My Blog

A Guiness World Record!

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:40:36 +1100

Today we beat the guiness world record for a solar powered car. IVy is officially the fastest solar car in the world. The old record was 77.6, and the new record is 88.7km/h. Nice work team!

Zomojo

Mon, 9 Nov 2009 18:38:32 +1100

I’ve started working for Zomojo, which is a small high-speed derivatives trading company based in the Sydney CBD. It’s basicallya hedge-fund, but the main product is technology. It’s a little bit like the best of a financial company combined with the best of an IT company. The engineers are the stars of the show, and are really on the coal face. Very cool. Can’t say too much more withou giving the game away!

2009 World Solar Challenge

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:20:08 +1100

I took the last two months after finishing my PhD to work on the UNSW Solar Powered Car. I realise that this is a little bit like a broken record -- most people who know me are pretty over hearing about solar cars... But this was an amazing race.

At the start of 2008, Clara Mazzone took over the reins of the solar car team. I started talking to her about what would be required early on and she managed to find the people with the expertise to bring it together.

Fast forward to mid-2009, and a team had come together who were capable of building and racing a solar powered car. Chris Beves and Graham Doig did the aerodynamic design, Luke Bycroft and Campbell McLaren did the bulk of the mechanical engineering work, and I supervised a group of students who worked on the electronics. Of course, I managed to get involved in plenty of the mechanical side of things... Designing the array, guiding the manufacturing process for the car, doing a bunch of carbon work, and generally serving as set of eyes that had seen how things were done before.

The result was fantastic. Luke and Campbell pulled off the mechanical side of the car with real flair. The car was the fourth lightest out of around 40 entries, at 168kg. Our aerodynamics were almost certainly the best, an our electrical system worked nearly flawlessly (if you discount a problem with the driver controls on the first day).

During the five days of the race, we over-took nearly the entire fleet, and one of the most exciting moments of the race occurred on the fourth day, when we finally caught up with the leader in our class -- MIT. We slowly reined them in, with a difference in speed of only a few km/h. At least, we were close enough, and decided to burn the energy required to overtake. Later that night, they drove in to our camp site -- they’d run their batteries completely flat trying to stay ahead, and stopped on an up-hill at the end of the day.

The following day we cruised in to Adelaide as victors in the silicon class (i.e. cars with solar arrays that cost less than ~$1,000,000 -- ours cost $50,000). We also came fourth over-all, beating many teams in the open class.

PhD’s done!

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:04:51 +1000

I write this retroactively... It seems prudent to fill in the last three years.

I finished the PhD, at long last, on 31st of August. I walked up to the Graduate research school, handed over five neatly bound copies, and a disk, and walked back to NICTA. I was more relieved, and elated, than I’d felt in a long time! It was a fantastic experience. In fact both the PhD itself, and the finishing of it, were fantastic experiences.

A few thoughts on PhDs:
• Everyone goes through the blues. It usually happens in about second year, when the student involved starts to doubt themselves, and starts to see their project going nowhere. This is a test, and it’s what makes a PhD hard. The ability to push through these moments of doubt, to continue chipping away at a seemingly impossible task, is what successful PhD candidates prove.
• Not all PhDs are the same. It’s like anything. Different fields have different standards. Different supervisors have different standards. I like to think that mine were the highest level.
• Arrogance (or confidence?) goes a long way in academia. To have the audacity to tell the world that you’re right and they’re wrong, you need to have a firm belief in yourself. Unfortunately, this gives rise to the next point.
• Academics will argue to make it right. In academia, a lot of the work is in discussion. Conferences, workshops, journals, meetings, secondments, internships, etc, are all designed to generate ideas. Unfortunately, the only rigorous proof of many of those ideas (particularly in the systems field) is in the implementation. Since an implementation is often outside the realm of possibility (since academics tend to sit on the border of what is truly useful), the proof comes down to personal opinion. The arrogance required above, also seems to be decidedly present in people who argue for un-fulfilling solutions (of course, this is my own arrogance showing through).
• The PhD was a truly educational and enriching experience. I learned an enormous amount about innovation by being dunked in the deep end and told to “go innovate”. I learned how to really be an engineer.

