Notes from JB at Cornell for AUV

That's a good explanation. They're essentially "averages" of pixel intensities over a specified region that can be combined in certain ways to obtain useful information. Unfortunately, it's math that you probably won't see until a college multivariable calculus course, hence my recommendation to use something like OpenCV instead of implementing it from scratch. Almost all of the teams competing last year used OpenCV in one way or another for their vision systems.

JB

On 11/15/2010 12:09 PM, Garcia-Acosta, Marcos wrote:
Fredi,



Moments are averages, pure math ; ) one more reason the younger people should pay attention to math ; )

Open cv is an open source set of functions, maintained by willow garage, the robot makers.



Cheers and keep up the work.



From: JB Rajsky [mailto:jbr85@cornell.edu]
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 8:55 AM
To: Faridodin Lajvardi
Cc: John Rangel; John Harris; ken whitley; John Ayala; Garcia-Acosta, Marcos; chaudhari@phxhs.k12.az.us
Subject: Re: Problem Aligning Ourselves With The Orange Marker



Hello Fredi,

I have some answers:

1) A bounding box is a rectangular box around a set of points, usually one that attempts to minimize its area while enclosing all of the points.

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_moment

You can do all sorts of cool things with images moments (e.g. calculate angles, mass, and location; use them as a feature set for object recognition; etc.). Any decent vision library (like OpenCV) should have all sorts of built-in image moment functions.

3) You can see most of the mission elements in TRANSDEC, but it's really hard to dead reckon the course without some sort of position measurement from a DVL. There's also a significant amount of metal in TRANSDEC which can adversely affect your compass readings, so I'd recommend incorporating an inertial measurement unit (IMU) into your vehicle. These sensors measure acceleration and rotation rate so you can somewhat reliably filter out magnetic distortion in the compass.

4) A controller is something that tries to match desired values (such as heading, pitch, depth, speed, etc.) to measurements from your sensors, so it would be very different from vision. You would essentially have your mission and vision code running separately from the controller and setting desired values that the controller would then try to reach ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controller_(control_theory)). To communicate among various running programs, we've developed a custom Shared Memory system based on standardized POSIX libraries that allows us to create variables that all of the programs can read and write to. This could also be done, in theory, with some sort of SQL database (we've considered trying it, but our current system works really well) or a proprietary system (I believe there's something called Microsoft Robotics Studio that does something like this).

JB

On 11/14/2010 03:43 PM, Faridodin Lajvardi wrote:

JB

Here is a video of progress so far with the vsion code
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy2BB5atcF0&feature=player_embedded

also our webpage with updates on our AUV
http://falconroboticsteam842.org/AUVSI.aspx

I have several questions.
1. what is a bounding box, is that the box we are creating now?
2. what are image moments- I have been hounding the programmers that they need to have a - and + slope so they can properly adjust the AUVs heading, they claim they don't need it. But I see by your answer I was right.
3. During the mission how accurately do you know where the placement of the mission props are. Can you use a compass heading and depth to get where you want go without the vision?
4. You suggested writng a controller, is this another program that get input from the vision code or program? Would this be on a separate thread from the vision code? We are getting ready to make a test bed that is basically a computer with the compass and some motor controllers set up on a little table that we can roll around the hallways. The idea is to test our "controller" or driving program to see if we can follow a set of lines, using heading and our vision to adjust, much like the guide lines setup in the mission senario. Obviously we won't have depth yet. what do you think? Also how do you get data from one program into another program like meshing the controller program and the vision program?

some of these questions may be not needed by my programmers, but I am making sure I understand, because if I do, they will......


