Cody Glover's Blog

• Ethics.doc: Ethics Paper

30 July 2008

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Up to the Third Draft

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So we completed the third draft of our paper last night and sent it to be check over by Matt. This draft is substantially different from our previous ones as we had to change large portions of it to account for a more narrow focus of the paper as well as length. We had the paper around ten pages at a point and the conference we were looking at was limited to 8. This work on the paper is the reason I have not been blogging recently. Being here till 9 does that to you.

In other news as some have probably heard with the flooding of the basement of my Frat, DePauw has decide that we could not possibly get the house ready by school start, cite something about 10 yrs of back repairs which haven't really been a problem until now. Hopefully the news will be good on monday, because I really don't want to deal with university housing this fall. Though knowing DePauw it probably won't be good because... well lets just say that there are reasons I tend to distrust the administration aspects of school and college.

NizarKhalife - 31 Jul 2008 - 01:00

It's good to keep a healthy distrust of any administration you happen to be under. Doubly so when it concerns rabbits.

24 July 2008

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Late Night and Gaming

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So as most people have notice I have become sporatic on blogging this is mainly because we have been working on the paper which we hope to submit to a confrence and finishing the testing for the paper. We think that we have enough to meet the eight page requirement. In truth if we expanded our thoughts on a lot of it we could probably get alot more than 8. but they have limits.

Today we also had the MMORPG journal club which was interesting because you basically had the gamers, sudo gamers, and non gamers conflicting. I find it interesting that physical results of gaming didn't play a bigger part. It was mainly about the social ramification; which I imagine was like the 70s or when you basically had the old generation trying to keep things the same and the new generation trying to change things. It is kind of funny to see how people will often be fairly hypocritcal without realizing it. As well as how people limit the way they connect things simply because they don't agree or don't want to.

JennaLanger - 25 Jul 2008 - 17:16

I wish the article went more into the physical affects of the game, but there wasn't enough information to have a knowledgeable discussion about it.

21 July 2008

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Problems Problems

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So we thought we were going to be done running experiments today however issues with the hand and robot made us stop for fear of damaging the robot. Were hoping to talk to Alex and the grad students to make sure everything is cosher before starting again. Hopefully we will be getting that done; however despite not finishing our participates I still think we will have enough information to compile a good report. While the analitical and number results would be trouble, general observation results troughout the experiments have been good and expansive.

In other news I am right now hating my school because in my posted aid award for next year it showed basically a full ride but after looking through it i realized they double posted everything so I am still going to have to find about 10000 and live off ramen noodles.

DavidOluwatimi - 22 Jul 2008 - 16:30

It was fun doing that Robot excercise. Hopefully, you could improve is sensitivity, but it was kind of lacking in that area

EvaTao - 22 Jul 2008 - 00:01

Do not forget to blog!!

NizarKhalife - 21 Jul 2008 - 22:42

Living off salt and pepper is also a good plan. I hear dirt is cheap as well.

17 July 2008

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Testing

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So we started testing to day... and had several of problems with the test or one in general but we belief that we fixed our problems but we will have to see. Outside of that the journal club was interesting despite that fact that we ended up off topic almost that entire time. The ethics question is quite interesting especially with issues of class difference, 3rd world countries, limited resources and people's beliefs and nature. I do find it funny that everyone takes the idealistic and humanitarian stance when many would probably act differently in the situation. Any way next subject.

BrianRussell - 17 Jul 2008 - 20:06

One day of testing down, a few more to go.

15 July 2008

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Almost there

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Pam sent our email out this morning and already we have 15 or so people outside the HCI REU asking for information So we should be able to get more than enogh participates for the study. Right now all we have left is to set up one camara and finish a little construction before we can do a run through and start the study. Hopefully this means we can get the paper done by next week.

NizarKhalife - 16 Jul 2008 - 00:32

They will be alive and with all their limbs but they'll all have black eyes from robot punches.

MatthewScheinerman - 15 Jul 2008 - 14:17

But how many of them will leave the testing area alive and with all their limbs?

14 July 2008

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Igor, Flip the switch

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Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, we have been busy on the robot. But, It's Alive. We stayed after on Friday and were able to get the arms up and running. We spent hours figuring out that the Config file for the second robot was off, giving use outragous positions. If we had not been smart and tested the Network Protocol without the arm, we probably would have broken the arm or something else. Luckly all we had to do once we found it was copy the config file over. Now that we have the arm going we just need to finish prepare our experiments and wait for the second hand so we implement the final joint. We also need to set up the mode the robot is in (real time haptics or master/slave) and the user interface. Right now we are working on implementing a keyboard interface for the robot to use hand controls.

