All posts by johncohn

Saturday night – First FIRST

Leave a comment

What a cool day.. I’m down in Boston visiting with my folks. always a nice thing to do.. I timed this trip to allow me to attend the annual FIRST Robotics Northeast Quarter Finals. at the Agganis Arena at Boston University. My friend John has been involved with FIRST from the start and had invited me for the past 3 years.. This is the first time I could make it and I’m so glad I did. FIRST is the brainchild of inventor Dean Kamen. Kamen and his colleagues recognized that one way to interest more kids in math , engineering and science was to create an activity that captured the excitement of a school sports team. FIRST gets teams of high school kids to build very sophisticated robots that compete.. and sometimes cooperate.. in a very specific and challenging set of problems. This year the challenge was shooting light weight basketballs into regulation hoops across a quarter size (about) court. Pretty tough when you think about it..  The whole thing is set up as an elimination sweepstakes.. Each team begins by cooperating in small groups of three teams.. that get mixed for each round.. In that way each team gets to work with.. and against nearly all others..  In keeping with the sports analogy, the stands were full of screaming fans.. some with face paint.. there were loud and goofy announcers and striped shirt wearing refs.   The cool thing is that the team were full of all kinds of kids.. nit just nerdy guys.. there were artists, programers, electrical kids, mechanical kids.. and even business leaning kids that helped with the sizable fundraising it takes to field a team.

I believe that there were 53 teams there today.. mostly from the northeast.. but one team from Brazil and one from Turkey.

Here I am on the floor with my host John.. He was the Exec VP and energetic spirit behind FIRST for the past 10 years.. Hes a passionate advocate for science literacy and the leader of our merry band who will be putting on the Champlain Maker Fair in the Fall of 2012. A very cool and inspiring guy..

This being Boston, there were tons of MIT folks around. I managed to crash a meeting of the MIT Club and got to hear Mitch Resnick , the father of the Scratch kids videogame/programming environment.

Throughout the day I kept running into folks I know.. Here’s my old dormmate Henry  M. and his kid Harry.. Henry’s dad Marvin is one of my heroes.. many folks consider him the father of artificial intelligence.. I don’t know about that.. but he’s the father of Henry that has lots of real intelligence.. no small feat !

 

Here’s Prof Woody Flowers. He’s one of the founders of FIRST.. . FIRST is sort of based on his 2.70 design challenge from MIT.. Every year he gets everyone to sign his shirt.. I signed.. who could miss an opportunity like that ?

I also ran into my old friend Kim.. He’s also a prof at MIT.. and a real inspiration. He runs the Edgerton Lab and the DLAB at MIT. DLAB gets folks from all over the world to come to MIT to develop technology solutions for folks in challenged parts of the world. Kim told me about a project they’re just launching for building hand cranked wheelchairs with a novel gearing system to be used in rough terrain.. very cool. Kim’s wife Cathy wasn’t there today, but she’s also quite an amazing inventor.. she created a Lego kit that demonstrated DNA synthesis.. I’ve played with  it and it finally made the whole process make sense to me. There’s something about doing things with your hands.

I happened to catch a reflection of my lights in the elevator door..  nice..

I spent the bulk of the day touring the floor, talking to teams and watching the competition. To be honest.. the robots were cool.. but the people were the thing I really liked watching..  Here are some excerpts..

The day ended with a great final round.. tons of cheering and an awards ceremony.. It really felt more like a basketball game.. the crowd was wild..

My nephew Vincent was working next door teaching an EMT class.. Just as FIRST was ending he had a 10 minute break just before 4 so we got to at least meet for a picture..

On the way home I called my freind Seth and found out that he and his girlfriend Hanna  and two of their freinds (whos pictures didnt come out.. but were very very nice) .. were just 1.5 miles away.. we all met for coffee..  It was a great bonus getting to see them

Then I headed back to my folks.. There yard was already full of flowers.. it’s definitely spring here already !

Ma made a great finger food dinner (eel sushi, squid salad, hummus, olives, cheese , eggplant goop, fish and veggies.. your typical grandmotherly meal.. yum !

 

Now we’re all sitting here looking through family albums.. nice way to end the day..

