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!

Excitement vs. Sleepless

Both last night and tonight I walked back my apt. with constant yawning through entire walk. most of my classmates looked the same as I do. I am very thankful for MIT's Infinite Corridor, which is not only the historical walking whenever you are there, but also keep you inside away from cold weather through campus, esp. keep your mind still engage on what you were doing previously in a very encouraging setting.

After Monday's Leadership presentation, Tuesday we have team building activities. Usually from all the organizations I worked, this is nothing special, working with assigned the team, completing tasks and discuss pros and cons. What unique this time is, there were 8 teams, but the three deliverable were from individual team, couple teams and entire teams. It mimic the tech firm from start-up to middle-size, what needs to experience, as well as the shift from opportunities to sustainability, also, how can teams work with each other, without boundary. there are so much to think through.

Today we have Prof. Katz's Human Side of Managing technological Innovation in the morning. He is a brilliant professor in his field, and excellent teacher to deliver his thoughts clearly and logically. Basically, if you records his entire 3 hours talk, you can completely transfer it to script without any modification, just precise and concise. He is CMU graduate, the way he described CMU made me wonder if I made a right decision to take MIT over CMU, certainly CMU gave me a very good impression. He speaks so fast, that I totally understand why people warn me with Bostonian's fast paste. He talked 3 hours straight, with full contents, no any wordy sentence. Every sentence he said can make you think for a while. In short, all of us just thrilled to be there. In my eyes, how to speak less to deliver the right information you want to deliver in professional world is two-way game. Both listener and speaker should engage in.

After is Statistics class that program wants to bring us up/remind us those concepts, preparing for Spring Semester classes need. Most of us are tech/engineering background, it was quite fun to go through.

Soon, reach the early evening back to Robot Design Challenge. I really like this NXT 2.0 lego kit, promising myself that when I graduate from here, I want to get one staying home and play for a week, nothing but play lego, and no competition, purely for fun. I finished the draft of opening ceremony and worked with teammates on modifying the program. The robot will do a few dance routine. The music I created was pretty funny, the team was on board, making me feel good. Since Jan. IAP has both '10 and '09 students, totally 59, only 4 ladies, one of ladies is not full-time. So women are totally minority here. you can imagine the music taste can be dramatic differently. When we discussed about music for opening ceremony, I thought about Puccini's opera Turandot, Nessun Dorma. What a lovely romantic piece! Since the rest four competitions are relay race, archery, scavenger hunt and sumo. The opening part can show our robot the sweet part. oh, my, after I mentioned this, all guys' eyes were like freeze there, seems telling me "what?". I realize that I am working with a bunch of tech guys, should think more about powerful theme, just like movie 300. Well, option 1 got shot down, but they did take my second suggestion. I have to wait till the final competition to present all these. Also at the opening ceremony, we need to dance with Robot, the movement we program in, no guy likes to do this. for years, I would never thought I would lead the efforts of figuring a robot dance for a team. The rest evening were more intense discussion/modifications on Robot's functions, testing, debugging, modify, then test, debug... the typical routine of engineering work, same for software world. Periodically we will make fun of each other. Suddenly I realized that in my team, 6 people from 6 countries, China, U.S., Thailand, Kazakhstan, Kania and Italy. The English accents were all-over the map.

Program feeds us so well, various food from different countries, sweets, literally we can eat from the time we walked in till the time we left. We joked that we got fed so well to prevent out sleep. Since we are seriously working so many hours, noone talks about on diet but only complain eating too much. I told myself that I do not have to worry until Feb. to think about how I am going to fit into a wedding dress :) Several classmates ask me how I am going to plan a wedding in this crazy schedule. I told them that I have the best families and friends who help me all and support me to concentrate study here. They just could not believe that as some of them choose to get married in Nov. before school start, one even keep the engagement longer through the study. I am so thankful!!

Late night we tested Robot's Sumo movement and Archery. I have to say, my Olympic observation on some reports definitely help the design. After last moment brief of the day, we looked totally beat up. One more thing we will do together, the homework of Statistics on possibilities. Soon, we realize that this was absolutely the wrong time for us to do this assignment together by the end of long day, as our brains were so fading away. We kept missing the fun of getting possibilities on the questions, like choosing cards, disease control percentage among population... I even completely flip the basic concept of P{x1 and X2} vs. P{x1 or X2} in the discussion, some people nod along until another team member pointed out, we were too tired to think more. Call it close of the day, but no one disagree with the excitement we had through the day.

