http://groklab.org World-class research in human system interaction at The University of Iowa Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:29:24 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Maybe something we can do for Robocamp next year? =) Happy 10th Anniversary, Lego Mindstorms!r H.A.L.E is an event that will carry LEGO Mindstorms-based payloads into the Earth’s stratosphere. At that altitude H.A.L.E. will be above 99.9% of the atmosphere. They payloads will be exposed to extreme the cold and ... http://groklab.org/blog/2008/07/29/high-altitude-lego-extravaganza/ This is something we've been trying to impart to our freshman. Maybe it will help if major, currently-cool, corporations say it too.Official Google Blog: Our Googley advice to students: Major in learningIt's easy to educate for the routine, and hard to educate for the novel. Keep in mind that ... http://groklab.org/blog/2008/07/17/yeahwhat-google-said/ Members of our lab also work to teach an introductory programming class here in the College of Engineering. This video out of K State helps us see what its like for students today... a short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, ... http://groklab.org/blog/2008/07/08/a-vision-of-students-today/ I was wondering that myself.  For that reason, I installed Google Analytics to all blogs that have a new post in this calendar year, as well as the Wiki (in the process, I upgraded our version of mediawiki to the latest: 1.12). Let me know if you want to see the ... http://groklab.org/blog/2008/07/01/whos-looking-at-our-sites-anyway/ Did you volunteer time by sandbagging and/or post-flood cleanup in Iowa City during the flood of '08? You'd be doing Iowa City another great favor by filling out the form below, describing your voluntary labor. The City will compile the total hours worked and submit it for possible reimbursement or ... http://groklab.org/blog/2008/06/25/city-of-iowa-city-volunteer-log-of-hours-worked/ The Phoenix Mars lander will be landing on Mars on Sunday, 5/25.  This is a lander, not a rover; it'll stay in one spot and dig for water and signs of life.  They're using the same entry/descent/landing system as the Mars Surveyer that failed spectacularly in 2001 (stupid metric system), ... http://groklab.org/blog/2008/05/20/phoenix-mars-mission-home-3/ Industrial Engineering Program - Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Iowa The redesigned the layout of the MIE pages to fit with the College of Engineering's design, but they didn't change much of the content.  Why am I still on the front page of IE?  ... http://groklab.org/blog/2008/02/20/mie-site-redesign/ And the 14 Grand Engineering Challenges of the 21st Century Are... | Wired Science from Wired.com The National Acadamy of Engineering put together a committee to decide on some engineering Grand Challenges.  So...get to 'em, everyone! =) http://groklab.org/blog/2008/02/16/and-the-14-grand-engineering-challenges-of-the-21st-century-are-wired-science-from-wiredcom/ A PhD Student at CMU has created a VR Head Tracking system using a Wii remote and an IR sensor bar.  The effect is pretty cool! Using the infrared camera in the Wii remote and a head mounted sensor bar (two IR LEDs), you can accurately track the location of ... http://groklab.org/blog/2008/01/25/vr-head-tracking-wwii-remote/ Today I attended the 4Cast Conference on Social Networking and Campus Impact.  The purpose of the conference is to get people from around UIowa that are interested in social networking together in one place to discuss how to use social networking on campus.  I'll try to blog about it as things go along.9:00:Conference start.  ... http://groklab.org/blog/2008/01/17/4cast-conference-social-networking-2/ Thought this would be an interesting discussion piece.STSC CrossTalk - Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow? - Jan 2008 It is our view that Computer Science (CS) education is neglecting basic skills, in particular in the areas of programming and formal methods. We consider that the ... http://groklab.org/blog/2008/01/11/software-engineering-hitting-the-skids/ New rule:   websites should only be upgraded in the morning when the sysop is fresh and patient, not at night when   he is tired. Also, I think you should have to get a license to use the rm -rf * command (recursively remove everything, forcibly without confirmation) in unix. http://groklab.org/blog/2007/12/15/site-temporarily-down/ The EducatorPR blog today reports on a Society for New Communications Research study that shows that communicators are choosing to use social networking. "Twenty-seven percent of respondents reported that social media is a core element of their communications strategy. Only 3 percent stated that social media have little or no value ... http://groklab.org/blog/2007/12/09/social-media-in-ascendance/ AP is reporting on Honda's violin-playing robot today.   