It’s almost over! :D

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

~~~~~~~~~~
Friday

OMG YAY! This was the best day of school, ever. I think I was smiling 92.5% of the time, to be precise. I don’t understand though, how some people cry on a happy day?! Isn’t crying for bad things? Hmm.. anyway I left my yearbook at home, LOL, I was the only person without one. Woops! Well, the entire school year is worth waaaay more than a yearbook entry to me

As promised, a reflection post from elementary – highschool!

Junior Kindergarden (Hyland Hights, Shelburne, ON) – Weee! So much fun. I liked building stuff out of the wooden blocks.

Senior Kindergarden (Hyland Hights, Shelburne, ON) – Woohoo! I learned how to print on a line, I think. Well, I knew how to write and read before Kindergarden. Haha, I remember this:
Teacher: “You have to write a ‘D’ with a more of a point at the end”
Me: “But then it will tip over, if it has a point! It won’t be able to stand up on the line!”
I started gymnastics then … immediately fell in love with spinning around on the parallel bars!

Grade 1 (Hyland Hights, Shelburne, ON) – oOoOo This was quite fun. I most fondly remember counting to 100 by 5′s, for some reason! Still did gymnastics, in the elementary school that was on the opposite side of Shelburne, but it was fun! Also, I think it was this grade where a selected few went down to the library for typing lessons, and I was really good at it. The librarian was like “she’s a natural typer”. LOL, but I was using the computer a few years before this, so it was easy.

Grade 2 (Hyland Hights, Shelburne, ON) – I remember doing these math problems, and finishing them in a second. The question was raised as to whether I should skip a grade or not, however my parents decided against it as they wanted me to be more fun-oriented than mark-oriented. Mrs. Pugsley always kept insisting that she will eventually read one of my books one day. I had a ton of fun

Grade 3 (first half) (St.Benedict something something (aka: a religious school), Orangeville, ON) – Wooah. This school, I remember, was SO weird. They didn’t like me talking about Pokemon. I think they banned Pokemon cards too. The teachers were weird too, same with the books. I actually flipped through one of the books a few months ago, and it actually talked about adult issues. I was shocked, thank god I didn’t see that stuff in Grade 3!

Grade 3 (second half) (Laurel Woods Elementary School, Orangeville-ish (out on the R.R.’s), ON) – Wow, this school had so much land it was amazing. Plus, it was near one of the farms that had emu’s! It was so cool to always see them at lunch. I remember catching Mew on Pokemon, and trading lots of cards. Oh yeah, and being one of the fastest runners. First time I heard of Harry Potter. I remember trying to memorize the times tables, too. LOL. (I was so bad at them!)

Grade 4 (Roland Mitchener School, Ottawa, ON) – This school was amazing. It was a circle, with no walls. The computer lab was all macs. First time I heard about neopets. Track & Field was so much fun, I remember running so fast that my hat blew off and I didn’t care because I won the race by a lot. I won lots of red ribbons The pool noodle throw was so hilarious! Everyone thought I would throw it so far, but it didn’t even make it past the line LOL. That was really funny. I remember gymnastics being in the Earl of March High School gym. Reminded my of Dynamics, in Shelburne! This school was really cooool! My most fond memory is probably playing Pokemon with Mark, Tegan, and Chrispy. (I actually still stay in touch with Chrispy, she has been through A LOT, but is an amazing person).

Grade 5 (Hyland Heights, Shelburne, ON) – Back to my old school, Grade 5 was my favourite grade of all time. I got straight A+’s!!! I remember there was this math problem, and I solved it before everyone else did. It required a lot of thinking, back then. Earthkeepers was an amazing field trip, I hope to one day get all of the beads! I remember when Mr.Mac’s guitar string broke and flicked Adam in the face. Building a bridge out of toothpicks was so much fun… then seeing who’s could hold more weight was even more fun. Ours broke when I started jumping up and down because I was so happy. (LOL). I remember there was this game we invented, and it was really good. There were two chairs, and the point was to hit the chair with the ball. You could run with the ball, but if you were touched you had to give it to the other team. However, you could put the ball on the ground and roll it, and it wouldn’t matter. It was fast paced and LOTS of fun. At the end of the year, Mr.Mac gave me ‘The Bridge to Terrabithia’. I don’t think I read it, as I already knew the story… or maybe I did read it. I have no clue. Oh yeah! I remember liking using the computer for Excel spreadsheets. XD I was really Harry Potter crazy too, in Grade 5. I won a Nike Basketball signed by Q-mac for beating bullying. Go figure! I did gymnastics in Orangeville, as the club in Shelburne closed down.

