Two years ago I decided to travel to the US&A for reasons I wasn't entirely sure of. I was strongly influenced by the promise of a superior education system while I had no notion of how one should be. I wasn't disappointed. I was taught by Professors who went to some of the finest colleges in the world. Some were great teachers, others ok. All the Professors conduct research and its tied to their career. Its very different from what I experienced in India. There was a lot of math and programming involved in the course work. I had to do a lot more than cram on the last day and regurgitate in the exam. I learned a lot and gained hands on experience on a variety of things.
I was also conducting research on insect flight. My Advisor is a very smart engineer interested in insect flight. He has traveled quite a lot and captured insects form various countries. He preserves them carefully in wooden boxes with glass lids. He also has a collection of slow motion videos of flying insects. It was a great opportunity to work with him and the team.
Having some experience in ANSYS FLUENT and STRUCTURAL I was asked by my advisor to learn OpenFOAM, an opensource CFD tool box. It is free and can be run on any number of machines at once. I had to pick up Linux for this because OpenFOAM runs on Linux. I spent most of the time studying insect flight with a N-S solver and a Discreet Vortex Method based solver. The results have been fruitful. The DVM based solver cuts computation time significantly. The applications of this research are in building mirco-aerial-vehicles and analyzing flapping energy harvesters.
I have also taken up working with drones for a hobby. Two friends and I got together and built a drone. We purchased most of the parts from Hobbyking and 3D printed some motor mounts. The drone flies and its a very interesting field. We followed Dr.Owens work to better understand how a drone works. I will write more about building drones in the future.
Overall it has been a great learning experience. The best thing I have learned and experienced is problem solving. Now I have the confidence that I can tackle a variety of real world problems. Problem solving is a mindset that needs to be developed with constant practice.
Now the future awaits. I will be graduating soon and I want to work on the energy problem. Especially bringing down the price of solar energy. I will be writing about this in the future.
I was also conducting research on insect flight. My Advisor is a very smart engineer interested in insect flight. He has traveled quite a lot and captured insects form various countries. He preserves them carefully in wooden boxes with glass lids. He also has a collection of slow motion videos of flying insects. It was a great opportunity to work with him and the team.
Having some experience in ANSYS FLUENT and STRUCTURAL I was asked by my advisor to learn OpenFOAM, an opensource CFD tool box. It is free and can be run on any number of machines at once. I had to pick up Linux for this because OpenFOAM runs on Linux. I spent most of the time studying insect flight with a N-S solver and a Discreet Vortex Method based solver. The results have been fruitful. The DVM based solver cuts computation time significantly. The applications of this research are in building mirco-aerial-vehicles and analyzing flapping energy harvesters.
I have also taken up working with drones for a hobby. Two friends and I got together and built a drone. We purchased most of the parts from Hobbyking and 3D printed some motor mounts. The drone flies and its a very interesting field. We followed Dr.Owens work to better understand how a drone works. I will write more about building drones in the future.
Overall it has been a great learning experience. The best thing I have learned and experienced is problem solving. Now I have the confidence that I can tackle a variety of real world problems. Problem solving is a mindset that needs to be developed with constant practice.
Now the future awaits. I will be graduating soon and I want to work on the energy problem. Especially bringing down the price of solar energy. I will be writing about this in the future.
