Experimenting with Waterproof Connectors Forum - Recent Threads

Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

rscasny — Tue, 30 May 2023 16:13:06 GMT

Hi all participants.

The Experimenting with Waterproof Connectors is winding down with the final extra credit blogs due today.

On June 6th, I'll review the Forum participation and add points earned for each participant.

That leaves the big one task left to do: The Final Summary Blog.

The final summary blog is worth 300 points. I'll hand them over to the judges who will score them. Since I have two judges, I will average their individual scores into a final score and add them to the points earned for the rest of the blogs.

I wanted to offer some tips on writing the final summary blog.

1. The final blog should summarize all the work and experimenting you ghave done with waterproof connectors. Hence, a focus on the waterproof connectors should be prominent in the final blog.

2. The intro blog and the 5 extra credit blogs were added to the program for a specific reason: They can help you write the final blog (while adding points). Rather than simply linking these supplement blogs in the final blog, use the information they have to write a self-contained final blog. Now, if you want to add links to your intro/extracredit blogs in your discussion, that's fine. But our intention is to give the judges your final blog to grade your efforts.

3. The final blog should demonstrate the technical merit and your creativity around employing waterproof connectors in an electronics design. So, providing images, screenshots, and other media to lend to your tech finesse and creativity should be utilized.

4. Beyond the waterproof connectors, we provided the latte panda SBC in the kit. Show the reader how you used it, how you prepared it, and how you connected it to the waterproof connectors.

5. Articulate what your experiments were and how they turned out.

6. Draw some conclusions about participating in this program. They can range from what you may have learned about waterproofing an electronics design to what the successes and challenges were.

7. Make sure your final blog flows with some logical structure. The judges are going to read it for the first time. They want so see not only what you did but how your experiments evolved. Of course, this depends on what you did.

Like I said, the final summary blog is worth 300 points. We want the final blog to be an authoritative document. The more comprehensive it is, the closer it will get to the 300 points.

Good luck.

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

cstanton — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 12:12:15 GMT

[quote userid="460391" url="~/challenges-projects/design-challenges/experimenting-with-waterproof-connectors/f/forum/53025/tips-on-writing-the-final-summary-blog-and-winning-the-big-prizes/210098"]while editing blog entry in one window I have realized that edit session url ends with /edit part , so opening another window with url with /edit suffix removed displays draft as it will be visible on site after publishing[/quote]

Verint does a poor job of making this obvious to users, once you've saved as draft it appears as an 'unpublished blog post' if you click on the pencil on the left hand side, and then it gives you a 'preview' or 'view' link from there, where you can get the same view. As you've found, it merely adds '/edit' to the end when you're editing a draft.

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

JWx — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:43:01 GMT

The beautiful part is that no special waterproofing was needed - after installing all the connectors and closing the lid enclosure was waterproof (submersion test passed) - and charts and tables will be present - it is main part of experiment (first 5 blogs were about preparations)

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

shabaz — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:04:47 GMT

If it were me, I'd add sensor info, such as how it was connected or waterproofed, a photo showing that and some of the typical readings, perhaps a table or chart of typical readings through the day. Personally I find that sort of stuff interesting. For sure that detail may be in the other 5 blogs but the final blog could show where in the enclosure it was installed, and tips or tricks sealing it and the results.

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

JWx — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 08:31:36 GMT

and METAR is meteorological report for aviation and is issued from local meteorological centers. And as it has simple format and is freely available (in contrast to some other meteorological data that is often limited to paying customers) it could be treated as a quick reference

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

JWx — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 08:20:22 GMT

Thank you for valuable opinion - I am trying to trim unnecessary descriptions. Do you think that sensor construction part should also be trimmed? It is more design-oriented but maybe not exactly in the main line of experiment...

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

shabaz — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 07:13:15 GMT

I think there's some confusion here, unless I'm severely misunderstanding what is meant by aggregate.

From my interpretation of the tips, the final blog needs to be a blog that is readable, stands on it's own, and contains all the main points. That can be achieved without aggregating all previous blogs. It would be really hard to follow if the final blog contained the majority of all the previous blogs. The final blog is the opportunity to structure things and give priority to the interesting points.

