I received my test results last week. I still remember very vividly when I did my EN433: Mechatronics Applications final examination at Uni. of the South Pacific in November 2004. I had thought at that time that it would be one of my last written exams....of course later from 2005 to 2007, I studied for the Diploma in Tertiary Teaching and had examinations in that too but I never considered those to be "real" exams. And yes, there were also examinations at MSc level but they were of a different genre. I had thought that I had passed that phase of my student life where I would study late nights for exams but now here in Japan, I am still having exams.
For Grammer Part 1, I scored 42/44; Grammar Part 2 = 98.5/113; Listening = 37/44 and for Writing, I was graded as as A. Well numerically, these scores look ok but I think a fundamental shortfall of the current course is that I`m not praticing my Japanese language outside of classes.
On Saturday May 31st, Roboken held it`s 2008 Robot Contest and I witnessed first hand some of the technologies that I would be working with later this year.
Now, if you have scrutinised this blog well enough and have been a good critic of it, you would have noticed that the title of the blog totally contradicts its content: I have so far not mentioned much about my PhD studies here but rather things and stuff I do.
Well the reason`s quite simple. I was overwhelmed by what I saw in my lab and so decided to do things one step at a time...and the first step was to concentrate on the Japanese language classes. When I first saw my lab, I thought: what am I, a student from Fiji - a developing country where there are "engineers" who don`t even have a first degree and yet still call themselves engineers, a country where a pothole in the road is repaired only to have it reappear as a much bigger pothole a month later, a country that has been independant for almost 40 yrs and even then can`t still provide a continuous supply of electricity for even 12 months without power outages (Don`t get me wrong....I do love my country), doing in the midst of some of the smartest people, in one of the most dynamic fields - robotics?????. Instead of a culture shock, a Technology-shock was what I experienced. Studying for a PhD was never going to be easy, I always knew that right from the beginning and yet I still chose to leap right into the Mecca of robotics. But hard work is something I`m used to...and that is what I`m here for right? So instead of writing about my lab before , I was all the time familiarising myself to it and now I can say that I have recovered my confidence to take up the greatest challenge of my life. Gambarimasu Aneesh!
Anyway, some details about my lab: The lab itself started in 1976(!) There are three professors and some 40 odd research members, most of them Masters students and a handful of doctoral students. Every year this time, a robot programming contest is held where the students get to choose their own research idea and then try and accomplish it. The event started at 10am and finished right at 10.30pm with a party.
Amongst my favourite was this demo...a robot that is able to identify a Coke bottle from some other bottles and retrieve it. Some other interesting robots: a robot that follows the shade casted by an umbrella. When a person walks with the umbrella, it follows the umbrella; and a soccer playing robot. Here are rest of the pics. Luckily I was strictly an observer but next year, I`ll also have to participate. If you have any (simple!) ideas on what to do, pls let me know!
For Grammer Part 1, I scored 42/44; Grammar Part 2 = 98.5/113; Listening = 37/44 and for Writing, I was graded as as A. Well numerically, these scores look ok but I think a fundamental shortfall of the current course is that I`m not praticing my Japanese language outside of classes.
On Saturday May 31st, Roboken held it`s 2008 Robot Contest and I witnessed first hand some of the technologies that I would be working with later this year.
Now, if you have scrutinised this blog well enough and have been a good critic of it, you would have noticed that the title of the blog totally contradicts its content: I have so far not mentioned much about my PhD studies here but rather things and stuff I do.
Well the reason`s quite simple. I was overwhelmed by what I saw in my lab and so decided to do things one step at a time...and the first step was to concentrate on the Japanese language classes. When I first saw my lab, I thought: what am I, a student from Fiji - a developing country where there are "engineers" who don`t even have a first degree and yet still call themselves engineers, a country where a pothole in the road is repaired only to have it reappear as a much bigger pothole a month later, a country that has been independant for almost 40 yrs and even then can`t still provide a continuous supply of electricity for even 12 months without power outages (Don`t get me wrong....I do love my country), doing in the midst of some of the smartest people, in one of the most dynamic fields - robotics?????. Instead of a culture shock, a Technology-shock was what I experienced. Studying for a PhD was never going to be easy, I always knew that right from the beginning and yet I still chose to leap right into the Mecca of robotics. But hard work is something I`m used to...and that is what I`m here for right? So instead of writing about my lab before , I was all the time familiarising myself to it and now I can say that I have recovered my confidence to take up the greatest challenge of my life. Gambarimasu Aneesh!
Anyway, some details about my lab: The lab itself started in 1976(!) There are three professors and some 40 odd research members, most of them Masters students and a handful of doctoral students. Every year this time, a robot programming contest is held where the students get to choose their own research idea and then try and accomplish it. The event started at 10am and finished right at 10.30pm with a party.
Amongst my favourite was this demo...a robot that is able to identify a Coke bottle from some other bottles and retrieve it. Some other interesting robots: a robot that follows the shade casted by an umbrella. When a person walks with the umbrella, it follows the umbrella; and a soccer playing robot. Here are rest of the pics. Luckily I was strictly an observer but next year, I`ll also have to participate. If you have any (simple!) ideas on what to do, pls let me know!