OK .. that’s all for today.. more tomorrow. Nite all, nite sam (many pictures of you in this house.. I like it)

-me

Friday night – Memories

Leave a comment

Greetings from Boston.. I’m here at my folks. I’ve come down to see them and (hopefully) watch the First Robotics championship tomorrow.. We’ll have to see about that. I just spent a really nice evening hanging out with Ma and Pa.. sitting around talking about all the things we remember from our past.. and all the things we don’t..

It was a pretty lazy evening.. I caught this picture of them… they seem pretty happy….

OK.. now to sleep.. ore tomorrow..
nite all- nite sam
-me

Thursday night – crazy day

2 Comments

Jam [packed day today from 7am run,  work breakfast in Waterbury, meetings till lunch then a very good long lunch with my very good friend Jleigh. Jleigh has been my admin for 6 .. maybe 7 years,, she’s worked with me during some of the best.. and certainly the most difficult years of my working life. She has known more about what I do .. and where I should be at any moment  than any other person (including me). She’s a warm and caring person with a great eye for detail… and now she’s leaving IBM.. While I can’t go into the circumstances here.. it makes me really, really sad .. and mad… to see her go. She’s had a tough year.. she’s now going through her second rounds of chemo… and doing well . She’s looking forward to life after IBM..  .. she’s got plans to set up a day care.. so she can hang out with kids.. and work outside with her hands and garden. It was great hanging out with her today.. I plan on keeping her close….

20120322-235019.jpg

after lunch , back to work .. and read for several hours. I’m still trying to take in al the info related to my new job.. before I knew it , it was 6PM.. time to head over to Champlain College for the talk by Casey Reas . Here’s the blurb from Champlain that talks about the event

 

Acclaimed software artist Casey Reas uses computer algorithms to create complex, organic abstractions. In his ongoing series Process, Reas explores the relationship between synthetic and naturally-evolved systems through strikingly beautiful prints, animations, architectural wall fabrics, relief sculpture and interactive works all derived from variations on the same fundamental software algorithm. Reas is also internationally recognized as co-creator of Processing, an open source programming language specifically for visual artists, a standard for artists creating images, animation and interactive art. Reas is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and has exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Reas will be in residence in Burlington from March 21-23 working with local artists in algorithmic art. For more about Casey Reas and Processing:
Processing – http://processing.org/
Casey Reas – http://www.reas.com/

Casey’s talk was really excellent.. thoughtful, organized and fun. He talked mostly about his art.. and very little about the software (Processing) behind it.. It was a completely different talk than I expected.. but I liked the one he gave better than the one I expected. .. The pieces he showed were really beautiful.. .. even more so when he explained the very simple rules behind them.

 

20120322-235044.jpg

 

There were about 40 folks in the room including artists, designers. architects and techies.. After a the talk and a good amount of time for questions, the meeting shifted gears and became about the growing maker community in Vermont.. It was such an exciting conversation.. we talked about the new Vermont Makers group, the Essex Tech  fablab, The Lab-B cyberhacker space and our Vermont Fablab at UVM. We discussed  setting up a monthly meeting with speakers and labs.. and we discussed the Champlain Makerfaire that we’re planning in the fall. The energy was SO good…

 

20120322-235033.jpg

 

20120322-235103.jpg

 

Around 9 we all went to the Bluebird.. a new bar down town and kept the conversation going. i had some more good conversations with Casey and his amazing path.. and met some new local makers .Thanks so much to the Vermont Makers, Ken from Champlain and of course Casey Reas for making the evening come together.

I see great things happening here..

nite all, nite sam

-me

Wednesday night – mike

Leave a comment

It’s after 11 and still almost 60 degrees. The air feels soft and warm like an August evening. It was over 80 at noon. It was actually warmer here than on Texas .Everyone was outside soaking in the sunshine .
It was a nice night to be out. Dine and I just got back from the retirement dinner for my good friend and coworker mike m. Mike and I worked together for all of last year. He’s such a great guy…. Smart and funny. He’s leaving to work in a local business consulting practice. It wAs really fun being out with him to ought. It was mike his wife Mary and three other couples including us. It was great being out and talking about mike and his… And all of our… Long histories at the company. It was good seeing mike so psyched about his new gig. I felt honored to be there. I’d be sad to see him go but I know that I’ll be seeing him around.
Good luck mike !
Nite all, nite Sam
-me

20120321-232057.jpg

20120321-232113.jpg