S.E.E.K. - Kids & Robots

 

Training Tomorrow's Technicians

This summer I had the privilege of working with my dad, Ed Olson, in a program called S.E.E.K. (Summer Educational Experiences for Kids) to teach kids about robotics. We had two classes of about 16 kids each; the younger class at 7-9 years old and the older kids at 10-12 years. The task of the younger class was to make wall-hugging robot mice that used a two-way electronic switch to navigate it's way along a wall, the older class got to use Lego Mindstorms robot kits to design and program their own robot to make it through an obstacle course. It was an amazing experience that taught both me and the kids a lot - we helped them understand how robots really function and what their real-life purpose is, and encouraged them to have fun learning some useful (and might I add awesome) technical skills. Now if I can incorporate our teaching method into a game sometime in the near future...

My dad is, not to brag or anything, but probably the coolest dad ever. He is a retired rocket scientist (no kidding), now working as the program manager for the Integrated Systems Training Center at Cheyenne's local college. In his 'spare' time he, as seen here, teaches kids how to build robots, provides essential college life support for his oldest daughter (me),  coaches his youngest daughter through life as a 4th grader, pwns n00bs in CoD4, and attacks the unending project of home improvement. You rock Dad.

Here one of our kids watches hopefully as his robot does it's best to maneuver the obstacle course. There was a lot of trial and error involved, and it was inspiring and chuckle-inducing to see that "I've got it!" moment in their eyes every time they solved a new setback.

As a coder at heart, my biggest task with the older kids naturally fell to helping them program their robots. The Mindstorms development kit has a pretty sweet programming set-up. The GUI is made of blocks (following lego tradition) that the kids can connect in order to give their robot autonomous capabilities. They got to learn about some pretty advanced coding concepts like if statements and loops, and they took to it like SCV's to a mineral pile. Kids are smart.

Bonus!! I got to make robots. Way cool. 

Add to the geek repertoire that I've made a circuit board.

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@JM


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Finally, A Worthy Showcase

Unity Demo

The dream comes true!

Since first dabbling with Unity last semester, I've desperately wanted to use it to showcase my models - it seems silly to have 2D pictures of 3D art in my portfolio. Well I bit the wallet last week and bought the Unity license, and I'm sure it'll be well worth it.

Since we're on the subject, I'd like to thank Tom Higgins at Unity for helping me out. I only exchanged a few emails with him, but he's an awesome guy and exemplifies the fun but down-to-business attitude I've gotten from all my experiences with the Unity team. So check out the new raptor walk cycle and look forward to future Unity showcases.

/** Coding note: The animation is, unfortunately, not as it was keyed in Maya... There was an inconsistency in the way I animated the model and how Unity reads animations, resulting in a loss of the raptors vertical and side-to-side motion. I ghetto-rigged it to look fairly decent for now, but I will continue to look into the problem. **/

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My 6 Hour Flash Experience

So I have officially made my first animated game ever. I touched Flash for the first time this weekend, and just 6 hours later, here's what I have to show: Granted its functionality is limited. I'm still working on making the "Play Again" screen work. Hopefully the future holds a scoring system, a preloader, and a nice splash screen. But I'm ecstatic that it works, and I'm pretty dedicated to keep my coding skills up to snuff, art school or no. Hehe have fun. I know I've already played it a few dozen times... :)

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