Well, today was a pretty nice waste of time. Spending 5 hours in the middle of a Florida afternoon at a nice, comfortable temperature of 99 degrees with a comfortable humidity of nearly 100% – yeah, lots of fun. And to top it off, we never got the robot working (though we came close). So….now I’m a nice shade of red – an ouchie type of red.
Lots and lots and lots of improvements and additions. User login is back, and those who registered at my old site should be able to sign in under their old names (make sure you sign in using your username as all lowercase). I couldn’t import everything, so you might want to update your info after you sign in. Forums are back too, as is the Compiler Tutorial. Have fun!
The neural network stuff that Daniel has written for the robot looks awesome! I’m doing some last minute tweaking of the code, but for all intents and purposes, the robot is ready to do full-scale testing. I took a look at the design report and it looks first class. On a side note, I created some more Project pages. I also uploaded an FTP Chmod utility I wrote this past spring break.
I posted my old Compiler Tutorial after somebody notified me that my old site got hacked. Oh well, such is life. Speaking of life, I have my first Calc III exam tomorrow. Guess I better go study for it…
Today I did dishes, laundry, cooking, and all that other good housecleaning stuff. Then I went to robotics and cleaned up a bunch of old code. Then I did a bunch of nothings for a while. I also struggled with some wxWidget’s sizers and scrollbars and finally wound up doing it all myself manually. GUI toolkits are supposed to make things easier, not harder! Oh well…
After spending hours trying to figure out why I only got the first GPS point when the robot moved around, it turns out that a filter was on, filtering out all “bad” GPS points. However, it thought ALL the GPS points I was getting were bad. Once the filter was turned off, things started to work much better.
Today was my first day working for ISL. One thing I know: I’ll sure learn how to operate Linux a lot better! No nasty “general protection faults.” Instead, you get “segmentation faults.” Except the Windows version gives you more (often useless) information. Whatever…
Today we tried to test the robot, but the typical summer Florida weather didn’t cooperate and it rained before I got too much testing done. So while it rained, I fixed some stuff and played around with it inside. Later in the evening, it stopped halfway out the door and we couldn’t get it started agian. After an hour of the electronics guys debugging (or whatever you call it for hardware), it was a simple lever that got pushed. Oh well…better luck tomorrow after church.
Somehow our Physics II lab TA thinks that we should know everything before we perform the lab, so we had a quiz right off. I had like 30 seconds to review the lab manual to study. After getting the quiz, I guessed on the first question, made up an explanation, left half of the second question blank, and had absolutely no idea on the third question. So I made up a reasonable equation and used it. To my utter surprise, it was right! So I got a 28 out of 30!
Today I played a a set of tennis with some of my friends. Since I haven’t played since like Novemeber, I wasn’t very good, but I was surprised that I hadn’t lost everything I learned. I also attended a lecture from a professor visiting from France on Context Based Reasoning. Sort of interesting. However, the highlight was UCF Robotics. Today I coded finished tying all the lose ends together and the software for the robot is essentially done! Time to start testing!!!
Exciting stuff! I’m tying all the loose ends around the code for the robot. Hopefully this weekend we can take it out and see how it performs! Also, I got an Linux account at ISL. First thing I did was change it to make it look like Windows XP <Grin>. And my Physics II quiz was either really easy or a trick question. Hopefully really easy.
Just another day as a student. Classes to attend, meetings to go to, study groups to meet, clubs to particpate in, youth groups to visit, etc. It hasn’t even been an entire week yet (only 3 days!) and I already have my first quiz in Physics II…ah, the joys of academics.
Wow, what a day. First I locked my keys in my appartment 35 minutes before class. After deciding to hike the mile or two to school, I was picked up by a kind friend (Enrique) and made it in time. Then I discovered that my right ear got really sunburned and is flaking. Finally, UCF Robotics is kicking up as we only have another month before competition and I’m having to put in lots more time.
Today I started summer classes: Calc II and Physics II. Back in the grind of things. My teachers seem to be pretty good so far. Oh, and if you’d like to get your hands on a free copy of MS Visual BASIC.NET, you can – by watching and rating 5 short (5-10 minute) videos on using VB.NET.
Today I got back to UCF for my summer courses that start tomorrow. I had a great break and my Dad and I managed to put up about 25% of the walls for the barn. It’s sloooow going without the right tools (using metal snippers to cut sheet metal and such). Now I’ve got to prepare for the heavy mental work…<sigh>…
I don’t know about you, but barn raising is hard work. Today we drilled the concrete foundation and put tapcons in them (funny-looking blue screws). We kept hitting rocks in the concrete and slagging the drill bits.
Today the barn raising began. My dad and I are building a small barn (with an office). We cut lines in the foundation and measured & cut the channels for the walls.