Week 16 (5/12/2015) Tuesday Spring Semester

That is it. We had our last meeting on Tuesday - packed with talks - but not with audience :(

The following people/groups gave talks.

1) Ryan Trinkle '09 - Reflex: Practical Functional Reactive Programming

2) Leopold Joy, Lucien CD - FoosRPI-
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/foosrpi/ (mentor Seve)

3) Sebastian Sarbora, Jazmine Olinger, Brittany Walker, Elizabeth
Dinella -  Neptune - http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/neptune/ (mentor
Jazmine)

4) Alan Schimmel, Michael Hosier -  Mini BMS
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/mini-high-power-battery-management-system/
(menotr Eric)

5) Chris Brenon,James Grippo,Kirk Smith,Richie Young - Ballotbox -
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/ballotbox/ (mentor Jim)

6) Joseph Monroe, Diego Cepeda, Vincent Cerati - Fitpet-
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/fitpet/ (mentor Jazmine)

7)  Connor Foody, Jon Patsenker - Studyr
-http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/studyr/ (mentor Jim)

8)  - Yufan Lou, Xuan Liu, Nick Smith - YACS++CourseMap
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/coursemap-yacs-catalog/ (mentor Nick)

9) Ming Luo, Seve Ibarluzea, Zaran Lalvani, Forest Crossman and Matthew Vitting, Sia-UI  http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/sia-ui/ (mentor Kiana)

Highlights: 
Ryan gave a very nice and easy to understand talk on Reactive Programming using Haskell (web programming , streaming application).  He talked about his library Reflex which makes  this possible,

Leopold and Lucien have completed their FoosBall hardware software interface and had a youtube video of their project. They had used arduino, raspbery Pi , twilio, python for their system.

Much has been accomplished in Neptune - including simulation, hardware and interface. It is still some ways to go - 

MiniBatteryManagement System have fabricated an alpha version. They are refining their design. This project is coming along well.

BallotBox has made a very good progress. They have most of the basic operations working.

FitPet is an IPhone app that monitors the fitness activities using an incentive of pet living well.

Studyr is a project aimed at providing videos lecture notes, problem, past exams among students taking similar courses. The project is yet to mature.

Coursemap is coming along - they show a display of different courses according to the level credits and other filters - Right now it is just a circular display

Sia_UI is coming along very well with Seve leading the group. They have done a sizable portion of the UI implemented. There is also a simulation working. All in all, this project has achieved its goal (assuming the original Sia developers agree).

It is a glorious way to end the semester.

Week 15 (5/8/2015) Spring Semester

We are racing to the finish line. Mentors are playing a great role this semester. The small grop meetings really make a difference and get the groups going. They also help with the technology stack  that the students need.

We had these ten presentations on Friday:

 1) Theo Browne, Greg Bartell - inSquare
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/insquare/ (mentor Theo Browne)
2)  Shinya Hirata, Amartya Chakraborty, Aaron Cheng, Sensen Chen
-rClubs -  http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/rpi-tradebook/ (mentor Jorel
Lalicki)
3) Mike Dewey , Mitch Mellone - Bluedash -
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/blue-dash/ (mentor Eric Oswald)
4) David Wang, Tommy Fang, Aman Zargarpur, Austin Gulati - Pokemon RPI
 http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/pokemon-rpi/ (mentor Samuel Yuan) - No
blog update
5)  Robert Rouhani, Shanye Jiang -SharpNav -
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/sharpnav/ (mentor Robert Rouhani)
6)  Derek Meer - OpenWSN - http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/openwsn/
(mentor eric Oswald)
7) David Chen, David Ivey, Joseph Shvedsky - Share-It:
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/share-it/ (mentor Brian Kelley)
8)  Sida Chen, Liyu Pan, Yitong Wu, Yuan Feng - Multi-Link -
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/multi-link/ (mentor Brendon Clark)
9)  Ruben Madera, Cameron Root - Pentadactyl -
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/pentadactyl/ (mentor Theo Browne)

Some highlights:
inSquare has been downloaded a few hundred times - different clock faces (UI Design) for pebble watch. Programming is harder wth limited memory. Pebble has only two colors.
rClb showed a demo - They have done what they could. They showed fast/approximate search (search with spelling mistakes)
Blue Dash showed a demo. They have progressed well. This is for the formula SASE car. They created a custom dashboard with ardunio nano and blue tooth. It may have more general applications.
Pokeman RPI showed a demo. They have created all the basic block, They want to custom create the scenes with RPI background.
SharpNav has a number of contributors and users. So this project (finding paths) has matured .
ShareIt allows one to share the contacts, They use Ruby on Rails on the bakend and have Android and ios on the front end. Their slides are here http://slides.com/robertrouhani/sharpnav-8#/
OpenWSN group has designed a hardware chip and firmware for wireless sensor network. This project is working with UCB project on internet of things. Their slides are here http://slides.com/derekmeer/openwsn2015#/
Multi link allows one to get the status o various devies in one console. They started with peer to peer - settled on Client Server. They stil have some ways to go.
Pendactyl is a firefox plug in to have editor command to interact with a browser. They have done a good job of bringing this project to fruition. This group thanked their mentors.

