Defense and later

It's done. I have a PhD now. Feels strange but not that different. Knowing that this will be the last time I'll ever be a student and that this is a degree that says you are the expert puts whole load of different pressure. The few days leading up to the day of the thesis defense were some the most nerve wracking in a long  time.

But on the day itself, I calmed down. I'd spent the previous day mucking around, reading articles, watching tv - generally destressing. And in the final mock presentation (late night, in pyjamas) I made fewer errors, and finished in time. So the defense went well. I was suited up. The jury showed up, we chatted amiably, I was given 40 minutes to present and I managed to have everything said in 39 minutes.

The questions lasted about an hour - my friends watching felt that I was given a hard time. But these were questions I'd expected, and I was strangely confident answering them. In fact, I remember actually smiling a couple of times when I was asked a few questions. I honestly felt I was given a gentle treatment.

So it's done. I have the degree now. And now I'm officially a शिक्षित बेकार. I'm looking for work now... the experience of research tired me out and I feel it's time to work in a company and let go any ideas of academic life. My visa gives me 6 months to look for a job. EU magic means I can travel through EU without much hassle, while post-holiday travel deals means I can do it cheaply.

The plan is to start off with a backpack to Paris and then Spain... and head to Brussels. That's about 15 days of the trip. After that I'll slow down and try to travel by train, bus or car-sharing and head north. I'll be traveling alone, but visiting friends, or bunking in hostels or with couchsurfers. It's something I've wanted to do (noted here), and my experience in Mexico tells me that I will get tired of it. But I want to see how long I can go (mentally and financially) and try to get a little bit of randomness back.

I'll probably blog it. Or probably not. I don't know what I'll "learn" or "discover". I do know that I will most likely end up in the growing population of people who hate Ryan Air. And I don't know if I'll be hit by culture shock multiple times.  Though now, I have English and French to help me communicate when I'm lost.

The laptop will stay home. I've rigged it up so I can ssh in from my phone or tablet. At least I can update my resume "on the go" (I'm also looking for a job, remember?)  and/or back up pictures to there. Let's see how it goes...

Conspiracy?

In upcoming news, I will defend my thesis on 21st December. Yep. Not joking at all.

What do you exactly do?

I've had to explain this too many times to too many people. And the answer is not a simple "Robotics" anymore. So I decided to write a blog post about it. Next time someone asks me this question, they get the link. :-) (Phd & scientists are all about being lazy.) Except since I like to blabber, this explanation is gonna be long winded and mostly non-scientific.

Imagine a machine which you can accurately control. It has been shaped like a human arm and has a pointy tip at the end. You can control exactly where that tip reaches, right down to under a millimeter. Since the machine tip can be accurately placed, it means that you can figure out when it is placed incorrectly. Or is placed a little off. So you can use this machine not just to place something accurately, but also to check if what has been placed is in the right spot or not. This is how measuring machines work.

Next, observe when you have to pick up a heavy container filled with water. Using just one hand, you can lift it up. But it is probably too much strain and a little hard to balance. Rather than a container, think of it as lifting a chair. Now instead, if you use both hands, not only can you lift the chair (or container), you are also guaranteed that chair is held correctly (in case of the container, the water will not spill). If two people are lifting the chair, controlling the angle of the chair is even easier. And you don't need heavy muscles for that.

A suspension bridge is similar in concept (at a very basic level).

What I just described is analogous to something called as a "parallel mechanism". I won't go into more details.

Now recall a string puppeteer. He controls his puppets with a string, and can give an amazing range of motions to the puppet. What he does is move the strings - only up and down - to give motion to the puppet. The length of the string determines how the puppets' limbs move. This is also a parallel mechanism, except here the strings are doing the work of the arms in doing the "lifting".

Now, instead of the puppet, some strings were attached to your hands. A string or two above your elbow and another string or two on your forearms. If someone pulled the strings to your forearms, and kept those to your elbow taut, only your elbow joint would move. On the other hand, if you moved your elbow joint, I could just measure the length of the string (how much it is getting pulled). Since I know that string length change corresponds to hand movement, I could just keep track of the string lengths and figure out what kinds of motions are those that can be observed in healthy persons.

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Essentially, this above paragraph describes what we want to do. But just to be sure, we want to add accelerometers, force sensors, IR camera based motion capture systems and other possible stuff to verify and improve on the estimates obtained by measuring those "strings" or wires.

Does that make sense?

Science!

Aluminium reflects light. Especially when it is IR.

