Tim's Blog

I have been really really busy lately. I only have 3 weeks left, and the robot that I am writing software for is not done yet. Somehow I ended up writing all the code for the robot. I wrote the microprocessor’s code, the internal computer’s code and now I am working on the controlling computer’s code. Each component is in a different language, Basic, C and Java. All the parts work individually, and they are all communicating properly to their neighboors, but once we flip the switch, there will be lots and lots of debugging.

Of course when the robot does not work, it will be my fault. I learned today that we are demoing the robot a week from tomorrow, and we have yet to turn it on. It is going to be a really busy week. I feel kind of bad for the TRC. I agreed to be webmaster of TitanRobotics.Net, and so far I have done effectively nothing.

Two weekends ago, the robotics interns went to visit Carnegie Mellon University. We left on Saturday morning, and after a long ride (in a nice tour bus) we arrived at our hotel. We dropped our stuff off and went on a quick tour of the surrounding city. It is a really bleak city. Like most of the places here on the east coast, there are no mountains on the skyline. Just lots of buildings. The next day, we got to visit the robotics labs at Carnegie Mellon. They have some of the nicest machine shops dedicated to robotics that I have ever seen. One of the highlights was being able to see the Red Team. The Red Team is run by Red Whitticar (sp?), and is one of the major competitors entering this year’s DARPA grand challenge. Both of their vehicles were out for testing/repairs, but we got to see some of the components of their vehicles. The coolest part was the mechanical stabilization device they have for their main camera. It has a platform that keeps the camera stable along 3 axis (roll, pitch and yaw). It was a very impressive piece of hardware.

This weekend, some of the robotics interns went to New York city on a sight-seeing adventure. We left early Saturday morning and drove up to the city. We spent some time in Central Park. I climbed a tree, which I have been aching to do. Then we went on the Staten Island ferry to look at the view from the water. We stayed at Embassy Suites, so we had really nice rooms, and a free breakfast. Today we saw the Broadway show The Producers. It was an extremely entertaining play. After the play some people went to the Empire State Building, but it was cloudy so some of us opted to go the Church of Scientology. I had received a pamphlet from someone on the street, so I had to go. It was an interesting experience, we learned about how the mind works and all. I was really hoping that I could sign up and become a card carrying Scientologist, but we ran out of time. The trip was definitely worth the money it cost.

Work just keeps on going. Currently I am working on programming an OOPic to act as a middle-man between a PC and a motor controller. The OOPic is a pretty fun microprocessor to program, it has lots of built in objects that make it easy to do some things, but really hard to do anything else. The down side is that it is programmed in basic, well almost, actually it’s a programming language that they made up.

I went into DC on July 4th with Ryan and Scott, who were in the area after their bike tour was prematurely ended. We saw the fireworks from directly in front of the Washington Monument. Unfortunately, the fireworks were being shot off from the opposite side of the monument, so we didn’t have the best view.

I am missing the outdoors, I have had enough of the city for a while. I could really use a backpacking trip right about now.