MacBook Ordered

Well, I decided to order a new 13.3" widescreen MacBook computer. It should be in next week. Here are the specs:

Intel Core Duo 2.0 GHz

1 GB RAM

80 GB Hard Drive

SuperDrive (Slot-loading DVD Burner)

Gigabit Ethernet

802.11b/g AirPort

Bluetooth 2.0+EDR

Integrated Webcam

It will be able to drive my Apple Cinema Display as well, so that's pretty awesome. I'll post more when I get my hands on it - especially my thoughts on the new glossy screen.

Trip to Put-In-Bay

Above is a picture of me and Jamie in front of Perry's Monument, which recognizes Oliver Hazard Perry's victory over the British in a naval battle in 1813, located in Put-In-Bay, Ohio on South Bass Island in Lake Erie, west of Sandusky and north of Port Clinton. We got to experience the humming lightning rods on top of the monument (time to get off the platform!) and see an awesome view of the whole island - the monument is taller than the Statue of Liberty! The Case senior class of 2006 went en masse to Put-In-Bay on Saturday. Lots of fun! I also got to tour the Heineman's Winery which is located on the island. It was definitely a fun trip!

Mobile Autonomous Soccer-Playing Robots

Mobile Robot Team Alpha: from top center, going clockwise, is me, James, Scott, and Mark. Our robot, Robbie, is in the center. We are sitting in the middle of the autonomous robot soccer playing field. The image is taken from Gort the web-enabled camera we used to recognize the state of the soccer field during the competition. Robbie was completely autonomous and performed really well, scoring many goals on his oppnents, and even making one (intentional) save as a goalie! Robbie's brains were on a PC in the lab, which connected to a HP iPaq strapped to Robbie's back via 802.11g, which issued commands to a Lego RCX brick via a stereo-to-IR adapter and custom-generated audio command files. The class, EECS 396L: Special Topic on Mobile Robots, led by Dr. Wyatt Newman, was very interesting and a lot of fun.

Next on the agenda is to complete Case's submission to the IGVC (Intellegent Ground Vehicle Competition). We are using a lot of the image processing and object recognition code from our soccer-playing robot for this other project.