One thing bothered me so bad through statistics work, one teammate decided not to involve the work but borrow other team's complete homework and copy. We all have years of working experience under belt, school is not the same as undergraduate time, not a place using exam to test knowledge, but learn to meet our expectation to ourselves. The only competitors for us are ourselves. Why bother to copy others work for the sake of Grade? Plus, this statistics class is a catch-up lecture, only pass/fail as grade.

Day 1 -- a full house for a diverse group

Until the end of day, I know how long the day can be, and how much fun the day could be. Today is Day 1 of IAP, I got up around 6:00a.m. taken from one of alumni's suggestion, getting exercise daily is so important to push through IAP. I never get up this early, even go to gym. Definitely feel good. prior to 8:00 reach Wong Auditorium, meeting classmates. There are clearly two themes going on, one, non Bostonian, discussing about the weather, getting lost and all the new things we see, then there is Bostonian, talking about sports and work stuff. I am glad that some of my funny experiences have happened to other classmates.

SDM provides all three meals for IAP, in order to get all students concentrate. It is a long introduction over 5 hours, but so worth it. Everyone has an interesting background, totally different. Then Prof. Shaloan gave two hours presentation on leadership, links to his ESD.930 class. His simple description of Leadership, down to heart, making you think and agree totally. By 6:00p.m. we began our first DC(Design Challenge) project. We were given a high-end Lego to create arobot to do opening ceremony, Sumo, relay race, Scavenger hut, and archery. Here is the site. Lego, that is one of my favorite childhood games. Here are my 5 teammates: Azamat from Kazkhstan, work for Prime Minister; Edoardo, Newclear Scientist from MIT; Charles, Ph.D. in CS from U.K, Negiarian, running a firm in D.C.; Robert, UTC Chief Engineer; Ace, Ph.D from TX A&M on Areospace, System engineer; Azamat has no engineer background, so he was our negociator and researcher. Team voted me as a leader and everyone is so easy to work with. We can disagree but we always find out the way to reach an agreement. Until we assembly two robot, it was over 11:30p.m. We all left before midnight, which other teams are still there. talking about energy, someone saide SDM is full of people 'on Drug' (metopher here.) In chinese, we call it as 'pump up with Chichen blood'!

I am so thankful that I got my new laptop Lenovo T400 today as my Vaio got little drownsy today. What a timing! While I type this post, I feel like the time in Olympic Game '08, trying to squeeze time to capture the day. I told myself to put in 10 mins per day, just typing whatever got into my mind for the day, otherwise I would not get chance. So, sorry, my loyal reader, it may not be fun to read a blog without any review attention :(

Time for me to go to bed. Tomorrow is an another long day. Our first Design Challenge competition will be this Saturday.

Getting ready

Since I received my classes textbooks, I have been spending a lot of time to read through materials, getting ready for the classes, esp. in this snowy days, staying inside is not a bad idea. But, still, how can I pass on the opportunity to make a snowman with these perfect snow. Actually I got into a snow fight, hehe, I was in, not sure which team to join but got introduced by the end of 'fight'. As we told each other's names, we also mentioned which dept. from, so far in that fight, the conclusion was: physics major is super good in the game, the chemistry major is completely useless, even aiming the target :) Jan. is IAP time at MIT, there are not a lot of students on campus.

I have not cook a single thing since I came here, but meeting with people having multiple dinners, trying different styles. Yesterday I went with XiaoFang and his husband at a Chinese north-east food style restaurant, oh, I ate a lot. It is really a treat as that is the kind of food that I grow up with and I have not had for quite a while. Tonight, my class has a gathering. Everyone has an interesting background. The Israel couple, one studies at Wharton, one comes here. The Kazakhstan couple are both in SDM program. Some from defense background, some from financial side. All of us know that we will have a tough Jan. schedule. If you look at left side of reference link, find the jan. calendar, we have a full day packed schedule. I thought it starts 8:00a.m.-10p.m. My classmate corrects me that it will run to midnight with the update calendar. well, that is what I signed up for and I am ready for this challenge.

One of my professors post a link of his advice to engineering student: 10 tips . Definitely good advice.

The highlight of today is that I got an email that I was selected to join iTeam(innovation Team). This can not be joined through registration but application. I have heard so many times that how much Sloan and SDM students love this experience. I am quite happy. In MIT there are E-Lab, G-Lab, New enterprises, $100K and iTeam. When you look at the whole entrepreneurship, there are before, during and after sections. iTeam is the stage of 'Before' launching start-up, how to concert innovation idea into start-up, how to capture the innovation. New Enterprises and $100K belong to during section. then E-Lab and G-Lab belongs to 'after' stage. I will start from 'Before' in Spring term.