TravisChristian - 15 Jul 2008 - 13:21

Alive? You guys should have an EMP charge ready just in case...

DavidOluwatimi - 15 Jul 2008 - 09:38

So you finally got the robot, well, you have 3 weeks left make good use of it...

9 July 2008

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Slow Day

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Still Waiting on the robot. Finishing poster, not expecting much. Probably going to start importing teleoperation program to robot. Not much else.

NizarKhalife - 09 Jul 2008 - 20:17

I'm sure it will be a great poster!

8 July 2008

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We're getting the robot back

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So the second robot should be back this Thursday, so we can finally start our final testing. Right now everything looks like it should work but we can't make any promises till we test out the true thing. Hopefully everything goes as it should and we can start human testing early next week. This of course means that we have to get the experiments set up, the arms set up and the subjects lined up. Hopefully we can this done and start testing soon so we can complete our papers before the end of the program. I know that I at least will probably be making a different poster than the one we submit for the program because the current dead line won't allow use to get everything we want done in time for the poster. Anyhow back to work.

NizarKhalife - 08 Jul 2008 - 23:01

I would be more than happy to be anybody's test subject, FYI. I wouldn't worry about all the details for the draft; just get the fundamentals done.

ThomasNiedzielski - 08 Jul 2008 - 17:13

Most of us will probably not have to change our posters much, since we aren't doing studies. I kind of wish we could get people in to use our program though.

JennaLanger - 08 Jul 2008 - 15:21

Luckily, if you look at the poster draft section, it says its okay if it doesn't have final images or results.

7 July 2008

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John Deere and the Accused IRB

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So to start off on a happy note we got to visit the John Deere Des Moines Factory today. I must say that it was very interesting see how they put together and create the large farm equipment. Though I must say it wasn't exactly what I expected with far fewer people working, but I gather that that's simply because of the change in the season and what they need to produce. I could, however, see a number of application for the teleoperated haptics and Barrett arm that we are working with. Teleoperating the arms for welding would increase workers safety. As well allow tracking of welds made increasing effeciency and decreasing error. Also given an exact spacing it may allow for multiple weldings at a time.

And now the downside of the day... Submitting to the IRB. I understand the importance of the IRB and agree with many of the purposes. However the generization of the forms means that they pertain to things completely outside our realm (chemisty, biology,...). And the online course was completely useless as much of what we are doing doesn't pertain and the content itself is insufficient given its supposed purpose. I really didn't think questions about funding and history of organizations really help you understand how to treat human subjects. And while history is important many of the detials and points covered were unnessary to conduct and practibility. Anyhow its done and I hope we can get our stuff through.

BrianRussell - 07 Jul 2008 - 20:38

I agree the IRB wasn't much fun, but we did get everything done.

3 July 2008

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Still Coding...

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Ok it is day two and I am still coding. The program is up to 436 lines but this is without the UDP functions and connection code. I also have not implemented much of the control structure. From the looks of it the program is going to be close to 700 lines of code. This is without adding a lot of fluff to the program. Also as it is this program is an executable and I have not decided if I want to write it as an include so that people can implement it in other programs. The main reason for this is I don't feel as comfortable writing a header structure is because I don't quite know how to write headers in C and don't know if I have the time to learn. Well back to the grind stone.

CodyGlover - 03 Jul 2008 - 13:31

Oh yeah quick question would anyone be interested in seeing Will Smith's movie Hancock either tomorrow or this weekend?

2 July 2008

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Starting the final program

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This will probably be a short entry; I have started compiling our final program and am excited to continue. We are hoping to get the robot back some time soon so we have started the final stages. Of course we will probably have to pause when runtime errors occur with the second robot but I am trying to stay unnaturally optimistic. We plan to sit down tomorrow with plenty of coffee and design our user test and experiments. We are looking to do a number them. Hopefully we will be able to get the plan them out, clear the IRB, get the subjects and complete the studies before the end of the program. Well back to coding...

DavidOluwatimi - 02 Jul 2008 - 14:55

you should make the robots arm wrestle, now that will be cool

ThomasNiedzielski - 02 Jul 2008 - 14:12

So you guys are getting to do some pure research, huh? I wish we were fast enough to get all of our code done in time. Anyway, what sort of things will you be measuring with the subjects?

1 July 2008

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Ethics

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Integrity-"What you do when no one is watching."--Vance Reid (Mason High School Wrestling Couch)

This was soething that our couches taught us as they hammered us with drill after drill. As far as my ethics go I can't really say what it is I would define as my line in the sand since until I am presented with the actual situation I don't know how I would take it. I know that I value efficiency, ability and practicablity throughout my life. As far as interaction between people and stereotypes, like we discussed today, I run the line of it doesn't matter. If you can do your work effectively then there is no reason for me to care if you go home to a same sex partener. If you purposely annoy others, laze around or can't do your work then I take notice.

