Merry Christmas!!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Tuesday, December 25th, 2007

Yay! Wishing everyone a great holiday!

Did you know Newton was born today too?
Food for thought!

Posted in: News, Other News.

The Holidays Have Officially… BEGUN!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Friday, December 21st, 2007

Woohoo! At last, the holidays are here. This is the half-way point for this year at scool. I’m ecstatic. I always love Term 3 more than any other term… I think it is because of science fair and spring. Everything seems more positive… plus, 3 is my fav number.
This in mind, exams are still looming to wrap up Term 2, which really sucks! Exams SUCK! I hate memorizing things.
Anyway, who cares about school when there are thousands of articles and papers to be read about natural language processing and conversational artificial intelligence! AND hours of videos from iTunes U.
I’ll be spending most of my time researching & programming after the break, there will be no time to do anything. This also kicks off my BLOGGING BONANZA. I have oodles of articles that I want to add to my blog, so it doesn’t seem so desolate… the holidays have officially begun!

Posted in: News, Other News, Programming, Projects, Robot.

IREX - International Robot Exhibition 2007

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Saturday, December 1st, 2007

Check out this photoset on flickr about the International Robot Exhibition 2007!

This one is really cute -> Click
Pretty neat how it runs windows -> Click
PINK i-Sobot!!!! -> Click

Link!

Posted in: News, Robot News.

MIT Splash was really really really FUN!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Sunday, November 18th, 2007

Yay! The MIT Splash was really really really fun. From the sign-up being in real disarray on Oct.31st and Nov. 1st, I was really impressed that everything was really really really well organized and run! They even found my phone, which I lost. (No, I did not lose it on purpose because the iPhone is coming… the Organic Chemistry teacher was oblivious as to what was happening outside the window and I had to sprint with a heavy bag and untied shoe to get into the photo). I did skip his other class, Intro to Genetics since I found out that I’m really really really not interested in that type of stuff.

Hmm… My fav classes were probably Advanced Java, Goal Oriented Machine Learning, AI as Common Sense Problems (or something like that), and How Computers Work : Software (which turned out to be a Q&A class :D). There was one class that involved Linear Algebra & Physics to explain how Google’s news thingy worked… the person teaching it seemed nervous, so it wasn’t that effective. I’m sure it’s a fantastically interesting thing to look into, but what are you going to do afterwards? You can’t go to the moon with that knowledge…

Anyway, the really really really weird part about the trip was that I was always cold! It sounds weird, but it’s like as if my bones were frozen. I was never really warm! And I’m still cold now! :( Brrr…

Posted in: Programming, Projects, Robot, School.

MIT Admissions Info + Tour!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Friday, November 16th, 2007

I have arrived at MIT for a 4 day adventure! I have been looking forward to this since September-ish, and it is SUPER to be here! The drive was okay… kinda. We were driving INTO the snow storm. I slept most of the way though, with my Spongebob blankie, listening to my iPod When we arrived at Boston, we realized it is a VERY busy and bustling city. Did you know- the crosswalk makes a ‘tweeting’ noise when you are supposed to walk. It kinda gets annoying. We got really lost… but we made it to the Admissions Info Session about 15 minutes late. The most discouraging fact I learned during that session is that you need to take 8 Humanity courses. Moreover, they only select 1,000 people out of 10,000- and they DO look at your marks.

The tour was extremely freezing- but it was nice to see all the buildings around Killain’s Court before tomorrow’s ESP Splash Program. My fav part- the CSAIL building! However, there is a proper name for it, but I know it as CSAIL. (CSAIL - Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab). At the end of the tour, we went to The COOP, where I got 3 teddy bears with MIT sweaters on them (1 magnetic one- for my locker, 1 keychain one- for my bag, and 1 stuffie one- to keep me motivated when I go back home). Also got a pink MIT waterbottle (since I forgot mine at home -.-”), tiny notepad & pen, NEW laptop bag (it’s chic!), and last but not least in love- the MIT sweater. This was great- except for one thing. How do we get back to the hotel? Thank goodness for OnStar, otherwise we really would have been lost! The Turn-by-turn direction system is amazing
So tomorrow will be another exciting day! MIT Spash here I come!!

PS: Regarding the lack of posts- my Vienna messed up all of the posts I clicked, erasing them all. I’m changing my method now- shift + command + M! This will mark the article, and hopefully not mess up. Furthermore, I’ve been busy with homework!
And so I leave you with pics!

Funky Donut! With Patriotic colours!

iPod ad! w00t!

Athletics Buidling at MIT

Swimming Pool (in the Athletics Building at MIT)

WELCOME TO MASSACHVESTS INSTITVE OF TECHNOLOGY! (What is up with the pointy u’s that resemble v’s?!?!?!)

Apparently this is where Newton’s Apple fell…

It’s the dome at MIT!!!

Funky thingy!

GREEN building at MIT

CSAIL!

CSAIL!

CSAIL!

CSAIL!

omg CSAIL!

The lights are sooo intense in here! Phew! And do you think there is enough blackboard space?

NANOTECH!!

Lost - Found (LOL)

92% More Meditation!

The light!

Walking away from MIT to the Student Centre

Hi!

Teddies + Waterbottle = FUN!

The button on my new bag!

More tomorrow!

Posted in: Projects, Robot, School.