Today I was accepted to do a Study Abroad in Hong Kong at the formerly Hong Kong Polytechnic Institute, now PolyU.
I’m shipping out around Jan. 10th and will get back in the States before June.
Five months out of the US. Five months w/ no family, no BBQ, no American TV (which I never watch … never), lots of Asians, good seafood, good mass transit, lots of Asians, and …. no Jamie.
That’s the hard part.
I’m going to take lots of pictures.
Lots of stuff going on.
I’m helping with another FIRST LEGO League Team – at Centennial Middle School this time. Just reinforces my utter disgust for Government education. The kids are quite satisfied to be order what to do and take no initiative.
Me and Frankie are starting a robotic submarine team. We’re hopefully going to be working with a guy who has a company in The Park that is working on a DARPA contract for a mine neutralization robot. We’ll be collaborating. Just plain awesome. Some stronger software dev. folks would be nice.
It also looks like I’ll be doing the Duke TIP programs robotics camp this summer. Three weeks of robotic mayhem. Lots of pressure.
Three months with Jamie. Oh yeh.
Lots of other stuff, but no time.
I’m reading The Sum of All Fears (I know, I know … ), Richest Man in Babylon (classic), and How to Win Friends and Influence People. I just finished Dave Thomas’ autobriograpy, Dave’s Way. THAT was a great book. Highly recomended to the entrepreneur-minded folks.
I’ve also finished up Every Man’s Battle, Every Woman’s Desire, and D’Souza’s What’s So Great About America.
So far it’s turning out to be a decent semester for reading.
I’m on Fall Break.
Sweetness.
I decided the chassis of the balancing robot needed a rehaul. I stripped it down and recut the platform segments (out of plexi). Then I used my ancient drill press I swiped from grandad to drill me some nice straight holes. Plexi is a mess to cut w/ a drill because it has a tendancy to crack if you don’t go very slow or very fast.
I managed to hack open the gyros I bought to get the circuit board out of them.
That’s on there now, along with the accelerometer.
I’m gonna be using a Renesas board for the brain. Pretty tight little board.
I’m really really hoping to have minimal functionality by the end of the break – e.g. motor control, accelerometer, and gyro data reading, basic algorithm.
The world will hear of my children.
I’m content to just let America hear of me.