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.

More Projected Geometry

Projected geometry has improved! Surface extraction for a cistern has made it through the pipeline and (as shown below) is now visualized. At the moment, we have a simple keyhole cistern... one of the most common outline shapes for cisterns. It is interesting to see how the sonar scans picked up other objects at the level of the scan that have been interpolated into vertical barriers (seen as pillars).

In addition to surface extraction, I now have multiple projections that can be merged together as a mosaic on the wall of the cistern. Below you can see the mosaic merged together in Microsoft Word on the left. On the right, the same mosaic is replicated in the 3D environment on a wall of the keyhole cistern. The images are actually taken from the ISIS boat trip. On the ISIS, we recorded the ROV's video of the shipwreck. From the video, I took screenshots that represent sequential frames of different features of the shipwreck. With a little patience, I put the images together (as accurately as I could) to represent the shipwreck.

This process will be the same for combining images from the all of the surveyed sites with their corresponding geometry. The mosaic process of projective texturing still has a lot of work to help streamline the process more. Just for the record... this is all REALLY cool :P

Work Day and Beach Picnic

We decided to stay at the apartment on Friday and get a lot of work done. We each worked on something different as there were a lot of things that needed (and still need) to be done. I started to look at the data we collected from the AUV run the other day while others worked on documenting data and procedures, visualizations, and creating mosaics of the sonar scans from the cisterns (among other things). It was also exciting to see the first run of SLAM on the archives cistern and how our work is finally coming together.

For lunch, we decided to take a break and take a picnic lunch to the beach just a block from our apartment. It was a gorgeous day out and the sunshine and fresh ocean air were a welcome relief to all. We walked along the rocky shore and looked for fish, shrimp, crabs and other small marine life in the tide pools before settling down for lunch.

After lunch, Tyler, Chris and I took the opportunity to go for a short swim in the Mediterranean. The water was chilly but not too bad and we really wished we had brought goggles down with us to see more in the beautiful blue water. It was very relaxing out there though and interesting to note how much saltier the water here is compared to the Pacific ocean. As we were getting out, Tyler also helped a Maltese women pick some sea grass/plants from the side of the rock. She was very happy and told us that she cooks it and that it's good for her heart. Who would've known.

St. Agatha's

Last Wednesday(the 16th) we had a great opportunity to head back to Mdina and Rabat and revisit a couple of sites that we were unable to reach in the first 2 weeks due to time constraints or unexpected problems that arose. One such site was St. Agatha's catacombs.

This is another catacombs site in Rabat and is basically across the street from St. Paul's catacombs, which we visited during our first week in Malta. One of the water features was located in one of the gardens in the historical complex near the entrance to the catacombs. This site was mostly dried up, and barely contained enough water to drive the ROV around. We took a couple of sonar scans for good measure, and decided to move on since the space was small and we knew not much data could come from it.

The next site was behind the complex and required a bit of a trek though the brush to reach. Unfortunately, this well too, was very shallow. On the way down to the water, however, we saw the sides of the well shaft, and saw that it branched off in 2 opposing directions. By the time we hit the water though, the open area was a simple circular shape, and there were no tunnels or passageways to be explored. Maybe we can come back after some heavy rains and explore again!

Since we finished a bit early, the priest who was our contact there, Father Tony, invited us in for some coffee and tea, which was great. We sat around a big table and talked for a while, until Brig mentioned how cool it would be to see the catacombs. Father Tony offered to take us in and see - a private (free!) tour!

We walked down the large stone staircase outside the complex with Father Tony. When we got inside, he gave us a bit of background of what we were looking at. We were inside of a crypt which is essentially an underground church. This room was decorated with "frescos" - paintings done directly on the wall that usually showed saints or other religious figures. Father Tony explained that most of the frescos had been ruined during a period where Muslims were invading. To show their discontent with the frescos and with the Catholic religion, they scraped the faces off of the paintings of the saints.

We moved deeper into the crypt and began to see the catacombs. Some of these burial sites actually still had the bones in them! This was a bit strange, but really helped give the catacombs a more realistic feel than the empty ones of St. Paul. Father Tony also told us about stone tables that might have been used for a kind of offering to or for the dead. One of the tables was in the shape of the Greek letter "alpha," the one on the other side of the room in the shape of "omega." At the very end of the catacombs was another crypt decorated with more frescos. There was an altar here decorated with many Christian symbols including shells, pelicans and Greek letters (chi and rho). There was also a special tomb big enough for a single person, and most likely was meant for the priest.

This was an awesome experience and we were very grateful for Father Tony's hospitality! St. Agatha's was definitely another interesting place to visit, filled with centuries of history.

Underwater Roboticists Unplugged

Snorkeling Day 1

On Chris's last day we decided to be a bit more adventurous than usual. Chris really wanted to go swimming in the Mediterranean and what a better way to enjoy the beautiful weather than laying out on the beach and snorkeling for a few hours. The scenery was picturesque with clear shallow water surrounded by a bright blue sky. The best part of snorkeling was not the wildlife in the water (as there was about 2 fish that I saw) but spending a good length of time enjoying our surroundings both above and below the water. A good chunk of the time we spent in the water was laying on our backs while floating in the water, enjoying each others company, and taking everything in. It was truly a unique experience.

Exploring the Mediterranean

Postcard worthy view of the beautiful underwater landscape

Putting on the flippers!

Laying back and enjoying the view

Up-close and personal looking up at the bright blue sky

Acrobatics underwater

Enjoying the warm, clear waters of the Mediterranean.

