This video got me 3rd place in a grad-studies contest

This was my submission to my university's 1-minute thesis competition. I ended up getting 3rd place, in addition to the viewer's choice!

This was just my trial run at using Blender. Expect something much bigger soon 👀

[cubedable]

I thought it was gonna be a shitpost, the car on a burger was perfect as a quick transition lol. It was really good as a quick layman explanation of your work in just 60 seconds, holy shit

[bobbarker]

That transition at the end from silicon, to road, to wifi symbol was slick as fuck. If you got 3rd I can't imagine what got in 2nd and 1st.

[harrisonfackrell]

I was expecting a dumb meme, but this is actually super professional.

[tylerbeaumont]

Ngl that transition from the car to the burger was filmmaking genius, if it weren’t so low poly I’d give you an award just for that

[BobbyBroccoli]

Hello everyone! This video is a little side project I made for a school contest. It was a good excuse to learn Blender, which I'll be using for something big in the near future 👀. Btw, I have a Patreon now (see description), which is set for every big brocc-umentary I make. Thanks for watching!

[SavageGreywolf]

the phrase "quick and accurate blood tests" gives me PTSD to Elizabeth Holmes' Batman voice.

[paldiowebimbo]

This has fun design, it's something straight out of like a good early 90s commercial, great job on getting 3rd place

[BobbyBroccoli]

UPDATE: My work in this video just got published in Advanced Materials Technologies as "Subwavelength Grating Metamaterial Multimode Bend for Silicon Waveguides"

So this video has gotten caught up in the algorithm *somehow*, and a lot of new comments asking recurring questions. Here's my attempt to answer them:

1. Isn't this what fiber optics is for?

Yes! But optical fibers are typically used for long-haul communications, i.e. hundreds of kilometers. Fiber optic cables have the advantage of better bandwidth (more data capacity) than sending it as electrical signals in say, coaxial cables. But then once the data gets to its destination, you need to convert it back into electrical signals, do some calculations with it on a chip, convert it back to light, and send it out again. Lots of steps, lots of expensive hardware. Being able to keep all that data as light and process it on a photonic chip would be ideal, and that's where my research lies.

2. Why not use mirrors?

When the size of the geometry is around the same scale of the wavelength of light, the physics of light starts to behave weirdly. In my case I'm making photonic integrated circuits with light of 1550 nm, and silicon segments around 220 nm. At that scale mirrors and total internal reflection don't really function in the same way. You can design a 45 degree corner facet and it does much what you're probably imagining, but it needs to be significantly bigger than other possible solutions like my silicon curved strips.

3. Some of this feels like a huge simplification/misleading.

It very much is. This video was my submission to a 1-minute thesis competition, and I ended up getting 3rd place! A field like photonics has a lot of jargon and technical terms, and I knew I had to go for showmanship if I wanted to stand a chance against other grad students who had more intuitive and easy to grasp topics. Are photons literally faster than electrons when it comes to data transmission? No, but it gets the point across in a 60 second time-limit.

4. Can I get more detail?

Sure! I have a video where I delve into more detail on my Master's work on my channel. And if you want to dive even deeper than that I'd happy to share my thesis upon request. My research is on silicon on insulator (SOI) photonic integrated circuits (PICs) using subwavelength gratings (SWGs).

5. Ew self driving cars

That's just the main example people in the field give for the application of LiDAR and optical-phased arrays for beam steering. I reality it can be used in industrial automation, aerial topography, etc. I don't think we're anywhere close to self driving cars, and that's purely from a hardware standpoint, I'm not even going to get into the machine learning and safety aspects

[airysquared]

I like the low-poly look a lot. Aesthetically it feels like something made in the early 90s and shown on public broadcasting during an odd time slot. And I mean that in the best way possible. It’s cozy, not boring.

[Smubear]

How are you able to bend light with the silicon? This sounds like a very interesting topic.

[priestrat]

Idk why youtube recommended this to me but I love it, I honestly thought it would be a joke but its really good. Not only is the interesting information conveyed in an understandable manner and easily followed, the animation supports the script really well.

[motubak]

I love how everyone is giving genuine feedback. Great job mate

[PhantmZ_]

Simple, informative, engaging


3 key features for a good presentation

[A_doe_wasting_her_life]

electron-ics
woah

also that blood cell to wifi icon animation was pretty smart

[JxsonKing]

I thought this would be a giant meme, but this video has left me pleasantly surprised and wanting to learn more.

[studonkerson]

0:12 fun fact, electrons are actually really slow, the reason they appear fast is because there is a long chain of them already filled in the circuit, just not moving yet. That's why it appears instant, because you're just moving the chain, electrons actually only move 1mm per second

[aaaa.mp]

“light is the fastest thing in the universe. PERIODT😝😝😝💋💋”

[necrolavigne]

your blender skills are looking good! excited to see what you have planned!!!

[sorasorata]

thumbnail: so-so
video: nice
transition: it's over 9000

[datlego]

This is such an awesome idea! I love this! I'm interested to know how patternscan improve light bandwidth (or throughput)?