Sunday, August 7, 2005

Time of post: 2:18 AM

Hey everyone. How are you all doing? I'm doing good. I'm now home from Stevens as of yesterday (Friday). I had a really good time there and even won a couple of awards ^_^ Our team's robot came in third in the overall standings for the four tracks. It was weird though because the night before the race, not one other team could complete all four tracks and then suddenly, four other teams actually started doing good. Oh well, because we did win the relay ^_^

For the relay, we paired up with another team and had to run tracks two and three. The first team had to do track two, stop at the end, and send an infrared signal to the second team. The second team (us in this case) had to listen for that infrared signal and then start moving when it was received. It wasn't exactly easy but we managed to pull it off. And only one set of teams other than us managed to qualify (but we were about a minute and a half faster than them).

Anyway, Andrew (from Pennsylvania) came the day I got back. Our moms are going to Maine for about 10 days so he'll be spending that time here. It should be fun ^_^

Today, we went to Sara's (one of my mom's students and someone who went on the Italy trip) house to go swimming and we also watched Anchorman. I still say this movie isn't as great as people said it was.

So, that's about it for me. Thanks for reading and have a great day!

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Friday, August 5, 2005

Time of post: 12:34 AM

Hey everyone. Today was actually really good. There were no labs or anything of that sort to do today. When we woke up, it was breakfast and then on the bus for our second site visit. This one was sort of out of the blue because the company we were originally supposed to visit today backed out.

It just so happened that the father of one of the people on this trip set up a visit at his work. The best part of this was that he worked at a military base. So, we went to Fort Monmouth, NJ to learn about the communications systems of the military. This was actually really interesting and we got to see some things we would not have otherwise had the chance to see. They had this really cool tent which was designed to keep a constant temperature inside for the equipment in it. It was really nice inside seeing as it was an air conditioned tent ^_^

After that, we came back and had our robot races. My team won the relay race but did not win in the overall standings. As of last night, it appeared that our robot was unbeatable because almost none of the other teams could even complete one track. Today was another story. Magically, four teams started doing really good which was not so good for us. Also, our robot was sabotaged (someone deleted my program from it so it wouldn't run). Luckily, I had backed up the programs so that was very easy to fix. We did decent, I think around 4th or 5th place out of 14.

Following the race, we went on a cruise around Manhattan. We had dinner on the boat which was pretty good. I went up on top for a little while at the beginning and then had dinner. For the rest of the cruise, I just sort of hung out on the back of the boat looking at the city and talking to a bunch of people. It was definitely a nice way to end this program.

So, that's really about all for me today. Thanks for reading and have a great day!

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Thursday, August 4, 2005

Time of post: 12:09 AM

Hey everyone. Sorry once again for not posting yesterday. I was trying to help someone fix her computer for a while last night and didn't get the chance to post. There wasn't all too much to report on anyway.

Today was good though. For our morning lab, we had to design an ice cream shop that would satisfy the laws of Systems Engineering (ie: making the customers happy). It was actually more fun than I thought it would be.

For the afternoon, we had one final day in the lab to finish our racing robots. Seeing as ours was almost done, I made some minor adjustments to the programs to compensate for the change in voltage (we put in new batteries) and we then spent the next two or so hours running test run after test run. We also went back at night for a few hours continuing our tweaks and running even more test runs. We can now successfully, and consistently run all four tracks without a problem ^_^

So, that's really about all from me tonight. I'll be back home Friday for anyone that's wondering. Anyway, have a great day!

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Tuesday, August 2, 2005

Time of post: 12:33 AM

Hey everyone. Sorry about not posting yesterday but there really wasn't much to report on. That day was spent at Six Flags and that was pretty much it. It was fun though.

Anyway, today was actually really good. The lab we did in the morning was boring but the design project meeting in the afternoon was a lot of fun.

Not much else went on today though. Not that that's a bad thing. I did play a little Guild Wars with Duo just now which was fun. I messed up the bonus so we'll have to do that mission over again though... Oh well, it's not too hard ^_^

Anyway, I should really be going. Have a great day!

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Sunday, July 31, 2005

Time of post: 12:04 AM

Hey everyone. Today was fun. We went to New York again (this was the second time in this program) to visit the Intrepid museum. It was pretty awesome standing on a boat that huge (it is an aircraft carrier after all ^_^).

Oh, and I got screen shots of the 3D designs I made. I finally finished the cannon so you'll see two completed designs.


Rook (Click to enlarge)


Cannon (Click to enlarge)

So, those are them. The rook took my partner and me about an hour and a half (which included completing the tutorial and learning the software). The cannon took a lot longer. I'm not sure how long exactly but it was a few hours spread over a couple of days.

Oh, and sorry for not posting yesterday. That's really about it for me tonight. Have a great day!

