Budding scientists

Today I had the pleasure of judging science fair projects at a local primary school.  The Wellington regional fair is held each year at the end of August, so every July since I've been in New Zealand I've had the opportunity to meet some very young scientists.

It's a delight to talk with these students who have chosen a research topic that truly excites themselves.  Their enthusiasm is inspiring and reminds me that there's no point in spending years in the lab if you don't find joy in your work.  Additionally, perusing the projects on display I am reminded of the importance of solid experimental design and the elegance in a "simple" and self contained study.

As I was out of the lab, again, today I didn't make any progress on my research.  However, I did submit a conference abstract to present my work in Nelson next year.  Hopefully I'll have as much energy speaking about my research as the students I met today.

Nothing to report

Today I travelled back to Wellington after accompanying my wife to a conference in Queenstown.  The return flight was a bit bumpy for my tastes and thus I wasn't able to read more than a couple pages in the textbook I had carried on. 

Settling back in at home this afternoon and being tired from the excitement of a trip I've accomplished no work today.

Model inspiration

This morning I started my day with a journal article that explored both the practical and philosophical (yes... philosophical) implications of the no-slip boundary condition in fluid dynamics.  Before I could even finish the paper (and get to the philosophical component of the manuscript) I was struck with an idea to develop a numerical model to simulate a flow field with apparent slip.

For the rest of the day I was sucked into developing my program.  I am pleased with the result, hence my "early" post this evening, as I am now done for the day.  At this point I don't want to go into the mechanics of the software or work through how I plan to implement my simulations as it's still early in the process; more to come in the future.

Breaking into a stack of papers

While away from the lab I wanted to take time to jump start some much needed reading.  Today I spent a couple hours in the Queenstown public library with a couple papers on wall slip and my textbook on embedded systems. I went through four papers, although I won't say I 'mastered' these articles.

During my undergraduate I would spend days (actual days; 8+ hours at a time) in the library reading and preparing for exams.  With all the design work in the lab and my numerous extra-curricular activities I haven't been focusing on my reading nearly enough.  I am now on a mission to rediscover my ability to focus my attention entirely into my reading for extended periods.  Additionally, when I get back to Wellington I need to schedule time throughout the week to excuse myself from the lab and head to the library for a period of study.

Week in advance: 27 July-2 August

Looking ahead to this week I feel it's pretty easy to plan my work schedule.  Particularly because I am out of town while my wife attends a conference.  We'll return to Wellington on Wednesday afternoon and to keep me busy I've brought a couple textbooks and a stack of journal articles.  I've already been thumbing through one of a textbooks, Embedded Systems: A Comtemporary Design Tool by James K. Peckol and am very excited about a number of chapters.

While we return to Welly on Wednesday, I still won't be into the lab on Thursday because I am judging science fair projects at a local school.  When I am finally back into the lab on Friday I expect to have a couple hours of PGSA work and a couple hours of catching up to do with the Honours students in our lab.  As such I do not expect to have any lab work completed this week.

Week in review: 20-26 July

I've been thinking today about my goal of writing on the blog every day.  As I hope to keep my comments quasi-professional and on topic with regards to my studies and research, I spent some time today thinking about my weekend posts.  Now I do like to work (some) Saturdays, but there's no guarantee that I will have anything to report on my days off.  As a result, my plan is on Saturdays to reflect on the days prior and on Sundays to layout some goals for the coming week.

Looking back at the past week, I've noticed how my time is split between a number of interests.  I am pleased that I've kept on top of my meetings and emails for the PGSA, additionally I had a couple reports and an editorial published in this month's newsletter.  I prepared an abstract for next year's AMN-7 conference (although I still need to review my supervisor's comments and submit before the 31st).  I've spent time reviewing a couple patent applications and I hope these will be filed in the next couple weeks.  I've had two Honours students start projects with me in the lab.  And finally I am pleased with my progress on programming my micro-controller to communicate with external ADC and DAC devices.

