RA

By Friday, after couple meetings, I have received a RA position, which I will work on projects interested me very much. I am quite happy and thankful for this opportunity. Meanwhile, I need to drop several classes as there is a rule, being RA, you can not take more than 36 credits. The meeting with Prof. reminds me of the time I did research at ISU, quite a learning and catch up to understand the project and figure out the way how to approach. I really like my Professor Cumming, who was the first woman pilot at air force, flying to so many places with so much system analyzing experience. Most of all, I truly enjoy her forthcoming, energetic working attitude, "there is always a better way, can we think more?"

DC 4 -- getting help from friends

Finally got some sleep Wednesday evening, I realized that I need to be at ESD, getting some clarification on my registered courses. Seriously, I registered too many classes, which I have to decide which to drop, and, this is really a hard decision.

The weather got so bad, snowing and burrrrr cold wind. I feel that this is colder than the time I was at Iowa, or at least I felt that way.

I got a sublet at Sidney Pacific for Jan. but need to move out this weekend. I need to move to Ashdown, unfortunately, the move in date is Feb. 4, which means I will need to flow around for 4 days. Couple of my classmates: Donny and Felipe came to help me to move my stuff away. Originally to put in some classmates rooms. Since we all have small places, I hope to put one bag in one place. Donny has a car and allows me to put all my stuff in his car, so, this becomes our "DC4" project :)

Here are the team of DC4.




This evening there is Jazzlink on campus, free food! have to admit, MIT has free food all the time with various events/activities, for sure, you won't go hungery on campus.




The best Argentina dinner at 'Tangos'.

DC 3 -- Social Science Competition and scavenger hunt

After Monday DC2 completion, we got a new assignment for DC3, which includes two parts -- Social Science and scavenger hunt. There are three topics: Disaster relief, higher education and economic development, each team has to use scavenger hunt points won by monday evening to bid for the topic they would like to work on. The winner of each topic will receive $500 to donate to the charity we choose for the presentation. After quick brain storming, my new team(each design challenge, we were formed into different team in order to work with each other.) head on the road. Sadly, the cold snowy Boston suddenly changed into very windy and heavy rainy place, have to say, the rain here has not similarity with Seattle one. The wind was wild, and rainning hard, not like Seattle mild drizzling. My new SDM umbrella has not working well at all, totally got upside down multiple times, completely miss the function of preventing me from the rain. After a few stops, we went underground(apparently, the underground is way more complex than infinite corridor, at least in my eyes), where became the place we got lost, after circling around many turns, we could not figure the direction of building we need to go, and trying to get out. When we saw the elevator, we got in, then stuck with which button to push, 'P' or 'B', what does that mean?? ok, try 'P', raise up and reach the level, no door open, then we went back, stepping out the elevator, find the exit door to stairs, that is how we got out. When I turned around looking at this place again, I told myself that I'd rather confused with direction on the ground than going under.

After part of scavenger hunt, we all met at Characters for a celebration of completion of DC2. Yes, we all need this pause moment. By now, we have know each other pretty well, esp. with DC1 and DC2 team mates, we can comfortably joke around, expressing our opinions and sharing thoughts. Somehow the celebration always involves drinks. As we ordered different drinks, I told the waiter that I need something sweet. He came back with a "Happy Howaii". What I asked what is in it? couple classmates joked me not qualified for working for Liquor Control Board, since I do not know all the drinks!! Maybe I should suggest to my LCB Director to add this piece of information as new employee orientation requirement :)

Tuesday (26th) I could not join my team in the morning right away as I have registered one course at Harvard Business School. Apparently there is no easy way to get there, walking, then subway, then bus, then walking. The course is very informational and interesting. At HBS, I feel that I walk into a bank, at MIT, I feel that I am living in a creation of history. All great, but in a totally different way. At Harvard, it is taught by case-study. Your classmates will feed you with you various opinions, Prof. is like a captain, guiding your thoughts, pulling you back if you went too far. Meanwhile, my teammates went for scavenger hunt, exploring MIT and Boston. Later we suggested the program to have this done at DC1 while we were full of energy at the beginning of program and felt excited to explore.

After class, I raced back MIT, working with my team on disaster relief, our charity is a furniture donation organization. We use the mindmap which we used it as tool from System architecture class, to analyze the system for pre-disaster, disaster and post-disaster. Align with what is going on in Haiti, this research and study showed us how things could easily go wrong inside of system. It is easy to shrug the shoulder criticizing how things went wrong in Haiti rescue system, but it is so complex when we drilled into each step, which interconnect with so many things. Plus, even though many counties & people are willing to help and donate, the coordination job is humongous to take on.

