Timeline of Events, Science Fair (Day 1)

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Sunday, March 16th, 2008

Well, it’s finally science fair! I’ve been looking forward to this day since … early September, so I’m going to make the most of it! Check out the funny timeline of events I’m tracking…

Saturday

9:30 PM - We only have to leave at 9:30 AM tomorrow! I can get more slides done!

10:24 PM - OHWAIT! We have to leave at 7:00! Orly? YARLY!

Sunday

5:45 AM - It’s time! iPod has awoken me with 1234, good choice! Woohoo!

5:53 AM - Eyes are burning! What?! Why is my light off? *turns it back on* Looks at all the bugs I have to fix on orange sticky notes…

5:56 AM - Erin struggles with the basic function of copy-paste while making this…

6:00 AM - Watch goes off! It sounds like a messed up cellphone ring, LOL

6:01 AM - I check COBA… Oh no! It’s down!!! I hope I didn’t forget anything that teachers would email me about >_<

6:05 AM - Checked science tech… Yay! The roof of the school is clear - no need to worry! Printed off 3 copies of the schedule

6:07 AM - Sleep’in the macbook to take care of the other things I have to do now…

7:30 AM - We were supposed to leave now… packing the car!

7:50 AM - Left the house, onto a journey of awesomeness!

8:30 AM - Arrived at the school hosting the event! They were cleaning the roof off even more!

8:40 AM - Checked in and received the table number! Set up the board . . . upside down (way to go Erin!) turned it around, set up the display, cables, battery pack & surge protector, macbook, written report!

8:45 AM - Realized the power is not working… Dad goes to speak to them

8:50 AM - Took several photos incase the project gets ruined, like last year

9:10 AM - Power is working! No more annoying beeping heard from my power pack throughout the gym

9:30 AM - The bamboo stick lady checked the measurements of the display board

10:30 AM - Introductory ceremonies - everyone is ushered into the auditorium

10:45 AM - Introductory ceremony begins

11:00 AM - Guest speaker talking about mainly him, and on the side, a few slides of immunology… (CD4-Fox3 Cells)

11:30 AM - Lunch! Had to grab my macbook from Dad, as he had to leave the gym for some reason…

11:45 AM - Ate my sandwich and fruit loops and cookies and chocolate!

12:00 PM - Hurried back to the gym

12:15 PM - Ran in to the gym (once they opened it) to check back on the display (it’s there, PHEW!)

1:00-1:30 PM - Peer evaluation! Was quite fun! The three projects I evaluated were about FerroLiquid, the emergency classification (like in Katrina), and stopping movie piracy using IR light

1:30-5:00 PM - Demonstrated Robbie to several people passing by… fun fact- when Robbie asks about hockey, 100% of the responses were Canadiens!

5:05 PM - Packed up the display and stuff, headed home!

6:00 PM - Home sweet home! Time to refine my presentation for the judges tomorrow and write my log book in my log book (I wrote my log in bad writing in my commonplace book - so I’m transferring it to a pink journal)

Well, that’s about it for Day 1! I’m exceedingly pleased. My booth is next to the one that won the big prizes last year, and next to the librarian at my school son’s project! I have to bring speakers tomorrow though, no one could hear Robbie! I’ll remember my keyboard tomorrow too, so the escape button is more accessible. The only problem, which isn’t really a problem, is that I have to wake up at 5:00 am tomorrow. My dad is a judge, so he has to be there early. I’m having SO much fun, I just want to spend as much time there as possible!

For now - I have to triple check my presentation and fill out my log book! I also have 9 survey results, so I’m crunching the numbers for them.
More timeline madness tomorrow! Enjoy these pics…

Posted in: Projects, Robot.

Woohoo! Robbie added to Apple downloads!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Thursday, March 13th, 2008

As Robbie would say… ‘Wowee’!

I’m so happy that Robbie made it in to the Apple downloads!

You can check it out here

MacUpdate also put it on its site!

That’s pretty awesome!

However, I still need people to complete the survey! So please, spread the word, and do the survey!

Thanks!

Posted in: Programming, Projects, Robot.

Robbie is UP and RUNNING!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

Robbie is now available for download! The current release is #21.

Check out Robbie’s work-in-progress page here!

And, I would extremely appreciate it if, after playing with Robbie, you can complete the survey here.

It’s now 1:35 AM when I’m posting this, so I’ll be fixing up the Robbie page and survey in the morning.

Have fun with Robbie!

A video will be up on youtube tomorrow evening, I hope!
UPDATE: 1:08pm - it’s all good now! I’ll be adding more pics and decorations to it throughout the next few days. If you can, please fill out the survey after you chatted with Robbie!

Posted in: Programming, Projects, Robot.

Robbie is Better than Ever!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Sunday, March 9th, 2008

Woooohoooooo!

So, the whole purpose of the 20-inch display being lent to me was to display a bigger Robbie. Check out the pics, he looks AWESOME! I just want to poke his chubby-wubby cheeks ^___^. Frankenteddy: Erin, Robbie doesn’t have chubby cheeks. Erin: Shhhh! x]]

I ran into some roadblocks today *coughtyposcough*, but thanks to scott he helped point them out to me! (THANKS!!!)

