Link-tastic
Pretty busy right now...
Had to prevent myself from being dis-enrolled in all my classes last week.
I pretty much botched it, as I forgot to complete the payment process after adding in two classes in the third week.
Still, you think they'd alarm me by any other dozen means; there are seven different email-browsers the university has us enrolled in. Financial Services is also provided with an alternate email, and two phone numbers, yet none of them were contacted.
This tells me something I should have only realized sooner: admissions is run by a computer, and the people filling that department are only a means to serve and maintain it.
Get to hear the faculty opinion on the senior project this week, as this weekend our proposals will have undergone review by faculty and local heads of industry (including Aerojet, Intel, and TechFlow) . I'm pursuing my design for a "Jointless Robotic Armature" It will use Electroactive Polymers (also dubbed "Artificial Muscle") as a means for actuation. The goal is to have it capable of operating in space. Short-term prospect includes telerobotics, long-term prospect includes replacing CANADARM on the NASA shuttle.
One professor, Jose Granda, who is affiliated with NASA has expressed interest in helping acquire funding for our project.
I'm heading the group as well, so I have to constantly communicate and manage my group members in regards to who does what work, and when it must be done by.
Also negotiating with Professor Qibing Pei of UCLA about using his materials laboratory to create the actuators ourselves.
I will be meeting with him at the SPIE Conference coming next month.
I am somewhat wondering what is reaction will be, as he has personally developed a robot-arm which is strikingly similar to my own idea, however he already has seniority within the field.
My idea for this arm came from watching the TED.com lecture with Robert Full, and thinking how robotics is so enfeebled by the fact that the driving medium and the driving mechanism are always two separate entities. So to say, the motor will be at the joint, and the huge battery to operate it will be somewhere else. The medium and its driver occupy two separate entities of considerable space.
So what does robot motion seek to create?
The motion of living things.
And what do living things move with?
Muscle.
It was not long until I discovered EAPs, and thought that the best arm would be one that can operate in any orientation.
Like an octopus arm. Though I've found I'm certainly not the first one to make this conclusion!
What I am fortunate for is that my concept of design, which had no influence from existing designs which I have come to be aware of this past season, is not one that has been attempted yet. Meaning: it is original.
In any case, I will have to make sure I do not step into any legal territories.
More later perhaps, but for now I've got to get ready for my 11am class to hear about my project!
Had to prevent myself from being dis-enrolled in all my classes last week.
I pretty much botched it, as I forgot to complete the payment process after adding in two classes in the third week.
Still, you think they'd alarm me by any other dozen means; there are seven different email-browsers the university has us enrolled in. Financial Services is also provided with an alternate email, and two phone numbers, yet none of them were contacted.
This tells me something I should have only realized sooner: admissions is run by a computer, and the people filling that department are only a means to serve and maintain it.
Get to hear the faculty opinion on the senior project this week, as this weekend our proposals will have undergone review by faculty and local heads of industry (including Aerojet, Intel, and TechFlow) . I'm pursuing my design for a "Jointless Robotic Armature" It will use Electroactive Polymers (also dubbed "Artificial Muscle") as a means for actuation. The goal is to have it capable of operating in space. Short-term prospect includes telerobotics, long-term prospect includes replacing CANADARM on the NASA shuttle.
One professor, Jose Granda, who is affiliated with NASA has expressed interest in helping acquire funding for our project.
I'm heading the group as well, so I have to constantly communicate and manage my group members in regards to who does what work, and when it must be done by.
Also negotiating with Professor Qibing Pei of UCLA about using his materials laboratory to create the actuators ourselves.
I will be meeting with him at the SPIE Conference coming next month.
I am somewhat wondering what is reaction will be, as he has personally developed a robot-arm which is strikingly similar to my own idea, however he already has seniority within the field.
My idea for this arm came from watching the TED.com lecture with Robert Full, and thinking how robotics is so enfeebled by the fact that the driving medium and the driving mechanism are always two separate entities. So to say, the motor will be at the joint, and the huge battery to operate it will be somewhere else. The medium and its driver occupy two separate entities of considerable space.
So what does robot motion seek to create?
The motion of living things.
And what do living things move with?
Muscle.
It was not long until I discovered EAPs, and thought that the best arm would be one that can operate in any orientation.
Like an octopus arm. Though I've found I'm certainly not the first one to make this conclusion!
What I am fortunate for is that my concept of design, which had no influence from existing designs which I have come to be aware of this past season, is not one that has been attempted yet. Meaning: it is original.
In any case, I will have to make sure I do not step into any legal territories.
More later perhaps, but for now I've got to get ready for my 11am class to hear about my project!