Inspiring the Next Generation - Teaching Robotics

Part of the ICEX goals this year have been reaching out to elementary school aged children and introducing them to robotics and inspiring them to go into science and technology fields. During the quarter back at Cal Poly, we visited two different 2^nd grade classrooms at Pacheco elementary school every Wednesday. We switched off between the classrooms and had hands-on lessons that talked about design, testing and programming. It was very successful. The kids seemed to really enjoy it and retain a lot of what we taught. We even got a book of thank you notes written by all the students afterward – a nice touch.

Originally, that was going to be the extent of our outreach. At the suggestion of Timmy though, we packed a suitcase full of little robots so we could continue the lessons at several Maltese grade schools. We started off with a brief lecture about different types of robots and introduced the robots we brought and the paper disks used to program them.

The disks we used were small circular pieces of paper (that we had to individually cut out beforehand). The robots have two sensors that read the disk as it rotates and determines if the 2 rows of squares are black or white. Depending on the combination of black and white, the robot will go forward, stop, or turn left or right.

We then broke the students into groups of 3-4 and let them each “program” the robot to navigate a simple maze we created on the floor with tape by coloring disks with black pencils and pens. Overall, the students were very excited about it and there were several students who even inquired about where they could get their own robot so they could do more on their own.

It was encouraging to be so enthusiastically received by both the students and faculty of the schools and in addition to being a good educational experience for the students there, it was a great experience for the ICEX team as well to be able to talk with so many students (who represented a variety of ethnic backgrounds).

(More?) Hardware Repair

So we decided to stay home on Thursday (March 10th) after running into some hardware troubles on Wednesday and ended up getting a lot of troubleshooting done. Our major goals for the day were making the partial ROV water-proof so that we could check its depth sensor in our makeshift pool (a large trashcan), checking the depth sensor of the full ROV, and doing some work on one of our tethers so that we could get full communication with the ROV (one of the problems we experienced Wednesday).

Tyler and I worked with the ROV and Brig and Jeff took on the tether job. We hoped to meet up later in the day to connect the 2 hopefully-fixed pieces of hardware. Tyler and I put the trashcan into the shower and filled it up with water.

We waterproofed the partial ROV and put it in the water for the first time since we've been here in Malta (we had been primarily using it for parts). We used both ROVs and both of our control boxes to test the depth sensors. We received inconsistent readings of depth on the control boxes, and could not communicate with the sonar unit at all. After some testing, we took a break and got some McDonald's coffee down the road. We were even graced by Timmy's presence midway through our day.

Jeff came down and finished up splicing the new piece of the tether together so that we could combine our jobs from the day.

The fixed tether solved the sonar communication problem completely! We now knew that the problem was in the other tether (the one not spliced) so we could now actually get sonar data from the cave! We also tested both cables connected in tandem so that we might be able to get some extra length in the huge cave. The cables connected and were able to control the ROV, but we still did not have sonar communication, which again assured us that the error was within the tether.

The final step was to waterproof the new connection. This required wrapping each connection in electrical tape to prevent shorts, sealing all the connections with epoxy, heat shrinking the epoxy, covering this in a sturdy hose-like wrap, and finally epoxying the ends of the cover.

By the end of the day, the ROVs were back together and waterproofed, and the tether could now communicate with the sonar. Although we lost a day at the cave, we were able to successfully remedy some major problems, and the entire team felt like it was a good choice.

Gozo

In addition to collecting information at various sites throughout Malta, we’ve been able to go to several sites on the smaller island of Gozo. Gozo is only 14km long and 7km wide and has approximately 31,000 residents. It is known as being much more green compared to Malta and the industry is more focused around agriculture. Below is a view over part of the island, as seen from the citadel in Victoria (also called Rabat) which is the capital city of Gozo.

Our sites on Gozo (on Monday) were focused on water galleries (as opposed to cisterns or wells). It was a neat change of pace to see the lay out horizontally instead of relying completely on sonar and video data from the ROV to get an idea of the layout and general structure of the cistern.

