All posts by Amanda Kotchon

Blogging Guide for Students

Hi everyone,

It’s been interesting to hear about some of the projects that people are working on!  For those of you who haven’t posted yet, I would like to provide a short guide to blogging to help you get started.

Technical Details

Click here for help logging in, creating, and publishing a post.

Content

What makes a good blog post?  A good blog post:

  • Has focus (think one idea per post!)
  • Is concise (200-1000 words)
  • Considers the audience/readers
  • Includes pictures or video


What do I write about?

  • Self-Introduction: Describe your research interest and projects
  • Project Updates: Any interesting developments in something you’ve been working on, such as new results, publications, conferences, presentations, or sponsor meetings.
  • Advice: What have you learned about engineering, university, or life in general that you would like to share with other students or researchers? Ex: Paper writing strategies, teaching advice, time management, preparing for a thesis defense.

What else can I use a blog for?  The blog page is also a great place to discuss ideas!  Click “Leave a Reply” on a post to share your opinions with the author or discuss the post content.

I look forward to reading your content in the future!

 

Interview with Reliability Research MITACS Cluster

Stephen Dwyer and Nicolas Olmedo, two graduate students in Mechanical Engineering, along with Ziqi Wei from Computing Science, are applying their design skills to help a local company stay competitive by adding a cellular-connected fleet monitoring tool to its product line.  Their work is part of the MITACS Accelerate program that pairs graduate students and fellows with businesses for mutually beneficial research.

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Left to Right: Ziqi, Nicolas, and Stephen review a browser-server interface

Q: “How did you find out about the MITACS Accelerate program?”
Ziqi: “I asked my professor if he had any opportunities for me to get some work experience.”

Q: “What are your roles in the project?”
Stephen: “I’m handling the embedded hardware and software that we’re going to use to monitor the equipment.”
Nicolas: “My work is testing and investigating different options for cellular communications.”

Ziqi: “I’m going to be working on the database and server development.”

Q: “What are you hoping to get out of this experience?”
Stephen: “I’m really looking forward to improving my embedded systems skills.”

Q: “What have you learned so far?”
Nicolas: “I’ve learned a lot about the process for certifying wireless devices.  Also, there is great fraternity between engineers, the people that we interact with are really eager to help us out.”