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. 

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!"

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.

Our skit

Human Knot - Getting Knotty

Human Knot - Untied

Prepping to find the M

Finding the M

Relay Race

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.

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!

Below are a compilation of our first mobile app presentations, demos and slides.
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

PowerPoint | Demo

Ashwin and Shreya: Dress Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

PowerPoint | Demo

Leilani and Robert: Paintish

PowerPoint | Demo

Sheldon and Jesse: Coin Collector

PowerPoint | Demo

Veronica and Cameron: Cookie Shaker

PowerPoint | Demo

Lizbeth and Izabella: COSMOS Diary

PowerPoint | Demo

Sonali and Alice: Don't Cave to the Crave

PowerPoint | Demo

Christi and Shamailah: Zap Attack

PowerPoint | Demo

Anup and Sammy Part (1): StuART

Anup and Sammy (Part 2): StuART

PowerPoint | Demo

Matthew and Guilllermo: Thought Cloud

PowerPoint | Demo

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)

Faculty Bios

Professor Ryan Kastner:

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