Author: Arim Baek, Email: baeka3@unlv.nevada.edu
Date Last Modified: 03/02/2025

It was a very productive week. After many trials and errors, I finally created soap well enough to be given as a souvenir to lab visitors. Additionally, after four attempts, I successfully completed logo cutting using a CNC router. All the disappointment from my frequent failures was completely healed this week. It may not a big deal, but I'm proud of myself for not giving up and seeing it through to the end!

I met Anson and Harith who are in another robotics lab and also their friends, Nijo and Sylvia. They are from India and Sri Lanka. Anson invited us to his dorm and cooked some delicious Indian food for us. Anson told me about his project and it was truly interesting to me. He researches some ways to develop robots for brain and cardiac surgery. He explained that it's a field that requires incredibly delicate control. Since it was a completely different research part from our lab, the stories he told me was very fascinating. He also showed me a video of an actual surgery performed using robots, and it was amazing.

It seems that friends here often invite others to their homes once they become close. I thought that this might be because most of my friends who invited me live alone, making it easier for them to do so. However, in Korea, even if someone lives alone, they usually don’t invite unless they are really close friends. So whenever my friends here invite me to their homes, I find it quite fascinating. It makes me wonder, “Have we really become this close already?” However, one thing that seems to be the same in both the U.S. and Korea is that when people invite guests, they always bring out good things and delicious food.

I realized that a sense of accomplishment is a highly important value to me. This week was incredibly busy with study for the exam, assignments, and projects, which left me physically worn out. However, the sense of fulfillment I felt after successfully completing many tasks made this week the most satisfying I've had since coming to the U.S.

During my book study sessions, I often thought about what kind of work I would like to do in the future. After this week, I feel like I have gained a bit more direction. It would be great if I could find a job that offers many opportunities to learn new things, allows me to experience a sense of accomplishment, and enables me to grow little by little every day.

I have learned that running the probe to precisely measure the edges is a crucial step when using the CNC Router. I used to struggle with cutting the UNLV logo perfectly, often needing to use additional tools to finish the cut. However, I now realize that this was the cause of the issue. With this knowledge, I am now able to achieve more precise cutting.

I also learned how to perform line following using the Webots simulator. I created a map using the InkScape program, which I learned for laser cutting, and then imported it into Webots, followed by writing the controller file.