So after an amazing three months in Germany, I had to come back to the real world and finish off a Master’s Dissertation.
I got back to PE mid-December and had a week to finish off my testing before I left for the Cape for two weeks. I then had five more days in PE before I had to hand in my dissertation. Final hand-in date to still qualify for April graduation was 11 January, handing in after that date would mean I’d have to reregister for another year of studies, and would probably result in me doing a whole lot more work, not necessarily a bad thing.
But with 3 days to go I was still doing testing. Below you can see a clip I compiled of said testing. In the end I handed in a dissertation in time. Most of it had gone through a round of editing by both my gran and girlfriend, with slight input from my supervisor. I wasn’t completely happy with what I’d handed in, and could have done with another month to neaten up the report, read through it properly and get some proper feedback from my supervisor, but such is life, and what is done is done.
In any case, the following week I did a demonstration for the project initiators who were quite happy with the results and it will most likely be taken forward. There’s a second master’s project on the table which will be extending on my work, but the company in question are going to take the design to contractors with the plan of getting a commercial unit up and running. Exciting stuff, my supervisor was also quite happy and said from his side he doesn’t think there’ll be any problems, so know I just sit and wait for results from the external. If I hear before the end of March I’ll be surprised, but don’t know when I should start bugging my supervisor for answers :)
In the mean time I’ve moved another step further from the Cape to the city of East London where I’ve got an appointment at a large manufacturing plant for the next year. The work ought to be quite interesting as the factory’s busy with a rebuild, but it’ll be interesting to see where it goes.
Once I’ve had feedback on my master’s and have made any necessary changes I’ll put my full thesis up. I also have to write up a journal type article on the project so will post that whenever I get round to finishing it. In the mean time you can see my previous post on the project here.
HI. I’ve been following all your post concerning mechatronics and it really grabs my full attention. I have applied at UCT and Stlellenbosch to study Bsc(Beng) Mechatronics Engineering in 2015. I have been accepted and all is settled, my only crisis as of now is the waiting period as I wait for my results on the 6th of January 2015 and FUNDING is still much of a bigger issue. Don’t you have any ideas or suggestions of how one could get a bursary or anything of that nature in order to pursue a degree in Mechatronics? … your blog has been a source of innovation to me, I am now certain without any shadow of doubt that Mechatronics is the career, infact lets just say calling for me. Thank you, lease keep writing.
Hi Benneth
You can quite often get some funding from the universities depending on a number of factors. Look through the relevant documentation from each university. As for bursaries, checkout all the big manufacturing companies. You won’t get one instantly, most of them are already closed for this year, but still have a look out. Just do a google search for engineering bursaries and apply.
Good luck!
excellent
Interested!