Grade 6 (Hyland Heights, Shelburne, ON) – Grade 6 with Mrs Lemieux was interesting. I can say that I passed the D.A.R.E. course! even remember what it stands for. Drug Abuse Resistance Eductation. Every school in Ontario had to do this course. It was pretty cool, you get a lot of free stuff like pencils and erasers. And you got to see an OPP! Another memory from Grade 6 was the Air Band project. Me and Jenny did Shania Twain’s ‘UP!’ song, in Ottawa Senators jerseys. (That was when they were a good team). Gymn was lots of fun!

Grade 7 (a few weeks) (Hyland Heights, Shelburne, ON) – Was being bullied too much, had to leave.

Grade 7 (The Maples School, Orangeville, ON) – Wow, I get to go to a PRIVATE SCHOOL! No bullying! This school was pretty fun. I remember throwing a fit at the computer, after saying that I know everything about Powerpoint. The teacher asked me to do a quiz, and it was asking stupid questions about Outlook. Back then, Outlook was known for ALL of its viruses. It still is! I remember getting really high marks in Science. The only really horrible thing I remember was that there we all belonged to a mandatory dance club, after school. It was so lame! However, art class was really fun. They had functional paint brushes and paint, which amazed me compared to the other school. Also, there was a band. I chose the flute. I wasn’t really good at it as I couldn’t do the high notes, nor can I carry a tune. And I can’t do that thing where you inhale an exhale at the same time. Oh well! I still have my flute though. Most unfortunately, half-way through the year I had to quit gymnastics as I did a front tuck the wrong way, even though I told the coach I didn’t want to do it, and hurt my neck and back. Was fun while it lasted, and I DID get the back handspring down! I started playing more on the computer, designing webpages too. Actually, that Christmas I bought my first domain name, with Yahoo.

Grade 8 (Kuper Academy, Montreal, QC) – Moving to Quebec, I thought it would be better, especially since it had such a big and profound history. It wasn’t. We had so much trouble with the language laws and everything. Getting a licensee for the cars was ridiculously hard and stressful. At school, I remember Computers class, Art, Home-Ec, and science with Miss Mallette. She was SO funny! Math was pretty funny, as the entire year we learned proportions like 500 different ways, which all equated to one basic way. I remember doing a problem that was a Mastermind Game (I really like Mastermind) and I was the only one that could solve it. I got the highest mark on the Jan. exam, too. In French, we were graded based on how well we played chess. That was really amazing. I met one of my best friends that year too, cutting like a dozen apple pies at the senior luncheon. I participated in Track & Field, won a bunch of 1sts in 200, 400, 800, long & triple jump. Also won team MVP at the sports banquet!

Grade 9 (Kuper Academy, Montreal, QC) – Math with Miss Aubie was so much fun! Wow, I remember laughing so hard in that class, phoning in to win prizes on the radio, and a bunch of other crazy stuff. Robotics was extremely fun. We built robots using the Lego RCX 1.0 GUI programmer. Man, trying to understand that was so difficult and annoying. At home, I prgrammed my personal Lego RCX 2.0 in NQC. Way easier to understand! I began interning this year too! I couldn’t participate in Track though because of a torn hip flexor. Owch!

Grade 10 (Kuper Academy, Montreal, QC) – I think this entire year revolved around me, always getting 90s in math, going down to low 20′s. This book was unbelievable. It was translated from french, and there were no notes in the book. Had I known the class was going to be taught similar to an independent studies course, I would have prepared myself more. Thank god it was a ministry exam, and I was able to get a 72 on it. However, there was something more important than stupid math “436″ in this grade. For Science Fair we, Anne-Marie and Olivia and I, created this machine that would compare the difference between a light sensor and a touch/weight sensor. (I used Hooke’s law to make the touch sensor into a weight sensor w/springs). Although it did win gold at both the Kuper Science Fair and the MRSTF, what I learned from it was not the science. There was a big dispute over who would be going to the regionals. Me being the leader wanted both to have an equal opportunity to succeed … so if one had a question, I would make sure both heard the answer. I remember one day sitting in the library when one of the members just started really being mean towards the other. I couldn’t control it so I ran out of the library, and just my luck one of the science teachers was there and was able to calm them down. We still couldn’t settle the dispute, so we had to have a meeting with the school psychologist. After that, the decision was made that a panel will be set up and the best person that presents the project will represent it at the regionals. I always remember being asked ‘who do you want to go’ and I would always answer this person. Thank goodness the other person went to regionals though, because the person mentioned before became extremely mean after. It really showed me that some people are only in it for the rewards. The person that went was in it because it was fun. We had a great time, we had GREAT judges, and walked away with a McGill and Polytech award. And, a gold medal. Even though it was stressful (no sleep for 1 week) – I have ‘Robotics’ on my grad ring to remember it. It was fun, and I really learned A LOT about it. I really have a feeling that it will help me in the future. In grade 10 I was in the ‘Advanced Robotics’ class, only me, and I learned Java and php/mySQL. It was a lot of fun! I couldn’t do track though because of my fainting.

