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?

Yes, and...

One of the most basic rules of improv comedy is the principle of "Yes, and". What it means is that in any improv game/ performance, if some actor says some line, the others have to support him. But supporting doesn't just mean saying "Yes" to what he said. You also have to add information to the fact, and make it a full-fledged idea.

If you see the show "Whose Line is it Anyway?", the 4 actors never say no. If one of the actors calls the other male actor "mom", the other one doesn't just call him "son" back, but also establishes some other fact of their mother-son relationship. The little time I spent trying to learn improv, I was forced to sing on stage, attempt to mimic a "spanish love songs" themed radio station, try to sing rap (thank god there is no evidence to support this happened), and acted in college made TV show. But the thing is, I had damn good fun. 

Around that time, quite a few people had told me how I had successfully managed to deflate their enthusiasm, and probably made them want to avoid me. I thought I had talked to them rationally, and had given them practical and reasonable answers to questions they asked, and plans they had proposed. For some things, there is no right answer, and in such cases, it's so much better to go with the flow. 

There are moments when I've decided to say "Yes" to stuff. Of course, it was sane, legal and did not involve any dangerous situations. But in the last three weeks, I went hiking, roller-bladed in Paris, saw great movies with new friends, picnic-ed & drank wine 5 days in a row on the beach. In spring, I learnt how to sail a catamaran, a course I will re-enroll for in September. And then next week, I'm going canoing in Hungary.

After one party, some people who had missed the bus needed a place to stay. They got it. :-). And then we met some nice couch-surfers on the beach in Cannes. They had come with a tent to stay on the beach, which is somewhat illegal here. My friend asked me if I could host these guys. Yes! It turned out that these two were friends of the CSer I stayed with in Paris, and were at one of the events I had been to there. I looked at the pictures I had taken there, and I found them in the crowd of people in the pictures I have clicked. Small world.

A few months ago I would not have imagined letting two people I had just met on the beach to sleep on the couch. It's really hard to let go and say yes. Knowing me, I'll soon probably go back into my shell and attempt to be my boring self. A PhD in robotics sometimes seems pretty easy compared to learning to say yes. But I guess I should keep trying...

Wave and iPad

To both, Google Wave and iPad, I've heard people asking the same question - What do I use it for? 

Both are really revolutionary and change the way you approach the normal. The difference, is that active development on Wave is going to stop soon, due to lack of sufficient demand, while iPad is selling millions.

What does Steve Jobs know/do that makes the difference?