New Apartment

Hello, everyone;

Yet again, I need to apologize for not blogging in a really long time. Time just tends to fly between posts, and being in Engineering, it feels like I can never find any leisure time to update.

I just moved into my new apartment in the last week. I promised I would upload some photos of my new place. I decided to move off campus for several reasons. One of the primary reasons is that the UW Housing and Food Services decided on a new rule that if you live in the residence halls, you have to subscribe to the university meal plan. The food really isn't that great, and it is way overpriced. To illustrate, for a simple breakfast of a waffle, scrambled eggs, bacon, and orange juice, you can be charged over $10. I found myself in the habit of eating out every day, since it was cheaper and higher quality than provided by the HFS.

So after a week of searching, a fellow Electrical Enginner colleague and I found a good 2 bedroom apartment at Travigne Apartments. Our place is located on 11th Ave in the University District. After spending a week of searching, we decided on this apartment, since it is unusually high quality for the low price. I'm paying just a little more than I was for the residence halls, but now I am able to cook for myself, plus it is a significant increase in quality.

Street acces.

Main entrance

Our apartment is the one with the balcony on the top floor.

Inside the lobby area

Coming out of the elevator, our apartment is the first door on the left.

My futon, which until just recently, served as a bed rather than a couch. I got the blanket when I was on my first deployment with the USAF to Qatar.

Bookshelf containing the textbooks my roomate and I have been accumulating over the years, as well as leisure reading.

Looking outside to the balcony

Looking down from off the balcony.

My roomate's grill, so we could eat lots of barbeque.

Kitchen area

The coffee pot, which is now used primarily for making tea since I quit coffee.

My desk and dresser area

My bed.

The apartment opens up rooftop access to the residents.

Views from the roof of the apartments. Blessed Sacrament Church (catholic), and a view of downtown Seattle and space needle.

Right now, I'm taking the Summer off from school. I began the Summer Quarter out taking a full load of classes, although I began to have really bad anxiety attacks for some reason while performing coursework. I think the main causes for this anxiety are because for Spring Quarter, I was pushing myself too hard, pulling too many overnight study sessions, and drinking coffee. This combination can make you really go crazy after a while. A couple weeks ago, I decided to quit drinking coffee, because I think that was the main culprit. After I quit coffee and went through a period of withdraw, I felt a lot better.

Now that I'm off, I intend to catch up with a lot of things that due to my course load, I never really could find much time to do: reading, learning new music, exercising, research employment opportunities and organizing unsorted computer files and stacks of papers. I'll also be looking for Summer jobs painting and doing yard work.

I intend to be complete with all my coursework after Spring Quarter next year, and I will have a Bachelor's of Science in Electrical Engineering. This next year is going to be my toughest year, since from the looks of it, I have a capstone design class every quarter. I'm intending on getting completing at least two areas of knowledge in the next year in Embedded Systems and Analog Circuit design, and if I feel like it's not too much, attempt VLSI (Very Large-Scale Integration).

A couple weeks ago, I got called last minute to put together music last minute for a wedding. Due to a misunderstanding, the organist who was expected to do the wedding wasn't in town for that day, so I was called up as a last resort a week before the wedding. I pretty much chose out all the music, and I got together with a good friend who plays the violin, and we put together a prelude. I recycled pieces I had used for another wedding a couple years ago on Bremerton Naval Base, and tried a couple other pieces that I used for Resurrection that I thought would work. Overall, I got very positive response for the music, so I was glad I could help out and remove that burden from the family.

Speaking of weddings, congratulations to my sister Rachel for her recent engagement to Alex! She is getting married on January 2 at Faith Presbyterian Church. May God shower his blessings on both of you.

In September, my Dad and I are once again hiking the Wonderland Trail (110 mile hike around Mt. Rainier), and we're planning to spend a week doing that, so I'm trying to put together camping trips and day hike trips to make sure I'm in shape for that. Later this week, I will be at Eagle Creek for two days with my dad and some good friends.