Honda argues that robots will become an important player in Japanese society in the future because of Japan's aging population (30,000 people over 100 years old). "Now we want to accelerate the development of robots that make a contribution to society, drawing ... http://groklab.org/blog/2007/12/07/hondas-violin-playing-robot/ I didn't want to keep clogging up the lab webpage with book reports, so I started my own blog: Geb's world.   I'm going to experiment with putting more of my thoughts out there and devote more time to reading my students ideas on their blogs, if they are interested ... http://groklab.org/blog/2007/12/07/gebs-world-now-open/ I just finished Cat's Cradle (again, I hadn't read it since I was a kid). It's hard to get over just how clever a writer Kurt Vonnegut is. I happened to pick up the soft cover version last week because it was on the banned books ... http://groklab.org/blog/2007/10/31/finished-cats-cradle/ I've ignored this blog too long.   I'm reading Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle."   So far a couple of quotes have struck me as worth remembering: "All of the true things that I'm about to tell you are shameless lies." and "'Dr. Breed keeps telling me the main thing with Dr. Hoenikker was truth.' 'You ... http://groklab.org/blog/2007/10/19/kurt-vonnegut/ Welcome to the new semester.   We've got a lot of things planned this year.   We're going to build the USAR Sim Team, develop the solar bike project, move everyone a step closer to graduation and get some of those paper out the door. I can't wait to get started! http://groklab.org/blog/2007/08/27/welcome-back/ Updated the GROK Codex to the latest version of Mediawiki, not without some gnashing of teeth.Also, installed a CAPTCHA service to hopefully reduce the amount of spam. http://groklab.org/blog/2007/07/20/upgraded-grok-codex/ Just got word that Gray's team from West High won a national Engineering competition. Congratulations to you, Gray! http://groklab.org/blog/2007/04/26/congrats-to-gray/ Apparently groklab.org is a target for spammers.   I have deleted roughly 30 spam comments/day for the last week from this blog. I'm turning off comments on new posts.   This setting can be overwritten on individual posts. We've only had 1 'real' comment on this blog (thanks Will), so it ... http://groklab.org/blog/2007/04/05/comments-disabled-until-further-notice/ The Semantic Robot Vision Challenge is a new research competition that is designed to push the state of the art in image understanding and automatic acquisition of knowledge from large unstructured databases of images (such as those generally found on the web). In this competition, teams will be required to demonstrate a robot that has the ... http://groklab.org/blog/2007/03/12/semantic-robot-vision-challenge/ (reprinted from http://jerryandsarasteele.typepad.com/deez_steeles/2007/03/hri_2007_confer.html) I attended the 2nd Annual International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) this weekend in Arlington, VA. I presented a poster titled Directed Stigmergy Control of Multi Robot Systems. This is the first academic conference I have attended in about 7 years, and I think it ... http://groklab.org/blog/2007/03/12/hri-2007-conference-review/ Welcome to the GROK Lab. This is the new webpage for the lab. From here you can explore our podcasts and our wiki as well as blogs devoted to individual projects. http://groklab.org/blog/2007/02/15/welcome/ The Phoenix Mars lander will be landing on Mars on Sunday, 5/25.  This is a lander, not a rover; it'll stay in one spot and dig for water and signs of life.  They're using the same entry/descent/landing system as the Mars Surveyer that failed spectacularly in 2001 (stupid metric system), ... http://groklab.org/blog/1999/11/29/phoenix-mars-mission-home-2/ The Phoenix Mars lander will be landing on Mars on Sunday, 5/25.  This is a lander, not a rover; it'll stay in one spot and dig for water and signs of life.  They're using the same entry/descent/landing system as the Mars Surveyer that failed spectacularly in 2001 (stupid metric system), ... http://groklab.org/blog/1999/11/29/phoenix-mars-mission-home/ Today I attended the 4Cast Conference on Social Networking and Campus Impact.  The purpose of the conference is to get people from around UIowa that are interested in social networking together in one place to discuss how to use social networking on campus.  I'll try to blog about it as ... http://groklab.org/blog/1999/11/29/4cast-conference-social-networking/