Grade 11 (Kuper Academy, Montreal, QC) -It’s the last year! Again, always failing failing failing math. I felt hopeless! But, thankfully, I was given a break and put into the science program even though my low marks in math last year. The first term, in retrospect, looked boring. Maybe it was. I remember having really good time management at the beginning of the year. I failed the Career Choice test (LOL). Term 2 was eventful. We got a new Physics teacher, who is now my inspiration to work at the JPL designing martian robots, and the class was really fun. Oh yeah! In term 2 I also went to the MIT Splash. That was SO much fun. I will never forget the Advanced Java class. Again this term I failed the Career Choice test (LOL). Term 3 was insanely fun. A new computer class was created, and I was able to learn more and work on new projects. For instance, Robbie the Robot. This was also the term where I wagered getting 75′s to work on this project, and hopefully win bigtime at the science fair. MRSTF really went downhill. I had judges that had no clue what I was saying. I don’t mean the vocabulary was too big, I mean they didn’t understand English completely. Apple lent me a big display, so I could make the interface bigger. Everything was shiny, and Robbie could have a long conversation with you. I was even asked by one of the big cheese’s if I can actually test it on autistic children in time for provincials. I of course said yes, as one of the potential uses of Robbie is to aid autistic children. I have no clue what happened, but they apparently did not like it. The comments that I received were very positive, however there were others that said that there was no innovation, that it was all money. I know it’s out of the ordinary, but there are people, or more precisely, GIRLS, that can program AND do graphic design. I guess they never saw a computer science project that had flashy colours and nice graphics. Whatever. I’m flattered by that judge’s vileness, because obviously the display was so glamorous he couldn’t focus on the project. The Apple community really likes Robbie the Robot. So, after I was pretty much heartbroken that night I got the silver medal (my goal was to get to ISEF, or at the very least Provs then CWSF). Pretty much a slap in the face. Also, they stole our ‘Support Our Troops’ sticker off of our car, crumpled my certificate, and originally lost the comments. At least I unveiled that not all the parts of MRSTF are fair for Kuper, next year. I hope they seriously kick butt and win some good stuff next year. But, the most important part was that I didn’t give up. I started working on my next robot project (Pinky aka BubbleBoy) that night. Term 4 went by soooo slowly. In computers I had fun with the Arduino, though! In Physics we had to build a Rube Goldberg machine, which was REALLY fun until the part where it didn’t work. In any case, the project is donated to the school now. I can only hope that maybe they will start a team to participate in the competition at Perdue University each year (there is a high school section for the project). In Chemistry, redox reactions in basic solutions makes me insane. I better figure it out soon, though! I think one of the biggest disappointments of the whole year was that I got laryngitis right before the track meet. I actually practiced and trained for the 400 and 800. Oof! That really SUCKED! I really wish I could have ran. Grr! I’m still angry that I missed it. On the last day, we went to Chez Cora’s for breakfast. To be honest, I never heard of this whole ‘Eat out for Breakfast’ thing. Why don’t people want to eat Fruit Loops at home? Anyway, my mom mentioned to me that the Lakeshore duckrace would be there, and it really was. It was cool, since the school paid for the tickets. A few years ago my family always bought lots lots lots of tickets, but we never knew who won! It got so annoying, I think it’s riggedz0rz. Anyway, for breakfast I had hot chocolate (drank it until I felt that I was having too much milk — lactose intolerant), and tried to figure out the menu. They said that they had pancakes, but they didn’t!! Instead, I had a ‘crepe’. Or, as I pronounce it, ‘crap’. ROFL. It tasted so bad. I didn’t have it with the bananas or chocolate though, because that didn’t sound too appetizing to me. It’s a big meal for breakfast though! Almost like having a meal at supper. At least we got to support the hospital though, and take a picture with a duck. I think I’ll stick with my Fruit Loops. When we got back, I was pretty much lost.. so I went to French class where the teacher tried to steal my duck :O then I went to the computer lab. Watched a crazy movie with flying cars and an Anthrax alarm… and a mix of JFK’s speeches with other pres’ to make a message. It occurred to me then that I’ll actually be celebrating the 4th of July in California!! OMG!! I can’t wait, really, I can’t. Finally I won’t look like a weirdo on the 4th in all red white and blue. I think though this will mean I will miss the Boston Pops on TV. Shucks, but still, celebrating is so much more fun than wishing we were on the Charles river on our boat watching the fireworks and listening to the 1812 overture. (If we were to move to MA, we would bring our boat with us (which is currently in Pickering, ON — and I miss it). The river is so breathtaking…). I finally got a 100% on a Math test, AND passed a Career Choice test (with an 84) O_O. Pretty cool. I gave Styrobots to several of my teachers, hopefully they will remember me? I really hope so, because most of them inspired me, LOTS! I feel so bad though, one of them that I gave to one of my favouritest teachers didn’t work. So, now that Styrobot just looks cool instead of ‘looks cool and moves’. The last day was the best day, ever! Oh yeah, my community service totalled to ~55 hours. BAM!

