Today we continued working on our final project. The gyro sensor is still a big problem, since the output sometimes increments itself, so it made the robot always lean forward and fell. On the other hand, the biophysics course went well. Today we got more advanced on 2D walk. We learned to import other classes that are created by ourselves and use the method in it. I successfully put a square and a circle in the plot for the walks to hit.
In the morning we continued to design our robot. Kevin and I met some problem on how to use the gyro sensor, which is a very important part of making the balance. Hope we can figure this out as soon as possible. In the afternoon, Doctor Dave also led us to the "final projects" on biophysics: random walks. It is really interesting to see that every time the plot is different. After having great fun on programming "gamblers' tasks", we are introduced to 1D and 2D random walks. In the end of today's class, I was able to draw the plot of a 2D random walk. A great amount of logic, especially in "if-else" statement, was applied in here. I felt like my skill has greatly improved. A nice day!
Today we finally started with our final project. Kevin and I first started with the mechanical design of our robot. Kevin has built two legs and firmly connected them together. And I built two arms with sensors. It has been challenging for me since I have to use different gear to save space for other design while changing the turning direction of the motor. During the building, Doctor Daddel showed us some very strong structure, which doesn't fall apart after dropped from a high point, Kevin and I decided to make our robot the same, since our robot need to pick itself up after falling. So far this is what've done. We hope to make more improvements tomorrow.
Today I continued to design the ball throwing robot. Compared to other tasks I did before, this task was completely different, and more challenging. Instead of dealing with programming, the hard thing for this course is to design a powerful structure that can throw a ping pong ball into a basket from two feet away. At first, I made a structure that can greatly increase the angular speed of the arm, using "big small big small". However, this didn't work because it became very hard for the motor to rotate since it requires a lot of force on the other side to make the arm rotate fast enough. Unfortunately, I am still designing the structure. I am unable to finish the task in today.
Today we had our second field trip. We went to Intel! Since it took more than two hours to get to Intel, it was almost lunch when we arrived. Before lunch, we took visit to some labs and had a overview of the environment there. I was surprised to see the strong contrast between the inside and the outside. In the inside, everything was technology-based, whereas in the outside, there were many trees and plants that make people relaxed. I guess this will also help the employees to be more creative. After having lunch, which was a sandwich I took from UCD, we went to the lab. Our host Larry showed us a rubric cube solver, which was pretty cool. Later, we did some programming, but they were not that pleasing since the computer was so slow. Overall it has been an unforgettable day for me.
It has been a pretty ordinary day today. In the morning, Doctor Daddel wasn't here, so Sam and Jerry led and taught us to improve us previous code. Kevin and I also talked about our ideas about our final project. Later in Biophysics class, the professor showed us how possibilities are calculated, as well as the meaning of possibility. After lunch, we went to a big lecture presented by a shark expert, who, with no offense, talked much more interestingly than the previous chemistry professor. I also had a look of the book he wrote. There were a great number of in-depth analysis about sharks. Later, we went to the Biophysics lab activity. We continued to do practices on python, but in the end of the class, the professor talked about what the random numbers are and how to generate them.
This is the first field trip since COSMOS started. I am pretty excited today and I had a lot of fun with my friends in the Exploratorium in San Francisco. We went through a number of interesting equipments in the Exploratorium while we learned about many science facts. We also made a record for the snake game. That is the result of our cooperation. Besides, the scenery in San Francisco was extremely beautiful, and the pigeons there were not afraid of people at all. This is the second time I go to San Francisco, the last time was when I was in elementary school. I felt kind of nostalgic when I saw the Golden State Bridge when we were coming back.
After a few days of rest, we finally came back to our robot tasks. I felt happy and excited about this. As I finished working on line follow last week, I started with color detection today. The problem I met was that my robot doesn't stop after detecting the last yellow line. To solve the problem, I defined a variable called firstWhite, which added increments for each loop. After the color detection task, Doctor Daddel told us to make the robot throw balls into a basket. At first, I thought that the claw need to be moving fast in order to throw the ball to the height of the basket, but I didn't pay attention to the fact that the power reduces if I increase the angular speed too much by using gears. Later, I got rid of all the gears and increased the length of the claw. I'll see if this could work the day after tomorrow.
We had a whole day of free time today! I went downtown with boys in our cluster. As the picture shown, I had In and Out burgers. This was the first time I tried In and Out, because we don't have this in China. I think these burgers are extremely tasty and I am definitely going to have some more if there is an opportunity. After we finished lunch, we went to watch "The Secret Life of Pets". It was an animation movie, and the characters in it are all cute. I like the bunny in the movie. Although he looks cute, but he was the antagonist in the movie.
After a whole week of interesting classes, the weekend finally comes! It has been an extremely tiring but exciting day for me. In the morning, we went to the farmers market and had the well-known apple juice. It was indeed really good! However, it was already 12 a.m. when we started to go back, so we didn't have lunch. In the afternoon, the whole cluster went to the Rec Pool together. We had dinner there and we also played interesting game together. I guess the relationship between students in our cluster became closer after today's activity. I am extremely happy about that! I hope we can know each other better later on!
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