By Wendesday morning, we started to see the draft of picture how we want to present. This DC is short one, several students will fly out right after DC3 presentation.

As I have a meeting in the afternoon(the same time to present DC3), I could not present, so, I was in charge of creating presentation and putting everything together. now, I have to mention, by this moment, we have been so tired, hate to use this word since it really sounds negative. We are having a good time, but we are in deed tired, some people getting sick(including my periodically 'duck voice'), I have starting forgetting things around or loosing the careful working part of me. One mistake I feel bad was to write down a wrong teammate name on the final presentation slide, terrible :( I could not use my tiredness as an excuse to explain why this happened. One of my classmates said something which I will always remember and remind myself of this incident that "when you present business plan to CEO, any tiny mistake could abort the plan, no matter how much time and efforts you put in."

Studying at MIT, I feel that you will study with the master of that field, the creator of known concepts/theories, the leading founder in this research area... I remind myself that I need to soon get over this excitement of new student(every time, we 'wow' to show how cool this is) and focus on the content in order to ask questions with those masters. I had a meeting with Prof. Jackson, who is such a down to earth, easy to talk with person! during the conversation, I told him that I applied Jackson system development steps in couple of system implementations I lead and shared my experience and opinions on that. I asked him if he plans to make any updates. He looked at me, saying "I am sorry that I am not the person who created this, you put the wrong name!", I looked at him, wondering how I could miss this, then he said "I will certainly let the creator know that you appreciate, he is my father who created this diagram and steps to implement system." oh my!

The meeting was at building of Ray and Maria Stata Center. It is quite unique building. Again, this is my one more time lost myself at MIT building, I just kept circling, could not find the office I was supposed to be. If you come to visit MIT, you should visit that building and a tour inside, which contains many famous MIT students' reactivities.

You have to be amazed by every team how they choose the charity, and what they presented, one team got the whole class involved to do a online test, to show how we can help the elementary education in science, very clever and creative!

As the close curtain of DC3, we also completed Jan. IAP. Bunch of us went to the famous Boston Beer House to celebrate. We found out as long as you have a local Bostonian around, you will find all kinds of fun place. Please do not take my post in a wrong way, we celebrate with alcohol, but we do not get drunk!

Events analysis and blah blah...

From Prof. Crewley taught us to think big, every class, before it starts, he usually comes in 10-15 mins early, start global events analysis. "What happens today in the wold?" from last couple weeks MA political attention to Google announcement to leave China, Professor constantly reminds us that nothing is accidental but have internal connection, only by training yourself systematically, you will seek the underneath link. It is part of learning ability and train yourself to be a good 'observer'. Any predictions are based on the data and evidence, sometimes the random events seem like random but are planned ahead of time. I have watched closely about lately China and U.S. political relationship changes. If you look back the last century, how much involvement these two countries have been. Here in Boston, the course about 'How to do business in China!" at Harvard Business School is totally full with more registered student, so did Harvard Kennedy School, whose "political economy transition in China" class, not many Chinese student there but full of students from different countries. I asked myself if I have followed Chinese news, economic and political development like this close? you really need to catch up, Charlotte!

you think globally, you act globally.

Sitting in the classroom, break time classmates will update you with many gadgets in the new market. This morning classmates have talking a lot about iSlate, iTablet, making you can not wait to see the real product and test it. One of classmate teaches a design class for MIT undergraduate, seriously, if you ask what computer to buy, he does a better job than Apple sales person to tell you everything about Mac. Some of us got sort of interested to check out his class.

I do not know how many Apple products I will continually buy. The new Lenovo T400 I got in Jan. for school has giving me more problems than I could expect, constant memory freeze have not help my study but delay. I guess I soon will convert myself totally from PC to MAC.

DC 2 -- We won the 2nd Design Challenge competition!

After two weeks working each selected projects, we reach the moment of presentation day. For days, we wonder why there are weird scary masks showing up at study rooms, why guys came in with wet shoes/lower pants(the famous men's bathroom flooding, unfortunately, I am not able to check out:), the deliver table... and a lot of cleaning products(e.g. sponge). We have total 8 teams, working for mexico major companies. Some of business people came all the way from Mexico to hear our presentations.

Which one should I pick, so many great ideas breaking through the existing market, they did not just work on their own, but heavily involved with customers, users and clients, constantly get feedback and upgrade. That is the major gap we learn how to close, not missing any market request/need.

