Blog #8
What did you do this past week?
This past week, I mainly spent all of my time on studying for this class and doing research for my robot learning stream. Studying for this class was very nice as Professor Downing provided us with all the necessary resources for a successful study experience. The Hackerranks and provided notes were very comprehensive. Outside of this class, I spent the majority of my time debugging a simulator for my robot learning research. We trying to get a realistic model of our robot in a physics simulator and then be able to play joint commands in that simulation. In order to understand the issue a little more, we were using a framework called ROS. ROS works by having publishers and subscribers to topics. Essentially some nodes publish topics while others read, allowing for seamless multithreaded code. The issue was that the robot simulator expected the published joint command topics in a different form than the actual robot. After we fixed that issue, we figured out that our commands were somehow overriding the gravity compensation, making our robot’s arm just fall downwards.
What’s in your way?
This week, the coronavirus was the main thing in my way. I was afraid of going home to my family on the off chance that I had the virus. I was planning to go home until there have been confirmed cases at UT. My roommates and I are just planning to bunker down until we don’t show any symptoms for around 2 weeks.
What will you do next week?
Next week, I will just try to stay productive and not get sick.
What was your experience of Test #1a? (no details about the questions, please; there are still make-ups to come) (this question will vary, week to week)
I feel that Test #1a was pretty fair. The available material we had to study with was definitely enough to prepare me for this test.
What made you happy this week?
This week, getting to call my parents every day made me very happy. The fact that my family is bonding together in these times is very reassuring and comforting.
What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
My pick-of-the-week is Magnet. It is a mac window manager that allows you to easily split screen or full screen using customizable keyboard shortcuts. I think it is also currently on sale.
