Engineering Thread

TheAmateur · 28-01-2010 07:31PM

Baza210 wrote: »

enviroment lecturer trying to pull rank with silences and haughty sighs

not gonna work when you're just reading the slides word for word.

+111111111111
Gave going to those lectures another go on wednesday, big mistake.
Also,

email wrote:

called over to the Drawing Office yesterday afternoon to see if there were any issues the Monday groups wanted to address.
There were no students there when we called in, at different times, so I again repeat.
2E10 IS A 10 CREDIT COURSE. YOU WILL ONLY ACHIEVE A REASONABLE NUMBER OF THOSE CREDITS IF YOU WORK ON IT FOR, AT MINIMUM, THE SESSIONS TIMETABLED FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION.

:pac:

Seriously, what did they expect us to do up there?

Jonathan · 28-01-2010 09:25PM

TheAmateur wrote: »

+111111111111
Gave going to those lectures another go on wednesday, big mistake.
Also,
:pac:

Seriously, what did they expect us to do up there?

Who was this?

devinejay · 28-01-2010 09:35PM

Jonathan wrote: »

Who was this?

Frank Boland

2E7 is pretty woeful alright, although in the tutorial she gave out lecture notes, questions and a list of useful formulas. If that keeps up it'll be worth going to in future.

I have a feeling that this buggy project could also be a disaster, but for different reasons than the refugee shelter debacle. It seems to me that the software/communication section is by far the hardest bit, and nobody wants to do it. Prepare to see loads of buggies that can go around the track fine, but consistently crash into each other and ignore the "stations".

Jonathan · 28-01-2010 09:50PM

And which environmental guy?

devinejay · 28-01-2010 10:08PM

Dr. Sarah McCormack

TheAmateur · 28-01-2010 10:22PM

devinejay wrote: »

Frank Boland

2E7 is pretty woeful alright, although in the tutorial she gave out lecture notes, questions and a list of useful formulas. If that keeps up it'll be worth going to in future.

I have a feeling that this buggy project could also be a disaster, but for different reasons than the refugee shelter debacle. It seems to me that the software/communication section is by far the hardest bit, and nobody wants to do it. Prepare to see loads of buggies that can go around the track fine, but consistently crash into each other and ignore the "stations".

Yeah but what I'm wondering is will those formulas be given out in the test, or will there be too much hatred of us built up by then...
I dunno about software being the hardest for 2e10, I had a look at what the hardware guys have to do and couldn't really work it out at all. Software is just "find the code on the internet".

Brian · 28-01-2010 11:44PM

The formulae were listed in the order they were required to solve the tutorial problems.

devinejay · 28-01-2010 11:45PM

Indeed they were, but I'm hoping that by providing them in the tutorials they'll also be provided in the exam.

TheAmateur · 29-01-2010 12:04AM

Baza210 wrote: »

The formulae were listed in the order they were required to solve the tutorial problems.

Maybe to make it harder in the exam the order will be switched around :pac:.

devinejay · 08-02-2010 02:38AM

Am I right in thinking that we are again being made guinea pigs with this engineering design project? Not enjoying this XBee craic at all yet.

Jonathan · 08-02-2010 02:55AM

devinejay wrote: »

Am I right in thinking that we are again being made guinea pigs with this engineering design project? Not enjoying this XBee craic at all yet.

First year of that particular project yes.

We used the same buggies but navigated an obstacle course, and followed a line based on a IR sensor.

devinejay · 08-02-2010 10:21AM

So they just made it more complicated? Great.

TheAmateur · 11-02-2010 10:36PM

Has 2e2 always been such a disaster? Is it the class? I don't think I can take another 8 weeks of it, and I dunno how he can.

devinejay · 11-02-2010 10:41PM

I haven't been in a while...

brownacid · 11-02-2010 10:45PM

2e2, absolute piece of piss, tutorials come up every year, good old zaitsev(sp) or dr. nick.

Jonathan · 11-02-2010 10:46PM

TheAmateur wrote: »

Has 2e2 always been such a disaster? Is it the class? I don't think I can take another 8 weeks of it, and I dunno how he can.