One furniture update team starts their presentation with a fun 3D video to show the crowded cubicle life. After working for 9 years, I totally understand the frustration of sitting in the traditional cubicle settings, which separate each other, less communication and more isolation. The suggestion they have is to well use the angle of combine even number of joint cubes and lower the cubicle wall to maximize the cubes(traditional cubes 40 will be increase to 51-53 cubes in the same space) and maintain individual space. I like the new layout and wonder what new users/employees think about the settings.

The delivery table comes with patient dashboard, like a tablet PC, reflect the time, next contraction, and doctor return time(apparently, everyone wants that), health data, messages, pictures, video, webcam, music, etc. It looks like that you are having a business class for the ride of delivering baby. Since there are several classmates, whose wives are expecting this year. The questions from class are quite fun to listen, esp. looking the chair animation. This chair is really cool, at least is way simple, user-friendly than the one I saw when I visited a girlfriend in hospital during her labor.

Our presentation is Somaki Fregon Sponge redesign and development. The original sponge is not a real sponge as it does not absorb liquid, sort of like scrubber. The food easily stuck on the fiber and not easy to clean. Due to copying, in local Mexico market, there are similar products with very cheap prices, cause Somaki loosing price and brand identify. We did 14 interviews from 4 continents for market research, later we did 2nd survey to get feedback finding out if they are happy with our new designed product. The Fregon Sponge does not absorb the liquid, actually it is a scrubber, so instead of designing a new sponge, we focus to design scrubber. I personally quite happy with the solution, ergonomic handling, suitable for women's hands(somehow, the cleaning jobs are done by women, come on, guys!), able to target low end as well as high end, kit allows various surface cleaning. From financial analysis, we removed the costy 70% foam with the special designed handle support. So, users can replace fiber often and clean the fiber by either microwave or dishwasher. The whole experience allows me to explore the marketing and sales strategy, which I have not spend much time on those field. It really lets me engage with customers and clients. Often engineers receive the business requirements, heavily depends the client company's request, but this experience, we are able to work with client as well as practical users, helping us to see the perspectives from manufacture and buyer point of views. As engineer, we usually underestimate the benefits from marketing and sales strategy in our early design. This is a quite fun learning curve and let me see the importance to engage every side of experts. When you spend much time on product design, one failed function could cause the failure of entire product. Simple design brings function directly to user. This is very basic concept, but when we work on the product design, we overestimate and complicate the whole process.

So many highlights during presentations, also some models refuse to cooperate, like the Halloween LED Masks and body model, not moving as the way it designed.

By using survey feedback rating, the final competition result is: Team 4 won with their world best scrubber design!! I am so proud of my team :) Blade and I did the presentation, but we can not forget the dedicated team members: Vishal, Rafaral, ChangBae, and Jose. They are awesome!! It really pays off all these very late nights, many discussions and update. We even took the highest cost management, customer needs, profitability overall. From the whole class feedback, we are able to see the first impressions from each classmates, every good to know how we can do better.






Oh, we say goodbye wrapping up DC2, and say hello to welcome DC3, which is the last competition in our Jan. IAP. Most of us have already began to plan the mini vacation to get away this weekend, getting some break before next week Spring semester start.

Chomsky

This has been a long week. Once a while, when you missed a good night sleep, you could easily catch up, but when you have had short of sleep for so long, get up in the morning is a such drag. Not complaining but a fact! Morning time we all search the place of coffee provider, so important.

Today's system architecture touched the topic of Ambiguity. How many examples we could find out we take same word/phrase into different meanings, which cause many problems. It is very critical to define the word/phrase in the agreed setting. Prof. Crowley passed on the envelopes with a number on top, with some sort of coin inside, after we discovered what is inside, we understand that we should not assume that every coin has head or tail, some even does not have coin. most of all, he wants us to review the fact of what ambiguity could cause us.

By noon, I nodded my head constantly sitting inside classroom, need a nap, definitely. When I wake up, I saw a note at MIT website about Chomsky concert. I watched closely again, making sure that I was reading what I thought was. It was a honoring concert to Noam Chomsky, with his talk prior to the concert. oh, my, I was thrilled. When I first learned Linguistics in China, his theory was all-over my textbooks. That was a huge break through in linguistics field. For me, to learn a foreign language, how he defined normal grammar has impacted so many language learners. Later Chomsky's Hierarchy, has influenced so many fields, including computer science. I know that I will go. What a surprising finding after a needed nap!

