Andrey Vystavkin Blog

Chris Anderson from Wired Mag gives a great article covering some issues concerning Programming environment of Lego Mindstorms robots using different programming languages.

For anyone who’s ever programmed, there’s nothing better for understanding programming logic than properly tabbed and commented code, all in a column of text as God intended. And for your kids, there’s no time like the present to introduce real programming, using coding conventions that will be as relevant in the decades to come as they were in decades past.

Simple and straight advantage of RobotC platform - coding in plain C, with well written Documentation on each function used for NXT’s. For the last month, RobotC upgraded from v1.05 to 1.10, so there are some improvements and updates from Carnegie Mellon University developers.

A great news is that for our projects on Robotics and Automation subject, we have switched from Microsoft Robotics Studio to RobotC due to some reasons:

• Lack of documentation on MRS (Professional MRS from Wrox will be published at the end of the year)
• Missing some simulation sensors’ files for NXT (can’t test all the capacities of sensors without robot)
• Not all of students run Windows (but it can be managed via Wine)
• Full access to encoders and sensors data in simple programming manner.

As more sensors are about to come in stock, I believe NXT will become one of the easiest ways of implementing Robotics concepts and algorithms for students.

Cyprus Cyprus, Frederick University, Programming, Robotics

Some of you already know that for my senior Bachelor project I decided to do Robotics & Automation, since it is a brand new field of study for me.

Due to the fact that this project includes a lot of sensor fusion techniques and algorithms for positioning, I had to go through lots of IEEE research papers, since our university library in Limassol doesn’t have many books on the subject.

What I noticed was the fact that most of the research work goes from Northern Europe and Northern part of the USA:

• Germany
• USA (particularly UMC and MIT research centres)
• Finland

This is just a shallow list of countries involved in the research, however there are more to add. I’m not taking Japan or South Korea in account since this field of science is quiet popular there and it’s Asia - it’s completely different story. The main question of this article is: will this type of computer science and engineering become popular in Cyprus?

Read more…

Blogging, Cyprus, FIT Cyprus, Personal, Robotics, Thoughts and ideas

Due to the faculty specifics, most of the forth course classmates took Robotics & Automation course this semester.

For catching up the idea of automation procedures, the teacher gave us a small NXT Robot to play around. I couldn’t remember when was the last time I did these Lego stuff, however this NXT amazed me a lot.

This small “toy” is equipped with:

• Light Sensor (black and white spectrum)
• Ultrasound Sensor
• Bump Sensor
• Sound Sensor

Lots of things to play around, especially taking in account the programmatic aspects of NXT generation and Open Source C compiler for these robots: RobotC project.

Gadgets Cyprus, Frederick University, Frederick Universtiy, Interests, IT, Lego, NXT, Robotics

After staying for 3 years in Cyprus, studying in one of the main institutes of the island, the trip was something i definitely needed. Just to relax from the island, and the environment.

After, almost, half a day flight (since we went to Helsinki through Prague), we got in Finland, and stayed for 15 days in Leppavaara, where Evtek university was placed.

6 universities brought their groups, and after the first day, there appeared 5 international teams with representatives of each country.

Lectures were mainly about ICT Security issues, and network aspects of data protection, which was completely new for me, so I found it quite tough, but challenging enough to start collaborating with team members and learn quickly a lot of new stuff. Some of guys didn’t really want to do anything, because they found it or hard, or boring. But those two weeks of intensive courses were worth it, IMHO!

Finnish were really friendly. There were no problems in communication aspects, since I didn’t find anyone speaking only Finnish. Everybody speaks English, with slight accent, but it was really comprehensible if you compare it with Cypriot English, or Greek English and some other countries.

Hopefully to be continued…

Blogging, FIT Cyprus, Evtek, Finland, IT, Personal

Night. A thin line of seaside road’s light going along Limassol. A stormy wind at the sea, no people around, just a couple dancing waltz close to the pier of Kanika Enarios.

At these moments, I regret that I don’t carry camera with my - that was a beautiful picture!

Cyprus Cyprus, Limassol, Personal, Views

As it appeared, in few weeks, somewhere in the old city part of Limassol, the municipality plans to open a Limassol University of Technology. Great idea, especially when the main studying resorts like Intercollege and Frederick Institute are planning to achieve the status of University this year.

After studying three years in the institute, I’ll be graduating already the university: sounds good, but already some changes started to piss off:

• Someone decided to start filtering Lab computers according to the Internet usage (they could have left at least admin logins unfiltered,damn!)
• The rumours about increasing payment fees up to the “university” level (will be equal to 1 year MSc payment fees).
• Free wi-fi over the whole building. (Did anyone tell where to find the installation settings, or it’s for VIP’s?!)

Well, in September, all filials of Frederick Institute should be prepared for getting the status of the university, which university, and who’ll be prepared by that time and how well - no one knows…

Cyprus, FIT Cyprus, Frederick University, Limassol, News, Personal, Rumors