Week 5 (6/22/2012) Summer Semester 2012

Week 5 (6/22/2012) Summer Semester 2012

We had our weekly meeting on the first official day of Summer (it was truly hot even here in Troy!) I was glad to see projects and codes being updated regularly. - Hope this continues and the software gets published and more importantly used by others. If the software benefit humanking, RCOS has accomplished its mission!

This week we had our talks. The speakers are:

1 Zhixun Wang Djinta http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/djinta/

2. Brian Barnes RQ  http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/rq/

3. Ari Munic RNA simulation with SimTK
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/rna-simulation-with-simtk/

4. Deon Robinson Syllabus on rails http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/syllabusonrails/

Zhixun started of describing his project - it is an engineering analysis system - structural analysis in particular. His system has user interface where the user input the structures (Zhixum has developed a WYSWIG editor ) and the backend analysis tool. He is coding it in python and with a backend of django. He showed a demo and it is quite impressive.  There were many interesting suggestions and comments. This project is in a fine shape.

Brian is working on  a remote queuing of music playlists. Brian has been progressing well - he says he is updating his code but not writing his blog. Brian is using winamp's API for his system. Suggestions to use voting mechanism to select the song lists are suggested.

Ari is enhancing multibody simulation software (used for biological systems) with its own user interface Ari managed to install this open source code (developed in C++) and run some simulation. His aim is to get the ground truth by simulating all objects (and their rigid body interactions). Ari is confident  of getting results with his system (Since his software uses threaded software, he is confident of completing the simulation of around 1000 objects)  

Deon talked about his rail framework for developing (and bring to order) of the syllabus projects. This project is to enable uploading of syllabus by teachers and students sharing the syllabus. Deon has set up his framework and he is well on to his project being used for both education (of developing new software) and for use (by teachers)

Last weeks Talk (4th week) videos are on line (thanks to Jorel) http://youtube.com/rcosrpi1

Colin Neville Looking for a team

Andrew Bolin on Portsim



Michael Agnew on Ticket Terminal /BizNet

Week 4 (6/15/2012) Summer 2012

Week 4 (6/15/2012) Summer 2012

RCOS is progressing along -  I spent most of this week fighting spam posts in http://rcos.rpi.edu
Luckily Nate and Ben came to my rescue.  With their excellent programming skills, we have stopped for the time being. We are also taking some more precautions to guard against the spam.

This week we had three talks.

1. Colin Neville Looking for a team http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/looking-for-team/

2. Andrew Bolin Portsim http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/portsim/

3. Mike Agnew Ticket Terminal http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/ticket-terminal/ 

Colin Neville is working on a system looking for a team - the back end uses a sql database and with the django front end and he does it using Python. Where as linked in is a general purpose system, looking for a team is more focussed on software project for small teams.

Andrew Bolin is working on a simulation bed for testing various algorithms (for portoflio) using real as well as simulated data. Hie is developing open source matlab codes that could be useful for other researchers. His talk slides are already up in his blog post

Mike Agnew has recase his project to BiZNet. He is developing open source tools using sql , jQuery to devlop software to help small businesses survive.

In all the talks students asked many interesting questions and suggestions. This particular aspect (that of asking questions and suggestions and readily sharing their knowledge) is the one that sustains my interest in this center.

Videos of Talks presented in Third Week of Summer 2012

Videos of Talks presented in Third Week of Summer 2012

Thanks to Jorel, we have the videos of talks presented during third week
Talk Video link is in http://www.youtube.com/rcosrpi1
1. Amelia on Circuit Box
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/circuitbox/

2. Jorel and Timothy on Launch pad
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/in-depth-tutorial-of-embedded-electronics-using-the-ti-msp-launchpad/
3. Zach on TouchofMath http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/touch-of-mathematics/

Talk Videos 2nd week Summer 2012

Thanks to Jorel we have all the talk videos of  the talks given during second week of Summer 2012.
(Please do not forget to check our youtube channel http://youtube.com/rcosrpi1 to listen to past talks )

1. Chelsea, Priti, and  Rebecca on Lightning Round  http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/lightning-round/