As far as the ACM code of ethics I mostly see it as a common sense list of rules to follow. Though with some technologies it's clear that others do not honor these codes. A clear example is the privacy clause in which many companies are designing software intended to violate this clause. There are some others that I understand but may not follow as I find undue constraints or lack of quality when followed. As with everything much of this is determined by who defines the meaning in these codes; otherwise military weapons development would breach the code on the fundimental level.

My line in the sand... well I can't really say where that is because until I am faced with a situation I don't know how I would responsed. The best guess I can give is that mine would pretain to privacy issues and what I would judge as undue suffering.

JennaLanger - 01 Jul 2008 - 23:21

I really like that quote!

30 June 2008

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Tick Tock, Tick Tock

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Its at times like this when, while I am glad we had the classes and learned a lot during them, I curse the classes. This morning we were able to get a simulated demo of our project working on the robot. We did this by using the previous position of the robot to mimic the information sent from the external arm. We were able to move the arm like normal with out any disortion or jumpiness. We were also able to simulate an object in the remotes path by limiting the position sent by the remote arm. We also discovered another test that we will need to run; that being how much normal resistance is acceptable compared to the exactness of the haptics.

Right now were using the equation 300*(currentPosition-remotePosition) to apply our torques. By increasing the 300 constant we decrease the ablity to move at a stationary point (the torque increases faster as the two differ). However this also gives the arm a stiffer feel as the other arm would try to keep up.

Any how back to the reason I curse the classes is because with this situation I feel that we have a lot of portential but don't know if we have the time. But then that's the deal, to get something you have to give up something. Anyhow Tick Tock, Tick Tock...

27 June 2008

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It moves

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After a couple weeks of looking through line after line of robot code, we are finally able to find something worth while yesterday. After testing a function that is used in the haptics and other examples we were meant with minimal success because orginally we thought that the "link" value sent to the function was the joint position. The link value seemed to actually refer to the motor that was called. Needless to say, like most errors we got interesting and somewhat humorous results when the robot moved in random patterns. This test led to us taking a look at a couple other variables andin the end we were able to find a variable that when we changed the it, it changed the robot like we wanted. Right now we have it mimicing a haptics stand still by holding a single position using a linear increasing force function. And today we allowed runtime changes of the position it was holdng, meaning the the robot would move to the new position and hold there. the hardest thing as be stopping bounce. Hopefullly this can be seen as an ahead of schedule moment.

BrianRussell - 27 Jun 2008 - 17:37

The random robot patterns were pretty cool. It seemed like the robot was coming to life on its own.

ThomasNiedzielski - 27 Jun 2008 - 14:56

It LIVES! Um... Anyway, that's good news for your project! With the joints positioning themselves where you want them to, you have the tools you need for your project.

26 June 2008

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Video Games in Learning

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Journal club today was one of the hardest things I have had to do this summer. Not because I don't like to lead people or be in front of groups but because I needed to stay silent. I really should have had a different topic because Video Games and learning is a topic that I am very interested in and think a lot about. In truth I could have probably stood up there for the hour and talked about it without running out of material. However since I was a facilitator I need to direct and guide the discussion not take it over.

The discussion was a little different than I thought it might go because while I agree that video games could make an impact if used to supplement the teacher in class; I think more along the lines of releasing high profile games that incorperate topics into the story and game machanics. For instance if Square were to incorperate the story of Helen and the War of Troy into the next Final Fantasy, I believe that it could give the players a base line understanding of the story and encourage others to look for other information. This could also be done for biology. One of the high profile games being developed is Spore in which the user starts as a single cell and evolves into other things. If done right theory of evolution and animal habits could be taught.
Like I said I could go on and on, so I think I'll stop at that.

25 June 2008

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Haptics and Testing

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For those that have not heard the robot is currently inoperatable because of a faulty cable but we are hoping to get the robot back within the week. Until then I have started working on test code for a number of different ways inwhich we could move the robot. Hopefully this ground work will allow us to figure out an optimal way to implement the tele-operation.
The first set of test is simply using the robots move command to change the joint positions of the robot. This is of course after we have calculated a midpoint between the two robots current joint positions. This is probably the simplest of ideas that we have had and most likely not going to work. We don't know if this move command will allow us the move the are while it is moving or if it will simply over power the user.
The next test is simply using a function that applies force to a certain joint. This seems the most likely to work because this function is what is actually sent to the robot and is used during the haptics; which allows the user to move the robot while applying different forces. This way would basically require us to create our own haptic equations.
The final way that we have thought about is employing the current haptic system to incase each joint in a haptic sphere in which the corresponding joint on the other robot is the center and the farther away from the center the robot's joint is the more force is applyed. This way seems the most complicated to use at the moment because it requires us to break down and modify the original haptics code.
if anyone else has any ideas feel free to suggest them. Thanks.

