Hah, here’s proof that our robot was highly sophisticated and not just all thumbs at all
(@ Matze π )
Category Archives: Robots
This is why I’ve been so busy
Posted by defaude
on May 26, 2009
3 comments
This is it. The world-famous M.O.G.U.E.R.A. robot I spent most my time on during the past few weeks. The text at the end basically translates as “Even if we don’t win we still look cool!”
Sleep, actually
Posted by defaude
on May 25, 2009
1 comment
Phew… It’s been a crazy time since my last post! To start with, sorry for being muted for so long – I just could not find the time and energy to write a few lines. Yeah I know it sounds like a lame excuse but still I hope someone’s going to buy the story π
Ok, where shall I begin? Right, the EuroBot contest I went to! Well, let’s just say we’ve not been over-blessed with success… To be honest, we only managed to get through the “homologation” rounds and in the qulifications we only scored the last place π That was a little frustrating because theoretically, our robot was one of the most promising ones in Dresden – theoretically, I say! In fact, we had several sensor- and motor’s precision-related issues and had to fall back to a somewhat “dumb” strategy without all the cool A.I. and pathfinding features my colleagues and me implemented from scratch in just a matter of weeks *sigh* But “participating is everything”, right? We had an awesome time in Dresden nevertheless and even thoguh we lost we totally dived into the city’s nightlife (which is quite cool in Dresden, by the way) π
Think you can imagine that I SO had to catch up with lots of hours of sleeping after that weekend and the weeks preceeding it π This has basically been one of the primary things I’ve been doing this week: SLEEPING, SCHLAFEN, ε―γ… Oh no, I also had tons of good food, enjoyed the terrific weather we’re having in Munich lately, finally met friends and had time to relax – at last!
Now I realize there’ll be other tasks eating up my free time soon: Finding a job in Tokyo, completing the software I’ll write my thesis on, writing this just-mentioned thesis… Oh, and there will be my (hopefully) final exam season soon! So you can see, no time-out for poor Roland π And again, keep your fingers crossed π
Pix will be coming soon, promise! π
EuroBot 2009 – German finals
Posted by defaude
on May 15, 2009
2 comments
Phew, it’s been quite an extraordinary and exhausting Β time. Like mentioned before, I haven’t been sleeping, eating or doing anything else than working on that mean little robot. Finally, the time has come: In about one hour the whole team will be taking the bus to Dresden city where the German qualification and finals of the EuroBot contest 2009 will take place on Saturday. There’s going to be a livestream on Saturday, too – so check outΒ rtsp://mmz-srv4.rz.uni-jena.de/broadcast/dresden.rm (it’s a Real Player stream, so you need to get and install it first and open that URL in the Real Player).
Please keep your fingers crossed! π
And I thought the era of sleepless nights would come to an end!?
Posted by defaude
on April 17, 2009
2 comments
Jeah, right… Japanese course’s over but there’s still not more sleep in for me. Why, do you ask? Well, I might have mentioned that I was so looking forward to a very relaxed last semester with only a few exams, lots of contemplating about my thesis outside in the sunshine etc. So much for that! Ever since I got out of the language course I’ve been spending almost 100% of my time in the robotics lab…
Yep, the tries-to-get-into-the-robotics-world-championships-robot project. It’s great fun, it’s kinda cool, it’s really interesting and challenging but due to the closing in deadline it’s eating up hundreds of hours of developing, coding, testing, debugging etc. Is there someone out there who can teach me how to give that little bastard a bit of intelligence so it does the work on it’s own so I finally get to do some things I haven’t done in a while (e.g. sleeping, eating, doing sports etc.)? π
Japanese intensive course – or yet another era of sleepless nights
Posted by defaude
on April 2, 2009
4 comments
Booya! Having started from March 23rd, I’m currently attending a very good (and intensive) Japanese language course which takes place 9 hours a day, 6 days a week until this Saturday. Adding to that, I’ve also started implementing parts of the A.I. of a robot that’s supposed to go to the EuroBot 2009! As cool as all that stuff is, my daily sleep quota dropped to a new record-low around 3.5 hours a day… When I’m not in the classroom,in the robo-lab, in the gym or out running, I’m sitting at my desk spending hours and hours studying, repeating, preparing. *sigh* Well, at least the language course totally rocks π
But I’ll be celebrating and sleeping (finally) when it’s over π