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====== Yu Hang He Tesla 2019 Journal ======

**Author:** [[unlv_he|Yu Hang He]], Email: <hey6@unlv.nevada.edu>
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**Date Last Modified:** 08/26/2019
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===== Week 3 =====

==== Photos of the Week ====
{{:yuhang:tesla:bd.jpg?800|}}

This week, I had the opportunity to visit Boston Dynamic's headquarter in Boston. This photo was taken in the main entrance to the BD's research facility. Many of the robot that BD has worked on was proudly on display. From the right to left, they have the BigDog, WildCat, LS3, Spot Classic, and Atlas. They also have a Spot refurbished as a coffee table in the sitting area. Overall, the visit to Boston Dynamic was a fantastic opportunity and experience.
==== New Person ====

I had the opportunity to meet Alex Alspach, a mechanical engineer at Toyota Research Institute. Alex was a student studied under Dr. Oh. He gladly gave Dylan, Blake, and me a tour of the Toyota Research Institute during our stay in Boston Dynamics. Interestingly, Alex was working on a project to use deformation of elastic membranes attached to a gripper for object shape and orientation detection. The project shares some similarity with the jamming gripper I was working with before moving to Reno. In fact, Alex was actively looking for a supplier of jamming gripper since the original company is no longer available. It is cool to meet with a DASL alumni who is actively working in the robotic field. P.S. we had a lunch with Marc Raibert, CEO of BD and he wasn't wearing a Hawaiian T-shirt.

==== What I Learned about Myself ====

It has been quite a while since I started working with robots and gained various experience in the area. I thought I had a basic understanding of the complexity behind designs and controls of robots. However, what I experienced in Boston Dynamics completely blew me away. I always had suspicion about the performance of the robots that BD shown in their videos. After all, they only shown their success in their video and who knows how often they are not successful. In fact, during the demo of Spot at Re:mars conference, Spot had a failure on stage. However, after personally handling Spot's control and subject it to many rigorous testing, I am thoroughly awe struck by the ability of Spot. Their accomplishment inspires me to devote more effort in learning about robotics.

==== Project Status ====

This week, I had the opportunity to participate in Boston Dynamic's Spot training course. In the first, we went over hardware of Spot and practice controlling. In the second day, we learned about Spot's API and how to program it.

==== Project Agenda ====

Next week, I will start making mount prototype and other preparations for Spot.