The year is coming to an end. I read 14 books this year. Some of them were absolute classics such as Fahrenheit 451, Catch 22 and The Alchemist. Some of them like Early Indians and The Horse the Wheel and language showed me how we all come from the same roots and how we are all connected. Some of them such as Homo Deus provided a really different perspective of the world. Here are a few books that were my favorites: ...
Just one year back, I was struggling to find enough time in a day. I wanted to run more, read more books, work on a hobby project etc but always felt that there wasn’t enough time in a day. Then, I read the book Atomic habits about which I blogged last year. The book by James Clear set me on a journey. Whether I should commend the book or myself, I do not know. Because, the results are great. And it can work for you too. Here is a report of my time / habit management story so far. ...
Ok, so here is the final robot being operated using Rviz and Moveit packages of ROS. The nice software from ongdexter made it easy to get the AR3 working. But before I got here, there were several challenges. I wrote about some of those in an earlier post: A 3D printed Robot. For example, sourcing the components from all over the world, struggles with the 3D print settings, fixing bearings, set screw troubles etc. Once I was past those hurdles, I had a robot which worked in open loop mode if I used the default software from the AR3 website. But there were still several issues to sort out. ...
Most software engineers I know can program in multiple languages. Based on the domain in which they work, it can be anywhere between 2 and 10. On a regular basis, I use Matlab, Python and C++. Infrequently, I use many others like Java, Rust, C, batch etc. The interesting thing is that switching between languages is not a big deal these days. Why is that? When I started programming in C two decades ago, I installed turbo C, followed Kernighan & Ritchie’s C Programming Language book and made programs to test my knowledge. Learning was slow. If something didn’t work, I would have to ask someone or access really slow dialup internet to fix my issues. If I had to cross compile the code into a microcontroller, then there was scarce help available. It was natural that people became experts in one programming language or two. ...
My robot had become a bit too heavy to carry around. Also, it would trip over if I made quick movements in certain directions. So, I gave it wheels, a support for the arm when at rest and some adjustable legs. A €10 transport roller, some adjustable cabinet legs, a few screws, a plank and a few hours with the tools got me what I wanted. A job done plus great satisfaction on a Sunday morning. ...
I decided to build a 6 DOF robot in January. Since mechanical engineering is not my cup of tea, I decided to use an open source project. After some research, I found Chris Annin’s AR3 robot. You get all the 3D files, the component list of things to buy and also some basic software to run the robot. I had built robots at work but there was a whole team to do those. The hardware team would take care of schematics, component lists etc. The mechanical team would make the designs. The 3D printing of prototypes was outsourced. I was a system architect who knew the whole thing but lacked the details of everything. ...
A couple of months back, an office colleague suggested a book called atomic habits by James Clear. It talks about a framework that can help you improve yourself every day. Suppose you want to improve your fitness, you shouldn’t simply get a gym subscription because you would just quit that in a few days. Instead, you could start with 10 pushups every morning immediately after brushing your teeth. Now that takes just 1 minute and is easy to cultivate that as a habit. Once that becomes a habit, you could add 10 situps immediately after the pushups. If you add 1 minute of additional exercise every week, you could have a 30 minute workout schedule as a habit in just 30 weeks. The beauty of doing such a thing is that, habits are hard to quit. The mind simply resists it. ...
It was 2010 when I got a job at Bosch to work on a “cutting edge” lawnmower, now called the Bosch Indego. At that point, there was only one famous robotic lawnmower, the Husqvarna. They had very smartly patented a critical piece of technology, the perimeter wire which would be laid at the borders of a lawn which would sense and thereby help a lawnmower stay inside the lawn. Without this, it was quite hard to safely prevent a lawnmower from trying to mow the street or the neighbor’s garden. Once the patent expired, there were a slew of lawnmowers about to enter the market and Bosch wanted to be at the forefront. The PhD experts had figured out the mathematics, algorithms, sensors etc required to realize such a thing and our job was to make this robot real. ...
Adhesive tape used to be my son’s favorite tool when he was younger. If he broke a toy, he could fix it with some tape. Torn paper, no problem, we have tape. I used to tell him that a tape can’t fix everything. But one day, we were watching the Hungarian Grand Prix when Max Verstappen slid in the rain and then eventually finished 2nd with a damaged car that was fixed with speed tape! My son had the last laugh. That is the way with some technologies. They look really simple but can be used for so many things. A 3D printer is something of this kind. From plastics to organs to even houses, the technology can be used to print anything. ...
When I was 18, my dad bought me a computer. It was a pentium P4 with 128MB RAM and 40GB RAM and cost about 35000 Rupees. A personal computer was still a luxury for any lower middle income family like us. If I am not wrong, it was probably two months of my dad’s salary (or maybe more). He never asked me if I made the best use of it. But I always wanted to make something using the computer. To make sure my dad’s money was spent well. ...