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--- jason_journal [2019/07/31 02:03] – [Week 6: 07/08/19 - 07/15/19] jkreitz
+++ jason_journal [2019/08/07 04:58] (current) – jkreitz
@@ Line 278: / Line 278: @@
 I was able to set up my camera rig, so now I am trying out a QR code prototype of the pick and place movement. There's currently no gripper attached, so I am just going to emulate the movement. We are doing a demo for Professor Oh later this week, so I am aiming to get the prototype done by the end of the week.
-===== Week 6: 07/15/19 - 07/21/19 ======
+===== Week 7: 07/22/19 - 07/28/19 ======
 ==== 1. Photo of the week ====
-{{:jkreitz:leah_wedding_ceremony.jpg?nolink&300|}}
-{{:jkreitz:wedding_w_lola.jpg?nolink&300|}}
-My sister got married this week! They weren't expecting me to be there at all for the ceremony, so they were very much surprised that I was "able to make it" by Skyping in. They did their ceremony in the middle of the desert, so the resolution of the video was not very good.
+This past week I went to Japan to visit Stephanie's (my girlfriend) extended family (aunts/uncles). Her mom and brother were also there, so it was basically a huge party. Her family in Tokyo had hosted us for a whole month about two years ago, so I needed to make sure that I spent time with them while I'm in the region.
+What surprised me the most, however, was that with her grandpa welcomed me easily this time. The previous time, we never interacted much with one another. So I was very happy for him to have opened up to me.
+The picture below is one that I sent to Stephanie after I landed.
+{{:jkreitz:stephs_grandpa.jpeg?nolink&200|}}
-As I said before, this wedding was for my grandma, so they brought her out and, thankfully, were able to celebrate with her. We're a pretty tight knit family - and I really like my brothers-in-law - so being able to see the ceremony and talk to everyone at the reception was nice, albeit bittersweet.
 ==== 2. New Korean that I met ====
-{{:jkreitz:andong.jpg?nolink&300|}}
+I met a few new Koreans from Seoul National University and Kookmin National University during out seminar trip this last weekend. We hung out and played ping-pong/billiards with several of our lab members.
-I went out after work earlier this week and met a video game designer named Andong. We were talking about his design setup, as well as the premise of the game, and he invited me to his studio next door to check out the game demo. I ended up helping him come up with a name for the game, so he said he will put my name in the credits!
+I didn't get a chance to go out much outside of the trip, however. I only had about three days in Daejeon, and those were spent preparing a demo for Dr. Paul Oh (we had already done our demo for Professor Jun Ho Oh the previous week).
 ==== 3. Cultural Insight ====
-Akshay, David, and I went to Seoul this weekend and stayed in a traditional guesthouse. Or, rather, we squeezed into a traditional guesthouse. The three of us shared a room probably about the size of our dormitory bathroom at KAIST (maybe 8' x 6.5'). The reviews on AirBNB looked pretty great, but we were not expecting what we got.
+Man... Japan and Korea are different. Regardless of all the politics currently going on, culturally they feel different. Being half-asian and growing up in a heavily Asian American community, my friends and I all learned about each others respective cultures through what was passed down by our parents. And so I never really realized just how different the respective cultures are without the American culture in the middle.
-The cool thing about the guesthouse, however, was that we stayed in Bukchon Hanok village in Seoul, which is right next to Gyeongbokgung Palace. We could actually see the palace from our AirBNB. We walked around the village for a bit and checked out some of the craftsmanship there before going to the palace.
+Japan is overly organized, and everything has a place. I met up with a close friend from UNLV in Tokyo, and we were talking about how the business culture of Kaizen (the Japanese word for continuous improvement) actually gets in the way of innovation. In comparison, Korea has felt much more open to people going at their own pace. Maybe it's a recent development with the younger generation - or maybe it's because Daejeon is a more relaxed city - I'm not sure.
-{{:jkreitz:gyeongbokung_laptop.jpeg?nolink&300|}}
+==== 4. Self-Discovery ====
-We walked around the palace for about half an hour before it started raining, so we went inside the Korean history museum. I am a bit interested in anthropology and history, mainly because it helps me to understand a country/city's culture. So seeing the interactive exhibits at the museum helped to give me a better idea of the history of Seoul and its importance at the center of Korean history.
+Engineering classes teach us tools, but they don't teach us how to think about them or their use. It seems pretty obvious, but man... It's really easy for people without experience to get caught into the trap of "learn this and become a master." I was waiting for classes to teach me how to implement a concept, instead of using my classes to better understand what/why I'm working on my projects.
-{{:jkreitz:dinner_w_mang.jpg?nolink&300|}}
+I realized this shift in my mentality when implementing my finite state machine (FSM). I had previously thought that an FSM was just some concept that only computer science students learned in their Automata classes - and that you could only implement it if you had studied these concepts rigorously. But now I realize that conceptually it's not too difficult to understand - anyone should be able to create a FSM as long as they understand basic coding.
-We also met up with Mang, Minju and Jisu while we were here! I didn't get a chance to take pictures of Minju and Jisu, but we hung out with Mang for two days straight, so thankfully we were able to catch one together.