50% of blog 1 contains Linux installation and network connectivity detail, and repeating that to me sounds odd, because a blog can stand on it's own by stating (say) Linux was installed and an SSH server was enabled; the LattePanda board* had sufficient resources for a complete Ubuntu 16.04 operating system. That single sentence can easily replace 50\% of blog 1, and still be a standalone read. Perhaps in the final blog there could be a diagram showing the software stack that was put on the LattePanda board, showing Ubuntu at the bottom, and then the middleware layer, and then the application, and any arrows from a cloud showing where the data is fetched from (I don't know anything about METAR yet, I have still to read about it).

Apologies if I've either misinterpreted what you meant by aggregate, or if I've misunderstood the guidelines/tips, I don't want to be blamed if I've got the wrong end of the stick! But to me it seems this is what the intent of the tips was, to make the blog comprehensive through a level of explanation easier at the end of a project, that makes it standalone and readable without having the need to repeat the CLI-level detail of how Linux and OpenSSH was installed since there can be a hyperlink for that, and now the explanation can show the broader picture too, which people might miss otherwise.

* Also an explanation of what the LattePanda board is, maybe a block diagram of it (there may be one in a datasheet), since that's not been explained so far. I don't know what it is, and possibly many readers might not know either. Also a photo of the board, or maybe a photo of it next to (say) a Pi so that people can easily visually compare it. These are just ideas, they may not be relevant.

Similarly, some detail of METAR, where the data originates from (is it from satellites?) maybe a couple of sentences of the history of METAR etc, is it global, or US specific etc.

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

JWx — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 06:10:05 GMT

Thank you all for your valuable input. Writing this blog I have learned how to have semi-online preview of my article:

while editing blog entry in one window I have realized that edit session url ends with /edit part , so opening another window with url with /edit suffix removed displays draft as it will be visible on site after publishing

this way I can preview my work without publishing it (after "save as draft" I can refresh another window and see how it will look on the site)

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

JWx — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 06:04:54 GMT

Hello! This was precisely my line of thinking - post well described summary of previous work with links to detailed procedures, so I have started asking questions if this is recommended approach and - as far as I understand - recommendations were different (publish self contained blog to not force readers to chop to external material). So I have started to aggregate all the previous work into one detailed blog (fortunately - omitting this detailed Linux customization part 🙂 )

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

shabaz — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 02:34:17 GMT

Hi JWx ,

Regarding the comment "I am aggregating all the information into one complete blog entry", do you mean a copy-paste of all the extra credit blogs into the final blog? If so, I think this will result in some bits of content that doesn't address the main points of the project, but this is just a personal opinion.

For example, looking at the extra credit blog Monitoring station for Underground Cold Storage (Monitoring station, add METAR weather reports - extra credit blog 2)

It contains the installation of Linux, and quite a lot of the blog (about 40%) covers Linux localization i.e. for keyboard and timezone settings etc. However localization isn't an objective, it's just a step that you had to go through to install Linux.

The overall objective of that blog post I think was: "Install Linux, a database, and other middleware". Personally if it were a final blog, I'd just state that objective and mention anything interesting, without that finer detail, and use a descriptive hyperlink that explicitly makes clear that the detail is in that blog #2, for instance, something like:

"The LattePanda device runs Linux. Ubuntu was installed, plus a database and middleware, specifically InfluxDB, Grafana and a METAR client tool. The reason these software components were selected is because... "

That way, the hyperlink clearly is the place to go to see the guts of that objective, you've already made the effort to describe it there, and it will be clear to readers including judges that that is where that detail is. By doing this the blog still stands on its own.

Personally I'd want to know why the specific components were installed and what they do, and their benefits/disadvantages perhaps, and snippets of code or screenshots or diagrams to make any interesting points (e.g. I think just a diagram in this case, see below), and then if a user wanted to replicate or learn the software detail, they could click on the hyperlink and see that detail.

The interesting part of the blog is what you managed to do with the software components, and it would be super-clear to the judges and readers, with say a diagram like this, and you could mention that the code to perform the decode and store is in blog 2, or a hyperlink to Github or wherever is convenient.