Because we had a large number of presentation, we did not get as many questions as normaly we would. There were sufficient probing questions that heped the presenter as well as me.

I am happy with the way that the semester has progressed and ending!

Week 14 (5/1/2015) Spring Semester 2015

We have just two weeks left. We had a plateful of talks this week (like last week). Our room;s HDMI refused to unctiona nd people had difficulty using their mac.

1)  Gabe Perez - Shuttle Tracking
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/shuttle-tracking/ (mentor ?)
2) Dimitar Dimitrov, Eric Oswald - Autoroute
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/autoroute/ (mentor Dimitar Dimitrov)
3) Aleksey Klimchenko, Caroline Sullivan - Memory Mason -
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/memory-mason/ (mentor Theo Browne)
4)  J Parker Hamren, James S. Miller - Image Comparison Library
-http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/high-level-image-comparison-library/
(mentor Robert Rouhani)
5)  Jon Wrona, Dan Lowe, Avi Singh Table Tome
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/tom/ (mentor Josh Goldberg)

All the presenters posted their slides before their talks in slack.
Gabe slides are her
 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1j0-JavdaYvoUV_QqLsB8a6pi6MblgUh5iA9QJRHU5PU/edit Backend is done in MongoDB, Go and front end with Anguar. Gbe also worked in adapting RIT's opensource project Petitions for Students Union.

Dimiatr and Eric gave a nice talk on AutoRoute. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CKSJRbaJ53JkFLDlC4k0xI9255QGBADwldV9pcei_WY/edit#slide=id.p They have built the library. They are in the process of building binaries.

Aleksy and Caroline talked about their memory mason project (to enhance memory power) https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PYXm-B6LrYvsv4VlvUgm0VBQGJj3qv2c3CTZOODsQtM/edit They could not show the demo because of some technical glitch. They used Unity to build the GUI.

Parker and James talked about Image Comparison Library. They have developed some applications of OpenCV. Many features of OpenCV  have been used in their Java Package. They wil make an API once they complete Theor talk slides are found her https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1gtgTRTQ541fo0oNY9XWyahWQQiHYQ8B56cMm-Z9w6CQ/edit

Jon,, Dan and Avi talked about their TableTome project to create a toolbox for Dungeons and Dragons. They showed a nice demo oftheir project. They used MEAN stack. Their talk is posted here.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1fowKCl0C46bGfGQO_RqyiV6ng7l6pZKhLrDNa2Vb5T0/edit

There were many interesting questions. All good signs  we are making progress.

Week 11 (4/17/2015) Spring 2015

Spring semester is racing to a fast finish. Students are exceling in Hackathons, Research Symposia reaping awards.

We had four talks this semester.

1)  Charlie Machalow, Austin Henandez, Alexander White - cDashboard
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/cdashboard/ (Mentor Robert Rouhani)

2) Shane Aston - Alien Spoilers
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/alien-spoilers/ (Menotr Emmet Hitz)

3)  Sam Yuan, Yunang  Chin- GoMueller, Yijang Li -
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/gomuller/ (Mentor Sam Yuan)

4)  Jake Martin, Erin Quin, Satoshi Matsuura, Noah Goldman -
OverNight: http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/overnight/ (no mentor yet!) -
Finalists in HackUMass!

Charlie, Austen and Alexander gave an update of their progress on cDashboard. Charlie is fixing bugs (improved menustrip artifacts and auto updates) adding minor features. Alexander is working on the easier plugin systems using MEF which enable dynamic plugins. Austen is working on cMaps using google maps api. He showed a nice demo.  Their talk slides are here https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ULtqhstfKuuvAWkI42V5118A6JW5M4qqRL4Kvu9mXcc/edit

Shane is working on a sytsem to prevent reading spoilers from reddit. He has a web application in which users can specify which reddit subgroups are not to be read. He showed a demo of his system and the technology used (Django, Python, SqLite and some other cool stuff) in the system. I hope  he posts his talk slides and updtae his blogs!

Sam Yunang and  Yijang gave a talk about their android app to help maintain a fixed exercise schedule. They showed a demo of their implementations done so far.  They plan to use qr code reader of the exercise machine which wil help in how to use the machine effectively. Their talk slides are found here https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17dJjhARUR3sYUemW32Vk9R7EQmi2BLXUuHWxy_LEEgI/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.p4

Jake, Noah, erin and Satoshi talked about their Overnight hardware app which will charge the android phone witout overcharging. They showed how Android phones hasve to be charged. Sice the charging is done  overnight, they couple an alrm with charging. Intially Android is charged at 50 percentage and a couple of hours before waking the android is charged at 100 percent. They are planning to make thieir hardware more robust and use an app to charge.  They also showed a demo of their project.  Pleae see their work at HackUmass http://hackumass-ii.challengepost.com/submissions and http://challengepost.com/software/overnight

Again a well spent Friday evening!

