I've started the process of drafting curriculum for electrical engineering classes, though I probably won't even offer those classes for another year at the soonest. The only reason I'm bothering to draft the curriculum now is that I'm also creating my own manual for designing machines that run on our standardized electrical grid. It might slow me down a small amount to work on the curriculum in parallel, but it saves me a lot of time in the future when I'd need to refresh myself on the specifics of what I'm working on.

For example, in addition to the portions of grid integration and control that I'm working on, like transformer based substations, I'm also having to design the standardized electrical pumps for keeping the mine clear of water. Right now, all the information is in the front of my mind as to how the grid as a whole is meant to operate, and how I should size electric motors to utilize the grid's frequency. In a year, I'd likely need to look up the various technical details of power plant designs to calculate everything if I wasn't writing it down in a manual. The manual will then work as a guideline for the introductory class, so I'm writing it with that in mind.

I'm not on quite as strict of a deadline this time for completing my design work, so I'm also prioritizing some of the students of interest this year. It'd be detrimental if we didn't hire some of them on to pursue further development. This is, of course, only really applicable to the dwarves right now, as we still haven't really seen any recruiters from the dwarven continent trying to recruit any demons. In that regard, the fact that people on the mainland aren't comfortable around demons acts as a benefit to us, though that also leads to friction between countries so it's only a silver lining.

While there aren't any recruiters actually on Drazvok trying to recruit anyone, my understanding is that over breaks, there is some amount of jockeying going on between governmental entities on the dwarven mainland to recruit individuals who show promise. While that does lead to some competition, there actually isn't much overlap with who I'm interested in. That is because I'm focused on hiring on people who I perceive as having the potential to develop new technology, and the dwarves are more focused on utilizing existing technology and hiring on skilled social managers. There is more overlap in potential recruits between the dwarven studies department and the mainland, however.

I've pretty much got my whole year planned out at this point, with a pretty good idea of what next year will look like as well. This year I'll largely be working on electrical designs for the first half of the year, and then I intend to work on printing press design in the second half. After that, I'm going to start work on the design for an arc furnace, then I may finally be able to work on the design for a reflector telescope. Intermittently with that I'll also have to keep monitoring our clubs and handling classes and students.

I also have the vote for what to do with our upcoming large crystal. After talking with Zeb, I think we can dedicate some amount of labor to developing our third island using this crystal. The reason being that in addition to having more construction teams thanks to population growth, he talked with some of the dwarves on the island, and was able to build up some support from them to also participate in the construction and settling of the island.

Since the land would need to be terraformed with terraces for effective farming, dwarven block cutting is more efficient for the terraforming process than stoneshaping. A large amount of the labor needed is also just physical labor involving the movement of dirt. Some amount of work will still need to be done for building out artificial tidepools and other buildings that benefit from the precision of stoneshaping over building with blocks, but ultimately we agreed that it'd be possible and is a good strategic choice.

I think I've made some good inroads this semester with the students that I'd like to hire, save for the younger of the Karnosk brothers. His older brother has been working hard on the mainland and it seems like they've gotten some kind of funding from Kao's government to do some kind of developmental work there on new tool production methods, so I may have spoken too soon about not having competition for graduates.

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I've officially renamed the self-propelled wagon club to the automobile club, for brevity's sake. They've made enough progress that I've started to offer them additional supplies for their design and research, and have set up higher goals for them beyond just making it work. For example, at the end of each year, they're expected to compete the previous year's model against a new model from the current year on a series of tracks that I've commissioned the construction of around Drazvok meant to emulate conditions you'd find on the dwarven continent. After a few years of design improvements, I'd wager that the first round of vehicles will be ready for mass production.

The previous head of the self-propelled wagon club has been doing a good job of organizing the club as a whole without overriding the student's creative process as well. His assistance has given me a lot of freedom to simply make such large scale decisions without having to worry about handling all the details myself like designing the courses for testing performance.

I unfortunately wasn't able to convince Zentoo to pursue research into new types of fluorite, but I at least brought him around to the idea of researching the precise properties of known safe types. For example, we actually don't have any precise data on the exact ratio of impurities we should add to fluorite or what exact equations govern their fundamental behavior. I have some empirical equations describing some behaviors, but not at a more fundamental level. That sort of fundamental understanding could lead to improved performance of the crystals themselves, might unlock new production methods, or could lead to even more fundamental changes in the way we handle fluorite as a whole.

Beyond Zentoo though, I have a few other students who I'm aiming to hire, and I think I'm making good impressions on. There is a dwarf who has shown a lot of interest in aquaculture and our artificial tide pools. I'd like to hire them on to do studies related to how the tidepools affect the greater ecosystems around our islands, while also precisely documenting the species around our islands. It's hard to say how long their studies might last, but it's exactly the kind of data collection I'd love to have.

There is another dwarf who has changed clubs every year, circulating around science and engineering clubs. While they do seem to have some amount of issues with committing to any particular project for an extended period of time, they've made decent contributions to each club while they were in them. They seem like the kind of individual who would be useful as someone who could make evaluations and observations across industries, and potentially make efficiency improvements based on those cross-discipline observations. The contract that we've agreed to is a short two-year contract initially with the intention of drafting a new one later if they perform well and like the work.

I've managed to draft up the designs to hand off to Zeb for the electrically powered pumps, and I'll also need to talk with him about how to handle the construction and safety for transformers, since they'll need good electrical isolation for operational effectiveness and safety. If it wasn't for the amount of effort that they have to go through to build the infrastructure to support an electrical grid, I'd already be working on designs for an arc furnace, but it'll be a few years yet before the grid would even be able to support one.

After some further debate, we did ultimately decide to install the mana crystal on our third island, and begin the process of colonizing it. The deciding factor actually came from information from the mainland about the trade value of fish in the inland cities. The idea is that we'll utilize freezers to transport fish from our islands to the dwarven capital as a trade good. High quality fish in their capital at a relatively cheap price may inspire other dwarven nobles to decide that they want railways brought to their cities as well.

Unlike ore, salt, or other commodities that the dwarves can make themselves or transport the old fashioned way, our railway plus freezers would be the only way to get non-preserved fish inland. Sometimes appealing to the baser instincts is better than trying to appeal to a vague sense of improvement.

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