We did two sites on Monday. The first one, Ghar Ilma (Water Cave), was at a private residence and was apparently very important in supplying most of the water for the citadel back when residents of Gozo would have to sleep within the protected walls of the citadel (to stay safe from pirate attacks). I was surprised at the extent of this gallery. There were several different passageways and the main one extended for over 900 ft. We collected data for a lot of it, but were unable to map everything due to the limited length of our cable (only 250 ft) and the fact that there was a pile of debris blocking part of the main passageway.

Our second site was another private residence in someone’s garden. We set up in a small grove of tangerine/orange trees and ran the cable down to the water gallery. The depth readings on our control box were still not working properly, but we were able to get good sonar scans for the entire gallery.

After we finished collecting data, we packed up quickly and drove to the ferry in order to catch it on time (so we could meet our driver on the other side at the scheduled time). We got there in time, but almost missed the ferry anyways due to complications getting all of our equipment (a large generator, several large robot boxes, and various other bags and toolboxes) into a luggage container. We did end up making it, enjoyed the beautiful ride back to Malta and concluded another successful day of data collection.

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!

Draft Abstract: Current Challenges

As a country recently admitted to the EU (March 8, 2003), Malta is currently facing many challenges and opportunities. Since its admission to the EU, Malta has been working to meet the standards that the EU requires of all of its members, including a minimum of twenty percent RES by 2020. Also, with its strategic geographic location in the Mediterranean Sea, Malta plays an important role in terrorism prevention. This set of circumstances provides Malta with room for a surprising amount of political power for such a small nation. What is Malta doing to create RES, what have they done to prevent terrorism, and how has their recent situation affected their power in global politics since their admission to the EU.

More pictures from the pool

Sorry for the delay, but here are the pictures I took from the day at the pool

Progress Report #1: Contemporary Controversies in Malta

As a member of the ICEX team my project will focus on Malta. I choose to research contemporary challenges and opportunities specifically related to the environment, power production, social/political controversies, role in European Nations (EU), role in counter-terrorism, and Malta’s vision of itself today.

Preliminary research has yielded some information that should make this project very interesting. While I have found many interesting facts and articles relating to my topic, most of them only scratch the surface of the issues and do not go into the depth of detail that I would like to see. Finding detailed information on the topics introduced above is proving to be quite a difficult task for a small country like Malta.

It is commonly said that Malta’s only natural resources are people and the sun. The people are the one and a half million tourists that travel to Malta each year, and the sun because it is sunny most of the year. I find this very odd because with sun as one of your only natural resources one would think that Malta would have an interest in renewable energy (such as solar power). However, Malta only produces 0.2 percent of its energy with renewable resources while the rest is produced with fossil fuels. Additionally, as part of the EU Malta is required to produce ten percent of its energy with renewable resources by the year 2020 - they do not seem to be making much progress. With limited natural resources, Malta should use what it has to its advantage and harness the power of the sun.

On a separate note, Malta became the smallest member of the EU in May 2004 which was a major partisan controversy at the time as the Nationalist party was in complete support while the Malta Labour Party opposed it. Since its admission to the EU, Malta has been enthusiastically involved with the EU and its decisions (except maybe renewable energy). In addition they have been quite involved in counter terrorism. With its strategic location in the Mediterranean Sea, Malta is a desired operating location for terrorists and counter terrorists alike. But, in 2005 Malta and the United States committed over six million dollars to secure Malta’s borders and general security. Malta also allowed the United States use its land and harbors to repair equipment and for use in emergency situations. This increased the United States effectiveness in fighting the terrorists because they had repair facilities and headquarters close to the action.

Above was a quick overview of what I have found interesting so far. As I move forward with my research I would like to learn more about what actions Malta is taking to create green energy sources to comply with the EU, and hopefully find some interesting current economic and political controversies.

Following is a list of facts that I found interesting and related to my topic (United States demographic statistic in parenthesis): Malta has the densest population in Europe with about 3400 people per square mile (55), is 98 percent Roman Catholic (22%), has two official languages, growth rate of .42 percent (.87%), 94 percent living in urban areas (82%), and an immigration rate of 2.03 migrants per 1000 citizens (2.92). I do not know how these demographics affect the politics, policies, and other aspects of society in Malta, but I feel that they may be an important key to understanding the internal and international affairs and controversies of Malta.