2. Sean Chase on Blue Mesh   http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/bluemesh/


3. Asher Glick on Briefcase http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/briefcase/

Week 3 (6/8/2012) Summer 2012

Week 3 (6/8/2012) Summer 2012

Summer 2012 RCOS Group Photo 6/1/2012

We have an enthusiastic group of students and amazing group of mentors. One can see a regular update on blogs and repositories of various projects in Observatory http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/ 

This week we had three students presentations:

1. Amelia P - Circuit box  http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/circuitbox/

 2. Tim C, Jorel L -  ti- msp launchpad tutoria
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/in-depth-tutorial-of-embedded-electronics-using-the-ti-msp-launchpad/

 3. Zach C Touch of Math http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/touch-of-mathematics/

Amelia has been continuing her work on the circuit simulation. She has done a reasonable study of the existing open software solutions and their limitations. She is doing both the front end ( GUI ) as well as the backend of simulation. She is using Open GL for the GUI and C++ for the back end. She has more or less completed the backend for digital gates and she is concentrating on the GUI for the digital circuits. Once completed, she will move on Flip Flops and analog circuits. She has taken a big project and she is confident she can compete most of it (Since the entire project was started so that she can use a better circuit simulation and lay out tool, she has an incentive to finish it).

Tom C and Jorel talked about how to use their project on making educational tools on how to use inexpensive TI launchpad  Their project caught the attention of http://www.43oh.com/ and their project was featured here http://www.43oh.com/2012/06/rpis-embedded-control-course-with-the-launchpad/
Tom Started of the talk by giving a whirlwind tour of circuits and embedded hardware. He and Jorel were using a TI Launchpad to control the slides! That was their first demonstration educational
topic. Tom explained both the hardware and software (code is written in C) and some of the subtler features. You have to look at their repo to get a full picture of this http://code.google.com/p/embedded-electronics/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Fserial_project

(This demo/lesson uses half duplex serial interface)

Jorel talked about the second tutorial on RGB control of LED's.  You can see the description here
http://code.google.com/p/embedded-electronics/source/browse/trunk/Project_Code/RGB_Tile/main.c
Jorel was able to use both hardware and software to show RGB control. Both the demo projects on embedded control were awesome!
They are using TI's IDE for development of their software..

Zach C is continuing his work with Touch Of Math (an educational tool for teaching Mathematics for elementary school children). Zach is coding everything in JavaScript (and Zach is our resident expert on JavaScript!). Zach was able to show a small demo of his current status. Zach has implemented the history feature (for the list of commands) and has Greek symbols for equations.

There were many interesting questions/suggestions from students.  It was a very enjoyable way to spend my lunch hour on Friday.

Week 2 (6/1/2012) Summer 2012

Week 2 (6/1/2012) Summer 2012

RCOS is on to good start.

This week we had three talks.

The speakers are
1) Priti K, Rebecca and Chelsea P  Lightning round  http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/lightning-round/ 


2) Sean C on Blue Mesh http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/bluemesh/


3) Asher G  on Briefcase  http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/briefcase/

Prithi, Rebecca and Chelsea talked about lightning round a fast paced educational game. The first version of this game http://pdi-studio5.wp.rpi.edu/files/2011/12/Rush_More.swf  was developed as a part of PDI 5 studio. This semester they are making this project more robust, cleaning the code and making games for more more diverse subjects.  Original code was written in flash. They explored converting into scratch (due to its portability to mobile platforms - app-inventor) but decided to stick with flash and further develop. They have divided the tasks and have a detailed plan to accomplish that. There were many interesting questions/suggestions.

Sean talked about Blue Mesh an ongoing RCOS project. With the infra structure in place, Sean wants to extend BlueMesh to other devices with BlueTooth- BlueMesh will enable a mesh network among these devices. Sean is confident of the scalability of his system (but still needs a lot of testing).  There were many interesting questions.

Asher talked about his ongoing project Briefcase. He gave a demonstration of his version 1 of his project (multiple . Asher has nearly completed the version2 of Briefcase. He has also implemented (or partially) a presentation and writing code (with code highlighting features). Asher also demonstrated how it is easy develop functions for cells (using  java script code)


It was great to hear excellent talks and to witness a great student participation (by sharing their wisdom  in asking questions and suggestions)