JennaLanger - 25 Jun 2008 - 16:46

It must be hard to test all of your code without a robot! They should have a robot simulation program on the Barrett website so you can test things out without having the robot. That would be cool.

24 June 2008

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Practical vs Logical, Thinking vs Sheep

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I'll start out by admitting that I am a game supporter and strongly against censorship. Now I have to say that I liked the studies and information presented today. Much of it made sense in and the experiments were well developed. However I don't know if it was just the time constriants but some of explaintions and discussed conclusions were incomplete. I really didn't understand how they determined the proactive and reactive aspects. It seemed like he jumped from discussing what proactivity and reactivity was to the emotional aspects. The biggest disagreement that I have would be in regards to his final overall assumption that the use of video games in education be rethought. This again may be because of time restraints and he didn't have time to explain the aspects of education that need to be rethought. But the data he presented didn't support this this conclusion enough to consider it strong. The first study directly contradicts this while the second gives no explaination as to the results making it hard to draw conclusions. Simply saying A cause B is useless with explaination or interpretation as to how or why. These results also contradict logical conclusions (for instance object recognition and seperating threads; an inability to distingish different threads and objects quickly would be detrimentral in the games). The final aspect can be thrown out almost immediately for most kinds of explaination since it deals almost exclusively with violent content which most likey would contain little use outside military application. So while I respect the information presented it would require more indepth discussion and explaination before I would be willing to accept this final conclusion.

CatherinePeloquin - 25 Jun 2008 - 09:37

I am also anti-censorship, but his talk today was not about censorship. He did comment peripherally that parents were not concerned about the video games their children played, while he as a researcher would have to examine the ethics of having people play the same games. Nowhere did he say that those games should be censored or that no one should play them.

I agree with his comment concerning reexamination of the use of video games as educational tools. Note that he did not say that games should not be used, but that we need to understand the effects of video games so we know that the games actually further our teaching goals. That makes sense.

Also, it seems that there is confusion over how the findings on control relate to the findings on emotion. Those were separate studies with separate research questions and separate results. He is not linking control and emotions; he is just summarizing different findings.

I would think twice about discounting research just because a short summary of the findings does not include every relevant detail. Look into the research: see what the research question really is, examine the methodology and conclusions, be aware of your own biases, and then decide if you think the research is valid.

JohnMorales - 25 Jun 2008 - 07:44

That's one heck of a summary about the luncheon. I have nothing to say about it except that I got lost when he started showing the brain front and lateral image without giving to much of a explanation about it.

SamanthaLevine - 25 Jun 2008 - 00:23

Thanks for letting me commandeer your computer today!

DavidOluwatimi - 24 Jun 2008 - 17:06

Hoorah!!!! NO CENSORSHIP!!!!!

DesireeVelazquez - 24 Jun 2008 - 13:46

Wow...You go Cody!

23 June 2008

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Yay Base Level Code

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So I just spent the entire morning going through the base level code of the robot; which I must say was very exciting. I just wish I hadn't forgotten a pen today because while I take most notes on the computer when going through things like the base level code I like writing it out, that way I don't have to keep changing screens. Anyhow looking through the base level code I found several things that will help us a lot for our project as well as some that could be fun to play with. For instance while the same gravity compensation is set for the entire arm, a gravity value is set for each joint individually. This means that you could in threoy set different values for each joint. This could cause some strange effects but could easily be used to mimic weight. Weight has be an issue because the barrett hand is not counted for in the arm initialization. This makes the hand drop forward and we have to set a hight gravity comp. By changing the mas of the hand joint we could add in the weight of the hand maybe stop the problems. Of course we would still need to test this but it is still exciting to talk about.

BrianRussell - 23 Jun 2008 - 21:53

I look forward to programming the robot tomorrow.

ThomasNiedzielski - 23 Jun 2008 - 13:50

Sounds like you guys are making a lot of progress on the robot. I expected the system to be much uglier and hard to understand, but you're handling it. Maybe you mentioned it in the presentation Friday, but what will you do to demonstrate your matching software when you're done with it?