Woohoo! So, that took a good 2 hours away from studying. I’m gonna go and play soccer now. I’ll post pictures of the last day maybe later.

Oh yeah, and just to confirm the answer to the question that everyone is asking: No, I have no clue where I’m going. No clue where I’m moving, but I know that it will be within North America. We’ll see what happens after the Stanford trip. And, yes, compared to other moves, it is less stressful because you have NO IDEA where you’re going, but you know you have to go somewhere so you’ll just end up wherever you end up. w00t!

And the real reason that I didn’t apply to CEGEP was because I didn’t have the $30 on hand for the application fee. But, I wouldn’t want to go to CEGEP anyway.
HAPPY SUMMER

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Thursday

So, today I really started to make these Styrobots for 10 of the people that have inspired & helped me. I was painting them before-ish, which was good because I wasn’t leaving it to the last minute… right. I should have done the soldering first, and the painting last. xD I started working on them at 7ish, went to do some HW at 7:30. Came back to the Styrobots at 9, and worked until 12. Then, did more of my English essay until 2ish, which leaves me here. (And I just got really scared out of my mind because I heard a weird noise, LOL)

Here’s pictures of all the Styrobots:

Although the supplies for the Styrobots cost the usual ~$39, and that money could have been used to raise ~$200 for my Stanford Trip, I think it was extremely worth it! These are the people that got me into this 3 week program, and it’s going to be really fun! Like, I look forward to it every second of everyday now. How could I not make these Styrobots for them? Besides, it’s a great way to remember someone, in my opinion! I’ll be posting the pictures of the 10 Styrobots tomorrow, since we get out early.

Anyway… YAY LAST DAY OF SCHOOL TOMORROW!

And what better way to end with than achieving my goal from 1 year ago of getting 100% on a math test! Woohoo! (Finally!)

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Wednesday

This year is almost over!!!

It’s been a long one, and I can’t wait to celebrate (a tiny bit). Save the real celebration till after exams, though! I’ll make a gigantor reflection post on Friday. (That way I can look at it in 5 years and have a good laugh, hopefully!)

I’d love to go to a public tour at the JPL while I’m in Cali!

I wonder if Apple has tours of its buildings…

(GEEZ Erin, such a boring blog post!)

Posted in: Projects, School.

Stanford EPGY :D

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

^_^ ^_^ HOLY MACARONI! ^_^ ^_^

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 . (<-- that word is so cool, that it can only be used on special occasions)

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

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 !! WWDC 08 AFTERMATH xD!! APPLE STORES!! PIXAR!! INFINITE LOOP!! STANFORD!! ROBOTICS!! AI!! COMPUTERS!! WOOOOOOOOT!! =D

I’m SO excited! And happy!

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

$10 from uC Hobby

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Saturday, March 29th, 2008

As I found featured on MAKE emails in my inbox, I also found something else. A $10 donation from David Fowler from uC Hobby! Believe it or not, I could not believe it was true! I even double checked that it was the real PayPal. ;D

This $10 will go an extremely long way! I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to buy just yet, but it will most likely be a used book from amazon That way, I can learn more about robotics!

I’m just completely astonished! The first real donation to my Robotic Fund. ^_^ I’m extremely flattered, honestly!

Thank you so much, David & uC Hobby!

Posted in: Other, Projects.

