Reaper Blog

Hello, everyone!

Welcome to episode 25!! Gees, how time flies. It’s a short post this week, since I was only at university for two days. The rest of the week I spent working on assignments, the group project, or just relaxing. The group project is almost complete! And I’m also down to my last hand full of assignments (one due this coming Wednesday, and the others due by the 19th of November). Let’s get into it, shall we.

Monday

Monday started out like any other – up early for a meeting with the client. Traffic into the city that morning was really bad for some unknown reason. I remember seeing a couple of fire trucks somewhere along my bus’ route in, so that could have been the reason. When I finally made it into university, I spent some time reading emails and watching YouTube videos just to clear my mind a little until the guys turned up. Only one of them turned up early, though. When he got there, we pretty much just chatted about the project while waiting for the meeting time. The other member in the group turned up just as we were starting the meeting. It went pretty quickly this week, due to our client accidentally double-booking herself. We didn’t mind much, though – only had a couple of things to show. So we quickly went over our work with her, then let her leave and just talked with our lecturer about back end code we’ve finished and next week (the presentation). That took up the rest of our meeting time, at which point we went back to the BESE lab to do some work (well…two of us, anyway – the other member did other stuff). In the time between the end of the meeting and our lecture at 4, we got a hell of a lot of code written. I was impressed with what we were able to accomplish. Anyway, at 4 we all went downstairs for the final (review) lecture for HISE. That went decently well. I actually remembered what I’d consider a fair amount of the course content. At the end of the lecture, a few of us were kept back to fill out a survey, then I just went home.

Thursday

Of course, the two days I went into university this week were early days. This one started out a little different than usual. For MWN, I had to print out an A1 size poster to go with my research paper. Since we don’t have an A1 printer at home, and I couldn’t find anywhere in the university that has an A1 printer, I had to get my dad to print it at his work. To do that, and get it in time for the poster presentation session, I had to go in with him. That was somewhat fun. The first time we tried to print it, it came out sideways on the paper. And the second time we tried to print it, it didn’t print at all. So we got got one of the guys down in the printer room to print it for us, which worked perfectly. At that point, we had to rush into the city for the presentation. Somehow, I actually got there early (or, at least, on time). Everyone that was there set up their posters and for 2 hours we pretty much just stood around chatting with others or doing nothing at all. At the end of the presentation session, we packed up the posters then went to a room in the law building (surprisingly) for the final MWN lecture. That was pretty average. It was on security of mobile devices (particularly to do with IoT devices). At the end of the lecture, I went up to the BESE lab to do work on the group project. When I got up there, I found one of the members of my group working on his final presentation for one of his courses. I chatted with him for a bit before getting to work. In the 3 hours I was there, I was able to complete 2 tasks that had been sitting on the group’s task list for quite a while. I was proud of myself for being able to do that. At that point, a bit after 4, I decided to just go home.

Round Up

There ends yet another week at university. It’s been a really eventful, and somewhat stressful, week. I’ve enjoyed it, though. And it should be less stressful from now on, since there are less assignments to be completed. Next week should be a lot more fun than a lot of other weeks. This week is technically the final week (and episode) before exams. My group will be meeting up next week before the final presentation, though. So I will do an episode next weekend, before the exam special the week after.

Thanks for reading this episode.
Robert

Hello, everyone!

Yes, I know, this episode is later than it usually is. I’ve been very, very busy, though (plus, I may have forgotten about it…). Anyway, it’s been a hectic week in and out of university for me. A lot of my time has been spent studying or writing, which has been a real pain. But I’ve gotten through, and have one less thing to worry about. I’ll get into the week that was.

Monday

The start of the week began as it usually does – up early for a meeting with the group project lecturer. When one of the other members in my group turned up, we started going over his code to try and find where the bugs were. After maybe half an hour to an hour (during which the last member in the group turned up), we found out where the problem was. Turned out he was just using a capital letter when he shouldn’t have been. He fixed that up, then we headed into the meeting. We really surprised the lecturer during that – he hadn’t seen much of what we’ve gotten done lately. He seemed to really like how much progress we’d made. We went through pretty much all the latest features, then just discussed a few other things (mainly to do with the final presentation day). After the meeting, we went back to the BESE lab to work on a few things. I pretty much just read a final set of papers for my MWN project, then did a bit on my current task for the group project (a file uploader). At 4, we all went downstairs for the HISE lecture for the day. This week it was on software process improvement (not entirely sure why we went through this, but oh well). It was a pretty average lecture. At least we finished early.