20 June 2008

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Journal Club

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Ok, so journal club today; I can't help but think that people were speaking from there own scifi imagination rather than addressing the content of the article itself. The experiment in the article did not detect or read the thoughts of the person which is how everyone acted. It was merely detecting rather a nerve signal was being sent to a certain body part. David probably hit the closes on what the experiment would be useful for when he talked about using the signals to control an artificial limb. This would be useful because by determining which nerves sent signals to our fingers or feet would allow us to invent a whole new level of artificial limbs. As it was this experiment could probably have been done by attaching the electrodes to a limb instead of the brain cluster itself (this is of course if the subjects could send signals to the limb). Has far as communication interface goes I don't believe this form of the technology has a future outside quick fixes until a more effeicent interface is developed.

ThomasNiedzielski - 20 Jun 2008 - 16:49

Yeah, it's not a thought reader at all. That's what confused me about it. How did they know the patient would be able to change his firing rate in the electrode's area? It's really cool, though.

AllisonWhite - 20 Jun 2008 - 13:31

I agree that the conversation moved into Sci Fi territory. As far as using nerves in the fingers or limbs, I think one of the patient's was described as having had a stroke in their brain stem. Since that's the top of the spine, it's very likely that a number of signals aren't making it out of the brain.

19 June 2008

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Robots and Baseball

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Because of the structure yesterday I didn't blog on time for this day so I decide to make it up. I have to say that the projects were interesting and ours turned out to be more complicated than I originally thought. In hindsight the flight animation may have been easier since the most complicated part of that would have been the multiple models that were needed and we seemed to get those done faster and easier than I thought. I do have to give it to the IPhone team pulling the all nighter to get there simulator. It was pretty interesting and the addition of the physics engine was different from the other. The Magic Table team had a pretty good project however the slowness of the project was a great down fall. If not for this they probably would have gave the iPhone a run for the money.

18 June 2008

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Runtime Errors

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So we put our project together today and have run into 2 major errors. The first is for some reason when you try to remove items from the list there is an unhandled exception. So far we have tried using the erase function and the pop_front function. I don't understand this but then I find that a lot of things in java don't translate well to C++. Our second problem is that we are calling the randomization function faster than it can generate so we end with a lot of the same value. Which as led to some interesting things; such as snowman trees but we need to get it to work better. After we fix those problems we just need to set up the collision detection, scoring, movement and tweek the parameters. I am hoping that we aren't going to end up with a late night.

NizarKhalife - 21 Jun 2008 - 11:38

Even though you stayed after dinner you sort of accomplished your hope by being the earliest team to leave! The Robot Team probably got the most rest out of all of us! Unless you stayed up anyway...

17 June 2008

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Crunch Time

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I feel like its midterms again and I have a full class schedule. We have a lot due this week including the HCI work, openGL project, Robot work, and our topic presentation. On top of all that I have developed insommnia; once I get to sleep I stay asleep but it takes awhile for me to get to sleep. Anyhow we should be able to get our openGL project done early tomorrow since we are completing the individual piece and just need to link them together. of course there is then likely hours of debugging to do. At the moment I am having trouble applying textures to this sign object I created. I am following the example but for some reason it won't show up. Probably some little off by one error. The robot project will be hard because while we have and idea of what we want to do we still need to look a lot up in regards to it. Right now we are tracing the code that Barrett gave us to hopefully figure out how we need to do this. Well back to work...

DesireeVelazquez - 17 Jun 2008 - 14:30

Aww. You should try those insomnia pills they sell, though it would be bad if you got hooked on them, so be careful if you decide to.

16 June 2008

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A New Idea

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So right when we started going over texture mapping today I came up with a great idea for an openGL project...a digital television. Basically make a model that looked like a television and see how to import video files into openGL. If you could do it like a texture you could just texture the screen with the video. the cool thing would be if you could have all the different videos playing at the same time that way when you change the channel you would not simply start the video over but see it as though the show was in progress. Personally I think it would be a cool project to have. The next step would then be able to stream information from the web so instead of having the limited stored content you could get a ever changing amount of programming.

TravisChristian - 16 Jun 2008 - 14:39

That's pretty cool. It could be really hard to code though, depending on how videos are handled. It might take a lot of memory too to have them all playing simultaneously.

PaulClay - 16 Jun 2008 - 14:15

Sounds cool!

13 June 2008

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I am afraid, very afraid

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It's Friday the 13th; run for your lives... Anyhow, I like the fact that we got the glm.h class today in graphics programming. If people don't know yet I spent weeks last year trying to figure out how to inport objects from maya into openGL for the Eniac VR program. So finally having a way to do this is exciting. While I still think the interface for maya is bad it is easier than trying to draw it in openGL. Anyhow we decide last night that our project for the openGL is going to be a skiing game. It should be fairly simple since we will only need to develop a couple obsticales and then randomly generate them as the play moves. My original idea was to do a fighter plane animation but that would require extensive planning and several different models; which would interfere with our work on the robot. As far as the robot goes we are starting to work on looking throught the robots code and developing a telecommunication application for it. Hopefully we will be able to develop it and apply it to a couple studies before the end of the program.

