Author: Lexi Gudgel

Hey (waving hand emoji). I finished my first DKC Staff Project!

The Assignment

The DKC works with the Speaking and Writing Center to deliver presentations to FSEMs to introduce freshmen to the different academic services offered at UMW. As part of that presentation, we show a video that gives a brief overview of the DKC. The audio is muted for the presentation, and the presenter just gives their own spiel.

However–the video was redone this year, and the old voiceover no longer quite matches. So, since I expressed interest in video and audio editing, I was tasked with recording a new voiceover for the DKC intro video.

I booked the podcast studio and got to work. It was more difficult than I thought it would be because I couldn’t just write a script–I also had to match up the timing of my speaking to the pre-determined timing of the video.

After much trial and error, and some helpful suggestions from Shannon and Cartland, I finished the voiceover.

Here is the final product!

Aye yi yi was this frustrating. For an assignment I had to break my website and then troubleshoot it. I have zero experience troubleshooting, so this was not fun.

To break my DKC training website, I changed both the site URL and WordPress URL from “dkctraining.lexigudgel.net” to different variations of that. The reason this messed up my site is that when you tried to go to my real URL, it got confused and tried to redirect you to those variations which don’t actually exist. I couldn’t even access the backend of my site to rechange the site and WordPress URL.

Let the Googling commence. I had no idea where to start, so I went to online forums, the WordPress online support website, and random articles. From what I could gather, there were several ways to go about this problem. Some articles suggested redirection and others suggested changing the code.

I eventually stumbled across this article:

I have no idea what the wp-config.pfp file is or what it does, but it gave the most detailed instructions so I decided to go with it. Toward the bottom of the article, it explained how to fix the problem I was encountering:

“You may need to change WordPress URLs when moving a WordPress site to a new domain name. […] You can also change these URLs using the wp-config.php file. This comes in handy if you are unable to access the WordPress admin area due to the error too many directs issue. Simply add these two lines to your wp-config.php file:

define(‘WP_HOME’,’http://example.com’);
define(‘WP_SITEURL’,’http://example.com’);”

Now, I haven’t the faintest clue how coding works or what any of that means. While it’s definitely not best practice to copy and paste random code you find off the Internet, I trusted this article that seemed to know my exact situation eerily well. So I located the wp-config.pfp file in my file manager and exported it to the Microsoft notepad application.

Once I pasted in those two lines of code, I tried to simply import it back it. Here is where the real frustration set in. I thought that importing it would override the first wp-config.pfp file and replace it with the new code I wanted, right? Wrong. It just added an additional file into my file manager that was called “wp-config.pfp.txt” and did seemingly nothing. I still couldn’t access the front or backend of my site. My best guess is that because I was importing a file saved from the Notepad app, it automatically saved as a txt file that I couldn’t change.

After trying this several times, I was out of ideas. Google wasn’t helpful either. Eventually, I noticed that there was an edit button near the download, import, and export buttons. Duh. So as an incredibly uneducated coder, I decided to edit the wp-config.pfp code directly and see what happened.

Well, at first, nothing. Silly me, that’s because I didn’t change the code from “http://example.com” to my real URL. So I did that. And it still didn’t work. Oh, it’s probably because I didn’t add in the “s” in https. Haha. But it still didn’t work.

Ahh… that would be because I had typed in “dkctraining.lexigudgel.com,” not “dkctraining.lexigudgel.net.” Jeez, this is embarrassing.

FINALLY, I got my website up and running. I could access the front and backend. The only difference is now I can’t go back in and change the site and WordPress URL because I hard coded those in. Well, I don’t plan to do that in the future so I’m not torn up about it. If anything, it’ll stop me from accidentally doing that same thing in the future. Plus, if I ever wanted to for whatever reason, I can just go back into the wp-config.pfp file.

In conclusion, I figured it out, but I think my computer and troubleshooting skills should be used only a last resort to help people.