Tuesday

I woke up a LOT later than I wanted to on Tuesday. I somehow slept right through until about 10 or 10:30. When I got into university (between 12:30 and 1), I spent most of the time I had just reading the lecture slides for BMS (since there was a quiz on Wednesday). That took me a couple of hours (I didn’t bother with the BMW tutorial at 2, since nobody else I know went to it). At that point, I just decided to go home – no point sticking around without a reason.

Wednesday

I woke up at a much better time Wednesday. I’ve still got to work on getting up earlier, though. At university I spent most of the time between when I got in and 3 just reading the BMS lecture notes to try and get something to stick in my head. It didn’t really work, though – there were too many distractions. At 3, I went down to the lecture room with a couple of others for the quiz. That went alright, actually. I don’t think I did that awesomely on it, but I should be able to pass at least (here’s hoping, anyway). After the quiz, I decided to just go home (again, no point sticking around without a reason).

Thursday

The second early morning of the week (as nearly always). This week’s MWN lecture was fairly decent. It was on “Internet of Things” (or IoT). The basic concept of it is that everything can talk to each other through the internet using RFID. I’m not entirely sure how RFID would be the best solution to that problem, but I guess it may work. After the lecture, I went to the BESE lab and just worked on my MWN paper (or, to be honest, started it). I was able to get enough of it done in my opinion, though (the introduction and a general outline for the paper). At that point, at about 3, I decided to just go home (I wasn’t staying focused).

Round Up

There ends the second to last week of this semester! It hasn’t really been the best week ever, since I haven’t had time to work on what I want to do at all. To be honest, I’m glad it’s over. I was able to complete my MWN paper on time (although, ended up with a headache by the time I finished it), so I don’t need to worry about that any more. That said, I still have a few assignments left to complete – an essay for BMS and a poster to go with my research paper for MWN due this coming Thursday, what looks to be a fairly simple but long assignment for HISE due on Wednesday the 31st, and a couple of individual essays for the group project due a bit after exams are finished (I believe – I’ll need to check). Aside from all that, there’s also the group project to be working on up until the 31st (presentation day). All in all, it’s going to be a hectic couple of weeks to come.

Thanks for reading this episode.
Robert

Hello, everyone!

Welcome to episode 23 of this season. It’s been a very, very busy few days this past week. Pretty much the whole time I’ve been working on one or two assignments. For the most part, it should get a little easier from here. Anyway, I’ll get into the exciting week that was.

Monday

This week I actually got to sleep in on Monday! Our lecturer for the group project was still unavailable from the week before because of an injury (last week’s episode I seem to have forgotten to mention it), so we didn’t have any meeting to go to. I still had to be up reasonable, though. By the time I got to university, it was around midday (yeah, that reasonable). For most of the morning I started working on the third (and hopefully final) assignment for HISE. That wasn’t too interesting. I also chatted a fair bit with others that were there. At 4, those of us in HISE went downstairs for the lecture. It was pretty decent, as always. Hardly anyone answered the lecturer’s questions on previous lecture content though, which seemed to annoy her a fair bit. Oh well. At the end of the lecture, we just went home.

Tuesday

Tuesday was another late-ish day. On the way in, I decided to read one of the research papers that I printed for the second individual assignment for the group project course. When I got into university, I spent a fair bit of the time I was there reading the rest of the paper. At 2, those of us in BMS who were there went to the tutorial. That was just as bad as always, except for the lecturer telling us the mandatory question in the quiz this coming Wednesday. The rest of the time we just chatted quietly between ourselves, and popped each other (this is a reference to Facebook’s Pop sound when I receive a notification on my phone). At the end of the tutorial, we went back to the BESE lab. A few minutes after getting there, I decided to just go home. Strangely, I decided to read another paper on the bus home.

Wednesday

I didn’t go to university on Wednesday, like usual. Wednesday night was the presentation night for my slot car racing. It was a really fun night! I placed fairly well in all the races we completed (weren’t worth anything in the club standings). At the end of the night, the medals were given out. I received first place in division 2 (the ‘slower’ racers). I also received a long service award for being a part of the club (both the juniors and adults) for 7 years! I thought that was pretty cool. Especially since I’m the first one to receive it. All in all, it was a really good night with a great group of racers.