Hey everybody.
Hey Doctor Nick.

TheAmateur · 11-02-2010 11:18PM

devinejay wrote: »

I haven't been in a while...

Don't blame ya. At this rate I'm absolutely sure you could get more done by reading the book for an hour than going.

brownacid wrote: »

2e2, absolute piece of piss, tutorials come up every year, good old zaitsev(sp) or dr. nick.

Cool, I was hoping this'd be the story. So basically if you can do the tutorials, you'll pass. That about right?
The initial decrease in difficulty from 2e1 was mental though, I still can't get my head around it. Does it pick up in after a while? I mean, Fourier analysis is on the syllabus, so I was assuming it does. And has he always got such a tough time from the class?

brownacid · 11-02-2010 11:31PM

the fourier series is about as hard as it gets and even then he doesnt go too much into it, its fairly easy, id say youd be aswell not goin ti the lectures, get the book on perma-loan from the library (I had it lying around) and go tutorials, i did this last year and got a first.

Exam paper has a pattern to it, as does 2e1, both are fairly easy though in fairness

TheBigRedDog · 13-02-2010 03:45PM

Haha 2e2 for me consists of playing bus stop at the back of the lecture... Very productive. What I don't get is how much he talks about one thing and then writes two lines. Only to repeat the same thing again... In addition, no one can really understand him and for the love of god STOP BLOWING INTO THE MICROPHONE!!

And for the buggy, I completely agree that it is going to be very messy but I don't think its the fault of the 2e10 course. Its the fault, dare I say, of JJ! If people understood C++ writing event based code etc. in C# would be a tad easier. However, I'm in hardware.

Boston · 13-02-2010 04:14PM

C# now? How about you get a book and learn something for yourself? How about you learn C++ from this excellent ebook while you piss away your education at the back of 2e2 lectures? I blame stupid students who need hand holding. JJ is a perfectly fine lecture (one of the better ones infact), I had him myself for two years.

Brian · 13-02-2010 05:18PM

Well even the demonstrators conceded that C++ probably wasn't the best way for interfacing with a serial port.

Boston · 13-02-2010 05:31PM

It's grand.

TheAmateur · 13-02-2010 05:58PM

Boston wrote: »

JJ is a perfectly fine lecture (one of the better ones infact)

+1x10^avagadro's const. A good lecturer, maybe sometimes a bit daunted by a lecture hall of 200 students, most of whom never listened and showed no respect ever (and then wouldn't shut up complaining about not understanding anything, and if there is any justice in the world they will fail and fail miserably), and a lecturer who possessed a very rare trait in lecturers it seems, and that is that he actually seemed to give a crap about whether people understood. I can't wait to get out of these stupid huge lectures and away from the gob****es who can't seem to shut the fúck up. I'm holding onto the faint hope that it gets better next year. (please tell me it does...)

Jonathan · 13-02-2010 06:31PM

TheAmateur wrote: »

+1x10^avagadro's const. A good lecturer, maybe sometimes a bit daunted by a lecture hall of 200 students, most of whom never listened and showed no respect ever (and then wouldn't shut up complaining about not understanding anything, and if there is any justice in the world they will fail and fail miserably), and a lecturer who possessed a very rare trait in lecturers it seems, and that is that he actually seemed to give a crap about whether people understood. I can't wait to get out of these stupid huge lectures and away from the gob****es who can't seem to shut the fúck up. I'm holding onto the faint hope that it gets better next year. (please tell me it does...)

Do C, CD or D and you will have a small class.

The break up this year was about
Civil 60
Mech 60
Elec, Comp, Comp & Elec joint 40

TheAmateur · 13-02-2010 08:02PM

Jonathan wrote: »

Do C, CD or D and you will have a small class.

Sound, I think I'll probably end up in CD. What's anyone/everyone else thinking of doing/already doing?

mathew · 13-02-2010 08:49PM

TheAmateur wrote: »

Sound, I think I'll probably end up in CD. What's anyone/everyone else thinking of doing/already doing?