Thesis writeup

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:40:23 +1100

Its a while since I last wrote here, and, perhaps because I’ve started writing another rather important document, I’m getting back into it. Yesterday I started writing the bulk of my PhD, and I’m finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Its an exciting time.

Of course, I also got distracted and wrote a little script to automatically update a graph of the number of pages in my thesis. Check it out here. I expect the number of pages to first go down (thanks to the removal of a bunch of material which I’d copied from other sources), and then increase (as I write the rest of the document).

What I’ve learned about America

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 08:08:07 +1100

Update: I’ve realised that this entry comes off as being terribly anti-American. I’ll admit that its much easier to see humour in ridicule of the flaws than it is to see it in the positives. But America is a great place. I saw lots of good things about it (the quality of the service industries, respect for engineers, etc). There’s also a lot of quirks, which is how I got to writing about the below. So if you’re American, don’t get offended, have a laugh. Giving someone a hard time is an Australian compliment. (If you think the previous statement was sarcastic in any way, go find an Aussie and ask them -- its all about being able to take it).

America is different. Very different to Australia or the UK. Over the last few months living there, I’ve compiled a little list of observations about it.

• Driving in the “fast” lane: Americans do it. Even if the “slow” lane is totally empty. The “fast” lane in America is not an overtaking lane, it is a status symbol. It says you are the fastest car on the road. Of course, everyone thinks they’re the fastest car on the road, and so the fast lane is impossibly full, and in fact very slow.
• Massive cars: An average sized car in America is the same size as a Commodore or Falcon. A large car looks something like a tank or monster truck. I actually saw more than one real monster truck on the road.
• Four-way stop signs: As the equivalent of a round-about in Australia, America has four-way stop signs. Every entrance to an intersection has a stop sign. Everyone is expected to stop, and the person who arrived there first is expected to go first. This has a few problems: a) its not obvious about who arrives there first when there are lots of people arriving at the intersection. b) it expects everyone to follow the rules. c) it forces you to stop at every intersection (compared with a roundabout which you can usually drive straight through).
• Lines at stops signs: The line at an intersection has no relevance to whether you have right-of-way or not. In fact, it has more to do with whether you have right of way over the pedestrians who are attempting to cross there or not. (two parallel lines indicates a pedestrian crossing). In order to work out whether you have right of way, you have to check for the presence or absence of a stop-sign. Give-way signs don’t tend to exist.
• Hybrid cars: In Oregon, Hybrid cars are everywhere. There are more Priuses than any other type of car I could see. They also have SUVs everywhere. In order to appease the concsience regarding their planet-raping nature, it is also possible to buy a Hybrid SUV. Sigh.
• 2WD 4WDs: It seems that 90% of the cars which are SUVs are actually only 2WD. So, they look like 4WDs, but actually only drive two wheels, reaffirming that the things are never used for their intended purpose.
• Cheques: Yeah. People still actually use cheques over there!
• Banks: Banks don’t talk to each other. To transfer money from one bank to another, you need to write a cheque (spelt “check” there), or do a wire transfer (which is also initiated by a physical piece of paper). In addition, US Bank took four weeks to give me my checking card, which meant that I didn’t have access to my pay for that amount of time!
• Plastic surgery: The number of girls with ridiculously large/perky breasts (usually an impossible combination) is much higher than in Aus. I put this down to modern “medical” advances.
• Tax and Tips: Waiting staff at restaurants are paid much less than minimum wage, and expected to make their living on tips. As a result, if you don’t tip at least 15%, you are frowned upon, given the evil eye, etc. Most people tip 20%. The equivalent tip in Australia would be 5%. This makes splitting bills quite difficult!
• Terrible coffee: These people drink filtered coffee and like it! (Mostly because they haven’t really experienced Espresso, or if they have, it came from Starbucks).
• Splitting bills: Because the waiters are so eager to impress, they put up with the hideous inconvenience of splitting the bills themselves. People like their credit cards, so they can end up with 10 credit cards paying < $10 each!
• Portion sizes: The size of a meal which you order in the states is HUGE.
• Boxes to go: The portion sizes are enormous, so its not uncommon to end up wtih left-overs. Asking for a box to put your leftovers in is not frowned upon, and the waiter will often ask. Sometimes people even order more than they’ll finish on purpose in order to be able to take the leftovers home for a later meal.