The concert is at MIT auditorium. This concert is delicated to scientists from musical tributes. MIT and Harvard head of Linguistics gave their stories about knowing Chomsky, they even did a few liguistics exercises with audience, which totally reminded me of the time when I first learned English, the grammar and how to think about English structure.

After Concert, I went up to Prof. Chomsky, thanking him for his findings which impact my language and computer science studies. I just could not believe that this is the man that I have learned so much from his research.

Challenger

This week we spend couple days in our Human side of Technology, understanding how and why people behave certain way at the critical moments(which you could not define critical until later). The Professor tried to get us understand that making a decision involves full understanding, before drawing conclusion as you will live in the consequences. Two videos he showed us. One is Challenger -- Space Shuttle. Another one is British Steel.

The video of Challenger is to recreate the pre-launching plan, discussion, esp. when engineers identify the Orin issues, how manager/NASA took on the information. Despite of knowing the final result, if you could just pretend not knowing what will happen, watch the movie, truly is going through some frustration. Seeing engineers trying to present the case, seeing how manager spoke and word certain uncertainty. Prof. wants us to see when you deal with uncertainties, what you want your mind go through first. The video is so powerful, as we know, there are always some engineering issues when launching a new product, at what point, you will call the stop and roll off the product. How can a good engineering manager know which technical issues he can drop, which he needs immediate attention, when there are several in front of you. Since we have two Chilean air force men, two U.S. air force men(one retired already), the whole discussion, with their experience, and the video information are incredible. for me, I thought every airplane is safe, but even in Boeing, there is margin of failing probability analysis. How can you, as a manager, be responsible to make the right call? (side note, I learned that if flight suddenly has to drop down, put your oxygen mask first, as in 5-6 second you will faint, so there is no way you can help your family put on mask first, then you, I guess air attendent just does not want to announce this at the beginning of flight.) Most of all, how can we live the decision we made? esp. certain consequences! some of managers involves in Challenger are still working in the same company. The mental reminder of the decision to let shuttle launch in such cold temperature will carry them long time. I still remember in 80s when this happened,my dad had quite a few conversations with me teaching me the history and U.S. aerospace plan competing with Soviet Union. By then, it was an accident from a foreign country. But now, watching this, all of classmates could identify that our work has similar discussions/struggles like movie's scenes when they does not know how they should deal with Orin issues. Prof. said every time when he showed this video to his consulted company, the customers felt chilled by how much similar they have in their work place. What odd response! Over 20 years Challenger's launch shocked us emotionally and intellectually. Can we pretend it happen in any fields, like IT, Health care?

Another movie is British Steel. Did CEO have vision, yes, but the whole business deal of buying one plant or two or more have been quite a manipulated process. Prof. reminds me of paying attention at people's body gesture, which let me think about show. That is the only show I see online if I have time. One thing from this movie is if you go for a very important and hard meeting, remember to bring your ally along otherwise you won't get all your ideas/suggestions go through. This is over 20 years old movie, but what it presents not just represent the time of those periods, but completely typical for nowadays business. The CEO's plan was brilliant, but failed terribly. His vision was so right but too early. Now British Steel does the same plan in Europe, and totally a leading technology.

What will this degree do for you?

While we close to DC2, the prof. closed the class by asking us "what will this degree do for you?" Thankfully, classmates are very honest, answers are various. Prof describes the degree as a necklace, so, what do you do with it? someone want to bury it, someone wants to display it on the wall, even put the picture on the facebook, some will exchange it for salary, freedom, power, etc. Some want to link with high known alumni, join the club... Then, Prof. reminds us to think about the frequency of of natural wave, do not go out side the wave, but keep bargaining for freedom, bringing impact from what you are good at; Gradually, he talked more about passions inside of you. What he asked us is a fundamental question, though I disagreed or should say, could not reach the same level of opinions as others on some part of his opinions, I appreciate he brought this question up at the beginning of the program instead of the end. It is a good question needed more thoughts.

I am so happy to have a one MIT undergraduate classmate in my team, who gave me a lot of insights about how to drink this water from fire-hose. It is totally MIT style. You will be dump with many and many overwhelming tasks, knowledge, and projects. It is your responsibility to learn how to swim, figure out where to find the support. School has so many support but they will not hand it to you, but you need to find it. When you find it, you will be amazed with how incredible resources are available for you. I view it as to be independent through your exploring. So, can you imagine how undergraduate 1st year look like? I am amazed with my classmate, such energetic and decisive attitude! also, I am so grateful for my first two years study in Iowa, caring and welcome, often I was asked if I need help, instead of now, I knowck door around asking where I can get information. different perspectives and different life stages for me to study.

