2013 Dragon*Con - Robot Battles

My husband and I attended Dragon*Con on Sunday for Robot Combat. Dragon*Con is a four-day multi-genre convention that takes place in Atlanta, Georgia on the Labor Day weekend every year. We missed its annual parade on Saturday this year, where parade participants dressed like monsters, superheros, and etc. However, people were dressed up at the convention for the whole weekend. We were busy taking pictures with participants who wore amazing costumes such as the elf and one of Gru's minions in the animation Despicable Me.

Robot Combat is a competition where two custom-built machines use various methods of destroying the other or pushing the other out of the arena. The machines are usually remote-controlled. The one we went was Robot Battles, which is the second oldest robot competition following Critter Crunch in Denver. This was the 47th Robot Battles and the 23rd year in a roll that Robot Battles took place at the Dragon*Con convention. 

Robot Battles was held for Sunday and Monday, featuring small bots and big bots. The one we went on Sunday was for the small bots - Robot MicroBattles. The competition featured an 8' x 8' arena competition for two weight classes of robots - one pound Antweights and three pound Beetleweights.

The rule set for any kind of Robot Combat is usually lengthy. The one for Robot Battles is a bit shorter due to the three "Spirit Rules":

"A. Frankenstein Rule: If a vehicle proves sufficiently offensive to the audience, the audience may, at their discretion, light torches, take pitchforks in hand, and throw the robot and its operator in the nearest creek or large body of water.

B. Bad Idea Rule: If, during the design of your robot, you think that something would be a bad idea, then just don't do it. 

C. No cheating! This covers spirit-of-the competition type violations."

However, no matter how "shorter" it is, the rule set is still very long. For the complete rule set, please see here. 

There were a large number of robots participating (around 30), so instead of having to win two out of three combat rounds to be declared the winner, it was a single elimination. There was a two minute limit in the Ant and Beetle weight classes. When neither robot achieved a victory condition (i.e., destroying/disabling the other or pushing the other out of the arena), the combat round was declared a draw and both robots began a new round.

There was also a "hazard" area in the middle, where a robot would get shocked by electricity when it fell in. If three successive draws were declared, the hazard area would become a dead zone where a robot was declared lost when it fell in.

In addition to ordinary Weegeebots, there were also robots with vertical or horizontal saws. When the latter were fighting, you could really see sparkles and hear the scary drilling noises like in the dentist's office! I could almost feel the victim robot screaming! At the end there came the rumble where all the robots (that were not fully destroyed in the previous one-on-one combats) fought each other until everybody but one (the winner) was dead.

There were some robotic workshops around in the afternoon. We wend to one related to Electric Vehicles. It was hosted by Charles Guan and his website can be found here. 

My fourth TEDxPeachtree blogpost

2013 Speaker Spotlight: Mark Riedl

Link to the original article: http://tedxpeachtree.com/2013-speaker-spotlight-mark-riedl/

Mark Riedl, a 2011 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Awards recipient, is an inspiring computer science researcher who looks for ways of applying basic research to real world problems and problems of the future.

As an Assistant Professor in the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing and director of the Entertainment Intelligence Lab, Dr. Riedl’s research focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence, virtual worlds, and storytelling. His work on computational narrative intelligence catalyzes a number of important capabilities and applications that benefit humanity.

In May, DARPA published a news release about Dr. Riedl’s research on how computers can automatically construct interactive, cultural training models from the combined experiences of army soldiers based on a storytelling system he has developed.

“A lot of the conflict we had was just misunderstanding of other people’s culture because of not being familiar with it,” he said. “If we can get people who have gone down range to Iraq and Afghanistan and are immersed in the cultures to tell stories about what actually happened to them in the real world, we can take their stories and bring them back into the computer. We can zip all these stories together, create a common understanding of all the things that could happen, and twist around and spit out new stories that can be similar to the ones that have happened or can be very different.”