• No Coasters: Pubs tend not to have coasters on the tables.
• Entree vs. Appetizer: In Australia, the first part of a meal is called an “entree”, and the main part of a meal is called the “main”. In America, the first part of a meal is called an “appetizer”, and the main part of a meal is called (wait for it...) an “entree”. Wholly confusing!
• Corn syrup: America has vast corn fields, and very little sugar cane. As a result, they try to get corn products into everything. The major sweetener is corn syrup, and is used in products like soft drinks, cakes, etc, etc. In fact, pretty much everything.
• Pint sizes: PInts in America are almost exactly the same size as a schooner in Australia (~473ml), as opposed to a proper British pint which is about 578ml. This makes a big difference when drinking beer (which is really good in Portland!).
• Granola vs. Museli: Granola and Museli are essentially equivalent, except that granola seems to be sweeter.
• Carding: The legal drinking age in America is 21. While it is relatively easy to tell the difference between a 27-year-old and a 17-year-old, it is difficult to discern a 27-year-old from some 20-year-olds. As a result, if a person looks like they’re below 30, they have to be asked for ID. This gets annoying.
• Halloween: Huge. Essentially an excuse for girls to dress like... err... women of ill repute.
• Loyalty cards: Every supermarket has a card which gives discounts, but is actually a method for them to track your purchasing habits.
• Light switches the wrong way around: Down is off and up is on.
• Toilets full of water: The amount of water in the toilets is enormous. They’re designed so that your stuff hits the water, not the bowl. I think this saves on cleaning?
• Pets everywhere: Pets are in apartments, in stores, in aeroplanes.
• Cars that beep the whole time: American cars complain if you don’t have your seatbelt in, or have the door unlocked with the key in the ignition, they lock the doors when you put them in gear, etc, etc.
• Patriotism and flags: someone with a three metre by, say, 30m sign, next to the highway, lit with bright neon, saying “God Bless America”. They don’t seem to realise Jesus was from Palestine in the middle east, right?
• Law enforcement jurisdiction: a sheriff is not allowed to pull over a car for speeding, for example. That falls under the jurisdiction of the highway patrol, and therefore the sheriff sits idly as you cruise past at 80mph!
• Passports: only 20% of Americans own a passport. Why would they need to? Why would anyone ever want to leave God’s own country!? But seriously, American people tend not to travel. They cite their distance from the rest of the world as a major reason for this, but when I point out the much larger distances required to travel from Australia, and the relatively large number of people who have seen the world in that place, they shrug and start talking about monetary pressures. (At which point I point out the larger cost of a ticket in Australia and lower salaries). There’s some good reasons for it: there are a huge number of things to see in America. It is a large, diverse country. The result is that most Americans haven’t seen the rest of the world, and aren’t really aware of its existence, beyond their conviction of being the better than them. (This sounds sour, but is grounded in numerous conversations with real-live yanks). I should point out here that the cross-section that we meet in Australia is automatically part of that 20% that owns a passport, and therefore hardly representative.
• Imperial units: The only real users of the outdated imperial system are the US, Burma, Liberia and some small Caribbean islands. This makes up about 5% of the world’s population. Yes. They should just get on with it.
• Foot park brakes: The park brake is often a foot pedal rather than a hand operated device.
• Toilet seat covers: Public toilets (even the toilets at Intel had these) will provide a supply of paper covers which can be placed over the toilet seat in order to avoid any direct contact.
• Shower baths: Combined showers and baths are commonplace in the US. Also, separate hot and cold taps have been replaced with something that regulates the temperature of the water.
• Turny light switches: Light switches can be rotational as well as linear. I.e. you turn a knob. It clicks, and the light goes on. You turn it again (same direction) and the light goes off.
• Pissed != drunk: The people I talked to regarding this topic told me that the world “Pissed” only ever means “Angry” rather than the more common use in Australia: “Drunk”. (See “Pissed as a newt”).
• Speed traps: Never saw any of them. The legal limit for drink-driving was 0.08, and I never saw an RBT (they’re not allowed to do these, since the cops might discriminate against certain races).
• Queueing: Americans like to queue. For everything. I guess this comes from the “fair go” mentaility, but results in some inefficiency.
• Snow plough == Pizza: People learning how to ski are taught the “Piece of Pizza”, not the “Snow Plough”.

