A long sigh of relief

What a relaxing day! No longer having the processor hanging over my head made it a really pleasant day ... that and the fact that I didn't need something over my t-shirt because it was so nice out.

I came back from 152 (the processor class), and finally did the HSpice simulation for the remote-control dimmer. I modified the presentation to add our simulation, which isn't due until next week, but the professor had gotten the file a few minutes before so we couldn't grab the updated version. No big deal, as the professor seemed to like the presentation anyway.

As an aside, Spice is a circuit simulation program. It lets you see how a circuit will behave before you go and build it. I simulated a circuit that averages input signals from light sensors. Lucky I did, because it was only in simulation that I realized that the circuit I built would output the negative of the average. Easy to fix, I just need an inverter.

After class, I got lunch, chatted with Nicole for a bit, and went to my advising meeting. My advisor knows me to be a chatter box so she purposely scheduled me for the end of the day for over an hour. Good thing we did, as we spoke for over an hour and a half! A lot of it wasn't even advising: we were just catching up and I was telling her about job offers, cool toys/links, etc.

I did get advised though and I am happy to report that my remaining time at Duke is pretty darn flexible! I've got a bit of breathing room every semester hereafter, so I'm going to do my best to exercise it.

After advising, I stopped to chat briefly with the professor who is overseeing my independent study to give him a status report. We agreed that we're poised to have everything working, paraphrase: "like a bunch of Lego blocks we need to snap together." The snap in this case is RS232, serial cables. Although USB has largely replaced them, they're still useful for little devices like the ones we're using in the independent study.

I then ran home to watch the season premiere of Greek with Nicole. After delaying things by over an hour to order parts for the remote light dimmer, we did get to watch. It was kind of a sad episode because everyone's lives were in ruins (typical cliffhanger), and the writers did nothing to resolve it immediately.

After the episode, we talked for awhile while I researched PICs: extremely popular microcontrollers for hobbyists because they're cheap but powerful. Part of this random interest isn't random: we may need to use one for the remote light sensor project. If we do, I'll get some firsthand experience playing with them, which should be cool. Anyway, it's time for an early sleep: math tomorrow.

Goodnight!

Blogged with the Flock Browser