KAPOOF... KAPISH...

i've been pretty busy the previous days. what have i been doing? thesis.

i still couldn't believe that i would be delayed just because of our thesis. i dunno, maybe it's all my fault, slacking around when i should be busy constructing our robot. actually, come to think of it, i'm not "that" disappointed being delayed. building our robot is no joke, 10 weeks to finish it (the amount of time before the defense) couldn't be accomplished especially when you have other subjects eating up your time. that was a term ago. now, we have no other excuse not to finish it for next term.

what's our thesis all about? we will construct a MOBOT (mobile robot) that is autonomous (meaning independent). what does it do? well, to put it in layman's term, it is AN EXPLORATION ROBOT. it would be deployed in an unknown environment to explore it and at the same time, send sonar feedbacks to the host computer. these sonar data will be used to generate a 2-dimensional map of the unknown environment. simple, NAH! when we searched the library and internet for related litaratures, we found out theat some poeple did manage to finish a robot that does the same thing as ours althoug they are not actually the kind of person you would call simple joes. they are actually doctors of the robotic field! DAMN! were we surprised when we saw that, we almost lost hope. how i wish i never saw those related lits.

so is our thesis THAT hard? at first glance, yes. but we are tackling the project a step at a time. it's actually doable. (the problem is i think we wouldn't be able to finish it within th term) i could say now, we're at the 30% mark. we wouldn't want to rush things. we're already delayed so why rush? our main goal is have this thesis receive the gold at graduation. an alibi good enough for employers. (just like my motto, AIM FOR PERFECTION, SETTLE FOR EXCELLENCE)

i suddenly remembered a song by the rage against the machine...

if you don't take action now, you'll SETTLE FOR NOTHING LATER!

HAHA!

going back to my story, early this week, from monday to thursday morning, we camped at ram's house for our thesis. i did the electronics and mechanical part, ram planned the algorithm for the robot's movement and map generation, antz did experiments on the microcontroller. edward was home studying the motor controller and herbert... hmmm... he well... uhmmm...

in the process of making the motor run, i busted the dual-bridge our thesis adviser lent us. we wouldn't tell her unless she asks for it. LOL. but the loud pop made by the IC kept us awake that night. because of that incident too, i managed to make the two half-bridges we previousl thought was busted work. ram, on the other hand, got his own eureka moments with the program. antz and i also made the sonars, tranciever and electronic compass work and transmitt the data to the host pc. WHOOPEEEDOOO! i could say that was one of the most productive days in our thesis building.

next week, i will be targeting to finish the platform of the robot (the wheelbase and the surface where all the components will be mounted). edward would also be joining us to piece-in his motor controller with my bridge and antz's microcontroller. i sure hope it would be if not as successful, better than this week.