RYAN KAMPHIUS 4 UTSAV GANDHI campus@technewsnt.com TechNews I Tuesday, March 22, 2011 IPRO 363 : This week's Language Link ‘. (Photo courtesy Monica Samelson) By Monica Samelson TECHNEWS WRITER Asfandyar is from Rawalpindi, Pakistan and we’d like you to meet him! What’s your name? Asfandyar Khan Where are you originally from? Rawal— pindi, Pakistan What is your major and what year are you at IIT? Architectural Engineering, 3rd year What’s your native language? Urdu Do you speak any languages other than your native language and English? Pashto and English Can you tell us how to say a few common phrases in your native language? How are you? Aap kya haal hai? Do you want to watch a movie with me? Mera saath movie dekhni hai? What’s your name? Aap kya naam hai? You’re beautiful (man to woman). Aap bo— hat khobsarat hain. Are there any specific customs or tradi- tions relating to your culture that you’d like to share? Whenever you are talking to an elder you address with him more respect than you would talking to a friend. You usually greet people by saying Aslam—o—lakiem, which liter— ally means peace be upon you, not hi. Good friends usually greet eachother by hugging (man to man). It is not customary to shake hands or hug women. What brought you to join us here in Chi- cago, and why did you choose IIT? I applied to a lot ofcolleges, but IIT had the major I most desired and provided the best scholarships. Do you like it here? I love it here. What’s your favorite way to stay in touch with your culture when you’re here in Chi- cago? I talk to my mom. What Chicago experience has been most fun or interesting to you so far? Walking downtown past midnight. What is the oddest cultural change/ shift you experienced when coming to the USA? Being able to wear my own clothes in high school — not uniform. Interview conducted by Nattasha Vifias of IPRO 363. Looking to find someone to learn a new language with? Keep your eyes open for Language Link next semester, pioneered by IPRO 363. Email ipro363@googlegroups. com for more information, but here’s a general round—up: Language Link is a new IPRO that’s building a websitefor IIT that can work to match up stu- dents according to their language learning needs, as they hope to be part ofIIT’s up-and-coming foreign language program. The website will work sort oflike a dating site - using a matching algo- rithm to match up people according to various factors, such as language proficiency, classes, ex- tracurricular interests, and languages of interest. Illinois Tech robots have sweeping victory By Adin Goings TECHNEWS WRITER On March 11—12 the 24th annual AMD Jerry Sanders De— sign Competition (ISDC) was held on the campus of UIUC in Urbana, IL. The contest is a two day robotics competition held during UIUC’s engineering open house every March, attracting robotics teams from across the Midwest to compete for a $2000 first place prize and an award for most creative robot design. Every year the competition changes to challenge the teams’ engineering ingenuity and design creativity. IIT’s own Illinois Tech Robotics (ITR) proved that they had plenty of both this year by taking home both titles. The competition this year focused around new game pieces. Robots were tasked with picking up four—inch—diameter Nerf balls and placing them in a scoring bin during four—robot, free— for—all matches. While there were balls placed about the field, the robots could perform certain actions to unlock more game pieces. These actions included opening a door, pulling down a hula hoop, spinning a handle, and firing a cannon. However, one of the vital elements of this year’s game was the ability to steal balls out of an enemy’s scoring bin to de—score points for them and subsequently, score the points for your own bin. This proved to be a tide—turning element for matches throughout the competition. ITR entered four robots into this year’s ISDC, the first of which was Roslund, the defending ISDC champion. During the year, ITR members worked hard to strip down and rebuild Roslund, replacing its old systems with newer, more efficient ones. Student Eric Musarra was in charge of controlling the ro— bot during competition. In a remarkable final round, Roslund stole a ball in the last minute to push itself ten points above the competition and win the championship title for the second year in a row The second robot entered by ITR was Colonel, an old high school level FIRST competition robot. In addition to rebuilding the patent—pending continuously variable transmissions and re— pairing the omni—directional crab steering, Colonel had been refitted for the competition by having a new manipulator arm and novel scoring device. The arm is mounted so that it can pick up balls and drop them inside of its chassis into a self—feeding ball shooter, which launched them across the field so that Col— onel could score points at a distance. Colonel made it to the semi—final round, but was knocked out of the competition when he got pushed off a higher platform and thus disabled. Colonel put on an impressive display scoring points from all over the field without having to move back to his goal box. It was so im— pressive that the judges gave Colonel the creative design award for the ingenuity of the design. ITR also entered Penguin, their quadcopter, which achieved stable flight for the first time in public. Penguin received an honorable mention in the creative design category for being one of the first aerial robots entered in ISDC (the other being a quadcopter built by an IEEE team from UIUC, entered along— side Penguin). The final ITR robot is Fenrir, an intimidating and unique two wheeled—robot that uses a gravity drive to propel (Photos courtesy Ryan Kamphuis) itself. The team impressively began to master the intricacies of controlling the dynamically—complex platform scoring for its first time during the event. Fenrir was eliminated in the quarter finals; however, it was an exciting match where Fenrir assisted in Colonel’s advancement to the semi—finals by blocking other robots from scoring, allowing Colonel to top the leader board for the round. When asked how they were going to celebrate their victory, the members of ITR had a unanimous answer: “sleep.” After nearly 48 straight hours of working on robots they were ex— hausted, but they had smiles on their faces. The most amazing part of all this is that it was all imagined, designed, fabricated, and created by students of all interest levels and experience lev— els. If you are interested in getting involved with the amazing things ITR does, feel free to stop by a general body meeting (every Friday at 6:30 pm.) in the ITR lab located in 3424 S State St. or any day ofthe week between 6:00 pm. and 10:00 pm. You may also visit us on the web at www.illinoistechrobotics.org.