Sunday, August 2, 2015
Research Expo - Final Project Presentations
The Research Expo, on our final day of COSMOS, showcased the final projects of our cluster. Every student applied what they learned throughout the four weeks. Teams of two proposed their own final project idea. They ranged from unique AppInventor apps, Scribbler Robot algorithms, and Arduino projects. Some combined two or three of the technologies. The faculty was extremely impressed with the effort, work and learning that was exhibited. Below are the final presentations.
Robert and Jesse:
Data Collection of Local Gasoline Structures: Utilizing a Web Database to Acquire a Compilation of Petrol Station Expenditures Generated from Crowdsourcing Data
Presentation & Award | Demo
Sonali and Sammy:
An Automated Navigational Guide Implementing Infrared Technology for Natural Disaster Victims Entrapped in Infrastructural Damage
Sheldon and Veronica:
Engineering a Solution to Prevent Closet Space Entropy: An Integration and Communication Between Two Autonomous Systems
Christi and Leilani:
Development of a Mobile Application Interface to an RGB Image Processing Object Identifier
Izabella and Lizbeth:
Teleoperated Navigation and Autonomous Polygon Creation Vehicle for Early Childhood Development Through an Android Application-Arduino Interface
Shamailah and Starr:
Using Mobile Applications to Navigate Expansive Terrain through Robotic Image Processing
Ashwin and Cameron:
Transistor Powered Multi-Arduino Latice with Motion Based LED Tracking Integrating Machine Learning
Alice and Shreya:
Android-based Automated Apparatus for a Fixed One-Wheel Pulley System
Guillermo and Kevin:
Microcomputer Powered K'nex Vehicle Controlled Through a Mobile Android Application
Anup and Matthew:
Navigational Aid for the Visually Impaired: Utilization of Infrared Obstacle Detection Algorithms and Mobile Devices
Friday, July 24, 2015
The Walking Arduino
We spent a few days this week working to create a walking Arduino robot using popsicle sticks, glue and Kinex. The robot had to "walk" and not use any wheels. In fact, the servos we had only rotated 180 degrees. Below are our videos. Congratulations to Matthew and Starr, and Izabella and Robert for having the fastest times.
Christi and Anup
Cameron and Lizbeth
Alice and Sheldon
Shamailah and Jesse
Sammy and Shreya
Izabella and Robert
Matt and Starr
Kevin and Veronica
Guillermo and Leilani
Curt
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
The Music of Arduinos
Our first Arduino lab challenged us to make a musical instrument. Some of the components available to use were: push buttons, IR LED, LED, speaker, and a proximity sensor.
We then presented our instrument to our cluster. Below are our presentations and demos. Congratulations to Sheldon and Lizbeth who won the Faculty's Choice and to Matthew and Veronica for the People's Choice awards.
We then presented our instrument to our cluster. Below are our presentations and demos. Congratulations to Sheldon and Lizbeth who won the Faculty's Choice and to Matthew and Veronica for the People's Choice awards.
Anup and Shreya presentation
Anup and Shreya demo
Ashwin and Shamailah presentation
Ashwin and Shamailah demo
Christi and Sammy presentation
Christi and Sammy demo
Guillermo and Alice presentation
Guillermo and Alice demo
Izabella and Cameron presentation
Izabella and Cameron demo
Kevin and Sonali presentation
Kevin and Sonali demo
Leilani and Jesse presentation
Leilani and Jesse demo
Matthew and Veronica presentation
Matthew and Veronica demo
Starr and Robert presentation
Starr and Robert demo
Sheldon and Lizbeth presentation
Sheldon and Lizbeth demo
Scribbler Maze Challenge
We programmed our Scribblers to autonomously traverse a maze. We spent a few days testing it out on different maze set-ups as well as identifying the colors blue and red and horizontal and vertical lines. You can view our work which applied our knowledge of image processing below. Congratulations to: Sonali and Sammy for the best time going through the original maze; Anup and Starr for the best time going through the maze from exit to entrance; and Alice and Jesse for the best time overall for both mazes!