Faridodin "Fredi" Lajvardi KD7WKD
480-266-9929 cell phone
Home Phone 480-813-2475
Carl Hayden Community High School
602-764-3000, ext 60233
3333 W. Roosevelt
Phoenix Arizona 85009





"To create a world where science and technology are celebrated... where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes"

Dean Kamen, Founder of FIRST



Center For Marine Science Program Director
Falcon Robotics Team Sponsor, US FIRST ROBOTICS Team 842
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Thank you and have a great day!
Websites with projects we are involved with:
Carl hayden High School Robotics team webpage
http://www.phxhs.k12.az.us/education/club/club.php?sectionid=3670
National Underwater Robotics Challenge website
www.h2orobots.org
FIRST Tech Challenge for Arizona
http://azfirsttech.org/default.aspx
Arizona Promoters of Applied Science in Education
http://apaseplace.org/default.aspx
Arizona FIRST Lego League
http://azlego.googlepages.com/
FIRST AZ
http://firstaz.org/default.aspx












--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2010 13:05:32 -0700
Subject: Fwd: Problem Aligning Ourselves With The Orange Marker
From: johnrangel842@gmail.com
To: ke7jlm@gmail.com; coachfredi@gmail.com




---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: JB Rajsky
Date: Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 8:43 PM
Subject: Re: Problem Aligning Ourselves With The Orange Marker
To: "John Rangel(kf7fdb)"


Hello John,

Something to note is that if you follow pipes in order, they should never be rotated more than 90 degrees, so this helps with direction. I'd recommend fitting a bounding box around the rectangle and then using image moments to calculate the angle--this should give you +/- angles. Lastly, I don't think you want the vision code to directly control the heading of the vehicle. I'd suggest writing a controller that uses your sensors to maintain a desired heading, depth, speed, etc., and having the vision code set desired heading, for example. This will allow for much easier testing and debugging than controlling motors in vision.

JB



On 11/12/2010 06:29 PM, John Rangel(kf7fdb) wrote:

Hey jb, I have a question about how you guys aligned yourselves with the orange marker. How did you guys do it because the way we are planning to do it is with a combination of our compass and vision. On our vision code, the way we are detecting orientation is by getting the two top points of the rectangle and then calculate the slope of those two points. However, one thing we found in our program is that when you rotate the camera, the points change. We found that it is because the way we are getting our points is by least to greatest on the x-axis. This is not helpful for us because we do not get a negative slope and therefor do not know which direction to tell our robot to turn. One theory we had was to use the compass to get the general idea of of which direction to go for example North. Then we would see if the compass is facing and would use that to tell the robot which direction to rotate. Then we would continue rotating until the slope we are getting = 0. We are not sure if this is the best way to do it. What do you think.

--
John Rangel
KF7FDB
Programmer for the Falcon Robotics Team




--
John Rangel
KF7FDB
Programmer for the Falcon Robotics Team

AUV Vision code so far

Battery box with layers

Electronics housing for AUVSI

AUV battery box for AUVSI

Autobot in Costa Rica!

Falcon Robotics built and shipped an autonomous robot using an Andymark Chassis to Costa Rica Intel to foster a robotics program there. Here are some responses from the people in Costa Rica

Purpose:
·         Show Intel’s interest in promoting Costa Rica’s development through technical education with the use of robotics.
·         Announce Intel’s 2011 Robotics Boot Camp and get applications from students and teachers for enrollment.

1^st Day (October 19):
·         After an outstanding collaboration and logistics effort by the Arizona and Costa Rica teams, the robot made it on time for the opening ceremony at Expo Ingenieria 2010. Many thanks to all of those involved:

o   Marcos Garcia-Acosta (Intel, Arizona)

o   Max Ramirez (Intel, Costa Rica)

o   Carmen Cornejo (Critical Mass Communications)

o   Fredi Lajvardi (Professor, Carl Hayden Community High School)

o   Students at Carl Hayden Community High School.

o   Reina Aguilar (Intel, Costa Rica)

o   Luis Castro (Intel, Costa Rica)

o   Sebastian Jimenez (Intel, Costa Rica)

o   Mary Helen Bialas (Intel, Costa Rica)

Although the robot had no active role during the ceremony it was placed on stage with the Fair’s distinguished visitors: Fernando Bogantes (MOE Director of Technical Education), Shelly Esque (VP Corporate Affairs Group, Intel), Mario Mora Quirós (representing the Minister of Education), Clotilde Fonseca (Minister of Science and Technology), and Mike Forrest (Intel Costa Rica Site Manager).
·         The robot was a great attention grabber for students and visitors alike both before and after the opening ceremony.

