Sink or Swim

The practice of robotics is growing in leaps and bounds. It starts as early as high school, or slightly before.  Middle schools all over the country have Invention Conventions, while most technical high schools have robotics clubs. What most high school kids think of as the over achieving, gadget obsessed nerds of today, may just be the forward thinking engineers, designing ways to make surgical procedures less invasive, manual labor less labor, or even ways to make disabled people function at a higher capacity. The robotics clubs of today are possibly standing on the threshold of the next amazing discovery.

The active members of robotics clubs across the country spend the entire school year working on projects from design to completion. The students can work in teams or as an individual, depending on the competition. The goal is to take the project from drawing board to completion, to create something that is their own design, figure out what one needs to build or construct it, and then build and construct it so that it performs to the original blueprints. Designs from better engines for cars to robotic limbs are seen on the competition floor, the result of months of work, designing and redesigning, creating prototypes and tests and more tests.

At the onset of a robotics clubs, there are many meetings. Participants must decide if they want to take part in the competition. As stated before the competition requires a strong commitment from its participants. Once the hours are logged for the brainstorming and the final decisions are made on the design, the project is ready for construction. These intricate designs need many parts. There is much time and money spent on gathering what is needed to draft at least the prototype for the project.

The projects can get quite expensive. Most school have a budget and make allowances for purchasing parts for the project. More often than not, the expenses quickly exceed the budget. The bank of mom and dad becomes the “go to” spot for the much-needed extra cash. In today’s economy, mom and dad are just as strapped for cash. Sometimes the money is needed quickly. A cash advance from Paydayone.com Loans is an easy solution. A short-term loan that doesn’t leave debt hanging over anyone’s head for a long time, just until the next pay-day or two. These short-term solutions don’t require long applications or months of payments. It could be just what is needed, and who knows? They may just have invested on the world’s next Einstein.

Designing mockups today for a receipt printer company. I don’t say this a lot but I feel like I’m on fire! Normally, I need about 4-6 hours to design 2 mockups but I’m only on my 2nd hour and I already finished one kick-ass layout, if I may say so myself. I have these quotes to thank for.

I need to print these out and paste them on my wall so I can be inspired all the time.

You’ve probably heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). If not, please read here and learn how it can affect all of us. In line with this, plenty of sites, blogs and media companies have been standing up to show what they think about this. Wikipedia, for one went on strike and displayed this on their home page.

Google

Wired

See more here.

The personalized cufflinks that I purchased for my ex-colleague’s wedding hasn’t arrived yet. Which is why I’m now scouting the local shops online if I can order something nice for him that can arrive in 3 days. Luckily, I found some funny shirts about marriage which I know he and his bride-to-be will love. They’re both geeks, same as I, so I can imagine how much fun they’d have wearing the shirts on their honeymoon. Too bad I won’t be able to attend their wedding. It’s a 2-hour plane ride and I can’t leave work since it’s only the start of the year. I wish them well though and hope the gifts will arrive just in time.

I went to an online yo yo store this morning looking for giveaways for my niece’s birthday party. After browsing through the products, I felt a bit nostalgic as I remembered my childhood days. How simple life was back then! No iPod Touch, PSP or iPad for the kids. We bond with each other and play actual games, not online games wherein interacting with the players are only done through gadgets. This is the reason why we’re giving away yo-yos. To bring back the fun in old school toys. Hope we can find a good deal so we can start shipping them here.

If we get a chance to have a big backyard in our future home, I’ll definitely fill it with rustic furniture. Either a wooden breakfast table set or one of those really nice log porch swings that I always see in country homes. My dream is to have a nice porch and the photo below will be a great addition to that.

I can just imagine spending our afternoons in this swing either reading a book or just hanging out with the kids. I love outdoors so much which is why a big garden is a must for us.

Just something to keep the creative juices flowing whether you’re a photographer, designer, painter.

Light painting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source or by moving the camera. The term light painting also encompasses images lit from outside the frame with hand-held light sources.

And below are few wonderful examples of this technique which will leave you breathless. You can check the full collection here.

I finally finished a design for a website selling incontinence products. It wasn’t easy but I’ve decided to just make it as white and clean as possible. Health-related websites are easy to design because you only need to evoke a safe and clean feeling. It also needs to be easy to use or navigate and that all important information are available at first glance.

Having said that, here’s a great collection of health industry web designs that I’ve seen online. Just to inspire you if you happen to be designing for something similar. They are not the usual white boxy types but something that’s more out of the box.