Dr. Riedl’s training-generation system is called “Scheherazade.” In the story of One Thousand and One Nights, also known as Arabian Nights, the character Scheherazade tells king Shahryar a story every night to spare her life, and with her great stories continuing for 1001 nights, Shahryar ended up making Scheherazade his queen. “How hard would that be to tell a really convincing story every single day?” he said. “I saw that as the goal for our system, that you can tell hundreds of thousands of different novel stories without massive computational overhead.”

The driving force behind Dr. Riedl’s work has been to answer the question, “How can we make computers smarter so they can play a facilitating role in creating and executing virtual learning experiences?” The smarter the computer is and the more it understands how things work, the more it can play a role in facilitating entertainment and educational experiences that humans can have.

Dr. Riedl is approaching human-centered Artificial Intelligence (AI) from two directions. While the DARPA project aims to make computers creative, Dr. Riedl is also leading a National Science Foundation (NSF) project where he and his team have set out to find ways that computers can help humans to better express their own creativity. “People are already creative, but sometimes they have a hard time expressing creativity.” Dr. Riedl and his team are seeking to instill intelligence in the computer to enable amateurs to create complex digital animations.

“I am fascinated by the human mind, the potential of the human mind. Look at all the things humans can do. They are very creative and expressive.” Dr. Riedl’s passion for human-centered AI can be traced back to the second grade. After watching the movie Tron, he was amazed by the idea of having a computer world with intelligent game-playing characters. Shortly after, he decided he wanted to learn programming. By the seventh grade, he was using technology to express his own creativity by making sophisticated computer programs and competing at the state Science Fair.

Dr. Riedl continues to search for and develop new methods to apply technology as a catalyst to assist humans in expressing their creativity. He reminds us that the perfect symbiosis between humans and computers is achieved when computers facilitate the natural creativity within humanity. “This is human-centered AI, and we would like to make sure human is the central part of what we are doing.”

My third TEDxPeachtree blogpost

Steelcase in the backyard

Link to the original article: http://tedxpeachtree.com/steelcase-in-the-backyard/

One of the favorite things I used to do when moving into a new environment was to explore the workspaces that were accessible to me. I spent the majority of my first week of college life on campus visiting buildings after buildings, hoping to find a perfect space where I would enjoy the most when studying. Six years later and over 8,000 miles away from home, I found here in Atlanta this familiar spirit that I had lost for a long time. No matter which colleges they belonged to, numerous Georgia Tech students came to the Klaus Advanced Computing Building (KACB) at the center of the campus, simply to find their own favorite spots.

Dedicated in 2006, KACB is the home to the College of Computer Science and the College of Computational Science and Engineering. When standing outside the building, you can feel the glass walls and doors are encouraging you to stroll in. The interior of the building beautifully blends a variety of workspaces that are waiting for users’ customization. Tired of the ordinary rectangular seating area and would like to create your own shape? The movable work surfaces and mobile pedestals enable users like you and me to reconfigure the workspace to fit our needs at the moment.

These unconventional workspaces were created by Steelcase, a global leader in office environment creation. For 100 years, Steelcase has been bringing human insight to business by studying how people work, wherever they work. As a longtime sponsor of TED, Steelcase has built immersive spaces that give TED attendees places to interact and collaborate. This global environment creator also launched its centennial anniversary at the 2012 TED Conference at Long Beach in California, inviting TEDsters to dream and think about the future of the world and work.

Jim Hackett, the CEO of Steelcase, has been coming to TED since 1988. “The TED conference has endorsed two key options.” he says, “One: The pursuit of knowledge is of lifelong importance. Two: The power of networks only gets stronger if you include others.” Bill Strickland’s 2002 TED talk was a great example to demonstrate this spirit. Strickland dedicates his life to helping disadvantaged kids and adults pursue knowledge by partnership with big businesses, from Heinz to Hewlett-Packard, from Steelcase to eBay.

Born in the crumbling remains of the Pittsburgh steel economy, Strickland founded Bidwell Training Center, a world-class vocational school in the toughest neighborhood in Pittsburgh with the highest crime rate. He believes that the spiritual cancers embedded in troubled students and displaced adults can be cured by showing them humanity in kindness, and by giving them second chances in an inspiring environment with sunlight, flowers, food, Herbie Hancock’s music, and positive expectations. The school has attracted world-class instructors and guests as Strickland includes others in this belief. I believe after that TED talk he again built at least one new partnership with big businesses.Like Georgia Tech students and me, the desire to be exposed to new ideas led us to enjoy the innovative design of workspaces by Steelcase. In addition, from Strickland’s talk, we learned that the desire to new ideas that could improve human life is universal, and the inspiration of the ideas can possibly be picked up just from our backyard. In the TED spirit of Ideas Worth Spreading, what ideas would you like to share with other TEDsters at the upcoming 2013 TEDxPeachtree Conference?

My second TEDxPeachtree blogpost

A Month of Unconditional Dedication to Safety

Link to the original article: http://tedxpeachtree.com/a-month-of-unconditional-dedication-to-safety/

June is National Safety Month. Each June, the National Safety Council (NSC) organizes this annual observance to educate the public and raise awareness in the leading causes of injuries and deaths. In honor of the NSC celebrating its 100th anniversary of safety awareness this year, I would like to showcase breakthroughs in safety improvement history via TED, in the order of topics the NSC is featuring each week of this month.

Week one is on Slips, Trips and Falls, with particular emphasis on falls from heights. Falling is one of the major causes of injuries and fatalities in our work places. Although he might not help you much in preventing injuries in the office, Steve Truglia has stories to share. As a stuntman, the number of times Truglia has fallen out of buildings is most likely more than I have cut my own fingers in the kitchen. See how technology has made stunts safer, and Truglia’s incredible planning for a breathtaking jump from 120,000 feet high.

The second week focuses on Employee Wellness, with an emphasis on the overdose of prescription painkillers. Deaths from overdose of prescription painkillers have skyrocketed in the past decade, but how severe is it exactly? Chris Jordan transformed a simple image of a pill by multiplying the imagery using the astonishing number of emergency room visits attributable to abuse and misuse of prescription painkillers, and anti-anxiety medications to an oversized wall image. Other imagery that raises awareness includes the destructive power of cigarettes, and various social issue images with high statistics in the United States.

The third week is Emergency Preparedness. As millions of people are displaced by natural disasters every single year, organizations are increasingly aware of the importance of emergency plans. I still remember when the HR department at my company handed me an emergency survival kit backpack during my new hire orientation, even before I had a chance to introduce myself to everyone in the room! Dedicated to solving the massive housing gap after devastating disasters, Michael McDaniel spent his own personal savings and free time to design and build a low-cost shelter that is easily transportable and post-disaster efficient.

The fourth week is on the issue of Ergonomics. The International Ergonomics Association defines ergonomics as “the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.” In essence, it is the study of designing equipment and devices that fit the human body and its cognitive abilities. If you are suffering from back or neck pain while sitting at the desk reading this article, you might want to check out Niels Diffrient’s talk on important design elements of an ergonomic chair.

Every time I watch TED talks, I am fascinated by the arresting ideas, dedication and passion of  human beings. Have a safe summer with greater awareness from the NSC and I hope you enjoyed watching the great inventions and wisdom on safety in these TEDx stories.

Corporate Finance Three Principles

Back in 2009 when I was preparing for the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exam Level II, one of my studymates introduced me to the website of Aswath Damodaran. Damodaran is a Finance professor at Stern School of Business at New York University, who teaches Corporate Finance, Valuation, and Portfolio Management. This website was very resourceful when I was learning financial modeling.