Ashwin and Leilani 1
Ashwin and Leilani 2
Anup and Starr 1
Anup and Starr 2
Alice and Jesse 1
Alice and Jesse 2
Sheldon and Cameron 1
Sheldon and Cameron 2
Sammy and Sonali 1
Sammy and Sonali 2
Robert and Veronica 1
Robert and Veronica 2
Kevin and Shamailah 1a
Kevin and Shamailah 1b
Kevin and Shamailah 2
Izabella and Matthew 1a
Izabella and Matthew 1b
Izabella and Matthew 2
Shreya and Guillermo 1
Shreya and Guillermo 2
Christi and Lizbeth
Friday, July 17, 2015
Scribbler: RoboArt
This week we had our RoboArt Competition. We programmed our Scribblers to maneuver around to make our own original design. Congratulations to Shreya and Shamailah for their winning "Snowflake" design. Below are some pictures. Other photos can be found in "Pictures: Week 2"
Field Trip to ViaSat
This past Wednesday afternoon, we visited ViaSat. Everyone had a great time. Cameron shares his experience below:
"Today we got to go see the entrepreneurial business ViaSat. Our tour of the facility was incredible; they had two volleyball courts with imported sand, a basketball court, and even free coffee machines that they let us use! On a more serious note, the technology that they are creating at this facility is unparalleled to any other organization. Their current satellite coverage covers most of the United States and is the biggest satellite array that orbits the Earth. Nikolai Devereaux, our tour guide, also told us that they are planning to launch an even bigger satellite array into space by using a SpaceX rocket in the coming year. This new satellite will cover all of the USA, some of the Atlantic, South America, and even some of Europe. Ironically, this satellite will steal the record for biggest satellite array in space from themselves. He also enlightened us on how WiFi is provided on planes and how Jet Blue utilizes ViaSat technology to provide high-speed internet for all its customers, contrary to airlines such as Southwest which provide a spotty wireless service.
"Today we got to go see the entrepreneurial business ViaSat. Our tour of the facility was incredible; they had two volleyball courts with imported sand, a basketball court, and even free coffee machines that they let us use! On a more serious note, the technology that they are creating at this facility is unparalleled to any other organization. Their current satellite coverage covers most of the United States and is the biggest satellite array that orbits the Earth. Nikolai Devereaux, our tour guide, also told us that they are planning to launch an even bigger satellite array into space by using a SpaceX rocket in the coming year. This new satellite will cover all of the USA, some of the Atlantic, South America, and even some of Europe. Ironically, this satellite will steal the record for biggest satellite array in space from themselves. He also enlightened us on how WiFi is provided on planes and how Jet Blue utilizes ViaSat technology to provide high-speed internet for all its customers, contrary to airlines such as Southwest which provide a spotty wireless service.
Later in the day Mr. Devereaux brought us to see one of their active testing facilities that houses 1000 routers and about 16 or so server racks that are used to simulate both weather, users, and the satellite itself. We were allowed to enter the room and found it to be extremely cold because of all the fans that are running to keep the servers at an optimal temperature to prevent them from overheating. To set up the first two rows of servers and one wall of routers took them around five months to finish! It's interesting to see a business that requires not just one type of engineer; ViaSat requires engineers from all different fields whether that be Electrical, Computer Science, or Mechanical; they need all these professions to create new and innovative satellites that revolutionize the market!"
Monday, July 13, 2015
COSMOlympics!
The event we've been working toward all week - COSMOlympics! COSMOlympics is comprised of several events - a relay race, trivia contest, egg toss, find the M&M and a skit - which we came up with ourselves. It was a lot of fun and we've very proud of our skit!
The videos are listed below and the pictures can be found here.
The videos are listed below and the pictures can be found here.
Our skit
Human Knot - Getting Knotty
Human Knot - Untied
Prepping to find the M
Finding the M
Relay Race
Friday, July 10, 2015
Scribbler Dance-Off and more!
We started off lab this afternoon with our Scribbler robot Dance-Off. We programmed our Scribblers to dance - some to a song, other had it play a song. View our videos below.
Congratulations to Guillermo and Izabella for having the best dance!
Also, you can view the pictures from Thursday and Friday here.
Congratulations to Guillermo and Izabella for having the best dance!
Also, you can view the pictures from Thursday and Friday here.
Christi and Kevin
Cameron and Robert
Jesse and Sonali
Sheldon and Veronica
Shamailah and Shreya
Sammy and Alice
Matthew and Anup
Lizbeth and Ashwin
Leilani and Starr
Guillermo and Izabella
Our First Mobile Apps!
