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Hey. My name is Julius Smith and I attend Winston-Salem State University. I am a rising senior, Computer Science major with a concentration in Computer Graphics. I am doing my summer REU at Duke Univerity under Dr. Jeffrey Forbes. The research area is mapping and localisation. I am using the Player/Stage/Gazebo project to develop a model of the SmURV platform and run simulations involving object recognition and obstacle avoidance, and do the same using an actual SmURV platform. After leaving I would like to take the knowledge that I have gained here and share it with my fellow students at WSSU. I really appreciate this opportunity and I plan to make the best of it.

This week I have been mainly using the sick laser, the beginning of the snackbot, to build maps of each floor in Carnegie Mellon’s Newell Simon Hall. The process simply involves running the sickLogger program on a laptop and driving the robot base around so that the laser can collect data.

After I finished scanning the entire floor, I went back to the lab and converted the data in to a map image using Mapper3. Below is a map image created before I arrived.

I have also been learning how to use various software that will be needed in actually teleoperating the robot once it is completly built. My task now, among others, is to write code that will display the status of the various senors on the robot

This past week I have been focusing on creating state machines for the speech components of the robot. I have also learned how to run speech tests using these state machines. Its kind of cool being able to actually talk to the software. It still has a few bugs in it, but for the most part it does what it is suppose to. The microphone that we are using is huge. It looks more like a speaker than a mic. In fact its bigger the both of the speakers that we might be using put together. It is a high tech mic though, it even has lights on the front that tell you what direction the sound is coming from. Jessica and I also have been creating maps via the software that came with the SICK laser. The laser uses a mirror to reflect a light beams out at 180 degrees in what I believe are 1 degree radians. It then measures the time that it takes the light beams to return to create a 2D map of its surroundings. So far we have created maps for the first, second, and A level floors. Can’t wait to see it all come together.