Typhoon Averted
1955, FIRA main hall.
I think this is the latest I've seen every team here. Everyone is working on getting their robots ready for th last event tomorrow morning -- the marathon. 80m of servo-burning footrace. It'll be interesting to see how the teams do. I expect we'll probably be somewhere in the middle of the pack. Darwin's walking is pretty quick, and his legs are longer than most of the robots here. The trick will be staying stable around the bends where the carpet is loose and wrinkly.
Today I tried my hand at the wall-climbing. We skipped round 1 because we didn't have any code for it, but I whipped something together in about 20 minutes to see if we could get a few points. We didn't, but I'm not terribly upset about that. Darwin's proportions are simply not well-suited to climbing on the wall we had. And for 20 minutes of work I'd have been surprised if it had worked perfectly.
Chi Tai's obstacle-run code worked very well today. I was impressed. Generally everything Chi Tai has done over the last few days is impressive. The man is a freaking tank; while Derek and I were wimping out by having some sleep last night I think Chi Tai stayed up the entire night working (again!). And right now he's at it again, coding up a storm of vision-processing algorithms on Darwin for the marathon. I'm feeling kind of useless right now (hence the blogging). I spent a few hours this afternoon writing the basic skeleton for the marathon code (version 2, since version 1 was never fully-tested back home, and none of us can make much sense of the code if we need to fix anything). Chi Tai and Derek were tossing around some ideas on how to fine-tune the vision so we could follow the line better. So I guess I've contributed. I just feel bad that Chi Tai seems to be putting in so much more work than me. I don't know if you'll ever read this, but Chi Tai: you sir have carried this team, and it's been a pleasure and a privilege working with you over the last few months.
In other news, the typhoon has apparently largely bypassed Taiwan already, so the worst we'll see is some severe rain overnight and into the morning. But no dangerous winds and the like. So we're as safe as can be expected.
Last night I discovered that apparently the FIRA organizers lock us into the dorms overnight. I know this because I wanted to head over to the Brits' room in the other dorm for our planned Typhoon Party, but couldn't actually get out. There were giant padlocks on the front door, and all of the emergency exits had locked metal bars across them. This does not make me feel safe. If there's a fire in that building we're dead.
And for some reason in Taiwan they do not provide any means of drying your hands in public washrooms. There are toilets and sinks, but no paper towels or hot air dryers. Apparently everyone just has wet hands, or uses their pants/shirts. Or packs their own towel all the time. But I haven't seen anyone with towels in their pockets. It's quite odd.
Also, for a country where everyone seems to wear trousers, I am confused about why they have squat toilets in all the public washrooms. I'd never seen a squat toilet before coming here (though I had heard of them). I have not yet had the courage to try using one of said implements yet. I, like most of the other westerners here, seem to gravitate towards the handicapped washrooms which contain real toilets you can sit on. Much less unusual to me, and with a significantly lower risk of missing and hitting my trousers. Which is a very good thing.
On that lovely note I should go get back to work. Or try to find some work to do. I'm looking forward to the end of FIRA, as odd as that may sound. It's been fun, but stressful. I'm looking forward to going to Taipei where we might have more of a chance to be tourists instead of working our asses off 20+ hours a day. Most of the teams here that I've talked to are going to Taipei once FIRA is over, so hopefully we'll be able to meet up at a club or something. That'd be cool. And if all goes well I'll get to run into a few of these people again next year when FIRA is held in Bristol, England.
I think this is the latest I've seen every team here. Everyone is working on getting their robots ready for th last event tomorrow morning -- the marathon. 80m of servo-burning footrace. It'll be interesting to see how the teams do. I expect we'll probably be somewhere in the middle of the pack. Darwin's walking is pretty quick, and his legs are longer than most of the robots here. The trick will be staying stable around the bends where the carpet is loose and wrinkly.
Today I tried my hand at the wall-climbing. We skipped round 1 because we didn't have any code for it, but I whipped something together in about 20 minutes to see if we could get a few points. We didn't, but I'm not terribly upset about that. Darwin's proportions are simply not well-suited to climbing on the wall we had. And for 20 minutes of work I'd have been surprised if it had worked perfectly.
Chi Tai's obstacle-run code worked very well today. I was impressed. Generally everything Chi Tai has done over the last few days is impressive. The man is a freaking tank; while Derek and I were wimping out by having some sleep last night I think Chi Tai stayed up the entire night working (again!). And right now he's at it again, coding up a storm of vision-processing algorithms on Darwin for the marathon. I'm feeling kind of useless right now (hence the blogging). I spent a few hours this afternoon writing the basic skeleton for the marathon code (version 2, since version 1 was never fully-tested back home, and none of us can make much sense of the code if we need to fix anything). Chi Tai and Derek were tossing around some ideas on how to fine-tune the vision so we could follow the line better. So I guess I've contributed. I just feel bad that Chi Tai seems to be putting in so much more work than me. I don't know if you'll ever read this, but Chi Tai: you sir have carried this team, and it's been a pleasure and a privilege working with you over the last few months.
In other news, the typhoon has apparently largely bypassed Taiwan already, so the worst we'll see is some severe rain overnight and into the morning. But no dangerous winds and the like. So we're as safe as can be expected.
Last night I discovered that apparently the FIRA organizers lock us into the dorms overnight. I know this because I wanted to head over to the Brits' room in the other dorm for our planned Typhoon Party, but couldn't actually get out. There were giant padlocks on the front door, and all of the emergency exits had locked metal bars across them. This does not make me feel safe. If there's a fire in that building we're dead.
And for some reason in Taiwan they do not provide any means of drying your hands in public washrooms. There are toilets and sinks, but no paper towels or hot air dryers. Apparently everyone just has wet hands, or uses their pants/shirts. Or packs their own towel all the time. But I haven't seen anyone with towels in their pockets. It's quite odd.
Also, for a country where everyone seems to wear trousers, I am confused about why they have squat toilets in all the public washrooms. I'd never seen a squat toilet before coming here (though I had heard of them). I have not yet had the courage to try using one of said implements yet. I, like most of the other westerners here, seem to gravitate towards the handicapped washrooms which contain real toilets you can sit on. Much less unusual to me, and with a significantly lower risk of missing and hitting my trousers. Which is a very good thing.
On that lovely note I should go get back to work. Or try to find some work to do. I'm looking forward to the end of FIRA, as odd as that may sound. It's been fun, but stressful. I'm looking forward to going to Taipei where we might have more of a chance to be tourists instead of working our asses off 20+ hours a day. Most of the teams here that I've talked to are going to Taipei once FIRA is over, so hopefully we'll be able to meet up at a club or something. That'd be cool. And if all goes well I'll get to run into a few of these people again next year when FIRA is held in Bristol, England.