I'm sure others will have different ideas, it is a personal thing after all to decide what content should go where and in what detail, since everyone will be interested in different things, I just wanted to offer one reader data point.

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

JWx — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 19:35:19 GMT

Thank you for clarification!

Frankly speaking, when asking about possible linking with previous blogs I wasn't planning to make some sort of table of contents, maybe something like:

I have reinstalled A with B to do C, there is some quick summary, if you want all the gory details there is a detailed procedure (link)

Then I have built D using E to do F with short description (additional info here)

And there is some new content that wasn't previously presented:

- additional info

- experiment results

- conclusions

to not repeat work already done - but I understand that it would be against the rules so I am aggregating all the information into one complete blog entry

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

rscasny — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 18:17:54 GMT

I see that there have been some great suggestions regarding approaches to writing the final blog.

Just to recap:

The final blog should not simply be a table of contents to linked blogs you have produced. The final blog should be able to be read and enjoyed, that is, stand on its own without the need for the reader to jump to a bunch of the external content to understand your main points, experiments, testing, results etc.

This was done for two reasons:

1. In at least a couple of experimenting challenges, I handed the judges links to 30 or 40 blogs (maybe even more). That's a heck of a lot of blogs to go through. Some of these blogs I would call filler blogs.

2. Our sponsor reads the blogs. They are busy people. So, they are looking for the high points of their products and what you did. They will pass your blog across their business unit. Therefore, the blog should be able to stand on its own.

It's Sunday here and I had a little time to skim through the community to see if there were some examples of detailed blog writing that could be models for you. (I only had 10 minutes to do this, so I'm sure I have missed many.) But these two blogs capture the spirit of good blog writing. They are organized. They stand on their own. Links are used sparingly but the reader doesn't necessarily have to go off the blog to understand the main points. The information has both technical merit and creativity in the sense that "the story" is told both in text and pictures.

Blog Example #1:

Blog Example #2:

In marketing, we use the term "the story" a lot. What is the story of the product(s)? What you are doing here is telling the story of how you experimented with waterproof connectors and what you discovered. Great stories can be enjoyed by many different audiences. Good luck.

Randall Scasny

Program Manager, Experimenting with Waterproof connectors

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

michaelkellett — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 08:43:00 GMT

My method is very similar to this except that I don't do quite so much formatting in the Word document.

I would much rather use a non Microsoft tool but when I tried Libre Office it was fine except for when it crashed near the end of a long document and lost the whole lot !

I'll try again because I am quite determined to move away from Windows for day to day stuff.

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

shabaz — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 05:04:47 GMT

I do that sometimes too. Another thing I forgot to mention is that I stick project notes into the same Word docs often (just at the end, and don't paste them into the final blog) such as things that didn't work, or paragraphs of text that were deleted, or text that might make a different blog, or console debug and so on! Often I have a separate project folder for files too, but a single file helps me. Some people use OneNote etc.

From time to time I don't get around to completing a blog and the Word docs help me complete things at a later date. Although sadly some may never be completed. I'm on my mobile and found one on my phone which isn't complete but since it was formatted and readable, I e-mailed this one to someone who needed the info.

Another couple of half complete blogs, but making time to pick these up again is hard. I'll hopefully get around to it but having said that, these two are 6 months old, and 3 years old respectively.

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

dougw — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 03:53:07 GMT

I use all of these methods, but I often compose the original in Notepad just so I don't need to strip formatting. Sometimes I use a separate editor because I want to retain some formatting, especially inter-line spacing and less spacing between headers and text when copying to the blog.

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

shabaz — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 00:56:43 GMT

Hi Gough,

That's very neat, I didn't know this was possible. That could save a lot of time!!

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

Gough Lui — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 00:46:38 GMT

I use MS Word too - but I don't strip the formatting.

I find that you can easily use styles (e.g. Heading 2, 3), bullet-points, bold/italics and they will transfer right over with no hassle. Just don't change the font or paragraph spacings from the default or be prepared for problems.

I prepare the text in MS Word without the code and images - for those, I put in placeholders (e.g. text such as [photo-filename], [TOC], [code]). I then go through the editor online and search for "[" and resolve them one-by-one.

- Gough

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

shabaz — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 00:20:02 GMT

My workflow uses MS Word too.