My DC2 scrubber has been in a wild ride. I told Zhiyong that I will be in charge of my future household scrubber/sponge purchase as I have viewed and touched pretty much every kind exist in the Markets, not just U.S. market. The Mexico company's owner has quite expectation from us. Apparently, there are over 9 millions dollars profit from this per year there. The designer Professor warned us contently that we need to think outside of box, play with product, talk with real customers not just team members/classmates. We certain have a lot of wild check from various customers. I start seeing the light of marketing and sales strategy. This is not my strong area, I am in charge of Marketing and see how this has been tight up with product design.

We had a leadership framwork workshop the whole afternoon today. The presenter through several frequent leadership related questions on the table, but, instead of circling or debating, she asked us to see sometimes how you sort through the clear thread when you face a mass. How sensemaking, relating, inventing and visioning work coherently. A lot of time, only focus on vision will corner us on one thing, but combine all these together, will lead you the big picture of leadership. She shows up the story of Green Belt Movement by Wangorri Maathai, impressive. What even impressive more is the reminder she set that many of those leadership are from much more practice and learning from other leaders. I like the leadership journal we got today, using to capture our reflection of learning & thinking on leadership. How to make the triangle of reflection, skill development and practice in the best balance to help me grow, I know, one step at a time.

Technology

While I was debating which classes I should take in Spring, what to listen in and what I should wait, I found myself spending too much time on those choices, the bottom line is that I should use my time wisely on my study, social networking and what I am passionate about.

MIT's media-lab has attracted for several years, which you would feel like that you living in the technology fantasy world. It is not about what you can think, but what can you imagine?? Pranav's innovation has been quite hot here, but there are more. I am very thankful to live in this amazing high tech world, and glad that I am in this field.

My energy group has checked out last week MIT energy presentations, so many great things happening in Energy. I am glad that I took risks of picking energy topic and learn from scratch, instead of playing safe and staying in Software topic. So far, the most research I follow is about Lithium.

By the way, I have to mention about the survivor exercise from Human side of Technology class. Prof. Catz lets us to do a survivor exercise, suppose you all were in plane crash but all alive close by north pole, there are list of things, please rate it based on the priority of needs. After individual answer, form a group, to get group answer, the ending results are most group answers are either better or slight better than individual answers, showing the wisdom of group, But he asked us again to re-discuss to see if we could get the answers better, apparently, no single team got together to discuss. That is the point. He wants to show us that when there is task/design, team members will show the dynamics either following someone or compromising the decision to get the final plan. After the final plan is done, it is very hard to do improvement, much applied in the project mode. That is so true. If you have ever been in a IT project, you know what I talk about here. One side note, when prof. asked individual total score, the less the better surviving ability, our lowest score was from Rej, 25 points, the highest score in my class is 74, and the person was me :( after I honestly reported my score in the class, I got ear full comments, my answer was "I will sit next to Rej during the flight.".

Walk to the Sea

I certainly did not know that my DC2 week will be more demanding than DC1. It shifts from hands on building robot to abstract(somewhat) product design. The professor is from Mexico, who brought in 8 Mexico companies with their products, some are nation well known, some are small start-up. My DC2 team finally decided not to bid for well-known one but a family owned business. The product we got assigned is 'Sponge'. At the beginning, I thought, it is only a little sponge, probably only $1, does not seem too complicated. oh, How bad assumption did I make there!! we worked so hard with owner finding out the history, current business, customers feedback. there are several phases. for the first phase we need to provide our analysis and make business suggestions back to owner. I did research on Sponge patents, history and we brainstorming the potential needs on this design without causing significant owner's changes in their manufacture place. Thursday we discussed about Sponge over 6 hours, never in my life I would imagine that I care about kitchen stuff this much, and try to analyze customers' thoughts this deep. If you have any complaints about Sponge, I would like to know, which will help me to see the marketing strategy which I will work on tomorrow.

During our DC2 study, professor asked us to provide list of good design and bad design from our daily life. I see that we silently accept so many 'that is what it is' settings, instead of looking better design. Or, we see some new improved product, feeling like 'oh, how could I not see that simple change'. These are some of what I pick.






