to tackle this by using a fully automated solder wire-based soldering system.

As mechanical lead for the project, it's been incredibly fun coming up with and designing this novel soldering system. There's been many things to learn along the way, especially with never having worked on really "compact" projects before, and this system has so many actuators and sensors. It's been very challenging to get it working, but I've had the best mechanical team I could ask for behind me every step of the way.

Competition is in August, so fingers crossed!

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse