LaBarca.org

I just finished upgrading the photo album to use Gallery 2. It was a huge pain (despite the multitude of ways Gallery lets you import photos), but I think the effort will be worth it.

The extended functions, including searching the album can be accessed in the sidebar, which you can show by hitting this icon: . You can find links to comment on photos and albums in the sidebar too.

You can subscribe to an RSS of any new pictures with this URL, or look in the sidebar of the gallery for RSS links to any subsection. If there are any problems with the blog or the photo album that I missed, please let me know.

I’m in the process of moving the entire photo album to a database-driven gallery, which will replace the static pages I’ve been using for years. It’s taking a while, since there are 5.24 gigs of pictures to move over, and some cleanup to do as well. But it should be worth it after I’m done. There’ll be lots of new features like RSS, comments, a cool interface, and best of all - easy uploading for me.

After the gallery is switched over, I have to go through all my old posts here and fix broken links, so that should be good fun too. Once everything is done, I’ll put an announcement here - signaling that it’s safe to start letting me know about broken things.

Update (Sat Dec 9): I’m doing this now.  Things will be broken for a while today.

Aaron and the team at CMU’s Robotics Club have been putting together a Wiki on the history of the club - a really nice thing to have since the club evolves so much over the years.

I was an active member of the club for my entire time at CMU, and led the club with Gabe Brisson in the ‘97-’98 school year. So many great memories, and many of my practical technical skills came from working on projects with the club, and I have a ton of pictures sitting in a box to attest to that.

So it was great when Aaron offered to scan the pics in so that they could add them to their online photo album. He also let me grab all of the original scans so I can have them digitally.

Sidewider II: A pneumatic frame walker that sounded absolutely amazing when walking at full gait. Standing Sidewinder up and having it start to walk was an event, with wooshes of escaping and compressing air pronouncing each step. We took third place at the SAE Decathlon Walking Machine Competition in Montreal, Canada. You can see the sleep-deprived pics of the trip and competition as well:

Jim I: The prototype for the eventual utter dominance that was Jim II. Jim I was built on almost zero budget, stolen parts, and a dream. On the way to the SAE Decathlon in Illinois , our van broke down in a town where no one has ever seen a robot. At the end of the year, I wrote a grant to request some money from the Heinz Foundation. They gave us $20,000. Jim II was built the next year and scored almost twice the highest score ever in the competition. The Robotics Club stopped building walking machines for the SAE competition and moved on to more diverse projects that allowed them to get more participation and consistent funding:

Iria - The Biped: I worked on this bipedal walking bicycle helmet with Jon Hurst and Brian Olson for my senior thesis. We got a SURG Grant for a few thousand dollars and gave it a shot. A lot of great work was done, and we had a functioning robot at the end of it. But the servos we used just weren’t up to the torque needed to truly make a dynamic walking robot. In the end, Iria could balance on a moving block and I think eventually someone got it to take a step. Not bad for a few thousand dollars and a year of part time work. Oh, and the paper I wrote for my senior thesis was used as prior art in Sony’s Bipedal Ambulation Patent for their QRIO robot:

Yum.

Mouth-watering pics (for carnivores) are here.

Also check out last month’s midnight hot dogs (sans beef pinwheels) here.

Fun times, great location (San Diego), awesome people.

It served as a mini CMU reunion as well. Makes me miss being back in Pittsburgh with everyone.

Pictures of the ceremony and reception are here.

Pictures of the afterparty in their hotel room are here.

Ben and Jenny - ravers that they are - really picked things up later in the evening when the families were done with their Chicken Dance. Check out the start of it here with a little Kylie Minogue (keep an eye out for the Al Shuffle). Then check out how it really picked up later here.

Every picture taken in San Diego looks like it should be in Travel Magazine.

It’s just too bad we were there really only for a day. Check out all the pics here. Thanks to Miguel, Veronica and Suzie for a wonderful time.

Here are some pics I took on my way back from Boston a couple weeks ago. They were from the Cross Sound Ferry from New London to Orient Point, which I really love taking in the summer.

…like Yorkshire Terrier mixes. My sister found this guy abandoned in the dumpster at work and took him home. She named him Baxter - most likely after Meredith Baxter Birney (unconfirmed).

Yes the camera in my phone sucks.

Pics from Shun’s NYPD graduation, and the party we had for him the day before are here.

Congrats to Kate & Dave!

Photos of the bayside wedding are here.