2^nd Day (October 20):
·         This was judging day for all of the participating students, but in their off-times they wandered all over the place and made it to our stand. We ran out of application sheets from students and teachers that came by.
·         After the presentation and a Q&A session the teachers had a chance to play with the robot and look up close how it was built. Most of the concerns from them had to do with buying an Atom processor or any of the other parts. They were also concerned with closed solutions that made them buy a more elaborate part that would be too expensive for their schools. Nevertheless, the response was very positive and most of them filled their applications to participate in the Boot Camp.



Applications: Some Statistics:
·         82 attendees applied for the Robotics Boot Camp.
·         They come from 24 Technical High Schools all over the country, 21 of them are out of the great metropolitan area were Intel is located.
·         47 of the applicants are students, 29 teachers, and the remaining 6 are mentors or MOE advisors for technical education.
·         Most of the students are boys (38), while only 9 of them are girls.
·         Except for a student (Luis Leon Vega, winner at the Fair) and his mentor, none of the applicants have participated in any kind of robotics competition with a project of their own.


Challenges Moving Ahead:
·         Technical High Schools have had little engagement with robotics. This is a great opportunity to position Intel as a trusted advisor with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology.
·         Although experience with robotics is low, all of these students and teachers are involved in electronics, mechanics, computer science, or a combination of them. The topics in the Robotics Boot Camp have to be tailored so they can bridge their separate skills into a single common knowledge related to the robot as a system.

·         Most participants are from out of the great metropolitan area, so possible transportation, and room and board would have to be considered as part of the Robotics Boot Camp.

Falcon Robotics in DC day 5

Falcon Robotics in DC Day 5

You know how sometimes things just don’t go right. This was one of those days. We arrived one hour prior to the presentation to find that we were missing the HDMI cable we need to get the computer up and running on the EVROV. We googled the nearest Radio Shack and we went on a 1/3 mile jaunt to get one, along with $50.00. We returned but now with enough time to set up the system. It was time to take the EVROV and the 3-D viewing system to the stage. We tried to get the system online on stage but to no avail....We went ahead with the presentation without the capability of demonstrating the robot. The 3-D viewing system was working fine so we at least had this going for us. We were a little discombobulated and what we had planned for the presentation was not going as we had planned. There were about 30 to 40 people in the crowd with little children. After our time was up we cleared to the backstage area to pack what we could.

It went pretty well for what we had but we felt disappointed. Oh well if there is one we have learned in all the things we have been through it is to be tough and keep going. We did.
Mrs. Palmares said that she watched the presentation and though it went well. The kids were engaged and they loved seeing themselves in 3-D.

After the presentation we decided to do just a little more sight seeing before heading back to the hotel. We went to the White House. I have bee there before when I was a little kid, but no one else on the team has. I noticed a big difference. There was the street in front of the house that was blocked off, the secret service and police that were everywhere including the top of the White House. Even the black steel bars in front had a mesh material covering it. After 9-11 it looks like the country is in a state of war.

Any way its been a long time away from home and now its time to get back. We all miss our families. Thanks for following us on this great trip. We have a large number of pics and we hope you get to enjoy them.

Falcon Robotics in DC day 4

Falcon Robotics in DC day 4
Well...where to begin... we started off in the morning just like the other three days. Met in the lobby to take the shuttle to the Metro station. Today we took the Metro almost to the furthest end of the line to a station called Foggy Bottom, we were on our way to the Lincoln Memorial. At this time I would like to go on record that the name Foggy Bottom is really cool. I felt like we were going to someplace in a Harry Potter story. Once we got off at Foggy Bottom we headed for about a 3/4 mile walk to the Lincoln Memorial. It was very dramatic see the memorial come into view as we approached it. The building makes a strong outline against the sky. The white building with the deep blue sky is a very dramatic image. It was awe inspiring to know all the historical events that have taken place at this monument, like Martin Luther King Jr.’s I have a Dream Speech. I actually got to see the engraved marker that shows where Dr. King stood when he gave his speech. I stood there and looked out over what he might have looked over and I saw the Washington Monument and the Capitol. It was great! I then turned around to see the steps leading up to where President Lincoln was siting.

There were a ton on people taking pictures in front on Lincoln. I walked over to the inscription on the wall where his famous Gettysburg address started and the team followed me. We sat on the floor and leaned back to read the inscription thoroughly. After reading the first wall, we walked over to the other side and read the rest of the speech. Of course we then stood in front of Lincoln and took the obligatory picture.

The Vietnam Memorial was next. It is a very unusual memorial, it is hard to see from a distance. It is almost just accidentally walked into. It is subtle and drops down below ground level. It is very quite and somber there. You can see veterans staring at the wall with contemplative expressions and you can see people scratching names off the wall by using a piece of paper and and a pencil. There was even a guy there with a ladder to help people reach the top names. It is hard to walk by this memorial and not be affected by it, even though it is probably the most simple monument out there.

We started heading to ward the Science exhibits that were out on the mall. On the way we passed by the World War II Memorial. It was very bold and flashy with lots of water fountains. It was a huge contrast to the Vietnam Memorial. We soon walked passed the Washington Monument and then took a quick detour to check in on where the stage was to see where would be performing on Sunday at 2:00pm. We then continued to head to the Science Exhibits after grabbing a quick hotdog.

We spent a while checking out the exhibits and then headed to the National Museum of Natural History. The kids were surprised that the dinosaurs were not as big as they thought they were going to be. Thank you Hollywood! It was weird to see the kids feel unimpressed as we saw a T-Rex tower over them.

Hunger was setting in so we headed out to grab a quick ice cream sandwich before we started on our 2 mile journey to Ben’s Chilli Bowl. It was a very long walk. It became imperative that the chilli be really good or we were going to be very disappointed. After we were really beaten by the walk, we finally got there. The facade was not impressive and expectations were fading fast. We walked in to a huge line and stuffy heat, but the crowd was upbeat so it sort of balanced out. We thought is must be good if people were here putting up with the lack of modernity, decor, and refreshing air. We got  seated and noticed a poster of President Obama and it was signed by him and it was stated on it that the first place he ate at after the inauguration was Ben’s Chilli Bowl, that helped redeem the restaurant  even more! The true test....the food was just alright, not special, but the tradition and history about the place sells the place.

After stuffing our faces we then headed for the Metro and caught the green line back to the hotel. After a little down time the team got together to go over the presentation for tomorrow. We then ordered Chinese from the Royal Jade and we all laughed at John’s comment that we lived at the Holiday in to the guy on the phone taking the order.

Tomorrow brings us to our main purpose for why we are hear. We will give you one last summary! Stay tuned!

Check out the pics from the link below all the days are being added in one file, newer one to the left.
http://www.cooliris.com/yoursite/express/builder/gallery.php?z=Sv9G37P4u2kn

Falcon Robotics in DC day 3

Pictures added to Gallery from Yesterday


check ealier post for pics



USA Science & Engineering Festival Day 3



Today began with everyone meeting in the lobby and taking the Metro to the nearest exit to the Capitol. Going the see the Capitol is just like getting through security at the airport, but with one other criteria, no food. After having cleared the entrance security we got to see the new tourist lobby. It was beautiful! We saw a great film that gave a brief history about the Capitol and then had a guided tour of some of the main rooms. They don’t let you see the senate or congressional chambers, but we did see the entrance to Nancy Pelosi’s office. The artwork in the rotunda was just fabulous! It was very cool to see the actual portrait of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is bigger than I thought. The dome was very large and very ornate.



After having seen the Capitol, we decided that we had to stop by Senator Dick Durbin’s office for the work on the DREAM Act and for his advocacy of Oscar Vazquez, a former Falcon Robotics team member who was on the team that beat MIT in the underwater competition in 2004. While the senator was not in, we got to meet with some of his senior staff, Joe Zogby Chief Counsel to

Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, and his assistant. It was wonderful to meet people who are very committed and who have been pushing for the DREAM Act for 9 years! Senator Durbin and his office were instrumental in helping Oscar to get back into the U.S. and we wanted to thank them for all their hard work. We were quite surprise that Joe knew who we were by name and knew our whole story. We always tell the kids at Carl Hayden that people all over the U.S. are watching us because of the stuff we are doing and its true! Here is a link to Senator’s Durbin’s webpage with Oscar on it, http://durbin.senate.gov/dream/stories/index2.cfm



After about a half hour of meeting with Durbin’s staff, we decided to visit McCain’s office to mention that we think he should support the DREAM Act. We left a letter with his office to pass on to the senior staff or McCain himself. Following our “civic homework” we decided it was time again to become tourists. We then ate Polish dogs from a hot dog stand. It was good! I know this has been said before, but it bears mentioning every time you do it. Hot dogs always taste really good outside, especially when its windy and chilly!



We went to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. Words cannot describe the feeling of seeing a V-2 Rocket or the Spirit of St. Louis, or the Wright Flyer, or the Apollo capsule, or the Gossamer Condor or even the Brietling Orbiter. It was like walking through an encyclopedia! We saw the astronaut mission photos and found Charles “Pete” Conrad’s picture several times and felt connected to him by having been in the Spirit of Innovation Awards and by knowing Nancy Conrad personally. It was really cool!



All the kids and Mrs. Palmares and I all felt hungry by now and wanted to eat before we had to get back on the Metro to head back to the Hotel. We walked over a mile to get to the middle eastern restaurant we wanted to eat at to find it closed. We then back tracked into China Town to eat at Absolute Tai,a tai restaurant. My dish was good, but some of the kids found it less than desirable. I have a feeling we will be ordering pizza tonight at the hotel.



Our plan for tomorrow is to hit the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial and then head down the mall to see the USA Science & Engineering exhibits. We will also check out our stage area to see if our crates have arrived and are ready for our presentation on Sunday.

Falcon Robotics in DC day 1 & 2

Summary of the first two days in Washing DC for the USA Science & Engineering Festival


The Falcon Robotics team was invited by Lockheed Martin and the Conrad Foundation to show their EVROV, Extra Vehicular Remotely Operated Vehicle, at the festival. The Whole festival will be in several locations with a majority of it being on the mall between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. For info http://www.usasciencefestival.org/



So the trip begins at a bleary eyed 5am at Sky Harbor where we all meet and check in our luggage. We then wander over to security and make our way to the gate. We have about a half an hour before we board the plane so we grab coffee and such to try to get more alert. The plane trip was pretty uneventful except for the fact that there seemed to be a large group of elderly women all wearing princess crowns. They look like there were going to some convention or something and they were loud! It was hard to catch any sleep on the plane due to their exuberance, and their laughter was too much! They were definitely having a good time.



Once we arrive at the Baltimore Washington International Airport, or Thurgood Marshall Airport, we gathered up our luggage and started to determine the best method of travel to get to the hotel. We decided on a bus that would take us to a drop off point where we could then call the hotel shuttle to come pick us up.



At the Hotel we finally met up with Norma who is attending school at Smith College,(Norma, John and David have already graduated and are accompanying Eddie and Bianca courtesy of the Conrad Foundation) and took the Amtrack to meet up with us. We unloaded our baggage and started to search for a place to get a meal. We located a Chinese place within walking distance and made our way there. It was good! We were ready to make our way back to the hotel and plan our attack for the next day. The problem was that there is a three hour time difference and we are on Arizona time. So bed time for us, 10 pm is really 1am DC time.......



The next morning we we all met in the lobby to take the hotel shuttle to the Metro so we can take the train into the heart of the DC area. We arrived at the Metro station and had no clue from the myriad of options on the machines and what payment fee we had to make. After fumbling around for about 10 minutes and not getting much help from anybody we finally figured out what the heck we were supposed to do. You would think we really looked out of place and someone would help but...... maybe they all just liked looking at how “not from here” we looked and were snickering behind our backs.



After making to the exit we decided would get us to the Mall we started to get our bearings with Bianca’s maps and John’s Cell phone with GPS! We found the mall but no sign of any Science & Engineering Festival stuff. We did find were we are to do the presentation on Sunday after taking an unintetional tour of the Mall area and found it was right where we got of the Metro train. That will be very easy for us on Sunday! At this time we got a call from Nancy Conrad, the person in charge of our being here and head of the Conrad Foundation. She mentioned that she was going to be on a panel for a presentation on Competition in Education and would like it if we could find our way there. With John’s trust GPS phone we located the Hyatt and found the conference room that she would be talking in. We were an hour early so we decided to head out to the Spy Museum. On the way out we bumped into Bruce Lintin, Vice President of Planning and Field Operations for FIRST. We found out that he was going to be on the same panel as Nancy and were thrilled we saw FIRSTer there. Once we were outside we ran into an electric car exhibit. Siemans had an electric charging station that they were showing off. It is now the standard system adopted by the U.S.. There was also a SMART car there that was converted to electric and utilized the same batteries that are found a Tesla Roadster. http://www.teslamotors.com/ This is the same setup that we read about in Josh Davis’s article in Wired Magazine http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/09/ff_tesla/ We thought it was cool that we could actually call up the author of the story in Wired and tell him that e are looking at what he wrote about!



