Tag / robot design

by shannonchance

Creators I admire: Shane Ormond and Nikkolas Smith

I’d like to highlight some creative endeavors of two people I have had the pleasure to teach and/or mentor over the years. They take time to post about their hobbies and/or professional work on WhatsApp or social media, and I benefit from what they share.

I have felt such inspiration due to recent posts by Shane Ormond (who lives in Ireland) and Nikkolas Smith (who lives in the USA).

Shane was previously a student in DIT’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and he’s been part of our RoboSlam activities for nearly a decade now (see RoboSlam.com and its blog section). DIT has transformed since then into TU Dublin — and RoboSlam has evolved into the Dublin STEM Ensemble. Shane has been a big part of both. He can frequently be seen supporting STEM Ensemble activities, like our annual exhibit at Dublin Maker, or our periodic planning and knowledge-sharing sessions held in the new Granegoreman Central Quad.

Here’s a video Shane shared on our STEM Ensemble WhatsApp thread last week about one of the projects he’s been doing in his spare time:

At the end of the video, Shane mentioned GitHub, where he posts his work for others to draw from. STEM Ensemble recently held a seminar on GitHub that Shane and I both attended. (The difference is, he understood a lot more of the presentation than I did!)

Images from our recent STEM Ensemble meeting that was followed by two presentations on using GitHub and a jaunt to the pub.

I see the video (above) with the blue model car as an evolution of Shane’s earlier work with robotic model cars with cameras on them, which I captured in this March 5, 2020 video. I shot it days before campus ground to a close with Covid lockdown:

Shane does all this as a hobby; at a couple of Dublin Maker faires he developed the technology to power talking heads. This year’s talking head automatically answered spoken questions using ChatGPT.

Like Shane, Nikk Smith is internally motivated to create. Nikk was an architecture student of mine at Hampton University, many moons ago. He often posts his “Sunday sketches” on social media. Here are a couple examples:

A couple of Nikk SMith’s “Sunday sketches”. One of gymnast Simone Biles, and another of children from Palestine, Sudan, and Congo. His work has socio-political relevance, and he highlights Black causes and heroes.
Nikk also illustrates and sometimes also writes books for children. “Born on the Water” has been extremely successful, and has just been published in Spanish. The original is in English. He uses art to support his activism, and coined the term “activist” encouraging others to combine art and activism!
Nikk used to work as a full-time Disney Imagineer, but now he works for himself (I think) and does consulting for Disney. A tower he designed for Disney to honor Black architects has just been opened at a Disney park. Nikk also designs movie posters — and I included his most recent poster here.

I am proud beyond compare of the work my former students and mentees are doing in the world — the creativity and passion they bring to the world and the lives they design for themselves.

Shane and Nikk are two outstanding examples, and I hope to feature more of my own personal heroes on this blog in the months to come. Being an academic educator and researcher connects me with many amazing people.

by shannonchance

Life as a Roving Academic

Shannon teaching at HU Point

Flashback: Teaching architecture students about sun angles at Hampton University, circa 2007.

I keep shifting roles in higher education so I can learn new skills. I spent 15 years teaching in the USA (advancing my way up to Professor of Architecture in 2014) before coming to Ireland as an education researcher and now Lecturer.

Transitioning from teaching to researching was more difficult than I had anticipated, partly because the work is more sedentary, but mostly because I missed interacting with students every day. And while I do enjoy engineering, I also miss discussing architecture and urban design on a daily basis. Fortunately though, I also enjoy interviewing engineering students.

As part of my Marie Curie Individual Fellowship to Dublin Institute of Technology (2014-2016), I conducted 60-90 minute interviews with 47 women in Poland, Portugal, and Ireland. The interviews I conducted as a researcher allow me to connect with students in new ways.

 

IMG_7291 2

Flashback to Portugal, where my colleagues and I have interviewed 11 women studying engineering.

Since the end of that initial Marie Curie fellowship, I’ve continued this research project alongside new responsibilities. I’ve recently conducted follow-up interviews with 11 of the 47 women in my study, for instance.

After that Marie Curie fellowship ended, I also found work as a Lecturer on the teaching staff in DIT’s School of Multidisciplinary Technologies and found my way back into the classroom. Today, I get to work with wonderful teaching colleagues, and to teach undergraduate as well as Masters-level students. I’ve included a photo gallery at the end of this blog, showing a typical week of teaching.

So these days, I divide my time between teaching in-class 16 hours per week, learning new content for the classes I teach, advising thesis students, serving as a year tutor in our MSc program in BIM technologies, and doing research. (I’ve taken a break from grant-writing this semester and have enjoyed the respite.)

IMG_8374

Planning for future studies in London.

I enjoy exciting new adventures, though, and so I’m preparing to transition back into full-time research for a while, so I can develop new skills by working for two years at University College of London. UCL’s website provides more details  via a press release about the fellowship).

I’ll look for opportunities to teach informally while I’m at UCL, as well, and I’ll look forward to my return to DIT’s classroom in two year’s time to apply what I’ve learned through observation and research.

DIT has granted me a Career Break so that at the end of the fellowship I’ll be able to come back to my current lecturing post. I’m excited about this because I feel I’ve found my feet and my voice teaching here. Aongus (my partner) says it’s clear I selected the right profession since my passion for teaching and for students comes through in the stories I tell at the end of the day.

Now, in the month before I leave for London, I’m trying my best to track down the 10 students from my DIT cohort who I haven’t yet met for follow-up interviews and move to this research project ahead.

Monday: Technical graphics
Monday: Technical graphics
Monday: Technical graphics
Monday: Technical graphics
Monday: Technical graphics
Monday: Technical graphics
Monday evening: BIM, guest lecture by Dr. Bill East
Monday evening: BIM for Construction Managers and Quantity Surveyors
Monday evening: BIM with Barry McAuley
Wednesday’s RoboSumo project starts with a one-hour lecture by Ted Burke that I document for our class blog.
Wednesday: RoboSumo electrical design project
Wednesday: RoboSumo electrical design project
Wednesday: RoboSumo electrical design project
Wednesday evening: BIM
Wednesday evening: BIM
Friday: Bridge (structural and civil design) project
Friday: Bridge project
Friday: Bridge project
Friday: Bridge project

 

 

by shannonchance

RoboSlam Wrap Up

We ended the “Engineering Your Future” week, sponsored by DIT and Engineers Ireland, with robot competitions (video footage to come) and awards. On the RoboSlam blog, you can see the full contingent of robots we created. Students earned awards for their essays, test performance, robot design, and the like.