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October 04, 2004
What's going on this term?
What's going on this term in CSCS? The plan is to have a rotating, 3-week schedule; each cycle will include
- A mini-lecture and play time,
- A whole evening of play time, and
- A talk.
On the first week of a cycle, we'll introduce a challenge or two for you to undertake with the LEGO Mindstorms, and some programming tips that will help you work your way through the challenge. The second week is pure play time, and that will give you time to explore the ideas more fully without us talking at you. On the third week, we'll have faculty from the Computing Laboratory coming in to talk about their research---something which you, as undergrads, typically don't get a chance to hear. Our lineup for this term includes:
- Nick Ryan talking about ubicomp and wireless gadgets,
- Ian Marshall speaking on biologically-inspired robotic control, and
- Peter Rogers talking about the whizzy work he does with graph drawing.
If these are anything like the talks we had last year, they should be enjoyable and thought-provoking.
The Mindstorms work should, if all goes well, end with an open competition that we'll do some media spinwork on, and that should be a nice way to cap off some fun explorations in playing with these little LEGO robots.
Our goal is to build up to a point where we can tackle the larger robots we've purchased this summer for use in CSCS. These larger bots have ultrasonic rangefinders, a video camera, compass, touch sensors, WiFi, and a lot of computational power (32MB of RAM, 64MB of flash, 128MB of SD for storage, and a 200MHz processor) for robots their size. These bots all need to be built, so that will be a project we expect (some/all) CSCS will get involved in as we roll into the next term.
We've got space and kit for a few more bodies; this year is going to be an experiment for all involved, but we learned quite a bit after last year---we (Brad, Christian, myself) are excited to see what comes of it, and hope that you enjoy it as well. By all means, tell us if you're not!
So, for those of you who were there last Tuesday, keep your eyes out for anyone else who wants to be on the cutting edge and help us explore the use of some fun toys here in the department.
Posted by mjadud at October 4, 2004 05:01 PM