Lecturing at Stord/Haugesund University College

This semester I will be lecturing in the courses Mechanical Design (in Norwegian) and Thermodynamics (in English) and intend to post the material I create for the students here (lecture notes, exercise solutions, etc.) at a leisurely pace during the semester. You will find everything under the Education banner.

I've put in my planned schedule at Stord/Haugesund University College here, so that my students know when/where to find me:

Link to the complete calendar     -     iCal

About myself

(Norsk)

Born in 1985 and raised with a mullet and MacGyver on TV. The mullet disappeared and I chose a vocational education and got a certificate of apprenticeship as a bodywork mechanic. With long hair I tried some different educations and jobs, until I ended up with a beard, a wife and children.

In 2011 I began studying mechanical engineering at the University College Stord/Haugesund and ran another blog where I posted all of my lecture notes. In a way, that blog is the predecessor of this one. In 2014 I finished my bachelor degree and started working for Imenco AS designing subsea equipment for the oil and gas industry. In 2016 I started lecturing at the University College Stord/Haugesund in the courses Mechanical Design and Thermodynamics.

Inspired by people like Destin Sandlin from Smarter Every Day and Derek Muller from Veritasium I want to pass on knowledge in this blog, both practical and theoretical knowledge, to anyone that wants to learn. Actually the idea is to let you, the readers, share in my own learning process, letting us learn together, whether it be practical DIY stuff or more theoretical musings.

You can find me on the following social media:
Facebook
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LinkedIn

Bird feeder

(Norsk)
My oldest daughter wanted to make something with me to give to their grandparents for Christmas. My mother-in-law had a bird feeder on her wish list. Since we did not have much proper materials for a standard bird feeder, we chose to use this piece of wood instead:

Firstly we had to do some chainsaw work. The girls assisted by sweeping the dust.

The middle piece was measured to fit the drill bit I had available.

Then the drilling commenced. The girls assisted again, this time they helped to hold fast the work piece between my knees as I drilled.

Time for the hand saw. Again the girls helped with holding fast the work piece, and sweeping up the dust.

After the sawing, the girls got to pull the "innards" out of the work piece. In the background is work piece number two, since we of course needed to make two editions, one for my parents and one for my mother-in-law. Then it was chisel time!

After smoothing the edges roughly (here the girls got to try out the sledge, at least until I began fearing for my fingers...) and then it was drilling time again. This time with a hole saw. According to different recipes for making nesting boxes, the opening should be between 30 mm and 50 mm in diameter to allow the smallest birds access. Since I had a 55 mm hole saw handy, the entrances became a bit bigger than intended. Again the girls helped and got a real kick out of the disc cuttings the hole saw made.

With one entrance on each side, it was time to decide top and bottom. The top got another, thinner hole, large enough to accomodate the hemp rope I had ready. Here the girls helped threading the rope through the hole.

After having dried indoors for well over a week, it was time to glue the lids onto the sides. The girls helped squeeze out the glue.

The finished result was pretty cool, and since the entrances are fairly big, filling bird seeds and cleaning out should be easy.

About the blog name

(Norsk)

Kvesting is a bilingual play on words, including a short form.

For those that are familiar with fantasy games like World of Warcraft, you are also familiar with the word quest.

The Free Dictionary define quest as:

quest  (kwĕst)
n.
1. The act or an instance of seeking or pursuing something; a search.
2. An expedition undertaken in medieval romance by a knight in order to perform a prescribed feat: the quest for the Holy Grail.
3. Archaic
a. An inquest.
b. A jury appointed to take part in an inquest.
v.intr. quest·ed, quest·ing, quests
1. To search for something: quested for knowledge.
2. To go on a quest.
3. To search for game or bay when sighting game, as a hound.

In World of Warcraft a quest is most often synonymous with going out into the world and killing a certain number of creatures or enemies, or maybe gathering a certain number of an object which, most often, is obtained by looting the cadavers of creatures or enemies you have just killed.

The Free Dictionary define the Norwegian word kveste as:

kveste ('kʋestə)
verb transitiv
grievously harm, mutilate (i.e. in an accident)

Considering the fairly similar pronounciation of these words, and the fairly similar meaning of these words, at least with respect to World of Warcraft, my buddies and me ended up going kvesting when we played.

In addition the Norwegian short form for engineer, ing, has been incorporated into the kvest. Thus the name of this blog is self explaining. I am on a quest (kvest) to learn new stuff and I am a mechanical engineer (ing).

Kvesting is a blog where I am going to post anything that makes me geek out. When I post something new, it will be as a new blog post with tags, but I will also put it into pages for easier navigation. Things that geek me out are science, engineering, education, books, DIY, health and nature.

The original plan was to keep it Norwegian only, but now I see that it will be better to do it primarily in English, but with Norwegian translations linked into the posts and pages.