IR cameras go crazy. They detect markers everywhere. "I don't know what all to track!", they seem to scream. A4 sheets of white paper help somewhat. Not much though. A piece of paper, torn from your notebook, stuck on the offending portion of aluminium does marginally better. It works not because it doesn't reflect, but because it "reflects" it in some other direction. Thank those imperfect sticky tapes and bad planning that prevent the paper from forming a flat surface.

"Aha!", you say. "Black is black because it doesn't reflect. Hence! Therefore! Cover with black." Sadly, a robotics lab is not the art department. Paper, is white, and meant to be stuff on which research descriptions and equations ought to be printed. The spare black trash bag is used to test the hypothesis. It's glossy. It reflects. Less. But not zero reflection.

Next brain wave - "glossy" was the problem. See discarded packaging boxes lying around. Pick up one box, go ninja on them. (Ninjas are Japanese. Do they practice origami when dealing with paper? If so, they are in trouble. Origami involves only folding paper, no tearing. Hence, to be safe --->) Go Samurai on them. (Shit! They are Japanese too. But at least we know they carry swords. OK, back to science.) Cover reflecty surfaces with 'packaging boxes paper'. Success!

Moral learnt: Visible color black means visible light is not reflected. Also, since it is infrared light, you must revise your entire notion of reflection of light. Remember the goddamn physics you learnt, fool.

Many days later, figuring out what to replace your crude packaging paper with, to make it more professional and tidy, gives you headaches. Black cloth seems to be a good bet. Dommage! C'est marche pas.  :(

If cloth won't work, what will? In the back of the mind, here is what goes on: The paper was sorta rough and thick. The cloth was sorta silky smooth and thin. Hmm, a pattern, Watson! Probably thick/ big sheet of chart paper will work.

Notice a shadow on the screen as seen in one of the cameras. A piece of foam is causing it. Aha! Is it causing a shadow (i.e blocking something), or is it genuinely absorbing the IR light? Move it over to cover that aluminium portion right next to IR emittors, and see how it performs when it receives a full blast of infrared love. It's. Still. Black! ZING! A clothed version of Eureka Eureka!

Research. It's not always about math equations and cool code.

What's up?

I realise that I have subscribed to 32 feeds in my Google Reader. I'm also following 44 people. I have an active Facebook account, I've not switched off Buzz. And I frequent Cnn, Times of India (bad choice, I know), Cricinfo, Engadget, Cnet.

Oh, and I'm also supposed to be doing a PhD. I've re-discovered my addiction to reading. Though, along with books it includes all those above things. Which means that reading papers and work stuff is lagging behind. Shit! Hence, a recent curfew was put into place. Most forms of chat were switched off. I didn't go as ninja as this one suggests. But I have contemplated it.

So what has happenned in recent times? Trip to Venice. It's a great city. VISIT it. I would definitely want to go there again. I caught up on Tv Shows  - How I Met Your Mother and Californication. HIMYM is the simple-minded addicted sitcom thingy. Once you start a season, lack of anything better to do makes you want to finish it. I finished it. Californication is good. Though I would have been happy if they had stopped at Season 1. Now that Season 2 has ended in a way to set up Season 3, I will have to watch it.

As a way to be less online and more in the "real" world, I picked up sailing lessons. Catamarans! It's fun. Especially when 6 minutes into the sea, a gust of wind and inexperience causes the boat to flip. Not entirely, but you get thrown into icy cold water. But sailing requires you to be able to swim 50 metres unaided. I can swim, but not too far. So I need to go the pool and do them some laps. And doing them laps I am.

Went skiing the other day. I was told that since I can roller-blade and since I have tried ice-skating, skiing wouldn't be a problem. Big old overconfident me had a fun time trying to figure out how to stay standing on those skis. The repeated taste of snow+ice is not all that fun. But eventually I managed to move and stop when I wanted (almost). Success!

And finally, have been looking for motorcycles. And will be buying one in a week. In the process of doing the paperwork and insurance and stuff. So, next week a 500cc baby monster will roll in.

PhD...

Notes taken at a meeting: "Everyone is equally lost..."
"मीटिंग मध्ये काहीच होत नाही."
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I start getting increasingly frustrated with reading a biology paper on knee motion. Decide to talk to a friend in the room.
Me: This biology stuff is so damn boring.
Him: Yeah, you look totally uninterested in it.
Me: This paper describes the motion of the knee in text, no pictures. And it uses all the technical words for body parts. I have to look up wikipedia all the time.  
(Note: I loved the fact that until now I had nothing to do with biology. I had never read a bio paper until now. So my ignorance should be excused).
Him: Why are you reading it? Is it useful?


Me: ... (thinking hard)... I don't know...
I really don't know....