Thursday

Not too many early mornings left, I hope. Thursday morning, I actually woke up right on time (almost, anyway). When I got into university, I spent a bit of time checking my emails before my lecture for the day (as nearly always). The MWN lecture this week, the lecturer turned up about quarter of an hour late (due to the traffic, as he said). He also spent a bit of time just after he turned up to get some equipment for a demonstration. That went pretty well (when he got back with the equipment and set it up). The demonstration (and a fair bit of the lecture) was on how RFID tags work. Near the end of the lecture, the guest lecturer turned up once again (I’m guessing for the last time). This week she went through how to use the templates while writing research papers. I’ll admit, it’s useful for the course, but I’m sure I’ll never need to know about it again. For the rest of the day, I pretty much just worked on my HISE assignment (the one I talked about in Monday). I also had a Google+ Hangout with a friend (who was at home), to try and figure out the problems we were having with the assignment. By the time I went home, we’d fixed enough to get around one or two steps further.

Round Up

This post really doesn’t show how busy I’ve been this past week. You’ll just have to believe me when I say, it’s been filled with work galore. To be honest, I haven’t minded too much. I’ve been able to get one whole assignment done within the week (I “finished” the HISE assignment just before writing this post), and can actually somewhat see my desk (metaphorically – I can usually always see at least a part of my desk). The next couple of weeks of the semester (the last two) shouldn’t be too bad – I only have the BMS quiz, the MWN research report, and two essays to complete for the group project course (as well as the group project itself).

That ends another week for me at university. I hope you enjoyed reading this episode.
Robert

Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 22! As you may already know, university went back for me this past week, so it’s time for this series to start back up. It’s been a fairly decent week. Hasn’t really felt like I’ve been at university, to be honest. Probably has something to do with Monday being a public holiday, and the fact I haven’t done as much work as I should have done. Oh well. Onto the week that was.

Tuesday

Tuesday started out like most others. I had set my alarm for an hour earlier than usual, though – not that I woke up at that time. But I still got up earlier than usual, which I was happy with. When I got into university around 11, I spent most of my time chatting with friends (when they turned up). It was good to talk with them. I also helped a little with finishing up a couple of the group assignments that were due this week, as well as spent some time looking over code for the group project. Didn’t do too much on that, though. At 2, two of us went to our BMS tutorial (yay – sarcasm intended). In that, we found out that the lecturer had updated the template and added a section to my part (we seemingly missed the notification about it). So my friend and I made plans to start and finish that during the tutorial. At the end of that, we went back to the BESE lab for a while. For the most part, we just played Minecraft (didn’t really feel like doing any work at the time). At 4, I decided to just go home.

Thursday

I’d forgotten how much I love early mornings (sarcasm intended). Thursday was the usual 6 am wake up for my lecture at 9. It was a pretty decent lecture, even though the lecturer was sick. (Strangely, it sounded like a few people were sick in that lecture). For the most part, the lecturer went over the content that was somewhat missed at the end of the last lecture (to do with the physical layer of the wireless protocol stack) plus some of this week’s content (same topic). During the 10 minute break between lecture slots, the lecturer went and got some equipment for a demonstration. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to demonstrate because of the rest of the content he talked about. But oh well. After the lecture, I went up to the BESE lab to meet up with my friend. While we were there, I pretty much just started researching for the second group project individual essay (I finished the first one during the “holidays”). At 2, my friend had to leave for his lecture (although, it wasn’t really a lecture – students in the class were giving presentations). After he left, I did some work on the group project itself just as something to do. Before 4, I decided to just go home.

Friday

Friday was yet another early morning. I overslept by half an hour this time, though. I had to be up Friday because of a meeting for the group project, which went really well. We talked with our clients about the state of the system so far, and what we plan to have done by the end of the semester, then got into a bit of discussion with them about continuing the project into the summer (as a paid thing – we’ve been discussing it as a group for the past couple of weeks). They really seemed interested in having us continue to work on it. We still need to organise a semi-formal proposal for them, but I think it’ll happen no matter what. At the end of the meeting (after the clients left), we talked more as a group about what we’ll need to do, what we need to organise, etc. After chatting about that for maybe 10-20 minutes, we were pretty much forced out of the meeting room (someone else came in). So we went over to the BESE lab to chat a bit more (not just about the project), before just working on our own things. For the most part, I just worked on a part of the group project that we’ve planned to complete before the end of semester. That didn’t really take me too long to complete, but it was enough. Around 3, I decided I might leave (since it was Friday). My friend decided to come with me for a bit, and get a couple of cards for some of his friends’ birthdays coming up. We chatted a little on the way to my bus stop, then said bye and he went back to university.

Round Up

This week has been different than most others, for some reason. I’m not sure whether it has something to do with the Monday public holiday, or if the university holidays have screwed with me, or what. I have enjoyed the week, though. So I guess it’s been moderately good, at least. I’m hoping next week I’ll get back into the swing of things. I’ll definitely need to get stuck into the rest of my assignments, so that may help out a bit.

Well, that ends another week, and episode. Thanks for reading.
Robert