Archive for the 'Other News' Category

Put on your Sunday Clothes

I actually bought the real Wall-E soundtrack, since I like it so much! It’s uber cool… it comes in a recycled material case :D

WALL-E OST! Inside landscape :) :D Back of booklet A big pic of M-O! Yay! Nice pic of EVE! Woah detail :O Front of the booklet Pic in the booklet <3 Cute! Pretty disk! Cute WALL-E :B Inside flap

At first, I thought the movie was medium… it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. The whole dystopian/furturistic evolution of people as they became more dependent on technology really freaked me out. The hover chairs and BNL were the main sources of that. They should have taken better care of the planet- cans could have been recycled, along with all the other garbage.
One of the quotes that stands out in my mind is…

Auto: “On the Axiom, you will survive”
Captain: “I don’t want to survive, I want to live!”

But… everyone is really liking it - except for me!! WHYy? I think I figured it out…
If I didn’t know about dystopian societies, like in Handsmade Tale, 1984, Brave New World… then I wouldn’t have thought that it would be dystopian (which I automatically connect with BAD) but instead, futuristic.
If I wasn’t anticipating a cheesy ‘Hello Dave’ joke with Auto, I wouldn’t have been disappointed, ha.
If I didn’t know that creating robots with emotions as complex as in Eve & WALL-E, then I wouldn’t have taken a ‘that’s almost impossible’* attitude.
*it’s actually not too much ‘that’s almost impossible’, it would just need complex AI, even a form of general AI.

I could go on, but really the point is is that WALL-E is a really awesome movie if I didn’t know… . Now that I realize that, it is a pretty good movie :D I’m for sure buying the 3 DVD set.

The soundtrack is amazing too… everyone should spend the extra few dollars to buy it in real :)

Back!

Hi there! This post is intended to be extremely short and quick, as it’s 1:23AM in the morning! :D

I arrived back on Tuesday, and Stanford and the JPL was amazing. DisneyLAND was okay but I prefer EPCOT!

I don’t have internet though, since my Dad didn’t/can’t pay the bill. I hope to buy my own internet soon so I can post all of the stuff that I want to :D The only internet that works is through his iMac, so it’s really ethernet not wireless internet :(

Thanks everyone that helped send me there, it was a blast. There was a theme song for EBF - you can check out my remix for it here: http://robotgrrl.com/coke-and-veggies-remix.mp3

:D More details to come!!

Go Phoenix Go!

Here’s to the new Mars rover!

I hope it lands, but it does use retro rockets instead of airbags… so if they do pull it off, well done to them!

NASA TV starts broadcasting the event at 6:00pm EDT. :D I can’t wait!!!

A Kaplooza of STUFF!

This blog post can pretty much fit into every category ;D

There are a few things that I want to talk about in this entry… so here goes!

  1. Styrobots - I’ve had 2 Styrobots up on Etsy since May 17th! They’re only $20, and the money goes towards my Robotics Fund, which will go towards my Stanford EPGY AI Program tuition, or to books and parts. They are irresistibly cute, so if you can, please buy one! I’ll be adding more this weekend, assuming homework doesn’t attack me (there is a good chance that it will and may)
  2. Rube Goldberg Project - I have been working with my friend to build this immense Rube Goldberg project! The purpose was to light a candle. Here are some pictures of it…

    ;] Marbles :) p=mv Golfball Made out of a half of a shop-vac Paddle wheels :) AKA: Gears The second component (swirling vortex of d00m) The first component The first component The first component Cooool Antiquish KAPOW! Heh, this flower was on a tree that was in front of our garage while making the project ^_^ All the clamps! Coooooooool Top view Top view The Track Fwoosh Fiiirreee! A picture of a lit candle, for once! Lots of tension Project at school The match idea … I made my Dad hold the base to make sure it would work! Haha Project at school Project at school The start

    There was a problem though, whenever I tried capturing it on my camera, the candle would not light. However, when the camera was off, it would light! When we brought it to school, it didn’t light. It felt like an immense waste of time, considering we had so much and we couldn’t even fulfill the objective. I liked building it, but I didn’t like setting it up. Hopefully this knowledge will be useful, someday!

  3. 507 Mechanical Movements - This book looks very interesting, I should buy it after I buy Cynthia Breazeal’s book ‘Designing Sociable Robots’ :)
  4. Remember that Paper Cylon contest that I made a robot for? Turns out it’s only for US Residents. Lame! Haha, at least I tried though. :)
  5. Homework. There’s a lot of it! It’s reducing my rate of productivity. (Go figure)

Stanford EPGY :D


^_^ :D ^_^ HOLY MACARONI! ^_^ :D ^_^

:D :D :D I was accepted in to Stanford EPGY AI program!! I’ll have something to do for a part of this summer! This is amazing! I’m flabberghasted :o. (<-- that word is so cool, that it can only be used on special occasions)

I received the email at 12:07 AM. (midnight) :D

The only problem is... money. :(

I have to come up with $500 before May 7th. :( I don’t know how I will do it yet. I’ll daydream about it tomorrow :) ^_^

CALIFORNIA!! ^_^ PALM TREES ^_^!! SUN!! The red bridge thing :D!! WWDC 08 AFTERMATH xD !! APPLE STORES!! PIXAR!! INFINITE LOOP!! STANFORD!! ROBOTICS!! AI!! COMPUTERS!! WOOOOOOOOT!! =D

I’m SO excited! And happy! :D

Scholarships, Money & Opportunities

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 :D Researching by the pool.

11 sleeps til science fair!!

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

Too Sad :(

Holy smokes.

I remember poking aroun pages at MIT on Friday and I vaguely remember finding a page about Singh. Of course, there could be several people named Singh… but the cooincidence is unlikely. Now, much to my dismay… I read this less than 5 minutes ago:

Wired tells the quite sad but very interesting stories of Chris McKinstry and Pushpinder Singh. Initially self-educated, both had the idea to create huge fact databases from which AI agents could feed, hoping to eventually have something that could reason at a human level or better. McKinstry leveraged the dotcom era to grow his database. Singh had the backing of MIT, where he eventually got his PhD and had been offered a position as a professor alongside his mentor, Marvin Minsky. Sadly, personal life was more troublesome for them, and the story ends in a tragic way.

It’s really sad! To read the entire article, click here.

I suppose there are several morals you could get out of this event… however, it is really depressing.

RIP <3

Link.