NizarKhalife - 14 Jun 2008 - 20:21

No disassemble! Johnny 5 alive!

12 June 2008

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Sorry I am late

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I have to apologize for not posting on time, the openGL assignment was bugging me and I didn't get around to blogging. Anyhow, Mike's ppresentation on his sound based game was interesting. I guess since I more or less have my senses I just never gave a thought about modifying software for those without vision. The topic in general is interesting because outside the academic field i haven't her much about it. With video games being a billion dollar industry you have to wonder if anyone has thought about expanding into the market. One of the big things about gaming evolution has been the increase in graphics but with an audience of visionally impaired people it becomes a mute point. Something that I have been saying is that games have been focusing too much on graphics and not enough on gameplay and story. Graphics as a mute point means that developers would have to focus on these other things and the audio components.

11 June 2008

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OpenGL

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The introduction this morning made openGL seem easier than I remember when I worked with it last summer. This could be because the the bases of openGL are simple base equations. Its the construction of these base equations and function into a more complex object that makes it difficult. You have to plan out where you put you points and what type of shape you need to make. I am happy because I was working on making a curve for writing my initials and was able to make a base curve which was giving me trouble last year. I am looking forward to the projects for this module. The outcome will likely be based on how creative a person is and how much work they will put forth.

NizarKhalife - 12 Jun 2008 - 21:08

I know what you mean about the base curves. I love it when I finally get something that used to give me trouble!

EvaTao - 12 Jun 2008 - 02:28

So, you hate Maya.

10 June 2008

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New Ideas

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Ok I can't really say that this is a knew idea but the speaker about evolutionary AI gave me a new outlook on one of the original problems that we were thinking about. One of the most interesting things that we were thinking of doing was teaching the robot how to pick things up. When I first thought of this I didn't know how to go about this problem without hard coding a set of instructions into the robot. This of course would make the robot less versitile in picking up different things. How ever if we were to use genetic algorithms we would be able to create a way for the robot to learn on its own how to pick something up. Esspecially since we could run the algorithms through a simulation to determine their effectiveness before actually moving the robot.

If we combined this with a reenforcement learning algorithm we could make it so the robot would be able to learn not only how to reach the object but an optimal vector to approach from and optimal start generations. In the beginning we may have to plug in the haptic space and end point but the next logical step would be to have the robot detect the ending point and model its own haptic space.

In other news I am not looking forward to the modelling class today.

EvaTao - 11 Jun 2008 - 06:39

Hey Cody, do not let go that easy!! If Maya challenged you, challenge it back!! Do not hesitate to bug the instructorsss. To be bugged is one of the reasons they are there for!! Hope to see your first graphic soon.

JennaLanger - 10 Jun 2008 - 21:48

That will be really cool! Watch out, because your technology could help computers take over the world!!! (Which I have learned is inevitable)

TravisChristian - 10 Jun 2008 - 20:15

Yeah, that's how it starts... first they learn how to grab things, then they learn how to use them, and before you know it, THE ROBOT WAR

ThomasNiedzielski - 10 Jun 2008 - 19:17

That's a great idea! You still might want to hand-code a few things into the robot, though. I don't know if it's in the hardware or not, but the robot will always need to have its own safety be the foremost goal, unless you create a computer model to run the evolution on.

9 June 2008

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C++ Projects

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I must say that the projects presented today were interesting in a testament to the groups that made them. Most of the projects had a very comical feel to them; from the Multi-touch's humorous context of simply trying to get a bag of chips while 9 year olds shout random latin from cereal box forts, or the iPhone's mix and match, voice and mouth files. Some on the other hand were more serious with the groups making accurate copies of original games, the yatzee and battleship games.

I must say that I have been more than tempted to execute a kill command on the maya program today. I have some experience in the program but everything about it today wanted to be difficult. I mean I would try to select a couple face and would instead be selecting faces on the other side of the object; which looks messed up with the random faces start expanding in all directions. I don't know what it is I am going to do because while modeling interests me, the program annoys me too much to want to keep with it. "to delete or not delete, that is the question."

NizarKhalife - 11 Jun 2008 - 00:37

Maya > interns...

