Done with Uni! The end of an era.

It's been a while I didn't post here, so here's some catching up.

I'm done with university. I only had one semester left to do, with two classes. One was a laboratory class, where, with a team of 3 other people, we had to calculate the efficiency of a shell and tube heat exchanger for it's whole range of operation. The other was a capstone design class where we designed, but not built, a diesel portable power unit.

The lab class was...fun. One of our teammates kept writing weird things...like..."Heat is the measure of the sensation of hot and cold"...wow? Anyway! The set-up looked like this:

The tube and shell heat exchanger is on the left. At the bottom of the exchanger there's a set of valves that permit the exchanger to be operated in either parallel or counter-flow configuration. On the right there's a water cooler along with it's tank, and behind the exchanger there's a water heater, also with it's tank. Temperature could be taken at 3 points in the head exchanger, using thermistances.

The capstone class...well, it took time. And while I didn't enjoy the subject too much, I really loved working with that team. One of the things I've worked on was a 3D-printed control panel.

The 3D printed control panel printing.

Now that school is out, I can re-start doing other projects! The first order of business is cosplay. There's a sword I've been working on for years (!) that I need to finish. I was scared of doing the detail on the handle and pommel, but with Nadeshicon coming soon, and me wanting to have a life and go out at cons...and not wanting to learn to sew yet...well, I guess I did it.

I had tried to carve out the details at first, but it didn't look right...so instead, I took a page out of Bill Doran's book (well...not his actual book...but still...) and made the details out of craft foam!

That makes the 4th material/fabrication method used in this sword. It has literally become a capstone prop making piece. There's wood carving, resin casting, 3d printing, and foam fabrication.

It was also my first time using my new dual-action, gravity fed airbrush and mixing my own paint. I'm really happy with the result too!

And finished! Here it is next to it's sister.

I've been neglecting wirting this post for the longest time, and the longer I waited, the more things I did that needed to be written. So i'm posting this one, and i'll try to write more often. I already have a few projects for which I have pictures that are done or almost done:

An old camera from a fighter jet that I disassembled
Ironwood's gun from RWBY
A cast of my own torso!

And I have way more projects that are in the work! So stay tuned!