Week 10 (4/10/2015) Spring Semester

Sparse Attendance on 4/10/2015! :(

There has been very few students in our 10th April meeting and it was disconcerting (could be due to anumber of exams in this week). Hopefully they will catch up with their RCOS projects soon.

We had three talks this week.

1) Samson Bonfante - Digital Manufacturing -
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/tsense/  (Mentor Sebatian Sarbora)

2)  Toshi Piazza, Richard Lin, Kevin Zhang and  Alex Shin -Toy Engine
- http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/toy-engine/ (Mentor Robert Rouhani)

3)  John Behnke and Zach Minster - Swift and You

Samson talked about his Manufacturing project (about digital signatures, compression and webservices) with Step Tools on Manufacturing. Martin pitched in and gave an overview of digital manufacturing and the role of open source software in that. Sams slides may be found here https://files.slack.com/files-pri/T033VT1N8-F04C648HT/download/rcos2.pptx

Toshi, Richard, Kevin and Alex taked about their toy engine. They have built a skeleton of their core and they even showed a demo. All of them are freshmen and it is great to see their progress.

John and ach magnanimousy pitched in to give the thirs talk. They showed the power of Swift (apple's new programming language). They showed a demo of the coof features of that language. Their talk slides are here https://slack-files.com/files-pri-safe/T033VT1N8-F04C8SF1M/swift_and_you.pdf?c=1428843115-39623421b21a049582adae1c9e05cf2c41779bae

A few members of RCOS group is going to HackUMass Saturday 11th April. Afew of RCOS students heped with Accepted Students Day. It is very nice to have such supporting Students. I will be remiss if I did not mention that a good showig by RCOS students on UGRS on April 8th.

Week 9 (4/3/2015) Spring Semester 2015

Spring break is over. We are on the stretch run. With so many end of the year activities  stdents re hard pressed for time. Hope we will have some successful projects  Out of the thee talks, only one was pertaining to a RCOS project. On the other hand, Eric, Josh, Seve and Kiana won th ebest education award in the recently concluded Hackathon at Binghampton.


1)  Adam Siemiginowski - Code for America Troy, Brigade and Hack Nights
2) Blake Lingenau, Dylan Lingenau, Michael Macelletti, Patrick
Hesselbach - Eve Online Market Analysis Tool - Big Data
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/eve-online-market-analysis-tool/
3) Josh Goldberg - JavaScript Sprites - The Hard Way

Adam gae a passionate speech about Code for America - Troy Brigade. Group in Troy wants to be the 57th brigade in the nation. They are planning hacknights to get the group an deadership team going. His talk slides may be found here https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tjVrp6kMQMBK_j5xem3a6kHWKZmVVC4bQpRemEWWOzM/edit#slide=id.p

Many students were interested in woking with Code for America and taked to Adam personlly.

Blake, Dylan , Michael and Patrick about Ec Market Analysis tool - in a Big data framework. Their backend will be in C++ and the front end will be in python. They are getting the data in JSON format. If and when the need arises they plan to use MongoDB and a query language. There were many interesting and probing questions from the students.

Josh talked about using Javascipt to reerseengineer sprites and bricks of game of yore (like Mario Brothers and Pokeman ). He talked about his sprite design, algorithms he used and compression techniques. His talk slides may be found in the slack https://files.slack.com/files-pri/T033VT1N8-F049CQT8X/download/javascript_sprites_the_hard_way.pptx  A write up about his work on Mario (his project before joining RCOS) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/17/this-college-kid-painstakingly-recreated-super-mario-brothers-for-the-web/

and http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/06/11/the-guy-behind-full-screen-mario-thinks-nintendos-mario-maker-looks-suspiciously-familiar/

Again a friday evening well spent listening and learning. I wish my ability to absorb new material and the detais quickly will improve than at the current moment,

Week 8 (3/20/2015) Spring Semester 2015

This is the Friday before Spring Break (we had a snow squall on Friday - I am reluctant to call it a Spring break) We had a sparse attendence with students going for Hackathon at BU, studentst attending a talk at RPI Security Club and of course students leaving for home for Spring break. We had two talks.

1) Aesa Kamar, Barry Hu , Johnny Chen -PokeAPI-v2
http://rcos.rpi.edu/projects/pokeapi-v2/

2)Brain Callahan (Graduate Student STS) OpenBSD, the proactively
secure Unix-like operating systeam and you: software used every day

Aesa and Barry talked about their PokEAPI-v2 - a centralized server which improves the PokeApI-v1 - They are building it on Ruby on Rails. They even showethey re-emphasized MVC with Ruby and he showed a demo connecting Octave to displaying grahs of equatons (with Ruby)

Brian gave a fantastic overview talk on FreeBSD. Brain is a vetetran FreeBSD developer and he is involved in Capital District and New York CIty BSD user groups. His talk slides may be found here http://devio.us/~bcallah/rcos2015.pdf

Hi stalk slides found its way to Hacker News soon after he presented at RCOS https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9240533

All in all very nice talks to listen to before the spring break!