Featured on MAKE!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Saturday, March 29th, 2008

Wow, what a brilliant surprise! After playing around with BubbleBoy, I go to check my email. I noticed that there were two new comments on my blog, which is rather peculiar! I checked it out, then shrieked out loud “I’M ON MAKEZINE!”. Wooooooooooo! I was sooooo (and still am) thrilled! A few seconds later, after playing the video to ensure it was my BristleBot, I sent a thank-you email right away to JBC, the person that made the article.

JBC has a blog, you can check it out here: coin-op. One of the really neat projects is one called PoliceState. Check it out! I like the look of the cars, really stylish.

I’m just so absolutely honoured, flattered, and blabber-ghasted! Thank you so much!! So, check it out on MAKE!

Oh yeah, one more thing – BristleBot says thanks too.

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

Timeline of Events, Science Fair (Day 3)

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

Result day.

4:45 AM – 1234 by Feist! Woowoo! Stayed in bed because I was having a dream about talking to Robbie, have to finish the conversation…

4:50 AM – Awake

5:00 AM – Watch goes off! It gets louder as time passes.

5:09 AM – So, I played around with Arduino on Xcode on my other laptop last night. I’m figuring that the speaking character view, the one that makes Robbie open and close his mouth, could have a pipe which would lead to the terminal so it could go something like
cd theDirectory
make upload
Which would upload the program onto the Arduino.
I’m not exactly sure yet how I’ll have it talking … a wire running out of the back of the stuffed animal to the computer doesn’t sound like a good idea to me :S Maybe I’ll get a bluetooth Arduino and a small wireless microphone. So really, you could have a server farm (hacked Apple TV) in one room, with a big USB hub and multiple Robbies open so that many people in one room can converse with their open copy of Robbie. Only problem would be getting the Apple speech event handler to not be confused, esp as it blocks out all other applications. Maybe I could have Robbie record the sound (speech), then ‘parse’ it. While the computer would be processing, the stuffed penguin would move its arms up and down… hopefully the processing time wouldn’t be too long! But then again, if you have 20 of these stuffies running at one time, it is possible that the computer would run slowly…
Maybe I can create multiple Apple event listeners… I can see it now! The tiny blue bubbles all across the screen (wow).

5:21 AM – Goes downstairs to eat. Or at least try to.

6:17 AM – Left the house

7:00 AM – Arrived at the school

7:10 AM – No one is here, and there’s nothing to do, much o_o

4:30 PM – Awards ceremony

8:10 PM – Arrived home

All I can really say is that I’m extremely disappointed in the MRSTF – no comments from the judges (there were FIVE judges), 2 of them didn’t speak my language, and I’m sure even more didn’t even READ the report. How can I go from a project, last year – that compared a light sensor and touch sensor – to this whole Robbie Robot and do worse? It has so many possible future uses! I wasted A LOT of time, and more importantly I wasted A LOT of other people’s time. I did worse than failure, in my eyes. So if we learn from failure… does that mean I learned close to the ultimate answer? Lol!

That’s pretty much the way I am thinking about it. I have the ultimate answer, so I’m still going to work on robotics – but you’ll pretty much have to pay me to do another science fair after this one — or at least ensure that the judges are qualified. I’m planning to work on Robbie until I get to version 500. (By version 500 I hope to have continuous speech recognition). ^_^ Yay!

I’m going to go to the store today to get a bigger breadboard and some wires – and some squishy things… I’m going to make my own Keepon… I’m thinking of a pink snowman! With glitter! Haha.

Congrats to everyone that participated!

But, just to put this whole experience in perspective in one sentence- they stole our support our troops sticker off of our car.

:/

Posted in: Projects, Robot.

Timeline of Events, Science Fair (Day 2)

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Monday, March 17th, 2008

It’s JUDGE DAY! Wooooooooooo!

4:45 AM – …And the wake up music is Bubbly by Colbie something… YAY! Well done iPod again – the random algorithm is really doing good

4:50 AM – Check results of Robbie Robot downloads … I broke the 1,000 mark!

4:57 AM – Looked and spy’ed to see what IP my computer is and where StatPress thinks it’s from – the flag is Canada, but it thinks it’s from Saudi Arabia! The ISP is correct, not sure how it gets SA! xD

5:00 AM – Watch goes off! Time to wake everyone up

5:02 AM – Time to get ready wooo wooo!