A friend sent through this link to a Canadian’s blog. Interesting read!

Skiing in Squaw

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 17:39:09 +1100

America has some great skiing. One of the great regions, known for its fine powder snow, is Lake Tahoe. Having finished at 5:00 at Intel after three days with 10 hours’ sleep (losing access to equipment required to finish my PhD proved a pretty serious stimulant!), a few beery good-byes and a delayed aeroplane, I flew down to San Francisco.

From there, Chuck, Joyce, Hugh and I headed up to Squaw, which is one of the resorts just north of Lake Tahoe. Its a very beautiful place, sitting at about 6000 feet elevation. We’d organised to stay in-snow, which made such a massive difference to our enjoyment. It was expensive, but so worth it!! What a treat. :-).

We arrived down there at 2:30AM and about -17 degrees C! We checked in, slogged back a little whiskey mixed with snow. A cool five hours’ sleep later, we hauled ourselves up and out to the ski hire store before hitting the slopes.

The snow was incredible. We were so lucky! Until a week prior, there had been a 4” base. Although, at 4”, I’m not sure that it should be called a base. For the past week it has absolutely dumped with snow. Then, a blue-bird day on the day we arrived. It doesn’t get much better. Without the really deep base underneath, there was quite a few rocks and trees sticking out, but the quality of the snow was just awesome. The biggest difference with Australia: its actually frozen! For some comparison, these guys get an average annual snowfall of 450”. That’s about 11m of snow! For comparison, Thredbo, in a pretty good year, will get 2.5m!

We had three amazing days’ skiing some of the great terrain that Squaw had to offer. Steerps and off-piste. Speed and adrenalin. Chuck and I were at about the same level when it comes to this stuff, and we hit the mountain hard, covering everything except the greens (I suspect that my quads will take a few days to recover!).

At night, we wandered back to our hotel and let the muscles relax in an outdoor spa surrounded by snow.

A little stress about the traffic, and the possibility of missing my flight (which I didn’t - I’m about 10km up in the air at the moment) didn’t dampen what really turned out to be an amazing few days.

Some more photos are here.

Concluding the states

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 07:02:49 +1100

The last six weeks have been insane from a work point of view, culminating in a couple of weeks where I worked... hard. I got a lot done! I’ve been working on some of the latter material for my PhD, and recently I’ve been having a few “holy crap, this actually works!” moments. I like those moments. :-). (If you’re interested, we’re writing a paper for USENIX, so it may or may not be in there).

Its getting into winter over there. (I guess I can’t say here - we’re about an hour out from Sydney at the moment). THe North West doesn’t really stop raining. At least a little bit every day. People get seasonal depression, and they have one of the highest suicide rates in the world! Not-so-good. On the up-side, it snows. Mount Hood (which I’ve talked about before) has a few resorts perched on the side.

Timberline is the lodge, which sits at about 6000ft, and boasts the longest ski season of any resort in North America. Thanks to some nifty work on the part of the groomers. who push masses of snow into a big gully during the winter, and then pull it out during the summer, you can usually ski the entire year around.