Well, here we are again. After the Disaster That Shall Not Be Named, I had to reprint my nametag. Luckily, I wasn’t starting from scratch–just fixing what I already had. After giving it some thought, I figured out the issue: it wasn’t just that my nametag was small overall, but the proportions were messed up (the giraffe was too thin compared to the base, the eyes were too small compared to the rest of the giraffe and nametag, etc.).

While I was back in Tinkercad, I decided to change up the design a little more by making the base more circular as opposed to oval shaped, as well as stacking the giraffes on top of each other.

I found it much easier to use the Prusa slicer a second time around. Adding the color change stops went much quicker, but adjusting the dimensions took me a while.

Here are some pictures from that process:

Since I was printing a thicker nametag it took over 20 minutes longer than my first print. I stayed by the 3D printer the entire time to monitor it and make sure everything went smoothly/I could change out the filament as quickly as possible.

I have some pictures of the printing:

Here was the end result!

Of course, while trying to clean it up, I immediately accidentally ripped out the dot in the “i” in my name, but by this point I’m so over this that I’m fine with it.

Every DKC consultant is tasked with creating their own nametag, and since I’ve never used a 3D printer before, I was excited to learn something new.

First I had to get started in Tinkercad, which is one of the softwares the DKC recommends for 3D prints. I found it pretty user-friendly, and I especially appreciated Tinkercad’s getting-started guides. (I would definitely recommend using a mouse when using Tinkercad. My hand was cramping so badly before I borrowed one from our storage.)

In the beginning, I really struggled to think in terms of layers. I was worried about making sure I could have my name a different color than the background and design. It wasn’t until Shannon drew it out on the whiteboard for me that I better understood how to do so.

For my nametag I drew direct inspiration from Angela’s nametag. I really like her pig design, so I decided to incorporate my favorite animal: the giraffe. Originally I was going to make the whole thing in the shape of a giraffe, but I realized that since giraffes are long and skinny there wouldn’t be a lot of room for my name and title.

I Googled “giraffe cartoon” and went to images, which is where I got the idea for two giraffes nuzzling. I also inspected Katy’s and Haley’s nametags to learn what I wanted the backing surface to be. I settled on an oval.

The most difficult part of designing the nametag was the giraffes. Tinkercad works in shapes, and I didn’t like the look of combining a rectangle and oval for the neck and head. I instead used some sort of drawing tool where I could create my own shape. It was hard to draw using my mousepad, but luckily there was a smoothing tool I could use on the lines. After a few tries, I had something that I actually liked and thought looked natural.

After that was out of the way, it was just a matter of adjusting the height of everything and making sure the layers were laying flat on each other. Originally, I used a cylinder shape for the base because I figured, “Oh, I’m working in 3D so I should use a cylinder.” Nope. Katy showed me my mistake and I changed it to a circle so that the giraffes, heart, and lettering could lay flat on its surface.

It was surprisingly frustrating to get the giraffe shape to lie flat on the circle, the spots to lie flat on the giraffe, etc. I kept thinking I was okay, and then I’d rotate the screen and see that the letters were actually hovering in the air above the backing.

I have some pictures below of what my nametag looks like in Tinkercad!

Next I had to get trained on the 3D printer. I probably should have gotten the training before I started designing so I would have had a better idea of how the machine works, but oh well. I booked a training appointment with Katy for a Monday at 12:45, so I just came into my shift 15 minutes early.

I had gotten a brief overview of the 3D printer during my orientation right before the start of the semester, but I had totally forgotten everything. It was nice to get a refresher and then a better rundown of the Prusa slicer software. I got to print a test-run Edmund!! Here he is below. I think I’ll give him to my sister when I go home for Easter.

Yes, part of his left foot and the back of his tail are black. Someone had been using black filament before me, so there must’ve been some still stuck in the nozzle. I thought we had cleaned it out pretty good when loading the pink filament, but I guess not…. It’s kind of strange that the black showed up in those areas and not the very first layer, but it’s okay.

