More Ice cream Mr.Monkey?

Hello all. Today's interesting incident takes place in the heart of wilderness inside the Indian Institute of Technology known for the brilliance of its students and apparently for its extremely daring monkeys.
Many ppl from my coll are doing projects in iit this summer. So all of us go to the canteen together for lunch. Today was one such normal day. Since its a hot summer day after eating everyone got an ice cream to chill out.
As everyone was coming out licking ice cream i suddenly noticed a monkey bounding upto us with ice cream lust in its eyes. It went for the biggest and most obvious target mr. satya :)
The monkey charged straight at the ice cream stick in his hand. Everyone including us and the entire canteen witnessed wat seemed to be a inter species 'kabadi' match between the monkey and satya with the human faking left and right in order to fend of the attacking monkey. Everyone expected the human to win as he was at least 6 times bigger and probably weighed atleast 20 times as much as his challenger. But then nature proved its fury was always too great for humans to handle when satya gave up and tossed his ice cream trophy away from himself in order to save himself from the monkey's menacing ferociousness. And the monkey proudly went and claimed (devoured) his trophy in front of the hungry eyes and watering mouth of satya. Such is the fate of the loser.
When asked later about his defeat with the monkey mr.satya related incidents about his childhood experiences with monkeys in vellore where he apparently dint do well in an exam as a monkey sitting on a guava tree threw fruits at him when he sat down to study underneath the tree. Ever since he has had haunting dreams about his relationship with the monkey community and today reminded him that no matter how old or big he grows, the monkey always wins !! :)

One Year Over!!!!

Oh wow i cant believe one year of college has flown past so quickly..
Its been a year since many things happened.. exams admission councelling tensions.. whew..
And looking back it has been a great year.. Enjoyed it a lot..
Dono wats coming up in the next year.. and the dumb results will also be out soon..
oh boy..
Anyway have been relaxing nicely at home for abt a month.. only eating and sleeping and internet...
Im more clear abt certain things in life.. bit i got more confused about other things..
But I've discovered real good company in college.. wat makes NITT so amazing is the students.
It rocks.. Its a different world inside campus.
Am kinda looking forward to going back.. I think I've lost touch with writing.. my posts are kinda dull dont u think? Maybe I'll get inspiration one of the days.. :-D
anyway catch u later

Making The Line Follower

After successfully making a 'coin picker', we decided to try our hand with a line follower..
We decided to start out with a simple line follower.. using not gates and only two sensors..
For a more detailed look at the theory behind this take a look at this http://www.geocities.com/xjroolz/myrobot.doc or mail me...
Anyway this time around things were not going smooth like before.. we were facing problems..
More than the technical side there was trouble working as a team.. this was the first project we were doing as RMI firstys.. Through this i learned abt the problems associated with the working of any team.. Anyway we had a tough time soldering cos there was sooo much to solder.. And the first board we did dint work! so we tried it on a bread board.. and it worked fine.. It took so much time to get the circuits ready.. we then had to think abt the robots body..
Then we decided to improvise roboray( renamed lofty by one of my friends) We removed the old board.. fixed in the line followers board.. and fixed the sensors out in the front on the electromagnet.. And it was all set to go.. we made some track on a chart paper. And set it up and all ready to go!
We were sure that there will b more problems and we will have to work a lot more.. but then the robot surprised us all by pulling of an extremely smooth 90 degree and continued on the track.
We had seen other bots with 8 sensors and micros and all that but this was much faster and much more smoother compared to those.. credit of that has to be given to the really good high torque dc motors of lofty.
We celebrated the robot with a video session.. here are the videos..



It couldnt take that U turn cos the radius was too short for the robot..