Recently I revisited the website and learned that the website not only offered financial modeling tutorial, but also concepts for Corporate Finance. I like Professor Damodaran's perspective of Corporate Finance principles in this audio, and I summarized the content as below:

In order to maximize the value of the business, all of Corporate Finance is built on three principles:

1. The Investment Principle: determines where businesses invest their resources - invest in assets and projects that yield a return greater than the minimum acceptable hurdle rate. The hurdle rate should be higher for risky project. This includes assets or projects that will either generate more revenue, or cut down costs. This basically covers the whole "Assets" section on the balance sheet, such as decisions about how much and what inventory to maintain and whether and how much credit to grant to customers. This also includes which markets to enter and acquisitions of other companies. There might be regulatory and other real-world constraints on the financing mix that a business can use.

2. The Financing Principle: Choose a financing mix (debt and equity) that maximizes the value of the investments made and match the financing to nature of the assets being financed. That is, we want to pick a financing mix that minimize the hurdle rate. With a public-traded company, debt may take the form of bonds and equity is usually common stock. In a private business, debt is more likely to be bank loans and an owner's savings represents equity. Have outlined the optimal financing mix, we turn our attention to the type of financing a business should use, such as whether it should be long-term or short-term, whether the payments on the financing should be fixed or variable, and if variable, what it should be a function of. Using a basic proposition that a firm will minimize its risk from financing and maximize its capacity to use borrowed funds if it can match up the cash flows on the debt to the cash flows on the assets being finance, we design the perfect financing instrument for a company. We then add additional considerations relating to taxes and external monitors (equity research analysts and rating agencies) and arrive at strong conclusions about the design of the financing.

3. The Dividend Principle: How much earnings should be reinvested back into the business and how much should be returned to the owners of the business -If there are not enough investments that earn the hurdle rate, return the cash to the owners of the business.

Ultimate Objective: Maximize the value of the business. Consequently, any decision (investment, financing, or dividend) that increases the value of a business is considered a good one, and vice versa. The value of a company is the present value of its expected cash flows, discounted back at a rate that reflects both the riskiness of the projects of the company and the financing mix used to finance them.

How CFA Membership Has Benefited Me

The 2013 Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exam is around the corner. I volunteered to proctor one of the mock exams with Kaplan this morning. The CFA program is a three-level exam towards earning the CFA designation upon related work experience, and the designation is a global gold standard for finance and investment professionals, particularly in the fields of investment management and financial analysis of stocks, bonds and their derivative assets. I started the Level I exam in 2009, and completed the Level III in 2012. Since then, I have been an affiliate member with both the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Atlanta. I look forward to accumulating four years of related work experience to become a CFA charter holder, hopefully, in 2017! 

There are two types of CFA memberships at the Society Level. Regular Membership is for those who has passed CFA Level I and has had four years of related working experience. Affiliate Membership is for those who are not qualified for regular membership. Take me as an example, although I have passed Level III, I have not had enough years of work experience so I am only eligible for Affiliate Membership. However, both regular and affiliate members can have access to the same resources provided by both the CFA Institute and the local CFA society. 

The CFA Institute provides learning resources, research tools, career resources, and access to contact info of all the CFA members, which was a great help for me when I was looking for a job several months ago. Two of my favorite features are Morning NewsBrief and getAbstract. When you become a member, the CFA Institute allows you to sign up for Morning NewBrief, which delivers important financial news to your email box daily. getAbstract is a vendor which summarizes every book into five pages. All the CFA members have access to all the business-related books on getAbstract for free.On the society level, the CFA Society of Atlanta hosts luncheons about once a month, featuring one speaker a time. Sometimes they do dinners as well. One of the dinners was the annual forecasting event back in February 2013, where Jim Rogers was the speaker! 

On top of those luncheons and dinners, the society also hosts career events. I have been to one so far, it was back in October 2012 and the topic was about how to get your resume noticed. Since this year, the CFA Society of Atlanta also started to host some pure networking event. The first was a cocktail happy hour in March 2013, free to members and guests - the guests had to pay for their own drinks though.