It all seems reasonably accomplishable now! I have to add in more levels to the conversation though, but I’ll probably put the app up for download tomorrow morning, after I make the survey form.

7 sleeps till science fair!

Posted in: Programming, Projects, Robot.

iFund

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Saturday, March 8th, 2008

John Doerr a Partner to Kleiner Perkins Claufield & Byers announced on March 8th something, most likely, life-changing. 

$100,000,000. For investment.

This can be applicable for any number of start-ups, companies, pre-launch, or what have you. The investments can range from $100K of seed capital to $15M of expansion capital in mobile application and service companies.  

That’s a lot of money, and an even bigger opportunity.   

I’m determined to invent better speech conversation technology. The possibilities of Robbie the Robot are limitless in my mind’s eye. Imagine being able to have your Apple TV, mac mini, or whichever mac server farm in your household, organizing all of the variables. How many eggs one has, what the temperature inside is, or the temperature of the pool. All it would take is asking Robbie, hands free, so you aren’t distracted while driving. I’m not 100% sure if iPhone does or does not have the ability to phone people based on speech, but I have an idea on how to do it. Thousands are killed in cellphone related crashes, hands free is the way to go.  

I’m going to apply, and see what happens. If this investment is bestowed upon me, my life would be changed forever, definitely for the good! If it isn’t bestowed upon me, I’m still going to work on Robbie! Nothing is going to stop me from modifying Robbie into life changing applications. For instance, teaching different languages, making children more focused and relaxed, aiding the elderly as a therapeutic device, helping some autistic children or teaching someone to READ. With all of the possible modifications of Robbie, it is bound to be a thrill. With that in mind, I wanted to end with a little quote during the keynote which I thought was really great.  

Entrepreneurs do more than anyone thinks possible, with less than anyone thinks possible. Entrepreneurs are the risk takers, they’re the revolutionaries, they’re the rebels.  

 

Good luck to everyone that enters!

Posted in: News, Programming, Projects, Tech News.

Amazing Day at Apple

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Saturday, March 8th, 2008

The day after SDK for the iPhone was released, at 9:30 AM I had the opportunity to show Apple (in Montreal) my Robbie the Robot application.

Their office is extremely clutter-free, it was pretty amazing. Plus, there was a 1984 poster from the Apple Computer TV-commercical, which was neat. Not to mention, there was a mosaic of iPod characters. It was really colourful, and nice!

Let me start off by saying, it was an amazing demonstration!

I was originally going to meet with only 1 person, but that quickly changed to two more people, and another one! They were all really cool, of course. They were impressed, too. One of the jokes of it all was that, no matter who popped in, they asked whether I have the cable for the display to my macbook (which I don’t). They actually didn’t have one, but it’s on order. If it isn’t in on time, it’s not much of a problem to go to the Apple Store.

All in all, they are lending me a 20 inch cinema display! I am so fortunate, and I definitely counted my lucky stars. I took oodles of pictures of it, already! It is stunning. I have a feeling it is bound to stand out against the black display board!

 

 

I also had the chance to touch a Macbook Air. It is unbelievably light! And the keyboard with the backlight is awesome. Also, to debunk a myth, the same Magsafe power adapter does work, however it would put the laptop on an angle. The trackpad is pretty awesome too, with the multi-touch. So, that is pretty much it about the meeting with Apple! It was extremely fun, and I’d do it again! (And so would Robbie).

If you have time, please read my post about the iFund. 

Posted in: News, Programming, Projects, Robot.

Scholarships, Money & Opportunities

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

I was reading some of the news on my feed reader today, and two particular things caught my eye!

Are any of you high school seniors who are Massachusetts residents? Want to be an engineer? Then consider applying for the 2008 Future Engineers Scholarship. The application has been posted on the ASHRAE’s Boston Chapter website (ashraeboston.org). They are awarding 14 scholarships in the amount of $2000. The deadline is May 30, 2008. For more information: http://ashraeboston.org/scholarship-info.html

(Link).

COoL! But, only in MA.

Then, I see this!

There’s an exciting new robot design contest that offers 25 robot enthusiasts the chance to vie for several great prizes including a $5,000 college scholarship for 1st Place, a $2,000 college scholarship for 2nd Place, and $200 gift certificates for the 10 3rd Place winners.

(Link)

But,

The Promotion is open to legal residents of the 50 United States

(Link)

*sigh*

A few months ago I was looking at summer camps and stuff. One of the really awesome ones was at RSI. Course, you have to email them to see if your country is participating. I was 90% sure that Canada would be participating, so I even printed off all the forms… When I got the email back, of course, Canada is NOT participating. Wow much?

Maybe it’s all for a reason that I haven’t discovered yet. I’ll probably spend my summer doing indie learning and brainstorming ideas for all of these contests, which is cool by me Researching by the pool.

11 sleeps til science fair!!

Happy annoying-snow-and-ice-pellet-snow-day to everyone!

Posted in: News, Other News.

Robbie the Robot

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Monday, March 3rd, 2008

What does Robbie look like?

Yay!

More info will be up on the blog on the 5th!

Posted in: Art, Programming, Projects, Robot.