Cant beat Mechanical :P

TheBigRedDog · 14-02-2010 01:42AM

Boston wrote: »

JJ is a perfectly fine lecture .

I have to disagree with you. I tried many times to understand his lectures, asked him questions in tutorials etc. At the moment, I understand all of the concepts but have no idea of how to implement them. This is where the teaching should come in because it's the hard part. He spent his first week explaining how visual studio works and then gets onto pointers and classes of which we've never seen before. His lecture notes aren't helpful either, they are too vague and uncomprehensive. I'm pretty sure other students talking in the lecture hasn't caused this...

I can't understand how you can say it's the fault of stupid students when there are people in our year that work their ass off. They still don't understand, the computer helprooms are full, the tutorial assistants can't keep up with the amount of questions and half of the year are flagged in his "plagarism detector". There's a bigger problem.

I sympathise with him in the fact that everything is crammed into semesterised times. This hasn't helped anything at all. It also means that he had to cut out event based programming and user interfaces. These are important to the Buggy project and that is effecting our progress. I think these are the topics that are important to have when we move on to our specific departments next year also which is a pity.

devinejay · 14-02-2010 03:48PM

+1 on the implementation point. Maybe with semesterisation he had no time for examples, but in general it seemed to me like he was forever talking about theoretical stuff and "how the computer handles this code" but I never really learned how to handle it myself!

As for the buggy, they keep telling us that it's not a programming exercise, if that's the case then maybe this might be the answer. It's really accessible, simple software, but perhaps its simplicity might be a limiting factor in the long run. Still, I think they could do something to make it easier for the non-comp heads, while still preserving the difficulty of the project as a whole.

Boston · 14-02-2010 09:18PM

TheBigRedDog wrote: »

I have to disagree with you. I tried many times to understand his lectures, asked him questions in tutorials etc. At the moment, I understand all of the concepts but have no idea of how to implement them. This is where the teaching should come in because it's the hard part. He spent his first week explaining how visual studio works and then gets onto pointers and classes of which we've never seen before. His lecture notes aren't helpful either, they are too vague and uncomprehensive. I'm pretty sure other students talking in the lecture hasn't caused this...

Lecturer, not a teacher. There's a difference. In college you're expected to do independent learning. Computer programming cannot be taught by a guy giving a one hour lecture twice or three times a week to 200 students. When I did engineering classes and pointers where covered in first year, why had you never seen them before? It's almost as if you'd never read a programming book in your own time.

TheBigRedDog wrote: »

I can't understand how you can say it's the fault of stupid students when there are people in our year that work their ass off. They still don't understand, the computer helprooms are full, the tutorial assistants can't keep up with the amount of questions and half of the year are flagged in his "plagarism detector". There's a bigger problem.

Are you seriously suggesting that the fact half your year are cheats is the lecturers fault. Perhaps if they worked through the assignments themselves they'd have a clue. What way do you think it's going to work when you have a job as an engineer?

TheBigRedDog wrote: »

I sympathise with him in the fact that everything is crammed into semesterised times. This hasn't helped anything at all. It also means that he had to cut out event based programming and user interfaces. These are important to the Buggy project and that is effecting our progress. I think these are the topics that are important to have when we move on to our specific departments next year also which is a pity.

Event based programming? It's like one chapter in a book, here you go.

TheBigRedDog · 15-02-2010 02:06AM

I loved C++ last year. That's the thing, it's not like I never had an interest. I really enjoyed it. I know it isn't his job to ensure that we all understand and in fairness, he did retry after the first uproar. However, most of us are still lost in the buggy project. I'm fortunately not in the same boat now. I've done event based before and I'm getting there on UIs. The fact is that the course that he did is still not clear as how to implement it. The whole thought and logic process is a mystery.

I think half of my course is seriously struggling with c++. It's as simple as that. Forget the rest of it. We are struggling.

If event based programming is so easy and in my opinion, important in engineering terms, why didn't he do it? Rather than going into what devinejay said: "how the computer handles this code".

Engineering Thread

Comments