And here we run it in the reverse direction to prove that it can indeed take that turn..
but it became kinda jerky though..


if u cant see the embedded videos try these
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA6lad_DC88
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBkyyzeZ3-s



So thats it.. nothing much.. I think we are a pretty good team and u may see us soon in local robotics contests.. big hopes(:D)

Bunking classes

Bunking classes was my topic for a speech for english internals.. thought abt on the previous period... thought the teacher was gonna kick me out bcos of the topic, but she dint! maybe cos it was the class in the last day of coll Anyway here it goes...
Once we come to college we hear a lot of words like 'ragging' 'hostel' 'mess' and 'bunking' is one such word. Its a part and parcel of every college students life... When we were in school we were all very sincere students and never bunked a single class.. at least i dint! but now that we are in college we should definitely indulge ourselves in such activities. Bunking classes has many plus points to it.. one- u develop a sense of time manangement. when u bunk a class u should make sure u reach in time for the next class so that the teacher leaving doesnt see u and the teacher coming for the next class also doesnt see u.. all that requires prescence of mind, planning and foresight.
Bunking classes increases ur abilities to manage stuff.. like when u maintain bunk scores and calculate how many classes u can bunk and when to bunk so that the time may be exploited to the best etc.. all that goes into ur development and helps u in interviews and ur job as such.
Then bunking classes inculcates leadership qualities.. When u organise a mass bunk u need to know how to convince people and how to talk to them.. And of course that gives u a chance to interact with girls.. girls generally require convincing.. cos there is a theory which says girls are more sincere and studious than guys... but if u tell that to a girl she wont agree, cos there's another theory which says girls dont agree to any kind of generalisation..(claps from guys and raised eyebrows from girls including teacher so dint go on with theory of girls)
and thus bunking classes goes into developmant of personality and character.
So i feel instead of having compulsary 75% attendance, the insti should have 5% compulsary bunking.. hpe u all enjoyed the first sem. see ya

Workshop practice

More work done on the robot...I dropped the name ROBORAY.. doesn't look like a ray anymore.. had to cut it to satisfy size constraints.. I got a lot of experience in working with wood. First i had to cut the wooden plate to the required shape.. this took some amount of effort. Then i drilled in holes for the screws.. this was the fun part.. its fun operating a hand drill.. i was too busy enjoying drilling that i dint notice the drill had gone into the stone on the work table.. this resulted in me getting scoldings from mom!! ha ha anyway had fun

More of my robot!!!

Hey made a lot of progress today so gonna put in another entry. Today I managed to solve the big problem of extending the motor shaft. The problem was the motor was connected to three gears and all the shafts dint reach out of the box..so I removed the shaft from the largest gear in the end which was too slow to be used. pushed the shaft of the gear i wanted to use half way out and pushed in the other shaft from the other side.. its something like this
IIIIIIIIIIII
------- ------- so now the shaft sticks out enough to fix the wheels!
IIIIIIIIIIII

kinda crude but it still works cos the gear is rigid enough.
Next is the problem of fxing the wheels on the shaft.. i think im gonna use mseal to fix it. Will do that tomo..
This is wat i noticed my design and ideas to start with were very proffesional and to the point. Now after seeing the limitations of resources it keeps getting cruder and cruder.. hopefully i will stay to gether during the competition! And it should do the given task quickly and efficiently. thats all that matters!

Roboray - coin picker extrordinaire!!

Uhh.. its a flashy name for my first robot but anyway!!Robot making is really awesome.. it combines the various discplines of engineering. U need to know electronics u need to know how to machine ur parts u need to now mechanics u need to know programming to program it. It seems truly captivating and intelectually engaging project..Heres wat im gonna do. mine is a remote controlled robot that picks up metallic coins.. kinda very simple but its my first robot! but this should be challenging.. Right now i thought of using an electromagnet for picking up and a differential 2 motor drive for steering. Its crappy jargon for basically two wheels driven by two motors. one motor stop, one motor run, the robot turns. when both motor run, robo move forward. All the ideas are ready and i made a rough drawing and circuit design.








so i went and got parts.. i really dono wat will work and wat wont but i managed to get the motors gears wheels and switches.. have to assemble them on a plate.. and hopefully it will work.Ill put up another post once its built.

First sem is over!