6 June 2008

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The Robot

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My group started to work with the robot yesterday and we have come up with a starting idea that lets us mess around with the code. Our first project was to track the position of the robot in joint space over a period of time as it moved. There were two challenges with this task. The first was figuring out how to open a file for saving using C. I already know how to save a text file in C++ but going to the non-object oriented C was tricky since I had to look up the functions that I needed and had to stop my self from treating it as an object. After we were able to do that our next trick was determining the time between movements and sync it with the transmissions to the robot. That required some calculation with the sleep functions in which we still don't know exactly how time is measured in the function. Lucky we were able to finish that. The next mini project is to have the robot run through a saved list of movements which should be easier since we know the file io better. I am thinking of simply storing the save file to an array then looping through calling the move command and sleep function to mimic how we originally recorded it.

EvaTao - 07 Jun 2008 - 00:44

Could you post your HCI video on the team blog?

ThomasNiedzielski - 06 Jun 2008 - 14:39

It sounds like you guys will be able to do some pretty cool things with the robots. Maybe you can get the two of them to gently shake hands once you're really confident with them.

5 June 2008

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C++ Continued

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So after spending a couple of the hours yesterday working on the day 4 assignments with saving I realized today that my mistake was simple like I thought. In Visual basic and Java when you use the Studios Debugger it runs the .exe. that is created in the debug folder. So unless a path is specified files are assumed to be in the same folder as the .exe. In C++ it uses the location of the solution file as the base folder so i was getting runtime errors because I had the questions.txt in the debug folder instead of the project folder. So yeah that sucked.

The Haptics presenter was interesting. Personally I think that haptics would be great in creating mobile interfaces. Think about it by being able to track a single point you could create something like a button in space so that when ever you needed to press a command you could just press a space in the air which would correspond to a button in haptics space. Using augmented reality you could create the visuals so people know where to look.

JennaLanger - 05 Jun 2008 - 23:27

It's hard learning so many different languages. We're bound to mix them all up! That would be crazy if we all walked around typing on our invisible keyboard. But the future is coming sooner than we think...

TravisChristian - 05 Jun 2008 - 22:26

a huge AR/haptics/mobile project would be cool. maybe we should suggest that for next year. poor kids

NizarKhalife - 05 Jun 2008 - 20:57

That really would be cool but haptics (and augmented reality in general) has a long way to go before it reaches that level. We will get there though.

BrianRussell - 05 Jun 2008 - 14:06

I think this mobile interface idea has some merit.

4 June 2008

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C++

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After programming for going on 8 years there is one thing that still infuriates me about it. That is of course when you end up finishing a program and there are errors on compile. Of course its not just that there are errors that I am frustrated by but that I can't find the problem. I was working on the stuff for tomorrow and for some reason my program is not reading the file correctly. I have tried several ways and my code is the same format as several other examples but it still is failing. Of course in the end it is probably going to be some little thing that I should have seen but have didn't. In truth it isn't new to me; freshman year I spent two hours looking for a runtime issue and it turned out that I was simply missing a +1 in the sub string function call.

In other news I am happy that paintball was added to the list of suggested activites. Since going to college I haven't been going as often (maybe once a year) and I want to start going again. Of course it I wish I had brought my equipment now. Any how I hope that the group goes but I know that going out and shooting each other isn't everyones cup of tea.

MatthewScheinerman - 04 Jun 2008 - 14:37

Thanks for the info, Cody. I'll give that function a try.

DesireeVelazquez - 04 Jun 2008 - 14:13

I've never done paintball, but I'm interested in trying it out. But yeah, compiling errors are horrible. You keep thinking "My program's awsome! It ownz all of yours! Huh? Doesn't compile? Noes!!!" and eventually, you rack your brain to try and figure it out, which hurts.

BrianRussell - 04 Jun 2008 - 13:55

Compile errors can ruin the fun of programming in no time.

3 June 2008

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Second Life

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I have to say that second life is fairly cool from what the speaker said today. I can see several applications for something like this. The idea of using them is school would be something I would see as a double edged sword because while it makes it easier to meet esspecially with distant students it could also lead to a drop in class attendance. Depauw uses a Dynow program, which is kind of like an advance power point using pen-based technology, anyway one of the features is that every thing is ran through an independent server which san be accessed remotely using the Dynow Client. There have been many times when a person would be considered logged in to the lecture with out actually being in class. It is not hard to assume that the person is probably just logging in to get what ever notes the professor post. So they aren't likely even looking are the screen. But thats a problem with digital meetings you are never sure who is really there. But like all technology there is always a down side.

EvaTao - 04 Jun 2008 - 03:15

Hey Cody, could you vote the activities you will attend when you get a chance?

DavidOluwatimi - 03 Jun 2008 - 23:44

I agree, there could be some awesome applications to second life if used the right way.

BrianRussell - 03 Jun 2008 - 13:48

The DePauw program sounds intriguing. I wonder if other schools will follow its lead or go down a different path.

