Since my last update I have been somewhat productive. In September I traveled to Nice, France to attend the Teaching HRI to Humans workshop hosted at IROS 2008. I was bumped by my friend and colleague Dr. Jenny Burke to present a talk regarding my experiences at the 2008 HRI Young Pioneers workshop, and discuss what students expect from an HRI curriculum. I think it went rather well, due largely to the fact that, even though I had already created a presentation, I spent the entire flight to Europe contemplating what I was going to say. My presentation was the first day of the conference which allowed me to explore Nice and sit in on other talks the remainder of the week. After writing this I just remembered that I owe Jenny a paper.
Then in November I traveled to College Station, TX to assist Dr. Jenny Burke in data collection for a NIST exercise that was taking place at Disaster City. We were testing a paperless workload measure tool (Work-IT) that Jenny has been working on for a year or so. On this trip I was essentially a support ninja... I helped with data collection, used my script-fu to get us out of some binds, assisted with setting up and tearing down the maze, and got a little bit of a tan in the process.
Now the new year is upon us, and it looks like a large portion of it is already accounted for. I have three journal length drafts that I need to put back on the top of the stack and get them submitted. I also would like to do some sort of write up for the iPhone/Packbot interface that I developed over the summer of last year, and I need to work on that HRI paper that I just remembered that I owe Jenny.
Since I am down a major professor this semester I had to search beyond my typical research assistant funding, and was fortunate enough to secure a position as a TA. I've never been a TA before even though it's my third year as a graduate student... I have Dr. Murphy to thank for helping me pull that off. I've been assigned to the C for Engineers course with Dr. Turner, and this past Thursday was my first class. I was nervous at first, there are about 30 students in my lab, which is quite a bit larger than the audiences I've had to speak in front of in the past (if you don't count the time that I ran for class president in elementary school). Once I got past the initial awkwardness of being up there, and adjusted my voice so that people all the way in the back could hear me, things were fine. I think it's going to be a fun learning experience.
As far as classes go, I'm taking as few as possible. There just aren't that many graduate courses that keep my interest, they generally turn out to be a chore instead of a pleasure. I did find one class over in the Psychology department that I've registered for, and I think it's going to be a good one: Art, Design, and the Brain. It's taught by Dr. Sanocki, and he's teaching the course because the topic is a personal interest of his, that fact alone makes it worth taking to me. Part of our assigned reading comes from the book Emotional Design by Donald A. Norman. What really surprised me was that the last couple chapters in the book are actually dedicated to my thesis topic, not my specific work obviously (i have yet to publish) but similar. I've already done the assigned reading for next week and want to keep going.
I think this post covers most of what I've been meaning to blog about, but kept putting off. If it does take me until the end of this semester to update again, I hope that I can at least say it was because I was finishing up some of the publications that I've had collecting digital dust.
That Art, Design, and the Brain class sounds pretty awesome, and (in my lame-o, non-engineering brain) I'm wondering on what level it ties in to your interest in artificial emotion. Does it cover conception/perception of design in the human brain, and/or does it delve deeper into the nervous system/emotional connection to the interpretation of art/design?
(or is it neither? In which case, I'd like to know what the class covers, if you wouldn't mind explaining)
I'm surprised by how much this class applies to AI Robotics. We've probably spent more time talking about robots than anything else. We're reading "Emotional Design" by Donald Norman as the class text, and there are a couple chapters in that book dedicated to emotional machines. The class itself talks about emotion, aesthetics, and creativity on cognitive and neuroscientific levels. So I think I can say yes to both of your questions.
A lot of the material covered in the class is based on student interest, and since there are people from all over campus enrolled in the class we have a wide array of topics (as long as we can tie it in to art, design, and the brain).
It's a cool class, I think you'd like it... as long as you don't mind leading class discussions and doing lots of reading each week. :)
-rod
The way you describe it, this book reminds me a little of Daniel J. Levitin's This Is Your Brain On Music [a great book, if you ever get a chance to read non-cass stuff].
It makes sense - on a very general level: the networks in the human brain are often compared to the processing units in computers. I'm generally in awe of how something as intricate as human emotion can be translated to code. Then again, when you look at it - emotions are but electrical impulses, when you break them down.
I took your word for it, and found the book online - I'm curious, which means I'll be curious until I read it and find out for myself. I think it's a sickness, but you probably already know that...