Its a couple of hours drive from where I lived, and I made it up there a couple of times for some great skiing. Everyone there complained how incomplete the snow was. As far as I could tell, with most of the mountain open, and thigh-deep powder in places, it was great!

One cool experience was seeing the opening of a new chairlift. I was one of the first 20 skiers to catch the Jeff Flood express, and scored some free cider in the process. Nice!

I also met some cool people over the last few weeks. We tried out a couple of nice places to eat in Portland (they have the grand concept of a “happy hour” for food here, which means you end up with pretty decent $2 burgers, dips, etc). We headed out on the town.

While I’ve been working lots of the weekends, there’s been a few boozy nights in there, which has been great.

In all, the American experience has been great. I’ve experienced the culture, both good and bad. I’ve got an understanding for some of their behaviours, even if not an agreeance.

Surplus Gizmos

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 10:30:36 +1100

This might be a little more for the technically inclined among you: I just found my favourite shop. Surplus Gizmos. With a name like that, how far wrong can you go!?!? It implies some kind of engineering mecca, and it doesn’t disappoint.

One great thing about Portland (probably only from my point of view!) is the concentration of electronics companies in the area. And where there are electronics companies, there are engineers, and as a result... there’s the kind of shops that engineers want to visit. This is one of those places.

There are all manner of once-loved bits-and-bobs, along with a a large selection of components and other gadgetry that’s required if you want to build hobbyist electronics projects. (Or work at a startup, I suppose!). There’s all kinds of industrial instruments, discareded from the likes of Intel, Tektronix and Maxim, but perfectly good for characters like me. If only I could haul it back to Australia!!!

The guys had a sense of humour, and the prices were ridiculous (ly cheap). I thought of Scotty, Simon and Tim as I walked through this hoard of treasure.

Intel

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 07:50:53 +1100

Since I got back to Portland after the Sydney trip, I’ve been spending all my time at work, so I thought I’d tell you what the Intel is like.

First, Intel is big (~80,000 employees, ~15k or which are in Oregon). Its bigger than any computer company ever has been or is ever likely to be in Australia. They build the most important chips that go into most of your computers, and a whole lot of chips that go elsewhere (mobile phones, PDAs, microwaves, etc). It was founded by Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore (ever hear of Moore’s law?) when they got annoyed with Fairchild semiconductor and decided to start their own business in 1968.

Intel built the first microprocessor, but it was only 1983 or so when they really started focussing on those products. Up until that point, they’d concentrated on selling memory (both SRAM and DRAM).

Ok. Enough with the history - but the point in all this is that, if you make a difference at Intel, you make a difference on a global scale. That can’t be said of too many research jobs, and definitely not the academic kind. Therein lies one of the best things about working at this company. People who think the same way tend to end up here too.

The downside is that, being a slightly older computer company, Intel isn’t blessed with the kind of young mentality of Google and co. The workplace is horrible: cubicles as far as the eye can see. They’re so proud of _everyone_ at Intel having cubes. This, of course, means that I hear _everyone’s_ conversation. It carries for rows and rows. Also, there’s so much bureaucracy: every 12 months everyone seems to get re-organised. People actually work from 9:00 until 5:00 at this place, which is a dramatic change from other research companies that I’ve worked for.

I’ve been working in CTG, the corporate technology group. They’re Intel’s research arm, and look at what technologies could be in Intel’s products 5 or 10 years in the future.

Its been positive. The idea that my work could eventually end up in a product which nearly all of you use at least 8 hours a day is really exciting.

Sydney visit

Wed, 7 Nov 2007 18:33:54 +1100

Once again I write on board an aeroplane. This time, I’m headed back out into the world, away from a bunch of fairly awesome people, and toward a whole lot of hard work. Beth asked me whether I was excited. I am, but these moments are always tainted with a little character. :-). Tanins perhaps.

