A Break in the Action

During our trip to the archive in Mdina there was a brief period when our host at the archive had to take a lunch break, so we decided to take the opportunity to walk around the beautiful Silent City and get a quick snack. We cruised into one of the local restaurants for some cake and drinks. Each one of us chose a different cake, trading bites of our slice for others that also looked delicious. I also tried a local soft drink called Kinnie that a few of us decided tastes like a cross between ginger ale and root beer.

Afterwards, we headed to the Eastern wall of Mdina to overlook the far side of the island. Mdina is on the West side of Malta, but seeing to the Eastern coast was no trouble from our vantage point. We also took the opportunity to snap a group photo before heading back to finish up with the archive.

Karnival ta Malta

We were fortunate enough to be in Malta for Carnival (il-Karnival ta' Malta in Maltese). Carnival is a period of festivities before Lent and is most common among Roman Catholic communities. According to one of the people we talked with here, the Carnival festivities in Malta are the 5th largest in the world. Pretty impressive for such a small country. During Carnival, there are parades with colorful floats, dance events, various booths set up and many people dressed in costume.

Valletta (the capital of Malta) has one of the bigger carnival festivals in Malta so we made our way there on the old buses. Upon arrival near Valletta, we noticed lots of very brightly colored floats by the entrance to the city in preparation for the big parade that evening. Our group wandered around the town some, taking in all the sites and interesting costumes and stopped at a restaurant for an early dinner. We decided to try some traditional Maltese food including rabbit. I only tried a small piece, but we all agreed that it was not that different tasting than other meats like turkey or pork. It was interesting to see the whole chest cavity and some of the internal organs though.

After our meal, we watched the parade briefly as it began to pass by. All of the floats (and a number of the costumes as well) were bright neon colors and it was interesting to see, although definitely not what I was expecting initially.

Our group split up and continued exploring around Valletta. We talked for a while with several guys who had an adorable puppy. They were very friendly and offered a diverse perspective -- one was from France, another from Spain, another from England, and the puppy was from Malta. We took turns holding the puppy and listened to their stories and advice about things to see and places to go.

We finished our evening adventures with some more exploration of Valletta including sitting in on part of a Catholic church service, trying some Maltese desserts at a small cafe that was recommended to us, and more observation of the Carnival parade. Overall, a very full evening and an interesting insight into Maltese culture.

Taste of Maltese Culture

We had our first set of cistern explorations at Gomerino Palace on Tuesday. While waiting to get into the area though, we got a chance to walk down the road and explore a little. In addition to the beautiful landscape and lots of old rock walls and structures, we met an elderly Maltese man who invited us into his garden to show us the statue of St. Paul we had seen from outside earlier.

Beautiful Maltese countryside. There were walls like this all over

Lots of beautiful flowers in bloom and no shortage of interesting buildings.

Shrine/statue of St. Paul in the Maltese persons garden. He saw some of us looking over the low, stone fence and he invited us into his garden to get a better look. Most of the group went to Gomerino to go look at the cisterns as we had just got access to the site, but Brig and I stayed behind briefly to see what the guy had to share.

Side of the shrine. There is a small door (can be seen here somewhat) which leads inside to a small circular room

Inside there were several shelves of religious items set up. It was very interesting to see and brought to mind the statistics we had learned about the large religious presence in Malta.

Talking to the Maltese man. He was very nice but spoke next to no Engligh (only Maltese). It made communication a little hard but with some hand gestures and a charades-like guessing of meanings, we were able to understand the general idea. It was great to meet some of the locals already and it was encouraging to be treated so nicely by someone who was a complete stranger not long before.

First Day In Malta

On the way and at Malta: Our first Day!

Research Project Discussion at Backstage - 2/15/11

So I got one picture...

Hopefully it's an okay summary of our meeting with Timmy Gambin and the awesome insights he was able to give into our individual research projects and also just some useful general knowledge about Malta.

Can't wait to talk with him more!

Avila Pier launch - take 1

From our first trip out to the Cal Poly pier to test the robots (along with the CPE485 class)

Beautiful day out at Avila

Brief tour of the pier facilities

Ballasting the AUV & the AUV being driven manually in Avila Bay

Getting the Iver ready to launch

Iver being driven in Avila Bay

Boat ready just in case something happened to the robots

Iver after the tests... still in one piece!

More pool tests

A few more pictures from the recent pool test where we got to drive the ROV around with the joystick

Pacheco Robotics

Our second set of visits to Pacheco elementary school were focused around teaching the kids about the design aspect of robotics. We had kits that could be put together to form a number of different simple configurations and at the end, we had all of the groups put together the solar powered car design and race them outside.

The Pool!

Just wanted to share that we got the ROV in our pool and drove it around with the joystick and toughbook today. Yay!

And we had the IVER in and doing missions. Yay!

Pics:

Jennifer took a couple of the ROV (I think...) but I don't have those ones.

Teaching Kids About Robots

Part of the ICEX program is visiting kids at Pacheco Elementary School and teaching them about robots. Here are some pictures from the most recent visit where we taught them how to program robots using rotating discs.