The previous night was spent at the USP Robotics Lab. Again. Well, it was really tiring. But I enjoy this stuff. Actually, I think the others in the group don't really enjoy it as much as I do but I'm just glad they're willing to put in the best for our project. Well, it was a really satisfying night - much more so than the previous time we pulled an all-nighter - because we got the robot to work the way we wanted it to. Not 100% but it was working just enough for us to be able to present to Prof Mendis. There were 3 of us - Eugene, Lidan and myself. We stopped work at 6 and left the lab to rest till 11:30 when we were supposed to present.
When I came back, I found that Jonathan had arrived early and finding the robot to crash into the houses, had made adjustments to their positions. I was a little annoyed that he hadn't waited for one of us to show up before doing so, because we had done fully working runs before we left. Not entirely his fault, really. I guess he knew enough of the system and was smart enough to make what he saw to be necessary adjustments. But I really think he should have waited for us to brief him, since he wasn't around duing the wee hours of morning when we made some of the most important decisions and development to the system. I think I showed my displeasure slightly by informing him that we had done successful runs. I could have been mean and blame him for not staying over with us but I knew that was not right since I understood that not everyone can afford to spend that much time on the project (think he has a test or something). Anyway, I exercised some self-control - being angry isn't constructive anyway. That was good, everyone stayed happy and the presentation went smoothly. I think both Prof Mendis and Dr Pawani were impressed and that we'll score on this one. After that we took photos and then dismantled the robot (sad, but an eventuality we knew).
Working this hard on a robot can be frustrating, and when that happens, you give your robot a name so you can scold it when it screws up and praise it when it works. We called ours Mr Postman, but last night he walked off the table and shattered to pieces. I wasn't around but Lidan sounded rather distraught over the phone. When I arrived, they had rebuilt him. We changed the name to Marvin, after the depressed robot from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who kept thinking about suicide.
Photos of Marvin and the team can be seen here if you are on NUSNet.