When the hour was up we went to the panel discussion and were mentioned by both Nancy and Bruce and the talk was very positive and reflective of what the state of education is and where it should be going. All in all it was great! John spoke up, as well as Eddie, about what they gained from being involved in STEM competitions. We took pictures with Nancy and Bruce as they were leaving the presentation.



The team decided it was time to eat a burger for we GPSed a Fudruckers had a late lunch. Eddie and Bianca tried the buffalo burger, Mrs. Palmares had a salad, John, Norma and David had regular burgers and I tried the wild bore burger. Ostrich was out of season.....



After our late lunch we started heading back to the train and found a farmer’s market, where everything was fresh and natural, no artificial anything. The kids bought some fruit and we then made our way back to the train and missed a transfer, so we had to wait until the train came back to the transfer point and switched the the right train for the remainder of the journey back to the hotel.



Tomorrow brings a day of sightseeing, we have it on our agenda to see the Capitol, the Air and Space Museum and the Lincoln Memorial . It will be neat to see if we can actually pull it off.

Subconn Bulkhead Connectors Diagram

Here is the drawing of the connectors needed

Here is the the new 3D View system computer. We are waiting for the new HD video input stuff

Here is the thruster cluster with the PVC funnels that Eddie make on the lathe!

We are still working on the code to operate the EVROV with a wireless game pad

San Diego Seabotix Day Three

Day three way started off with us going to San Diego City College to visit there AUV team. They are a club that meets once a week and they have entered for several years. We got some good ideas from them and they explained how the competition worked. We also learned about JAUS Interoperability Challenge Rules. There are major points awarded to team that use this format. We are planning on doing this. The San Diego team was very receptive to our ideas and suggestions. They took a long look over our ROV Amanda that we brought to show them.
Any way the night before we went to beach to have a barbecue of hamburgers and hot dogs with a few shrimps. All the photos are posted in the post two posts before this one. All in all it was a great trip and we learned a lot about what we need to do. The vision system still the big question, we will have to call Cornell again to go over possible solutions. Now we have to finalize our design and put together a sponsorship proposal and get going on the building.

Seabotix San Diego trip day 2

Today we got up and headed to Seabotix to meet with Don Rodocker and his team. We last visited Seabotix in fall of 2003 and the following summer four boys from Falcon Robotics beat MIT in the MATE national ROV championships. Now Seabotix is a multi-million dollar corporation and now we are hoping to repeat the pattern of success we had in the past. Its like we have come full circle.
We also visited with the Ibotics team, who are based at the University California San Diego. The team leader gave us a tour of their lab and some tips on building an AUV. He also gave us some tips about the competition. The pics of the days tours are the posting the day before this. Please use the cool Iris 3-D photo wall to check out the pics. We are currently getting ready to head the beach so we can do a barbecue and discuss the days events. Tomorrow we head to San Diego City College for a visit with their team.

Today we took off for San Diego to visit Seabotix, a remotely operated vehicle company. http://www.seabotix.com/
We are taking our best ROV Amanda named in honor of Amanda Baggs, to show Seabotix and hopefully demo it on the pier. We are here to do research about ROVs so we can design and build an AUV, an autonomous underwater vehicle, to compete in the AUVSI, a national competition sponsored by the US Navy. No high school ever won it yet...We will also be visiting UCSD an dthe AUV team and San Diego City College's AUV team. Here are the pictures we have so far. We are staying on the Navel base in San Diego. We will update with more pics tomorrow.

Here is presentation that describes the components of the Autonomous robot we will be building for Costa Rica.