+However, the FSM completely changed the way that my project worked. No longer were the requests being hard coded, and there was no hand controlled input. Everything became very hands off, with the shift in states controlling what the arm would do next.
-==== 4. Self-Discovery ====
+And so my hope is to go into this next semester of operating systems, computer languages, and algorithms courses with a better understanding of how the concepts I'm learning can better help me answer questions that pop up during research.
-There was a lot that happened this last week. Travel, family, friends, and work were all really at the center - there wasn't too much time to rest. So I need to set myself back on a bit of a schedule to make sure I'm able to rest up without crashing.
+==== 5. Technical Project ====
-I feel like my time here is helping me think more like an engineer. Akshay is actually really observant of how things are put together, and we have been bouncing random ideas off one another (related and unrelated to research). It has been pretty fun being here with him, because we each have different skillsets. So when we talk about how we should go about some issue (again, some being unrelated to research), we can kind of create a roadmap together on how we //would// go about the problem.
+We got a chance to get a close look at the FX-2 in actual operation. Man, just a year ago I only would have thought "holy crap this is so cool." But now I am in awe because I know just how little I know. This thing must have taken so long to make - and then on top of that, it must have taken a large number of trials to actually walk with a rider.
-==== 5. Technical Project ====
+{{:jkreitz:fx_2_picture.jpg?nolink&300|}}
-{{youtube>lkcfc805nmk?medium}}
+{{youtube>-MPEzdjA6Zs?medium}}
-I finally got my ROS wrapper to work on Monday this last week! I will still need to add a few more functionality changes if I want to actually publish the wrapper online (currently talking to Mark about whether or not I can do that), but the structure itself is all there! It posts joint-state feedback in ROS, so we can use that feedback in order to provide robot information for the collision detection package that Akshay is working on.
-{{youtube>SPvito6ge3g?medium}}
-The video above is of Akshay and me testing out an object detection package we received from Mark. Akshay learned how to integrate it into our project, as well as publishing the messages in ROS. We stayed pretty late every night last week, so we are glad to have made good progress.
+Below is the state of my current project. I'm jamming out to music during the video, so feel free to put it on mute.
+{{youtube>n4j1hCwLTFI?medium}}
+In the video, you can see my FSM put to action. It will only start moving when it detects an object on the table. I can see that, from here, there are ways to use probabilities with the FSM to create a more robust decision making process for difficult processes. Thankfully, this process is fairly straightforward.
+Youngbum and I had spoken this last week for things left to do before I leave and ways to move forward once I get back home. I feel like there is a good path forward for when I return, so I am thankful to have been able to gain this experience with the RB5 over here.
+Even though I feel like I have gotten a lot done, I am realizing that there is still so much to learn in order to solve more difficult problems.
+===== Week 8: 07/29/19 - 08/04/19 ======
+==== 1. Photo of the week ====
+==== 2. New Korean that I met ====
+This last week, I met two new Koreans: Bora and Mingu.
+Bora is Soonghoon's (from the hydraulics lab) girlfriend. I had been trying to hang out with them for a while, and we finally got a chance to go out this last Friday. Ook (another lab member), his friend Mingu, and Akshay also came along. We all got along pretty easily - which has often been the case when Akshay and I meet people together (thankfully).
+==== 3. Cultural Insight ====
+==== 4. Self-Discovery ====
+I am going to miss KAIST. I've learned a lot here about what it means to be a roboticist (more specifically, learning how much I don't know). The problems that roboticists tackle are non-trivial, and it takes a huge amount of time, effort, and understanding to get past more trivial problems. Being here has helped to foster a greater sense of cooperation between me and Akshay, showing that we can think through problems more efficiently when we can rely on someone else's perspective.
+I am going to miss the lab members here. There is definitely a sense of camaraderie between the HUBOLab members, regardless of whether or not they work directly together. They have welcomed Akshay and me into the lab, even though we hadn't worked with them on any projects.
+==== 5. Technical Project ====
+This past week I have been helping out Akshay with the object following module for the RB5.
-{{youtube>zOIcM2IDXcU?medium}}
+We've noticed significant lag in the communications that weren't present with the simple pick and place demo. After digging into the issues, I found that the ROS wrapper is not receiving robot data from the RB5 control box in a timely manner. I am working out these issues (maybe will be fixed up by resolving timing/threading issues) and will continue digging into it after we return.
-The video above is the working demo of Akshay's computer vision module and my RB5 wrapper. It took a few weeks to get something functional, but we finally have a video showing the fruits of our labor. We know we aren't done, though, so we are getting back to work today.
-Akshay is working with the computer vision/pointcloud stuff (he excitedly exclaimed last week "This is all just projection mapping!"), so I'm taking a step towards using motion planning for motion control purposes. I think we should be able to integrate it into the collision detection package, but I'm just doing some preliminary research now.
+Dr. Jun also requested that I import the RB5 into RVIZ before coming back to Vegas. I just received word from Dr. Bae earlier this week that they have not made a URDF for the RB5, and so I will need to make it. Once I make the URDF, I will need to make a node that posts the RB5 joint data to the URDF topics.