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Friday, July 29, 2005

Time of post: 12:06 AM

Hey everyone. Today wasn't bad. We had our second Design Project meeting this morning. It was going well for a while. I was writing the program to make our second robot track the edge of a line and was almost done when I found out that I wasn't coding for the right type of engine set up. Usually, there's one engine for each back wheel. In this one, there was one engine that controlled both of the back wheels. Oh well, a bit of wasted time for me but I did get some ideas for the real program.

Later on, we had a talent show thing which was pretty fun to watch. That's really all we did to today though. After the talent show, I just went and hung out in the lounge-like room for a couple of hours.

So, that's really about it for today. Thanks for reading and have a great day!

P.S. There may be a slight chance that I'll have some myO time on the weekend as the schedule does not look as packed.

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Thursday, July 28, 2005

Time of post: 12:21 AM

Hey everyone. Today (well technically yesterday according to the date), was my brother's birthday so happy birthday to him. He's 13 now.

Today was actually really fun. Our first lab of the day consisted of us learning and then using some 3D object creation software. My partner and I made a rook (you know, the chess piece) as well as learned how to use the program and finished the tutorials in an hour and a half. The rook actually came out looking really good too ^_^

Since we had an hour and a half of extra time, we also started work on making an old style cannon. We got really far but ran out of time. We're gong to try to finish it at some point in the next week.

To make it even better though, it's not just a 3D image that we see. Once it's done, the professor took the saved files and they're actually going to be made with a prototyping machine so that should be cool. It takes about 12 hours per figure to make though.

In the second lab, we used Lego Mindstorms to create a robot that would follow a path on the floor. This was the introduction to our week long design project. This was pretty fun too but not as cool as the 3D object thing. I'll try to get screen shots of our creations at some point.

Later on at night, I went down to the campus bowling alley (remember, I'm at Stevens Institute) for a couple games. So over all, this entire day was fun ^_^

Anyway, that's about all for today. Thanks for reading, sorry I couldn't visit, and have a great day!

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Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Time of post: 1:11 AM

Hey everyone. Today was pretty good. I woke up pretty tired because I wasn't able to fall asleep until pretty late last night. It wasn't too bad though because I woke up quick enough.

Our first lab today (for those of you who don't know, I'm at a summer program. See yesterday's post.) was a physics one where we got to mess around with diffraction and refraction of white and laser light.

After that, we had about two hours of time to ourselves. It was about a half hour until lunch and then about an hour and a half for lunch. Next was the Computer Science lab.

This really wasn't a lab at all. We just sat in a room for three hours and listened to people talk. I was practically falling asleep in my chair. Luckily though, they brought snacks and drinks for us (some fruit, chips, soda, and water) so that was good. Overall though, it was a pretty boring three hours. Don't get me wrong, there was some interesting things mentioned, it just didn't need to take that long.

Anyway, after that, we were basically free for the rest of the day so I got some games of pool in. I'm not used to playing with these wooden sticks since I've been using the good sticks at Jesse's house though ^_^

I also got some Guild Wars time. I started a new character to go through Pre-Searing with Duo and we did a few quests. It was mainly the getting started, welcome to the game stuff.

Well, that's about all for tonight. Thanks for reading and have a great day!

P.S. Sorry about not visiting. I probably won't have too much time to do it until next (not this coming) Friday. I know I had free time today but I was out of my room for almost all of it.

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Monday, July 25, 2005

Time of post: 12:08 AM

Hey everyone. I'm actually at Stevens Institute of Technology right now for a summer program here. I'll be here for the next two weeks. It's been good so far.

Today was the first day. We had a campus tour and the standard introduction stuff. Later on, we ended up having a pizza party to get to know each other which was fun.

After that (and about an hour and a half later), we met with our RAs (Resident Assistants) to get to know our groups better. It ended up being more fun than I thought it would be.

Anyway, that's really all I have for tonight. Sorry about not posting over the last couple of days though. I just didn't get a chance. Well, have a great day!

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Friday, July 22, 2005

Time of post: 1:37 AM

Hey everyone. Today has been good. I woke up around 1 PM which was about a half hour after Jesse. When we were both awake enough, we headed over to the restaurant for some General Tso's Chicken (Thursday special ^_^). That's always great.

Then, we went back to his house and played Guild Wars for most of the day. We just formed a party with some random people from online and explored the world. So, that was fun ^^

Then, we played a bit of pool. No shut out today but we still had a good time. We also did a little better than last time.

After that, we went to his brother's baseball game. It was very close until the 6th (and last because it's little league) inning when our team (being my town's, not actually mine) scored 8 runs to put us ahead by 10. The final score was 14-4, us ^_^ It was a long game but it wasn't as boring as I expected.

And that's really about it for tonight. Have a great day!

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