There are decent amount of volunteer opportunities with the society. Since I started volunteering in October 2012, I have been involved with different programs such as University Outreach - try to get the CFA designation noticed at universities (I have not made progress in my part...), 2013 CFA Institute Research Challenge - a business competition for grad/college students, and the CFA mock exams - as the one today.

My first TEDxPeachtree blogpost!

The Exploration Revolution: When TED-Ed met Webby

Link to the original article: http://tedxpeachtree.com/the-exploration-revolution-when-ted-ed-met-webby/

After having lived on the other side of the world for over 20 years, in 2009, I decided to come to the States to taste the feeling of leaving my comfort zone. Leaving the comfort zone was quite uncomfortable honestly. After her third attempt, I finally understood the simple sentence “How are you doing?” on the street from a friendly lady who tried to greet me. Apparently the slow-speed English learning tapes in my hometown did not prepare me well enough for the reality. With my heart in my mouth, I searched the web ferociously for good English learning websites, and that was about when I discovered TED. It did not take me long to step into TED Talks without captions from those with captions, not because my English listening ability improved at the speed of light, but because the talks transcended my original intention of purely picking up vocabularies and paved the way for a journey of exploration, from Simon Sinek’s golden circle to Boaz Almog’s superconductor, from Hyeonseo Lee’s escape from North Korea to learning how to move the whole body with the tongue withMaysam Ghovanloo at TEDxPeachtree 2012, where I finally made my first on-site exploration.

And….TED-Ed brought this journey of exploration to zenith. TED-Ed is a curated list of educational videos on a variety of topics, created under the collaborations between educators and animators. I am excited to share the news that as recent as Apr 30, 2013, TED-Ed won three Webby Awards. The Webby Awards, also known as “Oscars of the Internet”, is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet including websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile and apps. Award categories range from Arts to Community, from Shopping to Weird. Two winners are selected in each category: the Webby Winner, picked by judges, and the People’s Voice winner, voted by the public. Well known Webby Awards 2013 winners include Google Maps for iPhone and Songza, a popular music streaming service provider. TED-Ed was awarded both Webby Winner and People’s Voice in Education, and was selected as the Webby Winner for Best Practices. It’s quite a recognition that Webby witnessed the education revolution hatched by TED-Ed as my exploration ventured into this newly found territory. Did you ever wonder the mechanism of thinking? Let’s take a tour with Trevor Maber on TED-Ed to explore our brains.

Here, you can see “Watch”, “Think”, and “Dig Deeper” buttons alongside the video. The “Watch” feature is similar to a typical TED talk, which plays a video. Upon completing the video, by clicking the “Think” button, you will be prompted to questions, which can be either multiple choice or open answer questions. One cool feature, among other things, is that you can click “Video Hint” and the little video on the top right corner will replay the section of the lesson where you can find the answer. For example, Maber uses a ladder as an analogy to the process of our thinking (Ladder of Inference), and there are seven rungs in total. When I was asked for the mechanism of the second rung, by clicking the “Video Hint” button it reinforced my memory of that particular detail. If you are interested in learning more about the topic as I am, “Dig Deeper” can save you some “mousewalk” on the Internet. In this case, it demonstrates some hands-on activities, as well as points me to relevant websites, to help me better understand the Ladder of Inference.

The same ‘Watch’, ‘Think’ and ‘Dig Deeper’ format applies to every TED-Ed video. I was glad when I found on TED-Ed Susan Cain’s The Power of Introverts, a talk I had watched on the TED website over a year ago. Different from the previous video, this one is not an animation, but a typical TED talk video that allows you to see the speaker’s face. It’s like a recap for me but with additional resources provided in “Dig Deeper.” I can’t wait for the weekend to come to explore further on this topic. Life is a journey of exploration, and exploration continues with TED-Ed.