I got back from the World Solar Challenge last Monday -- over a week ago, although it doesn’t seem it -- and it has been so hectic ever since... so great. Catching up with people both work-wise and personally. Lots of coffee. Lots of beer. Lots of chats and catch ups. Talking shop all over the place. Thinking about the steps to come. Working on the PhD. Working out how to finish the PhD. Doing my washing. Paying the bills.

WSC: The rest.

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:44:29 +1100

I got lazy over the rest of the WSC, and as a result, I’m writing this about a week after it all finished. After heading in to the start line in Alice, I talked to the observer’s manager there, and mentioned I’d had a pretty slow race so far. They sent me up to Glendambo, which is the last control point where the drivers change over. In other words, I got sent right up the front!

As we drove down the road, we passed the front runners several times changing tyres. We also stopped in that evening for a “team meeting” (beer) with Jim, who was their observer. What an amazing operation they are! Very very organised. Calm. The way things should be done.

Peter, Brian, David and I spent a night out in the dessert, built a nice fire, ate steaks on the grill on an open fire, and generally lived it up. Bloody good.

We drove for a day and a half to get to Glendambo, and then waited for Nuon to turn up. And turn up they did, with their fancy media contingent, semi-trailer full of support gear, etc, etc. Peter got in with them, and I hung around and waited for the second-runners, Umicore, from Belgium, to turn up. I got in with them. We drove down to Port Augusta, where they had to make a few running repairs. We then headed on until 5:00, when their batteries were dead and they stopped for the night.

They didn’t speak of much other than their girlfriends (who were waiting in Adelaide) and the Belgian Beer Cafe (also waiting in Adelaide).

We arrived at the finish line the next morning, where I met up with David, Zoe, James and Scott from Tritium, and spent the next few days with them. The next few days, as most of the post-race days have been in the past, were a blur of parties, talking solar cars, wine tasting, and what couldda and shouldda. We’ve all got ideas. Particularly when it comes to master’s teams, and the South African Solar Challenge, which is coming up in September next year!

Sunswift came in 9th, the same as in 2005, but at a slower pace (5km/h slower at 67km/h) than last year. Their official 9th is a big step up from our unofficial 9th though. I’m not exactly sure how the slower happened - they seemed to have a solid suspension, steering, etc, but the canopy was big, and the array wasn’t putting out a lot of power. It also looked like they ran without the rear wheel spat for the whole trip, which is a bit odd! It also sounds like they didn’t have telemetry for most of the race, which is also odd. Will have to ask them about what happened.

But... Despite all that, they won the Technical Achievement award. Its a prestigious award, but it would be nice to know what the decision process was there. It was hard seeing them get it after I’d been so keen to get it in the previous three races -- there’s a lot of politics involved methinks.

The party following the awards ceremony was fantastic! Lots of beer, good people, very friendly. Generally a fantastic night, although the hangover the next day was a more than a little painful, particularly regarding the flight back to Adelaide.

Overall, the observer experience was awesome, and I’ve come home with plenty of ideas for improving the state of the art. Just need to work out what I really want to spend my time on. Whatever happens, I know I’ll be back for the challenge in 2009. :-).

More photos here and here.

WSC: Days 2 and 3

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 21:30:41 +1000

The last two days have involved a lot of driving. Lots of driving, and not a whole lot of solar-car-ing. I’ve been up the back of the field with the slower teams. It hasn’t been the most scintillating race. Setting the scene. once more, I’m sitting amongst a whole bunch of high school students in Alice. Two of them are watching an episode of Stargate, there’s gossip going on about two of them who’ve hooked up during the race, and the poor teacher is juggling all of this, and the fact that his solar car isn’t working so well. Shocker!

I started out yesterday with the Sinag team, getting up at 5:30 in order to set up the solar array to charge. We left at 8:05 (supposed to leave at 8:00, but their computers weren’t working in the support car, so they waited in order to sort it out). We drove for a while, had a few tyre changes, and finally made it in to Dunmarra. We made it before the control stop shut by 2 minutes! (2:58). We were the last ones in, and because of that, I didn’t get another solar car to go with. Sigh. Got in a car with some people and headed down the road. Got to dusk, and we camped at Renner Springs for the night (after a pretty decent meal of corned beef and veggies). The next morning we headed along to Tennant Creek, stopping by all the random solar cars which were on the side of the road on the way in.