What I've learned from the past week is that I can't underestimate how much time is needed to take care of the little odds and ends work.  As such, I need to lower my daily expectations so that I am not disappointed when I need to spend time on these minor tasks.

Hidden work

Earlier this week some material I had ordered for the workshop arrived.  The material, Macor, is a machinable glass ceramic produced by Corning Incorporated.  It has a low thermal expansion coefficient and is NMR transparent making it an excellent choice for variable temperature parts used within our magnets.  Of course a neat material such as this comes with a hefty price tag and had to be special ordered from the US, as I couldn't find a NZ or Australian vendor.  There's no point in having such raw material laying about the lab, so I wanted to get the Macor and prints down to the workshop before the week was over.  Even though the workshop has already made these same parts many times out of plastic, I had to tweak the prints for the material, which of course took longer than expected.

Yesterday I mentioned that I had reviewed a draft of a patent application that our group will be filing in the near future.  While I reviewed the text yesterday, today our lawyer came back to me with a request to update some drawings.  As such this afternoon I ended up formatting 20 pages of figures.  Again, this was work I hadn't scheduled into my day.

My point is that hidden work can take up a significant amount of my time.  To be better about managing my work expectations I need to allow some time each day so that I can take on these tasks as they come up.  Additionally, I should be more aware of work I have on the horizon so that I am not side tracked by items at the last minute.

In addition to the above work, I had a meeting today regarding the upcoming academic audit of the University and I was able to get my microcontroller to talk with my ADC and DAC devices via SPI.

Where does the day go?

As I mentioned earlier this week, this blog is primarily a tool for myself to be able to track how I spend my time over the next year.  Without this thorough (and timely) account of my day, I would have written today off as a complete waste.  Now I didn't make much progress with regards to my research, but that's not to say I didn't get anything done.

I ended yesterday's post with a teaser into the work I wanted to dive into today.  Unfortunately, I have to report I wasn't able to start my "lab" work until almost 5pm this afternoon.  Let me explain...

This morning I went into the lab knowing I had a certain amount of desk work to do before my "real" work could start.  As such I began my day by preparing an abstract to submit for an upcoming conference.  Once the draft was sent to my supervisor I started to review the latest version of a patent application that was prepared based on an instrument I have designed and built in our lab.  In no way is the "detailed description" section of a patent application easy reading and when it's your job to check for errors, it makes it all the more difficult to read.  Next I had to prepare a couple reports for the July issue of the PGSA newsletter.  I had a University Research Committee meeting to cover in addition to a meeting of the university working group looking into the future of the Honours degree* at Victoria.  Also, as PGSA President, I needed to prepare an editorial piece for the newletter.  By the time I finished the aforementioned items and responded to the daily backlog of emails it was 4:50pm; almost the entire day gone.

Needless to say I know what work I will to dive into tomorrow morning, when I am able to resume my research studies.

* An Honours degree in New Zealand is a one year post-undergraduate qualification.  While degree requirements vary by discipline there is typically a mix of course work and thesis required.

The week continues

Today was a productive day and by the end I found it difficult to drag myself away from work. 

This morning started with a couple meetings, one was an open discussion with the President of Victoria's international student rep group and the second was with folks from the University's communications and marketing department.  Regarding the latter, the PGSA is preparing for our upcoming 3 Minute Thesis competition and we are drawing upon the expertise on campus to help promote the event.

These meetings took most of the morning, but once I got into the lab I continued my work from yesterday (setting up serial communications between various electronics components).  I've made some great progress, especially after scratching my head for a couple hours before realising my problem was partially due to not plugging in a power supply!  I quit today on a positive note, but with a clear idea of where to pick-up tomorrow.  And for those curious, tomorrow will begin with an investigation into bit masking and bitwise operations.

Survey of a typical day

Well today was an excellent example of a standard day at uni.  I say that based on the range of activities and the fact that one after another I had a random task run into another.  Let me explain by way of example.

I started off my day by meeting with a student who will be doing a term project in our lab over the next couple months.  The student's work is driven by my current research interests so we'll work together closely and I will act as the primary point of contact within our group.