2 June 2008

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Programming in C++

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With the programming class today I don't know how I feel about it. From what was gone over and the things posted on the wiki I don't think it is going to help me much. The material is simply the basics of C++ and while C++ is not my best langauge I have several classes of C++ and spent last summer working in C. I do look forward to the projects however. Making little games is always more entertianing than you would think. So our group is going to be making a text based battle ship game. Overall we're looking at about 2 classes; a player class which would store the information about an individual player and an interface main which will deal with output and directing the game. Once we get the basic game down we will probably start adding things like Computer AI and a way for two people to play.

Overall the program has been great though I would almost rather go more into our projects; we haven't done much with them and outside the meeting this week we really don't have much plan that directly relates to them. I suppose that we will need to direct our own efforts as far as the project goes. Right now I am just going to be researching past research and the abilities of the Arm.

EvaTao - 03 Jun 2008 - 00:49

Hey Cody, could you vote the activities you will attend when you get a chance?

ThomasNiedzielski - 02 Jun 2008 - 19:28

Battleship is a good fit for a computer game. Remember that you have to keep track of each ship as a whole so that you can declare ships sunk.

JennaLanger - 02 Jun 2008 - 17:37

You get to use a robotic arm! there are so many possibilities! I bet once you figure out your project you are going to have plenty of work to do. I'm excited to see what you guys come up with.

SamanthaLevine - 02 Jun 2008 - 14:16

Battleship--Quite awesome. I'm curious to see as to what your human interface will look like.

30 May 2008

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The Robot

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Decisions, Decisions. After the meeting today I must say it is going to be interesting deciding what to do for the project. We don't have a set plan so we will be working with this project all the way from the design phase to the implementation to the completion. Right now we have several ideas on what to study. One is having the robot copy a sentence that the user inputs onto a board. this would be interesting because we would be basically teaching the robot to write (or at least draw). Another idea is to teach the robot how to play a game like tic tac toe so it would have to understand the rules, what objects are what and how to move objects. The final idea seems the most simple but will probably be the trickier than we think. And that is to look at an object and be able to pick it up. This would be tricky because the object can be oddly shaped or the robot may knock the object out of position, skrewing calculations. Any one of thsese projects would be fairly interesting to look at. Personally I believe that the projects could be used to build upon one another. The ability to pick up objects esspecially since the overall aspect of a hand is to to manipulate objects.

Outside of the project, my group visited college town today. I was pretty interesting; there were more people than we've seen around all of campus there. Since it is summer the area is probably dead with most of the students off campus but I think the group should probably check it out some night when we don't have to come in the next day. Yay it's the weekend!!!

EvaTao - 02 Jun 2008 - 01:19

Hey Cody, we are going to put the latest blog on the very top so it will be more easier for peers comment. Would you use edit tool to modify your blog? And I think John's idea is crazy but sounds interesting...we should watch irobot on one of our movie night.

JohnMorales - 30 May 2008 - 16:33

Hey Cody you should teach the robot how to program in any programming language, so maybe he can command himself...(I'm just crazy).

29 May 2008.

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Emotions

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The discussion today was quite interesting not only in content but in interpretations and opinions based on the interpretations. I believe many of the opinions on the subject would be different if people were to use other definitions of emotion. If one thinks from a purely logical and scientific many would view the brain as a type of computer, only biological not digital. With this idea it is not absurd for computers to develop emotions since we ourselves are examples of success in this field. Also under this type of thinking ethics and morals are non-existant so there would be no talk in that area. On the other hand using a spiritual definition of emotions computers can never have emotions since they are the reflections of the soul and a computer can not have a soul. Then again I feel like I would be reflecting science fiction ideas from ghost in the shell on rather or not machines can have a soul. In which you could talk about for years and still not answer the question. Personally because of the mass amount of interpretations I would rather take a logical and practical view to the subject. Mainly if a computer could tell that I am upset or happy, does it matter and what is it worth. If computers could tell what a persons emotions were what would it do with this info. or could it do anything. Without this ability to respond the knowledge of emotion is useless. This places problem solving and thinking above emotional interpretation. Cognitive thought before emotional interpretation is logical as well since I believe that the computers would need to be able to think before it would be possible to read a persons emotions.

CatherinePeloquin - 29 May 2008 - 13:45

I am glad you found the discussion interesting today. I agree that differences in the working definition of emotion would naturally affect people's opinions on what is a good technological development and what is ethical, but I do not think that modeling the human brain as a biological computer would completely remove ethics from the discussion table. Ethical issues arise not from actions themselves (like the computer recognizing an emotion), but the implications of those actions.

• Ethics.doc: Ethics.doc