When we got there, I sent some faxes before picking up my next solar car: Leeming. We trailered right in to Alice Springs. So I made it 800km today. We headed in to the control point and found all the other solar car teams. We passed Sunswift on the way in. Not sure what’s happened to them, but they’re behind our pace from last time around! Hrrmm.

Anyway. I switch teams tomorrow morning, and I’m hoping that I end up with one of the ones which we’ve just passed - looking forward to a little driving. :-).

WSC: Qualifying and Day 1

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:35:00 +1000

Lets set the scene by pointing out that as I write this I’m sitting in a tent, surrounded by about 12 other tents, cars, and people who are running around going nuts trying to get their solar powered car fixed before the morning. (Their brakes, suspension geometry and motors are dodgy, which makes the tyre scrubbing and the two attempts at Hayes creek hill seem not so bad). Its an odd feeling!

After 12 hours in Sydney, following a flight from San Francisco, I got back on a plane (the inside of which has lost its novelty). Getting to Darwin, Dave Finn from Tritium picked me up from the airport and we headed to Hidden Valley race track to drop some MPPTs (power electronics) off for some guys from New Zealand.

Friday, we headed out to the race track to check out some of the cars before heading to Litchfield. There were 41 starters in this year’s race. They range from the European Space Agency sponsored Nuon team, to the impoverished Detlev, who has brought his car in several suitcases to every race. This year there’s a lot of innovation in the field. Concentrator cells were used on two different cars (Michigan and Twente). Both have tracking arrays. Lots of teams are using some interesting electronics. Toronto have their own MPPTs -- little ones. Lots have built their own telemetry, and only a very few bought bits and just stuck them together. Much better than previous years.

Friday night, I caught up with Aimee, who I did undergrad with. We drank too many beers, and I woke up on Saturday very, very, very hung over, which made Qualifying and Observer training that day a little more difficult. Whups. Was good to see her though!

Qualifying was cool - the cars do a hot lap of the track and the team with the fastest time ends up first on the grid.

My role in the race is that of observer: you basically have to write down what the teams do, so that the scrutineers can work out whether they should have any penalties later on. Its an OK job, and it means I get to see the teams in action. For better, or worse, I’m with the team from the Philippines, who are right at the back after today’s racing. They started this morning and had several flat tyres. One “interesting” event was the two attempts required to get the heavy (380kg with driver) car up Hayes Creek hill, which is the steepest on route. The first time, they stopped, half way up. After a couple of Ueys, they had another crack with a run up and made it.

I got to try Adobo, which is some kind of traditional Philippine food. Pretty good though! I was tempted to inflict Vegemite... ;-).

After the control stop, they decided to camp out for the night, charging their pack. Which means we’re hanging out in Katherine for the night. More updates to follow.

SOSP and Skamania Lodge

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:33:14 +1000

Skamania lodge is situated in the Columbia river gorge, which you’ll remember from previous exploits. Andrew and I were there to attend the Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP) which is the premier operating systems conference. My room had a view, and waking up in the king-sized bed with a view of the sunrise reflecting between the mountains and the river was... quite pleasant. SOSP is always held somewhere nice, and its always well attended. Computer scientists are fickle. :-).

I met a lot of great people, including a few of my academic heroes. I got some new aspirations (the Mark Weiser award looks worth whatever effort it requires), talked to a lot of people, and generally got more excited about operating systems.

The conference is bigger than the ones I’ve been to previously, and I think its 400 participants is about right for something like this: its got critical mass. The papers themselves were a little disappointing because most of them weren’t really _that_ OS related, being more about systems in general. Building stuff. Good stuff. That works. Fast.

The energy papers were good, but not stellar. I want one of my papers in that conference.