06Apr
I must admit I’ve been very busy since the beginning of this year, and I’ve overlooked this blog. I guess part of it has to do with my lack of ideas on what to write about, so during this time of inactivity, I’ve come up with some great topics that I’ll be writing about these upcoming months.
So what have I been working on lately?
- Botball Robotics: The season started off in end of February and ends with a competition on April 19th. We’ve went through the whole brainstorming and building process and now we’re focusing on the programming. As I’ve mentioned before, we’re using a language derived from C to program. The language itself is considerably powerful in our case but I must say robotics programming is like no other software programming. When we do web development or software development on the computer, we just compile/save and refresh the application to see if it works. However, the most redundant part and annoying part about robotics programming is that you have to constantly reset the 10′ by 8′ game board, running all over the room, only after one trial. Imagine doing this hundred or probably thousands of times. But this year is different than last year. I’m come to enjoy working with other programmers. It’s so much easier to split up the tasks, rather than having one-man-do-it-all.
I’m keeping my hopes high for first place, but regardless of what place we get, I’ll still post the results here :P.
- Google Lunar X Prize R&D Challenge: The whole team worked very hard on this and I think our hard work payed off! We earned second place. We were asked to design a rover that would travel the moon. The challenge is indeed inspired from the Google Lunar X Prize Challenge, except in this case, we’re just designing the robot, not building them.
- Work: I’ve had a chance to continue developing products with a startup in New York. We’re working with the MyBB platform, so I had made several enhancements to the software that I may release in the future.
- USACO: Mgccl’s blog post led me to this competition. I thought since the training course was free and quite interesting, I’d give it a shot. I’ve completed two assignments in C but it’s been a real pain, especially dealing with pointers and strings. Everytime something compiles wrong, it makes me want to use Java more… Supposedly, if you do well in the compeitions held by USACO, you can move on to the International Olympiad in Informatics which is considered the field goal for high school students in computer science… I don’t see myself there any time soon though.
- Course Selection: Speaking of Java, it was course selection week a few weeks ago at my school. I’ve decided on what I want to take next year. The AP classes I’ll be taking are AP Computer Science, AP US History, and AP Calculus AB. It’s really two AP classes for me because APCS isn’t that much of a challenge for me. The other three regular classes will be English 3, Biology, and Spanish 3. They’re basically required by colleges as must-take courses. There is no way in the world I’ll be taking an AP English class, and don’t even mention biological sciences — I hate them.
- WordPress: I’ve been back on track, working closely with WordPress, especially after the 2.5 release. I’ve reworked our robotics team website. Everything is now powered by WordPress. In the summer, I’ll be enhancing this site with some custom WordPress plugin ideas I have.
Topics: advance placement, AP, apcs, botball, C, google, java, MyBB, programming, robotics, school, USACO, web development
24Aug
Long time no see. I’ve returned from Taiwan! I’m still in the process of getting everything back in order including some RSBANDB stuff, school stuff, and lots of email.
First off, sorry about the pictures XD. I couldn’t get them uploaded for some weird reason, but here are the official ones not taken by me. Please also do take a look at this video. It’s awesome.
Now I need to actually start on my AP assignments, which are due in two days. It also sucks to not have your new schedule because your out on vacation… grr…
Topics: advance placement, AP, botball, competition, Hawaii, pictures, robotics, rsbandb, Taiwan, vacation
18Jul
I just got here into Taiwan after flying back from Hawaii last Saturday. It’s really humid 
My team had pretty bad luck during the competition. During the double-elimination rounds (two loses and you’re out), one of our motors broken in the first round, so obviously we lost. After that round we took it to get it fixed. While we were fixing it, we were called up again to compete. So yea, it sucked.
However, the conference itself was fun. Got to meet smart people and Hawaii was fun. I’ll be posting some pictures later.
Topics: botball, competition, conference, Hawaii, pictures, robotics, Taiwan
05Jul
Yup that’s right. I’m going to Hawaii this Saturday for eight days. As you guys all know, I’m going there for the International Botball Tournament. Right now I’m cranking out the rest of the two days, trying to program robots. I am not even closed to finishing though 
.
I’m pretty sure I won’t win the giant trophy, but hey, it’ll be fun sunbathing tomorrow, hehe.
After the eight days, I’m going to board another plane yet again to Taiwan. I’ll catch up then. See you all.
Topics: botball, conference, Hawaii, Life, Taiwan
12Jun
I’ve been thinking about getting a tumblelog because I don’t have much time writing long blog posts but sometimes I really want to share some things. The only downside about getting one is that I don’t have full control over the my domain, because I’ll have to point the domain to the hosting server. The other thing about it is that there is no comment system, so I’m still thinking about whether or not to switch.
So what have I been up to…
- Final exams this week. School is out Thursday.
- Working on a big project for a client, building everything upon MyBB through the plugin system.
- I have a research paper due Wednesday, tomorrow, and I haven’t even started.
- Preparing for the Internal robotics Botball tournament.
- Upgraded this blog to new version of WordPress.
- Finished reading Fast Food Nation. I’m now reading At the Center of the Storm, My Years at the CIA by George Tenet. I love autobiography and nonfiction books like this one.
- Lots of summer assignment for next year’s AP World History class.
Catch up later.
Topics: assignment, blog, Blog Updates, books, botball, Life, MyBB, robotics, summer, tournament, tumblelog, update
09Apr
As the robotics competition is approaching(4/21), the two teams at my school are working extra hard. However, we don’t seem to be making progress at an acceptable rate. Sure, the major robot mechanicals parts are done, but there is still lots of tweaking to do. Along side with that, we have documentation work which is due a few days before the competition. I am probably the most stressed guy from the two teams. After the robots are finalized, I have to program for both team. That means I have to program four robots, making them perfect in a week or less. Right now, I haven’t done much, because our strategies are not yet finalized. However, I will do my best to get everything programmed this week — my supposedly enjoyable vacation.
Wish me luck!
Topics: botball, busy, documentation, robotics, work
14Mar
March is scheduling month at my school. I’m going to be a sophomore next year (yay!). Here are the classes I plan on taking.
- English 2 Accelerated
- Algebra 2
- Chemistry
- AP World History
- Physical Education
- Spanish 2
Unfortunately, I have no electives. It should be really interesting taking my first AP class. Interestingly, I’ll be taking my first AP exam this May, the AP Chinese Exam. I still need to study a bit more for that, but I think I can get a 4 at least. Besides AP World History, I might be taking the AP Computer Science A exam next year self-studying.
Lately, I’ve been really busy with Robotics meetings. We’re attending the Botball Northern CA competition in April. If we do win, we get to go to Nationals in Hawaii over the summer! I’m the programmer for both the two teams from my school.
Topics: AP, botball, chinese, computer science, robotics, schedule
