If you’ve reached this page, we probably met at South by Southwest - here’s a quick bit of information about me and links to places to find more about me:
I am:
An Electrical and Computer Engineering major (focusing on Software Engineering) at the University of Texas at Austin
Finishing my full-time education in May, and working on my Senior Design Project part-time over the summer
Working on my Senior Design Project: a portable tremor monitoring system for Parkinsonian hand tremors
An Austinite
Looking for employment (part-time this summer and full time after August)
Awesome at Rock Band (guitar)
Interested in software engineering (i.e. requirements, system design, usability, etc)
You can find out more about me and get in touch with me via:
Wow! Where does the time go? Spring Break is upon us and I am almost halfway through my final full semester of college (I will be at school two days a week over the summer before I finish in August). I’ve been swamped since the beginning of the year with:
The Senior Design Project
The way our engineering department handles your final project is to split it up across two semesters - the first one you plan and design your project and in the second you actually test and implement the project. I am working in a group with three other Electrical/Computer Engineers with different backgrounds (microcontrollers, biomedical engineering, power, and yours truly rounds out the group as the software guy). Our project, as it stands, is going to be a portable monitor for tracking Parkinson’s-type hand tremors. I think it will be pretty interesting for us and if everything pans out, it could be expanded beyond a design project and into an actual product (a good prospect if the economy continues to make job-searching as bad as it has been).
Do you or someone you know have Parkinson’s or study/treat it or related movement disorders? There are going to be some opportunities in the coming months where we might be interested in talking to you or even getting you to participate in “beta testing” of our prototype. Let me know!
The House
My folks, Megan, and I have been working since September or October of 2008 on renovating a house that my parents bought. Megan and I moved in there in January and we’re renting from them and finishing out the space. I’ve had a kick learning so much about how houses are built and how to work on them - I’ve been an electrician, plumber, painter, cabinet-builder, mover, and a whole lot more.
We love having a backyard for Tristan to run around in and to have a garden in. Our garden has broccoli, peas, green beans, onions, garlic, and a healthy assortment of herbs - we’re looking forward to getting some tomatos and peppers started once things warm up for good.
The Job Search
What’s that other thing I’m supposed to do after I graduate from UT? Oh that’s right! Find a job in what could be the worst economy in my lifetime - c’est la vie.
Right now, I think my professional interests are in the efforts surrounding the software development process - requirements, usability, project management, that sort of thing. I’m hoping to build some serious leads during SXSW - you can even see the interview I did with KXAN (the Austin NBC affiliate) here:
In my Computers & Writing course (the one where the teacher and I connected on Twitter) this past semester, we made a video covering how UT students engaged with new media during this year’s presidential election, I thought it came out pretty well, all things considered.
I think that it shows that we’ve made a lot of strides towards engaging students outside of the techie crowd in social media and online education, but there is still a lot of room to cover left. Hope you enjoy the video, we had fun working on it (except for freezing in the lab on campus where I was editing till I couldn’t feel my hands).