Congratulations to: Sammy and Anup, the "Faculty's Choice" Award for their app StuART and Matthew and Guillermo, the "People's Choice" Award winners for their app Thought Cloud.
Starr and Kevin: Nutrition of Burger King
Ashwin and Shreya: Dress Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself
Leilani and Robert: Paintish
Sheldon and Jesse: Coin Collector
Veronica and Cameron: Cookie Shaker
Lizbeth and Izabella: COSMOS Diary
Sonali and Alice: Don't Cave to the Crave
Christi and Shamailah: Zap Attack
Anup and Sammy Part (1): StuART
Anup and Sammy (Part 2): StuART
Matthew and Guilllermo: Thought Cloud
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Pictures from our first three days
The first three days of COSMOS have been busy and we've already learned a lot. You can view some of the pictures from our experiences here.
"Around the World" game winners: Izabella (2nd place), Jesse (1st place) and Sheldon (in the back, 3rd place)
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Faculty Bios
Professor Ryan Kastner:
Project Development Engineer Curt Schurgers:
Curt Schurgers received his Ph.D. from UCLA in integrated circuits andsystems, and his MS in EE from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (KUL). Before coming to UCSD in 2002, he was a lecturer at UCLA in VLSI System Design and a postdoctural associate at MIT. He also held research assistantships at UCLA Networked & Embedded Systems Lab and the Interuniversity Microelectronics Center (IMEC) in Belgium. From 2004 until 2010, he was an Assistant Professor at the ECE Department at UCSD, leading the Wireless Information Systems Lab. Since December 2010, he has been appointed as a Project Development Engineer at Calit2, leading a large NSF program on underwater networked systems.
Teacher Fellow Shirley Miranda:
Ryan is currently a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He received a PhD in Computer Science at UCLA, a masters degree (MS) in engineering and bachelor degrees (BS) in both Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering, all from Northwestern University. He is the co-director of the Wireless Embedded Systems Master of Advanced Studies Program. He also co-directs the Engineers for Exploration Program. His current research interests reside in three areas: hardware acceleration, hardware security, and remote sensing. View website.
Project Development Engineer Curt Schurgers:
Curt Schurgers received his Ph.D. from UCLA in integrated circuits andsystems, and his MS in EE from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (KUL). Before coming to UCSD in 2002, he was a lecturer at UCLA in VLSI System Design and a postdoctural associate at MIT. He also held research assistantships at UCLA Networked & Embedded Systems Lab and the Interuniversity Microelectronics Center (IMEC) in Belgium. From 2004 until 2010, he was an Assistant Professor at the ECE Department at UCSD, leading the Wireless Information Systems Lab. Since December 2010, he has been appointed as a Project Development Engineer at Calit2, leading a large NSF program on underwater networked systems.
Teacher Fellow Shirley Miranda:
Shirley earned her B.S. in Computer Engineering at UCSD then worked as a software
development engineer. Her continued volunteer work with high school students through
the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair (GSDSEF) inspired her to go into
teaching. At the University of San Diego, she earned her M.Ed. focusing on technology in
education. She currently teaches Statistics 1-2, AP Statistics, Robotics and AP Computer
Science at Morse High School in San Diego. This is her ninth summer as a Teacher Fellow
at UCSD COSMOS where she developed the Science Communication curriculum. She
serves as the Director of the GSDSEF, is a member of the COSMOS Advisory Board and
the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair’s Advisory Council. Recently, she was
recognized with the 2014 National Council of Women and Information Technology
(NCWIT) Educator Award for her contributions to the computer science educational
community. Additionally, her school district named her the 2015 Teacher of the Year
Runner-Up for high schools. Shirley spends her free time writing and visiting the San Diego
Zoo with her husband and 19-month old daughter. She has published four books Falling,
Winter Solstice, Wintering, and Springing of her Bits and Pieces series. She is currently
writing her fifth book. shirleymiranda.com
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Welcome to Cluster 1!
Welcome to UCSD COSMOS's Cluster 1 "Computers in Everyday Life" blog site. Here you'll be able to see photos, find out what we are learning and doing as well as links to our presentations and videos! Our UCSD faculty (Professors Kastner and Curt) and I (Shirley Miranda, Teacher Fellow) are excited to spend the next four weeks sharing innovative, challenging and exciting work with our students.
Check back soon to find our pictures from our first adventures together!
Check back soon to find our pictures from our first adventures together!
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