Besides DC2, significant time has been devoted to system architecture class. Like I said before, this is a great class and I enjoy it very much. But, it does not mean that this is a easy class. It is such a struggle for our of us. From Prof. Cowley talking about reverse your mind thinking, like reverse engineering, you will challenge your routine mindset to think differently. So far, making the change is such a hard task. He challenges each of us from small simple system breaking into form, process, instrument, function... to middle system. His questions were designed purposely ambiguity in order to force you to think, when you design system, how you should keep system thinking without jumping into other roles or accidentally taking others task preassigned into your system. When designer with your layout, they know what that means without any simple words and explanation. Last year his students said the discussion insides of team trying to figure out his questions is the plan he sets to force us to think more, the struggle is part of class plan and process. By Friday, when we finished last class, my team did not join the class to Muddy for relax drink, instead we stay inside from 4:00p.m. till next morning around 3a.m. working on System Architecture assignments. We certainly take the routine Friday night planning into next level. we choose Medical Device as middle system to analyze, by now, I learn a lot from Medical field, more than being a patient to visit there. When you spend so much time with a group of people, esp. under pressure and short of sleep, people will show you the worst port of themselves, or let you see another side of personalities you do not know. more or less, you feel that you know them more and see them not just a classmate but friends you can talk. Certainly, different personalities are always hard for coordination. This time, our leader is a guy who currently teaches MIT undergraduate design class, a super designer, perfectionist and a very patient person. plus he is the only American, who comments one day with Mexican owner that 6 of us, only he is from U.S., one from Spain, one from Columbia, one from Korea, one from India, and I am from China. When we speak with different accents, he may get our influence! One thing I learn from his design work is, when you work with a team, after communicating with customers, give each other a few minutes to draw down thoughts, then let each one present, without any critic/modification/comments, which is not easy to do, as everyone wants to jump in with his opinions. if you allow those happen, you will kill the good (maybe immature) design thought right at the root level. It reminds me of software related business requirements gathering, how often we jump into solution attack than patiently listen. Many times we know what is right, but we do not do it, repeating same thing. What he stops us with proper and well-articulate sentences, making you corporate very well. Prof. Catz said that the biggest learning here is from each other. The total years of working experience in my class is around 600 years(several in their 40s, some even retired and come back.), more than 35 years he had. We should well use the source. Now, I see his point. Only when you see how the best professional acts, you know you want to be like that and make things right.

Until Saturday morning we left office, we were drained. The road was so icy and I felt that I had a duck walk, so sleepy! One thing to be the minority(female group) in the class, all guys are very nice, offering to drive you back to my apt. or walk with me instead letting me wondering around the road three o'clock in the morning.

Today is the first time we do not meet on the weekend. But we have full days covered for Sunday and Monday holiday. I told myself that I need to step out of Cambridge to see Boston instead of viewing it crossing Charles rive in Cambridge. Plus, I need to step out of SDM office rooms for a day, in order to get focus again when I return. (Should I call it -- "mind cheating" to trigger your mind believe that you are in a new location next time?) I asked a few classmates to come to go with me to "Walk to the Sea" For our non-Bostonian, this part of important American History has so been taught/talked so often through words without seeing it. I could not believe that years ago at middle school, when I first learned American history and culture, learning its independence history, I never knew that someday I will walk at the real place to witness those historian sites.

Boston Common Memorial

from WWI


Beacon Hill State House, the beginning of 'Walk to the Sea'


Walking towards King's Chapel, we passed the Park Street Church, then we found this grave yard. The Granary Burial Ground is the final resting place for legendary Boston figures including Samuel Adams, Peter Faneuil, John Hancock and, Paul Revere.
As we wonder why Francklin's name is here. We thought he was buried in Philadelphia, our next step always answered our questions.


This old city hall was used to be a Latin school. Nowadays due to short of space, it is no longer used as city hall but a steak house.


King's Chapel, by now, I enter the freedom trail.



in front of Boston City Hall


By old Boston City Hall, I only saw the donkey, no elephant, making me want to check the history, "when the elephant enters the room?"


Famous B. Franklin sculpture in front of old Boston City Hall. A portrait statue of Benjamin Franklin overlooks the former site of Boston Latin School which Franklin, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock once attended. Franklin's place of birth was just one block away on Milk Street, across from the Old South Meeting House.


Standing at stairs of Government center, facing old State House

Absorb and challenge

This month is MIT IAP time, many small sessions/workshops and condensed classes are in this months. I, along with all SDM '10 students are taking three classes, three design challenges and a few workshops for news students.

Classes are the Human Side of Technology(by Ralph Catz), System Architecture(by Ed Crowley) and Probablility & Statistics(brief update class, helping us to catch up those forgotten concepts). On top of this load, I registered one more class -- High-tech start-up, which is a series of talks from start-up CEO, which cover energy and other areas. It turnsed out that this class is right between end of my system architecture and lunch time. so, why not?

