The first part is an artificial eye created using a camera that will be programmed to search for specific objects and learn which objects it wishes to pursue in the future. Say for example we want a red square, if the eye is tracking an object that that is red and instead of being a square it is a triangle it will learn through a "reward" system that it doesn't want that object and if it sees it from a distance again, instead of tracking it and wasting time it will automatically remember that it is not what it is looking for and go on trying to find the desired object.

The second part is a mobile base. This base will make it easy for the robot to track objects and examine them further by getting closer to them and/or avoiding them. The camera will be mounted on a 2-servo system that will allow horizontal and vertical adjustment for better ability in tracking objects. We will implement a wireless communication channel that will allow communication between the robot and the computer. The robot will be completely independent of user interaction after its initial programming and will carry out its task until finished or until a kill switch is thrown (should the need arise).

We are in the product research stage now and will be ordering parts relatively soon. I will keep you updated with our progress as we move along.

In my time there this summer as well as my first Co-Op during Fall Quarter of 2008 I was able to design several experiments involving physical, electrical, thermal, and stress analysis, i-v characteristic analysis, photolithography processes, physical vapor depositions and ultimately the patterning of an ohmic contact device. The semiconductor of choice would have to make a stable contact to SiC at 1000°C. After analyzing the work functions of several materials and the other electrical, chemical and thermal characteristics we chose our semiconductor.

I cannot discuss the full results of my experiments at this time being that our findings have not been published yet. However to see the full results of the experiments keep an eye in the Journal of Applied Physics and a publication should come along shortly. I am however able to say that our experiments were successful and I was able to develop an ohmic contact to both n- and p-type SiC and after aging at 1000°C it was still quite stable.

Suddenly, three years later, my friend Alicia and I are teaching the lessons ourselves (the picture above is of us at a dance in Columbus last spring). Tonight we'll be finishing a four-week introductory unit on East Coast. Despite having started with only four returning members, the club is already more than fifty strong. Several members have travelled with us to various dances around the state – this Friday we'll be dancing at a couple's swing-themed wedding reception in Hilliard, Ohio. Next week we'll be moving on to the dance that it is really all about: Lindy Hop.

With my group I spent 5-6 hours on Friday night building our fortress of cardboard out of cardboard boxes donated from gracious court street businesses. The cardboard fortress was an engineering masterpiece if I may brag on my teammates. Each piece had slits cut into it so that each box would fit perfectly to the next box and so on around the house and upwards. I was practically a giant jigsaw puzzle. We designed it to be able to take back apart and then be rebuilt. We then tore it down the cardboard house to be rebuilt the next day.

After rebuilding it on Saturday we slept in it for the night. But rain plagued the evening and the vast majority of cardboard houses built had fallen by morning. But ROC fortress held to its foundation for the entire evening and in the morning was left standing among the rubble of the other cardboard houses that had fallen.