Reflections on Grad School: Tools and Tricks I wish I knew all along

Posted on by mrsoltys
I've done it! I've gotten my Ph.D.!  Here's a few things I wish I had done from the very beginning. Enjoy Yourself. You're going to take 4-8 years investing in yourself. This is time you've set aside to educate yourself about a subject you're hopefully passionate about.  Along the way, you'll learn a tonne about a multitude of subjects! Besides...Read More

Determining Proper hose length for your Kegerator

Posted on by mrsoltys
You can imagine my glee when my good friend Andrew asked me a great fluids problem this weekend: He just built a new beer tap system converted from an old chest freezer.  He wants to have nice head on his beer, so he doesn't want it coming out of the tap to quickly.  He was also unsure about the pressure to keep...Read More

Tool of the Week: Making Animations in Matlab

Posted on by mrsoltys
Once you've made a pretty plot in Matlab, making an animation might help you understand temporal phenomena.  Making an animation is super easy in matlab, weither you're working with figures or images.  There are two methods to do this, but the most robust is using the VideoWriter class.  It's compatible with all versions of quicktime on both Mac and PC.  Here's how you do it: 1)...Read More

Update - JEB cover and Ocean Sciences Meeting

Posted on by mrsoltys
[caption id="attachment_714" align="alignright" width="241" caption="My work on the cover of a special issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology"][/caption] I'm in salt lake this week for the 2012 Ocean Sciences Meeting, alongside 4,000 other researchers.  I'm presenting some exciting research findings on friday, and in the mean time I'm learning a lot and trying to network some for future research...Read More

Theoretical Fluid Mechanics: Venturi Meter

Posted on by mrsoltys
A Venturi Meter is a device that allows flow rates through pipes to be calculated by measuring the difference in pressure created by a contraction in a pipe.  When the flow goes through the contraction it must speed up, and so the pressure must drop.  By measuring the two pressures, engineers can directly calculate the velocity of the fluid.  Knowing the pipe...Read More