Next I worked on some programming to troubleshoot my latest iteration of hardware/electronics that are part of an instrument I am developing.  Specifically I was working on SPI communication between components on a circuit board I recently had made.  I was even able to bring in our School's electronics technician to give me some much needed advice.

Later in the afternoon I had to head down to the Pipitea campus (located in downtown Wellington) for another meeting (which was unrelated to research).

Finally I concluded my day by attending an Inaugural Lecture from a recently appointed Professor of Comparative Politics.  Certainly not a subject I am usually exposed to, but interesting none the less.

Meetings

As a PhD student, my primary focus is research.  As such, you'd think that my days would be spent working in the lab, analysing data or writing publications.  However, as a junior academic in training I've sought out opportunities to become involved with various parts of the university community.  At times this includes helping with the undergraduate programmes as a demonstrator in the physics teaching labs and at other times, this means acting as a postgraduate representative to various university boards and committees.

For most of my PhD studies I have been involved with the Postgraduate Students' Association (PGSA), first as a representative on the Faculty of Graduate Research Board and more recently as a member of the Association's Executive Board (including my current term as President).  With these positions comes the task of attending meetings around campus and today my afternoon was dedicated to two such gatherings.

During my broken up half day in the lab I split my time between strategic planning of my thesis/research plans and some hardware programming.  More on these in the future!

Preparing a CV with Latex

When I joined my current lab group I experienced a complete shake-up of my computing/software universe.

Back when I moved to Wellington in 2012, I wouldn't have considered myself a computer guru, but I did feel relatively comfortable with a computer.  On my first day in the lab, I was settling into my new desk and setting up my university computer.  Now I can't recall all the details, but I remember asking my supervisor (Petrik) about getting a copy of Endnote (a reference management program) and it was at this point I was taken aside and informed that everyone in the lab used a Linux operating system and ran open source software.

Despite my utter lack of experience with computer programming, I threw myself at the opportunity to learn some new skills.  As I came to learn, instead of using a document publishing programming (e.g. Microsoft Word) my new colleagues coded and compiled text files using Latex.  Latex is a digital typesetting system where the user inputs their desired text and (based on options in the code) all the formatting is performed when the final document is generated.  The key point being that the user doesn't "fiddle" with the look of the document.

I've always wanted to make an updated CV in Latex, but I couldn't find a template I liked and I lacked the time to build one from scratch.  For fun this weekend, I finally sat down and built my academic CV in Latex.

I wanted to share the final document and the code on the blog, but first I had to figure out how to host files for download.  For now, the solution I've come up with is to use a shared Google Drive folder.

Here's the PDF of my current CV and the source code (TEX and BIB).

Here we go...

... let's get started.  My name is Tim Brox and I am a PhD student working on his PhD in physics at Victoria University of Wellington.  As of today, it has been 872 days since I officially began my studies in New Zealand and I plan to submit my thesis within 365 days (± 1 year)*.

This blog is my attempt at monitoring and recording my progress over the next year as I work towards submitting my thesis for examination.  I apologise if at any point you (the reader) feel that my posts do not have a mass appeal, but honestly this blog is primarily a tool for myself.  That said, I welcome you to join me over the next year and share in the ups and downs of the next 365(-ish) days.

For those of you who know me, you are most likely aware of my poor track record when it comes to maintaining a blog.  In the past I've maintained a blog (Words from the Field) while performing field work in Antarctica, but there was only a total of maybe a dozen posts.  Also, when my wife and I moved to New Zealand to undertake our PhD studies, we started a blog (Hither and Yon) to describe our life in a foreign country.  However, I have contributed only a handful of posts while my wife does a fantastic job at documenting our adventures.  Despite these past failures, my goal over the next year is to reliably post every day.

To reach my post per day quota, my updates will mostly be quick and simple. Keeping to that plan, let's pause the writing here. To be continued...

* As a physical scientist I like to include an estimate of uncertainty in values I report