Im at my first FIRST organizational meeting right now with 15 fellow volunteers.

Were going through all the rules right now.. And somehow my brain shuts down when that happens. 🙂 I’m really excited about this.. FIRST is an international robotics competition for students from middle school and high schools. There are three tiers of competition.. The First lego league for younger kids, first tech challenge (FTC) for high school .. And the first robotics challenge (FRC) also for high school kids. FRC is a more intense competition ..bigger robots, more money and shorter prep time. Were starting in the middle with FRC.

Even though Vermont has had 2-4 FRC teams in years past.. We’ve never had a state wide organization. We do now Thanks to my friends Kristin, Doug and john. I just learned that we have 9 teams coming from vermont and surrounding states. I hear were also expecting about a 1000 spectators in the UVM Davis center on feb 23rd. My job is to be one of the emcees ..which is gonna be fun …

Ive been to two FIRST events before.. Last year i went to the FRC quarter finals in Boston. My first event was actually with Sam.. We were at Space Camp together in florida.. And just happen to walk in to the First world finals at (then) cape kennedy.. It was so much fun… W both loved it !

Ooops.. I gotta pay attention now.. More later

Nite all, nite sam
-me

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Location:S Prospect St,Burlington,United States

Ugh.. Nothing went smoothly today.. Work meetings were long and complicated. Code didn’t work… My email got screwed up… I should have known better when the local tv station called me up to ask me to do a 5 minute piece live tonight on their 5:39 news show, the idea was to promote eWeek, the international celebration of engineering this week folks all over the world will be taking time off from their day jobs to go into schools to give witness to the undeniable awesomeness of engineering . Its always a fun time.. We usually go in in groups of two or more.. Always with an interactive activity… Ive been dong it for almost 20 years. .. For many years it seemed like we had to ‘push’ the content.. In the past few years, though, i sense more of a pull. Kids are already primed to the awesomeness of technology and how it works in their lives.. Our job is ‘simply’ to connect that recognized awesomeness to something they feel they could and would like to do…
Im really proud of my ibm colleagues… Last year the 127 folks from my facility volunteered their time and visited 51 area schools…. While there they worked with over 4500 Vermont kids… How awesome is that.. ?.. This years experiments hilight alternative energy, electromagnetism and circuits , making musical instruments… And (for me at least) big sparks and blowing things up…

Unfortunately, big sparks weren’t on the program for me today… I broght in my musical tesla coil to use on my short tv stint.. My idea was to talk eweek and the local makers community then make. A giant sark… Well… During one of the breaks a few min before my piece i gave the coil a little test burst… All the monitors blacked out for a moment and everyone’s earpieces nearly jumped out of their heads with noise.. One of the technicians shot his head out of the camera area and yelled to shut it off..

Luckily (or unluckily i guess) i did this before my segment… I had to content myself with talking about eweek and engineering with no special effects… Not exactly sure what i said.. but i missed using my toy… The interviewer did explain how it had nearly shut down the station.. Which was some small consolation 🙂

Oh well.. Should have known better.. But i was glad to get out the and push eweek… If you’re an engineer or scientist. Anywhere in the world,.. Please take some time this week to share your love of engineering with a kid or adult… We need all the help we can get !

Ok… Time for sleep… More tomorrow

-nite , nite sam
-me

Oh well….

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Quiet day here… Felt a little post birthday blues.. That happens to me most years. Got out for a little x-country ski in the bright sun..l that lightened my day..

Around 4 several of us ( eric, john, colin, ken and katehrine) met at the burlington firehouse gallery to start on a project for the ‘user input required’ show thats coming up in April. The idea of the show is to bring together artists and makers to collaborate on pieces that require user input. One of the pieces im helping with is called ‘floorish’. Its going to be an interactive piece that uses 7 rows of galss bricks that are in the floor of the. Gallery right by the front door. Our idea is to light the bricks using bright multi-color LEDs very much like the ones i use in my hula hoops and headbands. The whole thingis gong to be controlled by a Kinnect camera so it will respond when folks walk on it..
Today we got special time in the gallery to do some experimentation . Eric had made a really nice prototype using the Actual LED pixels. We were able to hold them p to the floor tiles and check out the look

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We did a lot of talking about possible ways of mounting and linking the lights.. Ken managed the whiteboard

We got the kinect out and tried a few different placements .. We think its going to work pretty well

It was a good meeting.. We left feeling pretty good about the project..
It ll be fun to see how this one comes out…

Then a couple of us went over to american flatbread for a few post meeting birthday beers .. It was really good spending time with my maker friends.. I really love hanging out with them.. There’s no better way to get to know someone than to try and make something impossible together….

Now home and bracing for a busy week,.. Better hit the hay

Nite all, nite sam
-me

Ps.. Gabe and i made nitrogen triiodide a tiny bit of a high explosive this weekend.. When i got home, we went out to see if it worked.. Hres what we got

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boldog születésnapot to me , boldog születésnapot to me
boldog születésnapot. Dear me
boldog születésnapot toooooooooo-oooooo meeeeeeeeeeeee !

Thats happy birthday in hungarian.. One of the many really nice b-day wishes i got from friends all over the place.. I got happy birthday in Turkish , Swedish, portuguese, hindi, spanish, Chinese Japanese , Arabic, czech, german, filipino, pig latin, samoan, dutch, Finnish, hebrew…. Thanks for them all.
I’m a lucky guy… An feel surrounded by love. And liking the life I’m leading.. Cant ask for more than that.

Today was fun and peaceful… I did some working on a new led hoop, then Diane and i took the dogs out for a 3.5 mile fast snowshoe on the preston pond loop .. It was about 10 degrees… With a very stiff wind. It was beautiful and cold in the new snow. too cold for any naked snow angles im afraid.. we had to keep moving or freeze. It was made double fun because the trail kept disappearing.. It was so great getting outside in the bright sunlight on my birthday

Heading down to -15 again tomorrow.

Then later gabe, luke , diane and i headed out for sushi.. A family birthday tradition

Then home for my birthday cake.. It was dianes apple cake.. Y favorite !

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Then gabe luke and i retired to the lab to make explosives (NI3)

Cant get much better than that for a birthday…
So far 54 feels good !

Nite all.. Nite sam
-me

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