Mixed bag
Not quite a perfect storm last night but a bit of a mess. Started with band practice at Mark's new house - new to me at least. I put its address into my phone and off I went. It's up one of those winding mountain roads north of here and I was delighted when my cellphone / GPS decided we weren't in Kansas any more. I tried phoning him and couldn't get a signal but did manage to send a message. He and Monty talked me in from the church down the road. Just the 3 of us last night - no drummer - and it was a pretty relaxed affair. I thought the rhythm was a lot more solid, too but don't tell Paul I said so.
I won't go into details but I lost 4 pounds overnight again - I just wish I could do it in one go. Up brightish and early to get to chemo at 8:30. This is weird but I had a pretty good time -everyone was super-cheerful and chatty today: the guy who took my blood was a "Young Ones" TV series fan and we talked about that and Reggie Perrin. My vitals team got me in and out of the place in 15 seconds and the lady with the needle was very gentle - didn't feel it go in and it wasn't in for more than an hour or two (OK, minute or two but it feels like an hour).
Got to school about 15 minutes after my first lesson started and all the students were busily assembling their robots, centering their servos, complaining that the other team had stolen all the good components and generally being very growed up about it. I had a chat with a couple of them about writing functions to drive all the joints of a humanoid independently and sorted out a couple of storage bins, my only failure being my inability to find a Basic Stamp.
In my programming class I lived dangerously by teaching a watered down math lesson - projectile motion, distance formula, resolving vectors - that the students will need for their rocket shoot game. I don't expect them to remember a word of it but I do hope they remember that we talked about it. Finished the class by letting them loose on the program I wrote on my Python course at Rice Uni - they have to change all the graphics and sound as their end of year project which is far more work than it sounds.
By now I was feeling pretty bloody awful but was determined to see the day out. Went for a short walk which did no good and decided to let my computer science class loose on graphics editors after we'd covered the end of the unit on computer animation (I suspect we need to revisit that unit as it's fun). A couple of them took a picture of me holding Kathryn's water glass and then doctored it into a beer bottle and a glass of lager. This cannot end well.
Referee meeting tonight - I know when I'm beat. I plan to eat and watch some moron TV before turning in early. I feel not quite like hell.
I won't go into details but I lost 4 pounds overnight again - I just wish I could do it in one go. Up brightish and early to get to chemo at 8:30. This is weird but I had a pretty good time -everyone was super-cheerful and chatty today: the guy who took my blood was a "Young Ones" TV series fan and we talked about that and Reggie Perrin. My vitals team got me in and out of the place in 15 seconds and the lady with the needle was very gentle - didn't feel it go in and it wasn't in for more than an hour or two (OK, minute or two but it feels like an hour).
Got to school about 15 minutes after my first lesson started and all the students were busily assembling their robots, centering their servos, complaining that the other team had stolen all the good components and generally being very growed up about it. I had a chat with a couple of them about writing functions to drive all the joints of a humanoid independently and sorted out a couple of storage bins, my only failure being my inability to find a Basic Stamp.
In my programming class I lived dangerously by teaching a watered down math lesson - projectile motion, distance formula, resolving vectors - that the students will need for their rocket shoot game. I don't expect them to remember a word of it but I do hope they remember that we talked about it. Finished the class by letting them loose on the program I wrote on my Python course at Rice Uni - they have to change all the graphics and sound as their end of year project which is far more work than it sounds.
By now I was feeling pretty bloody awful but was determined to see the day out. Went for a short walk which did no good and decided to let my computer science class loose on graphics editors after we'd covered the end of the unit on computer animation (I suspect we need to revisit that unit as it's fun). A couple of them took a picture of me holding Kathryn's water glass and then doctored it into a beer bottle and a glass of lager. This cannot end well.
Referee meeting tonight - I know when I'm beat. I plan to eat and watch some moron TV before turning in early. I feel not quite like hell.
What are robots like that you are building I just have visions of the ones on robot wars and the lovely Japanese humanoid one learning to run and walk ...I'm guessing they are totally different
ReplyDeleteThey are going to be different next year, I expect. Take a shoofty at www.vexrobotics.com and click on the EDR robots. That'll be us. No robot wars - education doesn't have the cash to go round wrecking stuff. Lots of competition with a certain amount of physical contact, though.
DeleteThey are going to be different next year, I expect. Take a shoofty at www.vexrobotics.com and click on the EDR robots. That'll be us. No robot wars - education doesn't have the cash to go round wrecking stuff. Lots of competition with a certain amount of physical contact, though.
Delete