Post #13 February Summary - March Goals

Straight from my January Summary:

Stuff I am hoping to finish in February:

1. Sew my first dress (will also be in the February sewing blog)
2. An alien makeup inspired by a deep sea creature

3. Chapter 2 of Gurnett and Bhattacharjee

4. Submit my first first-author paper

5. Have my thesis proposal mostly done.
6. Finish the C210k Trainer

I did complete my first dress as you have seen in post #11.

Also, I did attempt to create an alien inspired by an angler fish, post #12, albeit nearly a week late.

I have been slacking on the plasma textbook. I only completed up to the section I posted on earlier this months: post #10.

I have not submitted my paper yet...

I still have no real thought on my thesis proposal...

Technically, I have not finished the C210k Trainer, instead I have started the marathon trainer by Zen Labs. I am not doing this because I aspire to run a marathon, I am running off the adage "Go big or go home," pun intended. I ran outside during the beautiful weather we had last week, and failed miserably, so instead of trying to continue with the free version of C210k, I would just do the one time payment of the marathon trainer and be good to go until I can run on my own for any distance. So who knows, six months from now, maybe I will be capable of running 26.2 miles. (Don't worry if you laughed, I am laughing, and anyone who knows me would laugh. I am not a marathon runner, I like pizza entirely too much. Though if I do make it, this whole section will be fun to read, and make a great part of my Success Story.)

So 2 out of 6 goals completed... eh. Here's to a successful March:

Stuff I am hoping to finish in March:

1. Sew a vest, some beach apparel, and my Tea Party dress

2. An angel/devil makeup inspired by a good/bad personality trait

3. Chapter 2 of Gurnett and Bhattacharjee

4. Submit my first first-author paper

5. Have my thesis proposal done.

6. Finish weeks 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the Marathon Trainer

Post #12 FaceOff Spotlight Challenge 1 (Hobby No. 2)

Alien Makeup inspired by a Deep Sea Creature

Yes, I know this post is late, but the weather was so beautiful President's Day weekend that I ended up getting sun burnt, and liquid latex on sunburn is not a good idea. So I am a week late.

It's really faint because it was a sketch.

Materials: Cotton balls, Liquid Latex, fake nails, cc cosmetics cream paint.

So it looked less alien and more rock monster... the color pallet was probably my biggest mistake. I was able to work on my patience issue I discovered during my sewing adventures. I felt comfortable with how I handled the cotton ball and latex appliance but I think I will try using a mold to build on for the next one. It is stressful to build an on-face appliance.

 

After pulling off [most of] the latex

Looking forward
April: Angel/Devil based on Good/Bad personality traits
May: Monster High in real life - Operetta
June: Snow Queen inspired by a snow flake
July: Jekyll & Hyde

Post #11 So turns out I am not particularly patient (Hobby No. 1)

So I did only a couple sewing projects over the past month. The first one being my very first circle skirt, which turned out alright for a first project. Next I tackled sewing a full dress, complete with sleeves, which also turned out alright. I have a lot of progress to make before Halloween.

My first circle skirt. 

I started by cutting out a pattern from some package wrapping paper. I chose to make my skirt 24" long to ensure that it would reach my knees. I used my pattern on the folded fabric, and cut out a half circle. I repeated that process twice, and it resulted in two half circles. The picture below was after I sewed the two pieces together. 

 After hemming all the edges on the bottom of the skirt I started to tackle to waist. I decided to put in a zipper, which I pulled from another dress that didn't fit very well. After frankenstein-ing the zipper in, I decided I needed a waistband. Using the same fabric I used for the straps on my New Years Eve dress, I made a waistband that was about two inches thick, and attached that. My last step was to add a couple eye hooks to close the waistband. And voila! My first circle skirt.

Please disregard the cat, Hatter is obsessed with the bathroom (other cat owners can commiserate, I am sure).

 

It ended up fitting better after the first wash, although I should extend my ironing skills to the pre-wear time. Heck, my ironing skills need work too, I burned myself while working on this skirt.

Amount Spent: ~$17

My first dress

To be honest, I sewed this dress last night because I knew I was going to be posting this blog today. I started by using my circle skirt pattern to cut the skirt, but this time I folded the fabric so I ended up with one piece instead of the two I cut out for the first skirt. 

I then used one of my existing dresses to cut out the bodice, and finally I used some sleeves that I had from another hack job that I used for my sleeve pattern. I am kind of impressed with myself.

When walking into Joann's to buy the fabric, I didn't realize I was going to end up with Syracuse colors, oh well (Go 'Cuse!). What was good about this project is that I got to play with different stitched and different materials. FYI: The knit fabric I chose was so slick, it was kind of hard to work with. I will have to keep that in mind for my next outfit. 

Amount Spent: ~$25

As I mentioned in my title, as I was sewing last night I realized that I am a "measure once, cut once, sew once" kind of person. I don't take extra time to make sure everything is the way it should be. This is something I need to work on. Luckily, both my hobbies are situated where I am able to practice patience. I am not sure what my next sewing project will be, probably my dress for the Third Annual Tea Party. I do know that April's post will be beach-y!

Post #10 "It is a relatively simple matter to show that..." (Physics post)

From Gurnett and Bhattacharjee (hereafter known as G&B): "It is a relatively simple matter to show that..."

This is a fairly common phrase in physics textbooks, and most of the time a student reads that phrase and immediately laughs because usually it is not 'simple' to show whatever it is they want to be shown. It could be simple if a couple key notes were added in the text, I am going to use the above example from G&B.

"It is a relatively simple matter to show that the root-mean-square velocity is given by (root 3) times (C sub s), where C sub s equals (root (kappa times T sub s) divided by m sub s)." I will include a screen shot of my LaTex file, so don't worry so much about the "math into words" I have decided to add:

First things first, root-mean-square velocity. For this problem it is:

Also from an earlier 'easy to show' in chapter 2 of G&B, we know that the denominator is equal to the density of a particular species of particle, n sub s. So the above equation becomes:

The distribution function, f(v), in this case is the following:

So now you can plug it in to the numerator and solve for the root-mean-square velocity. But wait, there is more math that is not for the faint of heart, (feint of heart?). Cue the Google-ing of "definite integral of exponential." Thank you Wikipedia. Skip to this one:

Where n = 4, and alpha equals m sub s divided by (2 kappa T sub s), and don't forget to carry the constants in front of the v and exponential:

To get a cleaner version of the integral in the general form I direct you to a blog post by a friend and colleague: Conrad's blog, and a YouTube video that I found very helpful.
So plugging stuff into this:

You get this:

and after canceling out and putting it back in the numerator of the root-mean-square velocity equation:

you see "It is a relatively simple matter to show that..."

Ta-Da.

Hope this post was sufficiently physics-y and look forward to next weeks post on my sewing projects, including my first circle skirt, and my first dress. Also, two weeks from now I will have my special effects makeup post, featuring my take on an alien inspired by a deep sea creature.