Anyway, that is my spiel for the time being. I'll try to update more often, although when classes pick up again, I really won't have any time, so I'll apologize in advance for not posting in so long, and I hope you understand.

Update

I just happened to notice that my blog was horribly updated, and my last post was from back in August. Last year I took a web programming class to motivate me to create a really decked out web page, but it only taught me that it's way too time consuming and too much effort. So here I am, using Blogger.com still.

I'm now on Skype, which seems like a really nifty online phone service. If you want, you can reach me with my user name, jfeucht82, and I'll try to leave it on as much as possible. My philosophy is that I should pay as little on telephone communication as humanly possible. If you've ever tried calling me, you've probably noticed that I rarely carry my phone on me wherever I go, and I respond to email a lot faster than I do via telephone. I currently own the cheapest AT&T pay-as-you-go phones I could possibly get, and it's malfunctioning because the ringer doesn't work anymore for some reason.

I was just looking through my online degree audit (or a listing of classes you still need to graduate), and I figured if I take the right classes, I might be able to graduate the end of Spring Quarter in June. I've been following mostly the program requirements of VLSI (Very Large Scale Integrated) Circuits, although the final courses I would need for that program aren't offered until the Summer or Fall quarter. On the other hand, I could take two engineering courses next quarter, and be done with the program requirements for Embedded Computing Systems, which is another field I have quite a bit of interest in. And I kind of want to exhaust the funds in my GI bill before I get out of the University of Washington, and I have funds to cover me through Fall Quarter this year, if I take classes over the summer.

So that's something I'm going to have to start thinking about. I've been prettying up my résumé and cover letter for possible internships and jobs coming up, and I have some career fairs to attend...

This quarter, I'm taking two engineering courses, and a writing course (I have to take two technical writing courses). I'm also taking my first 400-level UW course, E E 471 Computer Design and Organization. This class seems like it's going to be quite a bit of work. We're learning how to design our own microprocessor using Verilog, which is a computer language designed specifically for modeling digital circuits. Over the course of four lab assignments, we will design critical components of the processor. The class pretty much deals with figuring out how a processor processes machine code, and how all the components in a processor interact with each other.

The other engineering course I'm taking is E E 332 Devices and Circuits II, which is a continuation of an engineering class I took last quarter. This class deals primarily with designing circuits with BJTs (Bipolar Junction Transistors), which are pretty much electronic parts that amplify signals. Our final design project is to design and build an audio amplifier.

Anyway, that's all I have to say for now. Sometime in the near future, I might come up with something that's actually interesting to talk about and blog about it, but as for now, if you're too bored, you can check out my AC to DC in my previous post and marvel at how incredibly interesting it is.

An AC to DC Converter

In one of my classes, E E 331 Devices and Circuits I, our final project was to build an AC to DC converter. Our design specifications were to take a 10 Vpp 60 Hz DC input from a center-tap transformer and have an adjustable 10 V to 20 V DC output. It was expected to have output noise of maximum 100 mV, and able to deliver 1 mA current for all voltage settings. Also, we were graded on how cheap the circuit was to build.



Above is a block diagram of our design. The circuit works by rectifying an AC input, creating a high frequency square wave, and using that wave to drive a boost converter to amplify the rectified input signal to a level dictated by a differential amplifier you could control using a potentiometer.



And above is the circuit schematic as viewed in PSPICE schematic and simulation software. The circuit was designed mostly on computer, then built later when the simulated circuit met specifications. The square wave was provided by a 555 timer, and the differential amplifier was built using a LM741 operational amplifier. The amplifier compares the voltage at the anode of a 5 V zener diode with the output voltage, and increases its output voltage when the output voltage falls too low, and decreases its output when the output voltage gets too high. This feedback system maintains a constant output voltage, which is calibrated using a network of resisters to operate within the specified range.



Above is the circuit built on a breadboard. The total cost of all the electrical components is a little under $8. Our design had barely any noise in the output, and it met all performance requirements within a narrow error margin.