In Human Side of Technology, I admire Prof. Catz on his delication on teaching, though he had lost his voice several days, which did not stop him at all. Some of cases he discussed (like 3M, SouthWest), I have learned from other places, but he totally put you in a new perspective regarding technology management. How to view the impact of authority, how to define uncertainty, he does not present those as dry concept which you could read everywhere, instead, he uses all his consulting experience with those fortunate 500 CEO and senior managements to present the hard core concepts. He shows you how to precise and clear to deliver your ideas. Do you ever have a moment enjoying the talk so much, wish it would never end? That is what I am talking about.

I love my System Architecture class. Prof. Ed Crowley, who is chief architect of current President initiatives about Mar's plan. When he showed that plan to us, we were lost, at least to me. He just brief the entire plan in October to President in D.C. He brought our minds into deep thinking, what is system? truly, what is system? Even before I moved here, some of friends could not understand my study of system design and management. If you look at broad way, everything can be fined with its system, such as complex system -- human body. He did not start with the core design, but start to define the small terms, form, function, methods, before starting analyze large systems. He really set the bar high and told us to meet the bar. One sentence he said at the first class, really stick in my mind -- "what you do and say, reflect your thinking. Take your study and sumit assignment like submit to your boss. treat it professionally instead of considering this only as graduate school study." I really like those direct, maybe sound very deciplines but I bet I will thank him by the end of class for what I learn, what I challenge myself. This class will go through this month, then pick up in the fall. Fun part is, he not only gives us a lot of assignment each week, reading, but also a whole year assignment of collection of reading, researching due Dec., as well as life assignment on system thinking. I like how he decipline his life, taking his work seriously, with dry sense of humor. He asked us to form a team choosing a technology to follow and do research. I decided to challenge myself not to pick a subject in software since I have been in so many years, instead, choose energy team, giving me a completely new system learning curve. Like now a few technology and system design in Arospace, have been used in medical field, everything can be transferrable. Around MIT, everyone talks about clean energy solution, making you so excited to learn more. MIT will host energy conference in March, it is only $20 to attend for MIT students, but over $900 if you come in from industry. I am in.

Though DC1 was done, DC2 has started. Today's class went till 10 at night, plus team meetings later. Yes, we are tired, no matter how much you squeeze your leg(I did), or drinking coffee(some of classmates could not stop taking that), or stand up and sit down(you will see those funny movements during the class time), or someone has one finger support his one eye and close another eye(his explaination is that he can half-sleep and half-listen, the action of support one eyelid is to see what is going on, not missing anything), or like my teammate Karl, who just went to the hall taking a nap on the couch during break(that is a loud area, but who cares if you really are sleepy.), we tried our best to take in the knowledge Prof. presents. No one chicken out and skip the session, such a committed crowded. Use Prof. Catz's talk, when motivation comes internally, you will see tramendous changes and growth for the organiztion. (Also apply to individual, I think.)

Side of story, I originally planned to see Yo-Yo Ma's concert at BSO on Saturday. With less sleep for a week, I changed the ticket to Tuesday night, again, it got changed again due to class. Good thing is Yo-Yo Ma is Bostonian, which he performs quite often here. I got some of classmates excited to go with me for an Opera -- Madama White Snake in Feb.

Today we had professional photoshots. We are required to meet at 8:00a.m. and start. Unfortunately, people came in late or other reasons, we waited till nearly 9:00a.m. One thing before I returned school is to be punctural. One of my friends in Olympia told me that is all about plan. If you plan well, you will be there on time. I promised myself that I will take this serious and be on time. Today, when I wait for my classmates, I had a huge guilty feeling for my friends who wait for me when I was late. Here, one classmate took a picture of me right before the portait. Here is the area we spend a lot of time.




Right now, I am reading 'SuperFreaknomics'. Several years ago I read 'Freamknomics', which was well-written. If you read that one, you will not be disappointed with 'SuperFreaknomics'.

take a break

After a whole week busy schedule, Sunday afternoon last year SDM student Cyndy asked me to join her to do scavenger hunt at Harvard Square. My classmate Rutu also came a long. We called it "girls day out". Seriously, there are few, really few femails in the program. I said that we could be Queens!