The saying,"A picture is worth a thousand words" couldn't be more true in this picture.

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).

Shipwreck Exploration

On Tuesday (3/15/11), the Aurora Special Purpose Trust took us out on their boat named ISIS to explore a shipwreck just off the coast of Manoel Island here in Malta. We used their underwater robot to explore the sunken ship, which dates back to World War II. Their ROV was able to use sonar to visualize the the ship and its surrounding environment. The ship was at a depth of 21 meters according to the depth sensor on the ROV. The purpose of the exploration is to gather enough data in order to create a 3D model of the shipwreck. This could be done using the sonar data and our 3D visualization software, which incorporates SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping).

The boat was fairly small, so they took us out in groups of 4. Those that were left behind worked in Cafe Jubilee across the street. This place was only about a 15 minute walk from our apartment, which allowed for us to walk home.

Failure (Almost) to Launch

Today we launched the AUV in Pembroke. It took a couple trips in Timmy's smaller car to get the AUV, and all 10 of us out to the coast. We were all excited to get in the water (Chris was the most enthusiastic), and had planned ahead by wearing our swimsuits. We were especially excited about the AUV's first launch in the Mediterranean. Our plan was to take the AUV out to about 10 meters from the water line, just past the big rocks. We would then let it go out on its first mission to a waypoint approximately 100 meters off of shore. It was then supposed to turn around, and come back to a final stopping point of 60 meters off shore. This was mostly what happened.

Our first problems started when we had trouble transferring files for the mission from the toughbook to the AUV's hard drive. We were finally able to get them transferred after many debugging attempts, resets, and reboots. It was at this point that we were ABANDONED by Chris, as he had to go off to give a talk at the University of Malta (which he reportedly rocked). Next, we had trouble with the IVER (AUV) connecting to its instruments. This was solved by another reboot of the IVER. We finally had success! Time to launch that robot.

Tyler and Jeff got into the water and Andy, Billy, and Brig brought the IVER to the water's edge. I had a nice view from up on a large rock where we had placed the Wifi box. Tyler and Jeff swam the IVER out and the rest went according to our initial plan. BUT THEN! IT STOPPED! So, it turns out, we over estimated the distance from the coast, and when the IVER came to rest it was too far to establish a Wifi connection so we could not manually drive the IVER back. As the IVER started drifting away in the current, we realized we needed to send a rescue mission. Since Tyler and Jeff were already in the water, they were sent to go after it. It was very exciting watching them bring the IVER back, especially when the waves started getting bigger. In the end, we successfully launched and completed a mission - even though it wasn't quite what we had expected. Hooray for success!

Zoe showed the initiative and went for a quick swim and then we all followed suit (except Billy and Andy).

Too bad Timmy wasn't around for the rescue mission, he could have used his super reach to pick it up right out of the middle of the sea!

Visualizing the Maltese Archipelago

Over the past few weeks we have been making significant progress on our visualizations of Malta, and finally have a presentable draft of our progress.

Our goal is to create a tool that can be used to educate others about our research which will include a visualization of Malta as well as 3D maps of cisterns with accurate textures and some information from each site. A few of us have been working on creating an accurate representation of the island. We currently have a low quality 3D representation of Malta with bright green pins at cistern locations we have mapped.

Below are some pictures of our progress.

(upper left) The above is a zoomed out picture of Malta and some of the surrounding seabed. There are green pins in some of the cistern locations we have gathered data from.

(upper right) A larger image of the Maltese mainland with a clearer view of some of the places we have visited.

(below) Another zoomed out view with surrounding ocean.

We are currently working on creating a higher quality geometric representation of the island. This will eliminate the blue color seen in the area in between the islands of Malta (the largest and southernmost island) and Gozo (the northernmost island) in the last picture. We are also working on reducing the amount of time it takes to draw the island as there is noticeable lag when moving the camera.

We hope to have a much improved version soon.

New Toys!

After experiencing so many technical difficulties with our ROV, we got a new toy on Monday! We're not quite sure how he did it (most of us are speculating on superpowers), but Dr. Clark was able to get together enough money to buy a new ROV and ship it to Malta. The new ROV is looking slick, but more importantly it came with a working cable (although it's not as long as our previous cable, it is long enough for most sites, is not attached to the carrying case, and can be attached to an older cable to add length), a much larger monitor (the older ones are about 6in while the new one is about 15in), and a new working depth sensor. What does that mean!? Depth measurements and 3D data! YAY! After tearing through the packaging like a kid on Christmas, we decided to test out the new ROV on the cave near St. George's Bay since our previous readings could be improved upon (and because the cave is just that cool).



Tuesday was fun, too! In groups we all climbed aboard the Isis II (a boat) to check out a WWII shipwreck in the bay. The team took turns visiting the site in groups of 2 or 3 and each member took a turn driving a much larger ROV around the shipwreck. It handled differently from our VideoRay and had a longer response time, but a few quick minutes of practice proved to be enough (at least, for our purposes). There were also some divers who happened to be in the area. They were supposed to be on one side of the wreck while we would stay on the other, but slowly during my turn they crept over to our side. This was a little thrilling as I didn't want to slam the very expensive equipment I was controlling into anyone and they came in rather quickly. Fortunately, I was able to keep my distance while not losing sight of the wreck until I was done. We then surfaced the robot and reeled it in with a crane (much easier than pulling it out by hand) and headed back to the dock. And while I am excited for the new VideoRay, it was a great treat to be able to use this other ROV.