Summer Break

I'm out of school until the 24th of September, which means I have time to spare until then... I figured I have time to make another contribution to the blogosphere. During the break, I have yard projects I am doing for my parents, I'm working on several organ and piano pieces, read, blog, and try to get my window fixed on my car (finally!!!) I've been waiting so long because I had a ton of large expenses due by the end of August, including annual health insurance, car insurance, rent, and vehicle registration renewal, so I wanted to make sure those were paid off first. The temporary window I fabricated out of clear packing tape (which I consider to be a milestone in my fledgeling engineering capabilities) continues to serve it's purpose extraordinarily well.

I did a bike ride up to Sunrise on Mt. Rainier the other day with my Dad and a friend from Church. I haven't been much of a bike rider, especially since my bicycle was vandalized at the University of Washington. I was using my Dad's 'rain bike' for this ride, but I am thinking about getting another one some day when I don't have a lot of expenses due and it's relatively good weather. Ever since my dad had stents placed in two constricted arteries, he has taken up bicycling, and even completed the Seattle-to-Portland this year.



Tomorrow, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) begins operation tomorrow. This is a giant particle accelerator sponsored by CERN (European science organization), which is an 8 billion dollar experiment near Geneva, Swizerland (hey, at least WE didn't have to pay for it!). Scientists hope would solve some of the mysteries behind why particles have mass (which they believe is attributed to some Higgs particle), and ultimately develop a Grand Unified Theory of the universe (where the four forces, gravity, electric, and the weak and strong nuclear forces, are combined into one single force). The LHC is the largest particle accelerator ever built, and there is speculation that it may generate a black hole which could potentially grow out of hand and swallow up the entire Earth. Although Scientists are saying that this is highly unlikely, but this isn't preventing people from sending the LHC team death threats if they continue. This is an artist rendition of what such an event might look like:



Just in case, I just wanted to tell you all goodbye, it was nice knowing you, and I guess we'll meet again in heaven. Actually, I'm just being sarcastic, and I'm mostly just enjoying the comedy of the situation; but I'm definitely keeping my eye on the scientific discoveries that will come about in the next year.

Brahms Sonata No. 1

Here is a video of Rosie and I practicing Brahms Sonata #1 in G Major that I shot the day before our performance at Faith Presbyterian Church. I have been working with her for the past year and a half. Enjoy!

End of Summer Quarter

Hello, friends and family!

It's been several months since I last posted. This summer has been pretty laden with school work. This quarter I took two classes, E E 271 Digital Circuits and Systems, and IND E Probability and Statistics for Engineers. This is the second time I'm taking a Statistics class; the first I took at Pierce Unfortunately, the credits didn't transfer for the course. The courses were pretty much the same material, except for that the one I just took uses a little bit more advanced mathematics...

For the past two weeks, I have been spending long hours and late nights working on a final project for my engineering class. The project is to design and build a game using digital logic. We were given a list of 9 different project ideas (or you could create your own). Here is the description for the particular game we chose:

This game involves dealing with some disgruntled chemistry and aero students who have teamed up and have taken over Bagley Hall. The are dropping balloons filled with synthetic and noxious scents…raspberry, strawberry, eau de skunk, greasy hamburger, cold pizza, Budweiser, oops InBev, …oh retched…, on the people passing below. Your mission is to stop this olfactory attack as quickly as possible.

This game is played on a 4 by 4 grid. Balloons are randomly loaded at the top of the grid and fall to the bottom. You can move a paddle left or right to block the balloons and thus prevent them from bombarding the folks below. If 3 balloons hit, the scent police haul you off to work in a paper company for the summer.