Time to print my nametag now! The 3D printer is a very popular machine–I had to book a week out from my training appointment! The first of several snags that I ran into was that the computer I used wouldn’t connect to the ethernet, so I decided to just hop one computer over. Except that computer didn’t have the Prusa slicer application…. Shannon was able to get it downloaded pretty quickly, but I was starting to get a little nervous because I only had a two hour timeslot to print.

Once I conquered the technical difficulties, it was time for Prusa difficulties. Katy generously showed me how to add stops in the print for a color change, and it took me a surprisingly long time to get it the way I wanted it. Then it was a matter of sizing the print correctly. Using Haley’s nametag for reference, I decided I wanted it to be about 3.5in x 1.5in. The height was another beast altogether, and I settled on 6mm.

But wait a second… why do the “t”s in the word “consultant” look weird all of a sudden? Turns out, with the font I used on Tinkercad and the size of my nametag, the top of the the letter “t” is thinner than the nozzle, so it can’t print it fully. Ultimately I went the lazy route and decided it was still readable and therefore fine.

After exporting to an SD card, I was ready to print! I could tell throughout the printing process that something wasn’t quite right, but I thought you just had to have faith in the process. I was wrong.

After 42 minutes, I finally had this:

Yikes…

I am not at all happy with the way it turned out. The words are too small to read, the eyes on the giraffes are too small, there’s a lot of globbing of the filament all over, and the nametag in general is too thin and too short.

You know what that means–back to Tinkercad! *sigh*

I will keep you updated as I try to fix this mess.

I used professional video and audio equipment! Yay!!

So you’re probably wondering what I mean. Well first, I need to back up in a little in my story….

The DKC hosts free workshops to teach UMW student skills such as: sewing, using Canva, building a personal brand, customizing YouTube banners, etc. Any student is able to attend or lead a workshop.

For April Fool’s Day, I was given the task of creating a prank workshop. I had to make a graphic as well as a video to advertise my fake workshop on April 1.

To get started I brainstormed some ideas for what fake workshop I’d want to host. I settled on “How to Use Podcast Equipment to Share Test Answers: It’s Not an Honor Code Violation if your Professor Doesn’t Know.” Do I know exactly how one might use podcast equipment to cheat? Not really. But that doesn’t matter.

Using the DKC’s Canva template for the workshops, I created this graphic:

On to the video! I wrote up a script and rough storyboard. Using my skills of persuasion (see: coercion), I convinced some of my fellow DKC consultants to star in my production. Katy played a cheating student (typical) and Angela channeled her best teaching energy. Katy even graciously accompanied me downstairs to the big and scary HCC info desk to check out equipment for the first time.

The recording went pretty smoothly, especially considering I haven’t used a DSLR is years and I didn’t know much to begin with. The tripod gave me a bit of trouble (is there an easy way to make sure all the legs are adjusted to the same height?), but it was a lot of fun; I felt so professional using such nice equipment.

For the audio I wanted to utilize my new podcast training–plus it’d be on brand for the graphic–but I was convinced to try something new and learn how to use the mic packs from the HCC audio kits. It turned out to be really easy: I plugged the receiver into my phone and used the Voice Memos app, then just talked into the handheld mic.

I’m glad I decided to use the audio kit, but I’m still anxiously awaiting an opportunity to record using the podcast studio.

Below is the final product! Enjoy!

I created my own sites@umw. Here is the link to My Sample Site. I chose to theme the website as if it were just an example to be used to model sites@umw to someone who doesn’t know what it is.

I would explain the difference between sites@umw and domain of one’s own as such: sites@umw is a much simpler way to web build. If DoOO is a plot of land, than sites@umw is renting an apartment. The URL is connected to UMW, but you can utilize it for (almost) whatever you want.

Sites@umw has less freedom when it comes to themes and customization, but it’s a little more user-friendly and intuitive than DoOO.