I write the blog post in Word, and insert any photos or diagrams into the Word doc too. Once I'm happy, then I'll do Ctrl-A and then copy it all, and paste it into MS Notepad. Then Ctrl-A again, and then copy it from Notepad. That way all formatting is stripped, and then I'll paste into the site editor.

I keep the Word document open alongside the browser window, and then one-by-one I'll use the Editor tools to format the headings and insert in the photos from the source jpg/png files, until the online editor content looks the same as the Word document. And then use the Table of Contents tool from the Editor toolbar too.

Also, I will clean up some grammar in the online editor, because the spell/grammar-check (Grammarly) often picks up things I didn't catch the first time around in the Word document.

By the end of it all, there will be some differences between the online version and the Word version, but at least there is a backup in case anything serious goes wrong.

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

cstanton — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 11:50:19 GMT

It's a sensible approach considering there's no other method of "saving" the content, eg. if you don't get the opportunity to save as a draft, you can easily lose the entire blog if something happens.

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

JWx — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 11:13:23 GMT

Thank you for clarification and prompt reaction! I think I will need to tune my content generation process to write mainly off-line, then publish as needed - this way web-editor time will be reduced and content aggregation easier 🤔

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

cstanton — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 10:43:51 GMT

You can use external links. I monitor the content that comes into the moderation queue, and I (have to) manually curate the permitted website domains that do not count towards the 'embedded link count' moderation, over time if some members keep suffering this moderation then I employ other methods to prevent it being a repeated issue for them.

Yes.

[quote userid="460391" url="~/challenges-projects/design-challenges/experimenting-with-waterproof-connectors/f/forum/53025/tips-on-writing-the-final-summary-blog-and-winning-the-big-prizes/210006"]Is there any method of preparing content off-line (some - for example - wiki-like markup language) then copying it into blog editor?[/quote]

You could use OpenOffice or Microsoft Word and then paste it into the content, but this loses out on additional functionality you can gain from using the rich text editor and its functionality under the 'format', 'insert', and inserting images and video.

You could create your content in HTML and then paste it into the source editor (under tools) though any unsupported HTML will be stripped out.

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

JWx — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 10:26:33 GMT

Hello!

as I have never prepared such a long blog I have couple of questions:

- is there any official guidance about using external links? Using them seem to trigger anti-spam moderation requirement, but in many places they can add value to the material (linking official documentation, data format definitions, CLI commands that use URL as argument etc.). When publishing my blog 2 I have already gone through moderation process (with intermediate warning screens scaring away potential readers when text was under moderation), so now I have tried to remove as many links as possible while retaining as much information as I can but it seems that there are still too many of them...

- is it correct that draft material can also be flagged as requiring moderation? This way moderators would have to re-check the same material many times (at every click of "save as draft" button probably) - I have experienced that already: my draft was moderated as OK, then when publishing it was sent to moderation the second time

- Is there any method of preparing content off-line (some - for example - wiki-like markup language) then copying it into blog editor? I have just realized that my draft disappeared today (marked for moderation, already tried to logout/login, still no "unpublished" content - will probably ask at support forum but considering that material is due 06.VI there is limited time for troubleshooting) - I have some offline backup but within text editor so reformating (and picture/file reloading) will be needed...

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

cstanton — Wed, 31 May 2023 19:13:44 GMT

[quote userid="460391" url="~/challenges-projects/design-challenges/experimenting-with-waterproof-connectors/f/forum/53025/tips-on-writing-the-final-summary-blog-and-winning-the-big-prizes/209893"](maybe without most of the console output - it takes more space that is providing information)[/quote]

You can always upload files as either attachments or into the 'files' media gallery and link to them if you don't want to miss anything out.

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

rscasny — Wed, 31 May 2023 16:05:04 GMT

cstanton Well Stated: "I've never known anyone entering competitions on the Community be penalised for providing too much valuable information about what they've done"

RE: Tips on Writing the Final Summary Blog and Winning the Big Prizes

JWx — Wed, 31 May 2023 15:03:24 GMT

thank you (and cstanton) for clarification - I will go with aggregating most of the information into final blog route (maybe without most of the console output - it takes more space that is providing information)