My instructor, Dr. Peckol, obviously has a really dry sense of humor. Anyway, my lab partner and I decided to build the project on an 8 by 8 grid, since there were compact dual color 8 by 8 LED (light-emitting diode) Matrices available at the UW parts store. The biggest challenge of the project was figuring out how to get the LED Matrix to work. Here is a schematic of the LED Matrix taken from the data sheet:

Since most of my readers aren't familiar with electronics, all of the triangle/line things are diodes, meaning that current can only flow in the direction of the arrow. When you apply a positive voltage to any column, and ground any row, current is allowed to flow through the diode at the intersection between the selected row and column. The problem is, how do you get two lights on at the same time that aren't in the same row or column? If you applied voltage to two of the rows and grounded two of the columns, you will have four LEDs shining, not two.

The trick to using an LED matrix is only having one column on at any time, and cycling through the columns at high frequency. The human eye can only notice a flicker of up to 50 Hz, and due to one of the properties of the human eye known as persistence of vision., an LED needs to be on for only nanoseconds in a 50 Hz cycle in order to appear as though it is continuously on. In our project, we have up to three objects on the screen during the course of the game, although the column and row display drivers cycle through displaying only one object on the screen at any given instance. We built a 555 Timer circuit outputting a pulse of 6.9 kHz, which is used to cycle through the objects on the screen.

Here is a block diagram of our game design:

The larger components of the circuit, including the Control, Sequencer, Row Driver and Column Drivers, were written in structural Verilog (programming language), then written onto generic array logic (GAL) chips. The random bit generator is a 3-bit linear feedback shift register, which is a common method for generating pseudo-random numbers. Here is a photo of the final circuit:

Well, I won't go too much deeper into all that boring electronics and stuff... I could go on for 26 pages (that's how long our lab report ended up being). Here it is in action!



There is one glitch in the final version I discovered last minute that I think is an easy fix... Once in a while, a balloon skips a row. I think this is because the clock signal to the Sequencer module has a race condition.

Anyway, that was my project. Digital Circuits is really a fun class. I get a month-long Summer break, so I think I'll do some hiking trips and some other fun things. Next quarter, I'm taking E E 331 Devices and Circuits I, E E 361 Applied, and Electromagnetics, and AMATH 301 A, Beginning Scientific Computing. It's not going to be an easy quarter! :(

Finals week!

This coming week is finals week, so I have been doing my last-minute cramming. It's been a while since I posted last, so I decided to take a little break and update my blog. I have four finals next week, E E 233 on Monday, E E 235 on Tuesday, Math 308 on Wednesday, and CSE 190M on Thursday. In my E E 233 class, we learned how to design filter circuits, and how to understand the signal produced by a circuit using Fourier analysis. E E 235 was pretty much the same material, except it was for general signals.

My E E 233 teacher, explaining the Laplace transform. (I sometimes take photos during class so I don't have to take notes.)

In CSE 190M, we got experience with all sorts of different areas of web programming, including xhtml, css, javascript, php, sql, and more. Looking back, my understanding of web development dramatically increased this quarter, and I'm convinced I can now build a pretty high-quality web page.

I am now working full time playing the organ and piano for Resurrection Presbyterian Church. Resurrection is now leasing the property of Summit Methodist Church in Puyallup. My brother in law, Andrew, maintains the home page at http://resurrectionpc.org/, as well as print the bulletins.

 

Here is one of the tracker organs in the practice rooms at the University of Washington that I do some of my practice on.

I have been involved with the Alliance of Christian Musicians, which brings musicians from different churches in the area to promote more traditional forms of music. Last weekend, they had their third meeting at Faith Presbyterian, and a couple violinists (Rosemary and Austin) from Faith and I put together a chamber transcription of a Bach concerto for the opening of the third meeting. After which, Mr. Bechtel, the organist at Faith, moderated a conversation among four professors from surrounding churches.

 

I'm waiting to hear back from Crane Aerospace and Electronics. A week ago, I had an interview for an internship position at the company. If I don't get the job, I will be taking TC 333 Advanced Technical Writing, MATH 390 Statistics, and E E 271 Intro to Digital Circuits during the summer. I hope I get the job, because I need a little break from school -- I have been taking at least 15 quarter hours for the past 2 and a half years now!