Interesting Talk at CMU - Dont Miss It!

Carnegie Mellon University has a Silicon Valley campus to allow students to study here in the high tech mecca that is Silicon Valley.  On this campus, they have a weekly technical talk series called Talks On Computing Systems (TOCs) which has had a long line of distinguished speakers.  For example, in two weeks, Ted Hoff, the inventor of the microprocessor will discuss his work.

We at Digital Diner are excited to announce that our very own Widdakay will be speaking as part of this talk series next month!  He was asked to speak about his current science fair project and how he creates the gadgets he builds.  The talk will be technical, so be prepared.  A live webcast will be available, so even if you are not local, you can tune in live at talk time!  Of course, the event will be posted to the Digital Diner Calendar as well.

Date/Time:	April 10, 1:30 pm PT
Title:	Building a Robot for Autonomously Photo-Documenting Parks
Abstract:	In this presentation, I will describe my current project to build an autonomous robot for taking 360˚, Google Street View-style photos of park trails. The project will ultimately consist of a two-wheeled balancing robot platform with a stabilized, panoramic camera and an OpenCV-based vision and path planning system. It is still early in the project, but I will demonstrate the current prototype components and discuss future plans. As background, I will also give you a glimpse of my world. As a young Maker, I have access to complex software technologies and hardware parts to create systems that are surprisingly sophisticated. The wide availability of hardware platforms, such as the Arduino, and open source software are amazing resources for the home hobbyist. I will tell you where I find these tools, how to start using them and, I hope, inspire you to build gadgets of your own.
Speaker Bio:	Mr. Meike is a 13 year old homeschooler who is fascinated by hardware and software and loves to create things. He has always been fascinated with how things worked. His first interest was plumbing, then came vacuums, then four stroke engines and then electronics. By the time he was 6 years old, he had created his first simple electronic circuit, etched his own circuit board and soldered it together. In the years since then, he has gone on to design and build several complex systems such as a self-contained, 13 gram device which measures and logs 12 different sensors, to record the flight of a model rocket. He has earned both Technician and General class amateur radio licenses. He has won his category in the San Mateo Science Fair every time he entered, received the Silicon Boule Award at the California State Science Fair, and shown his projects at the Maker Faire on multiple occasions. Four years ago, he and two friends won the North Star Academy Invention Showcase for designing and building an electric car from scratch that was capable of carrying a driver and passenger at speeds that made his parents quite nervous.

More information is available here: http://www.cmu.edu/silicon-valley/news-events/seminars/2012/meike-talk.html

Information on TOCS is available here: http://www.cmu.edu/silicon-valley/news-events/seminars/index.html