5:12 AM – Waiting for Dad :/

5:13 AM – Attempts to go downstairs… but hears a squeak and it’s too dark (even with my iPod as a flashlight)

5:40 AM – Time to get dressed

5:50 AM – Eat and drink (a bit — not really hungry)

6:10 AM – Put the bags in the car and got ready to leave!

6:15 AM – Left the house!

7:20 AM – Arrived at the school, yay

7:35-8:20 AM – Wrote log in the actual log book as opposed to my commonplace book

8:25 AM – Went into the gym and set up

1st judge – Remote control for Keynote presentation didn’t work However, judge didn’t understand anyway – I’m thinking that he’s anti-machine as he was absolutely repulsed at making friends with a computer or having a conversation with it. He didn’t speak English very well, either.

2nd judge – Rebooted my mac a few minutes before, but it was still was loading up when he was asking about my project. The remote worked though! But my ‘tardiness’ of the presentation probably lost me 10 marks, at least! In the end, he didn’t understand it.

3rd judge – A programmer! Awesome! He really liked the source code of Robbie, and how it was made on a mac. This particular judge knows C, Java and does some PHP on the side.

4th judge – I actually can’t remember this one for some reason. All I remember is that he wanted me to sit down with him, which was pretty neat! It was either this judge, or the next one, that asked me about Turing (who he was, why the test is so special, etc. etc.). He liked Robbie!

5th judge – This judge was astonished that I used Keynote. I was actually taken aback when he blurted out ‘Hey! That’s Keynote!’ I had to pull myself to get back to the conversation about conversations, instead of having a conversation about how much fun Keynote is. He really liked Robbie. At the end of it all, we were checking out iMovie to see if I could remotely fix his .AVI problem. It turns out that there’s some new encoder of .AVI’s, or something. Neat!

12:00 PM – Took a peak at some of the awards in the booklet. Only 2 people can go to ISEF. That’s pretty tricky! I really hope they choose a computer science project. Personally, I REALLY want to go as I want to be CHALLENGED! I’m eager for a challenge, difficult questions, and some computer scientists to nag me about my almost-OO code! McGill has 4*250 EE & CE prizes. They also have 2*100 CS Robotics awards. Concordia has a paloozle of awards, for instance 2*250 outstanding achievement in CS, 2*250 outstanding achievement in EE & CE, 2*250 women in engineering & CS, 2*250 faculty of engineering & CS award. Wow, so much CS from Concordia! I’m really amazed at how there is so many biology awards, it’s quite crazy. There is also the Ecole Polytech award (that I won last year). It will be nice if I win something, but I’m really not expecting anything. If I do win something, it will go towards books from amazon.com! I’d love to read more stuff!

12:30 PM (After lunch)

Profound Passerby-er #1 – This person knows Pascal AND Assembly! I was completely astonished. Assembly is like… the toughest language out there! It actually turns out that he used his Pascal program and debugger to create an Assembly code. That’s extremely neat! We talked about Java and Objecive-C, and of course Robbie. Pretty neat!

Profound Passerby-er #2 – This person is definitely the person you want to talk to your project about! Unfortunately, I was wandering around looking at other projects when he dropped by, so my Dad helped get him. I’m glad someone FINALLY asked me challenging questions! Although, they weren’t that challenging, but I actually had to think for a few milliseconds before answering some of them. (COOL!) He asked for my bibliography, which is not that impressive as I didn’t have many resources available 0_0. (The two things on there are MIT OCW, and Computer Speech Technology by Robert D. Rodman). He also asked if I could have Robbie tested with autistic children — ABSOLUTELY! I’d love to do that!

4:00 PM – Erin doesn’t understand why everyone is leaving

4:05 PM – Realizes it’s time to go home, so packed up the display and everything! I didn’t leave my logbook or report there, however. I’m extremely skeptical since last year.

6:00 PM – Home sweet home!

So, now my plan is to see if I can get my Arduino running in Xcode! Once I do, I’ll be able to port the speaking character view of robbie to it, so that say, a stuffed penguin, will be able to move its beak up and down to signify that it is speaking.

I have to get this running ASAP, if I want to live up to what I said to Profound Passerby-er #2!

Apparently, tomorrow I have to wake up at the same time. Oh well! Doesn’t matter to me, as there is no formal judging. Just the fun stuff, no stress! If a profound person asks about your project, you can just take it easy – and not worry about outlining the dry and boring Purpose, Discussion, Conclusion. On with the demos and flowcharts!

One more thing – Robbie broke 1,000 downloads this morning!

Happy St. Patty’s Day! Enjoy these pics!

Posted in: Programming, Projects, Robot.

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.