Also here is the BOM

Copper Con!

Here was event where the team displayed there robotics prowes to ordinary civilians who delve in the Sci Fi

Falcon Robotics Retreat

We had a very eventful weekend!

Microchip masters

It was great going to do a robot scrimage demo for Microchip. Had great Pizza! and talked to many people from all over the world. Saw John Oliver there too.

Faridodin Lajvardi aka Ledge at TEDx

Here is the video of the TEDx Presentation I did about a year ago. It came out nice. Enjoy!

Richard Ruelas Visits with David Wallace the Photographer

Here are the videos from the story that Richard and David did for us. Thanks a million!







Here is a link to a great slide show with audio!
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/arizona-robotics-teacher-slideshow.html

Here is alink to a set of pictures
http://www.azcentral.com/php-bin/commphotos/show.php?colid=15157&slide_nbr=1&fAZ=1&HTTP_REFERER=http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/arizona-robotics-teacher-slideshow.html#1

Thermal test

We did a thermal test of the Victor motor speed controller that is been underwater for 6 days! No leaks and all is operational!

We did a thermal test by keeping the motor shaft imobile and cranking up the current to about 22 amps and caused the auto reset breaker to keep tripping for about 20 minutes. We were only able to read a 1 degree temp increase on the surface of the epoxy resin with an underwater thermometer. The motor did get hot as well as the breaker.

We think maybe the heat was dissipated to the body of the epoxy and dispersed to the water.

Cornell Conference call

We had a great conference call with JB Radjksi from the AUV Team at Cornell. He really help us out alot. We are better prepared to ask more intelligent questions when we go to our San Diego trip to do research for the AUV we are building

Alex Rivera visits!

http://alexrivera.com/

Movie producer Alex Rivera visited the robotics program today. He really seemed to love it. He made Sleep Dealer, good movie goo see it!

USA Science fair expo

Today we with held a confrence call with Julie Strategos and Deanna Rockefeller with Lockhead Martin. They want us in DC from Oct 20 to 25th. We will be on stage Sat and Sunday for 30 min to show case the EVROV and the ROV
Here is the link
http://www.usasciencefestival.org/

School start Aug. 2nd!

We are hitting the ground running

Stanford Recruiting trip

Took 10 kids to Palo Alto, CA to visit Stanford University. We also went to San Fransisco to see Fisherman's Warf. We saw most of the campus and meet with a admissions counselor to see what the kids needed to do to get prepared to apply. Even if they have all the best grades and best essays, only 7 percent get admitted. It is tough to get into Stanford.

mary visit

Mary Cuevas a grad from hayden came to work with Legit today

5-14

Subject: Highly Paid Teachers

Are you sick of highly paid teachers? Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage. That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan -- that equals 6 1/2 hours). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.

Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations. LET'S SEE.... That's $585 X 180 = $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries.)

What about those special education teachers or the ones with Master's degrees or extra endorsements on their certification? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here!
There sure is!
The average teacher's salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students = $9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids! WHAT A DEAL!!!!

Make a teacher smile; send this to someone who appreciates teachers.

5-12

Showed the class how to use google embeds in blogger

3 D embed test

From Sketch uP

Test of You tube Embed

Here is the embed of the youtube code to paste in blog

Here is a test of a google docs embed

5-1-10

Today Jb Welded the batteries and sparked them too. I did a Staphany! I arced the batteries with a needle nose

15-8-10

working on NURC props and giving tour to mentor Mr. Stong.
Mable is still being worked on. Need to bring RCA Cables from home for DVD/VCR device. Also testing NURC Cameras today. Also updated some Falcon Robotics Website stuff, FRC bots

5-7-10

I am making links to people blog journal

5-6

This is a test post from my Blogger gadget in my igoogle paqge

There robots right now in the gulf trying to stop the oil leak. And you thinks robotics are not important?

Digitizing the Team.

We are in the process of constructing our new website and putting more and more content on the web to share the wealth of knowledge we have collected. It will be a long process but it will be worthwhile. The team members will now keep online journals with all their engineering notes and such to show what they are doing and so that each members actions can be tracked by the teams officers. It will also serve as a place where everyone can share their work