Let’s get blogging
A general guide to documenting your work in EE 400d, including:
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Content Suggestions
Formatting
Photos & Photo Editing
Video
Linking
Blog Posts:
The blogging requirement for this class serves several important functions:
• It documents your work and progress on the project.
• It captures the evolution of returning projects (UFO, Rover, Spiderbot, etc.) over several
semesters.
• It allows other students and professionals to follow the work being done by CSULB
students – as individuals and representatives of the Electrical Engineering department.
• Allows you analyze and review previous work done on EE 400d projects.
• Most importantly, it allows you to show off your work!
So, what to blog?
Your work and progress. This includes:
• Project requirements (level 1 and level 2) and how to meet those requirements.
• Any and all tests/testing
• Calculations
• Code
• Mistakes, how they were discovered and how they were overcome
• Design methods
• Power needs and battery rating
• Stress tests
• And everything else!
Blog Posts (cont.)
When creating a posts, there are several formatting rules you should follow.
• Posts should generally have one author. There may be a time when more than one
person is working on something, if that’s the case, each person’s work should be
identified. But as generally, it should be one author per post.
• Each post should always include a title, the author’s name, and the author’s title.
Title
Author’s Title
Author
• Avoid using exotic fonts and specialty formatting, such as bold, italics, bullet points,
tables, etc. The software used to post your work can behave strangely, ruining your
design work when the software refuses replicating what you designed in MS Word or
Excel. If you do need to post tables or spreadsheets, it might be easier to take a
screen shot and post it as a graphic.
• For more information, be sure to read the EE400D Blog Posting Starter Kit.
MS Word’s equation writer can be used to
create present calculations and mathematical
models, but the blogging software will not be
able to recreate it. Instead take a screen shot of
any “special” text (equations, spreadsheets,
etc.) and import them as graphics instead.
Blog Posts (cont.)
When it come time to actually create your blog post, remember these very important
rules
• Make sure to proofread to catch any typos or errors
• Only post to your area
• Only upload individual photos once
• Use the preview function so you can view what the post will look like when it goes
live. This will allow you to make any final corrections or changes.
Photos:
The first photo you need to consider is the teaser. The teaser photo is the small, square
photo that adds a visual to the title of the post.
The teaser photo should be square (2” x 2”) with a resolution of 72 dpi (dots per inch).
Anything larger simply eats up space on the server.
If you don’t upload a teaser photo, this is what your blog post will resemble:
Boring, isn’t it? Since this is a design class, why not show off the cool stuff being built?
For ideas, the teaser photo can be unique, or a small section or version of a larger
photo that appears in the blog post.
Photos (cont.):
For the photos that appear in the blog post, they should be no more than 6” wide with a
resolution of 72 dpi.
Each post should have at least one photo that appears at the top. Other accompanying
photos can also be included to help create a visual for what is being described lower in the
text.
(See this Spiderbot post about mold making for an example.)
Again, this is a design class, so the opportunities to take interesting photos to
accompanying your posts are endless.
IMPORTANT: All photos should be original! Do not grab photos from other websites.
Photo editing:
Everyone has heard of Photoshop, but there are plenty of other photo editing programs
available. The only photo editing concerns you should have is:
• Resolution: Everything should be 72 dpi.
• Sizing/Resizing: 2” x 2” for teaser photos, and no more than 6” wide for others
• Cropping: It’s okay to only use a portion of the original photograph
• Formatting: Save images as jpegs (.jpg format)
Videos:
Videos are a great addition to the blog posts. To include a video, you will need to upload it
YouTube, and simply include a link. When the blog post is created, the link will allow the
viewer to open the video in a new window.
(Click here to see how the Spring ’14Hexapod team created and posted a video.)
Hyperlinks:
Blog posts should never repeat something that has been previously posted. If you are using
calculations from a previous semester’s blog post, simply include a link to the post that
contains the information.
Your blog posts should contain new information only. Any work that has been previously
completed, datasheets, retailers, etc., can simply be linked to.