Cyndy followed scavenger hunt side, we followed all the hint, a lot to do with history and literature. We found the Harvard library, School of Education with its famous garden, and the freedom trail walk... I have to admit, I was quite absent-minded wondering, just breath the mind-free moments, Cyndy and Rutu were so buy hunting. Harvard buildings are so different with MIT. Both have its own styles.

What draw my attention are those blue wood stand(should I use this word?) with old time. In West coast, everything older than 100 years, that is way too old. here, around 1600 or 1700 can be called old. Girls made fun of me that I am Chinese, what is in Forbidden city and Xi'an are really old!!

Here are some snapshots of our hunting path. Cyndy told me quite a few famous literature related, I could not remember now expect the author of stayed here. Sorry, not quite catch up my memory cells after a challenging week.

15 hrs sleep

If you ask me how much sleep I got in past week, I count it no more than 15 hrs; But if you ask me how much sleep I got on Saturday evening, I had over 15 hrs. Such contrast is so normal for majority of my classmate, some may even go extreme without two nights sleep straight. But, we are so happy for Saturday Robot Design Competition Challenge, also happy it done now.

Where should I start?

This is Spartan Warrior, also the name of our robot. So, that makes our team as "The Spartans". And this, is the original opening ceremony music I put together, contains: robot moving sounds, "How are you doing" from Joe's famous talk, robot moving sound, silly "burp" sound, pause (someone from team will say "Hey, Spartan, you are a GOOD robot"!), then Robot singing "What a wonderful life" (part of it, right by the middle of sentence "what won---"), robot moving sound, following by power off as failing robot fall. As I was happily preparing this, I found out that this music .wav file is about 4 MB, but robot can only handle maximum 130KB, that's a heart broken for me to start alternative. But, you never know what could happen, right? After a few search, I ended up choosing the music on my iPod Michael Smith into prelude, the wonderful drum beat. We will march into the stage with our Spartan, holding different (toy) weapon :) We won the best opening ceremony here. Spartan did wonderful dance with the music, esp. lift up the flag, which made the audience laugh hard. Our Italian Nuclear scientist prints the Spartan flag on both side of napkin. We even had a shinning red flashlight :)





I told the team that we should do a fun exit instead of simple walking away. So we danced toward the crowded with Bob's drum playing.


Then we have four activities competition: Relay Race, Archery, Scavenger hunt, and Sumo.
other teams opening:








During relay race, none of teams made through the race itself before handing over the relay. it turns out that NXT 2.0 light sensor is not good. It has hard time to distinguish dark shadow and black race line. Several robots start walking in a circle since they got trapped with its own shadow. In stead of wondering what happened with our robot, we, the human beings have to laugh at ourselves for imply believe what we purchase always have the best quality. Is that the wake up call applying for what we purchase out of this competition?





Scavenger Hunt:
We should definitely feel proud of our scavenger hunt Robot, which we call it out "Scorpion". It will get close to detect the color, then decide if it should open the door to grasp it or push it away.











Archery:
Three options to choose, 25, 30 or 50 inches to shoot. We should have choose the longer range as 50 as all three tempts Spartan shoots too far, near the crowd. So, we lost significant points here.




Sumo:
This is the activity getting the most attention. All kind of strategies came in, checking on weight, going under as one of approach. Our Spartan was attached with multiple magnets to suck enemy close and click them out soon. We won some, and lost the last match as Spartan is blind(yes, we made Spartan blind). Only go with the sound to save motor and energy. Some robot reduce speed in order to keep strength for pushing. Ironically, our Spartan just decided to go on his own. Is that sometimes Robot required break, getting some time off??


Here, Andrai creates a fan to cool off their heated robot :)


weight the robot before the competition.

Competition Ring:



By now, one of our team members, Ace, completely fall into sleep nearby. He was one of people stayed overnight, 30 hours without sleep, several of them by afternoon, already fall into sleep in the auditorium.



some Sumo scenes:




One of robots pushed this Black bowl-look robot out. Since it was made by a Russian student, we joked that no one could beat the Russia weapon. Soon, it was beat down by (a simple engineering concept)simple look robot. One American student said "We conquer the War, Warm-War(compare with cold-war)!" You have to admit, no matter how much short of sleep we got, we can not loose the humor.


By now, my team won some and loose badly at Archery, got 4th out of 8. We are happy, not caring the result. The next task, is to get home and catch up sleep.

Here are some highlights:








some of pictures you can find from my photos at Facebook.


This is our air force classmate, who is so funny, checking on us periodically during this week preparation.



Here is the happy me with Spartan, looking so exhausted, red eyes, pale face with smile. oh, I love this whole experience!