Hey its been a looooong time since icame online.. and guess ill be wasting time online for the next one month to make up for it!
Sometime ago there were certain things i gave importance to in my life.. now they just dont exist they r dead.. and I dont care anymore..
I learnt it is indeed difficult.. but possible to get over it.. dono if i have done it myself though.
Dont bother trying to make sense.. my blog is crazy like me..
here comes the sane part

Hey exams are over. so is the sem and im back in chennai...
Dono wat ill do without college for a month..
It was sooooooo much fun there
Its literally amazing world inside NITT
I really like the environment and the peacefullness..
My fellow students there are truly wonderful and they help me in bettering myself

and my GPA is gonna come!! Im so tensed.. its like board exam results..
if my gpa is not above 8 i dont stand a chance with a good mnc..
hope fully ill make it above 8.. boy o boy o boy
Dono wat system they r gonna follow..

well i think i'm too lazy to write down more.. this is a bad post.. my blog is quite unpopular anyway.. no one comments..
anyway dont care.

Life at NITT

Hey all, Im studying in NITT, i finally went ahead and took cs there.. after a lot of confusion. Anyway thats history.. Right now IM A COLLEGE STUDENT! CHECK THAT OUT. When i think abt it i kinda feel old.. im in college.. hmmm i must be growing up. We all wish we were kids.

First year! the thing that comes to ur mind must be ragging... not much ragging only very friendly suff. Life at NITT? lets see its extremely lazy. let me describe a typical weekday. wake up at 630, look at the time, go back to sleep wake up again at 745 jump out of bed do ur morning stuf its 830, then u have a choice eat breakfat and cut morning class or cut breakfast and go to morning class eating a bun and tea in Bru. UR lucky if u have the first period off.. Then after u do all that its 1010 and its break time. U go stand outside in the corridors of the CLC and hear wat other boys comment upon girls passing by. And remember have a cell phone. u can msg all day! in class in break in the night. u need someone to msg though... dont be sad now. Then u go back sleep in class till lunch break. Finally the sddistic torture master the cs faculty will let u go. u go straight to mess to eat. ITs 1210 and very hot and the entire firsty is in the mess. the food is also very hot and u sweat like a pig after eating it. then u drag ursef back to hostel.. hang out in ur friends rooms playing or hearing music or sleep in ur room. cos the break is till 220. And then again if u sleep off u miss ur class, like that makes a difference, after 450 ur exhausted... u can do extra curriculars now. either visit library or go swimming or karate class or the gym. art arnd six 30 ur done. U go bak tak a bath. watch tv and go to mess. or go to mess and watch tv. Either way u end up watching till 1030. then u think if u have any thing to be done tomorrow. if u have ed then u r screwed. u have to sit up possibly till 3 or 4 in the morning. if u have an exam the next day.. just forget it last min studying dosn't help. jus go to sleep...
Wat abt studying?? unheard of! wat uncivilised country u come from??


Typical weekend at nitt u start with friday morning. all classes in the afternoon are either cancelled or massbunked or not there at all. u go into town if u need to buy something or maybe watch a matinee. its around 7 and u had a nice time doing watever u felt like. then u gather ur friends and go to snacky. hog to ur hearts content... go to the room play cards till 9. And remember to slip out before the watchman closes the hostel gate. remember to take ur headphones. then go to da octa the coolest place in NITT. flash ur id at the watch man. go straight to lab2. Its time to play!! warcraft 3 or cs anything u like. u look at da seniors who r playing. they barely notice u. after all wat first year will dare to come here at this time.. so u must be someone else. Anyway u cant join their game. u play among urselves if u have company.. play play play till 1. then come out for a walk. its very cold in the ac u know. go to bru have a coffee and some lays maybe. stare at the seniors who r smoking and boozing. if ur tired.. go back to coral thru the bak entrance, go past the room where nris r having their party smoke booze pondy n all, to ur friends rooma nd sleep. or if ur upto it go back to the octa, the watchman snores his approval, play till 7. at 7 u come out. go to the mess eat breakfast with the early birds. then go to room and sleep till 12. then u wake up and brush ur teeth and take bat and ur ready for the next day!! hows that??