The Smartest Machine on Earth

What is "machine learning"?
Learning from examples.

How did the IBM team employ that concept in the development of Watson's AI? What advantage did that provide over previous attempts at "intelligence"?
By having the machine learn from examples it can create patterns that will help it figure out things out for themselvs. This facilitates the IBM teams job because somethings are to difficult to explain like "what is the letter A" it's easier to show it many examples of a letter "a".

I've often mentioned the term "Empirical Scepticism". What does that mean? How does that relate to the concept of Machine Learning? How does this relate to your life?
Empirical Scepticism is questioning beliefs on the basis of scientific understanding. You learn off of trial and error and it seems that machine learning is learning from examples and everytime watson has a mistake he corrects it and tests it.

Ground Zero

Happy New Year!

Ground Zero:

What different "trades" (types of construction work) are featured in this video? Name at least three.
Steal work, glass work, bronze memorial plate work.

What aspect of the project is most interesting to you? Why is that?
The aspect that was most interesting to me was how they had to have all the materials tested to make sure that it could support the building. For example, testing creating the cement and testing it on site, and making the glass and testing it.

Happy Halloween!

I tried my best to use the inventor program, though everytime I tried to do something it seemed something else would go wrong. I even tried adding color but when I saved it, the color didn't save or something happened.

The Deep Dive

1. “From the buildings in which we live and work, to the cars we drive, or the knives and forks with which we eat, everything we use was designed to create some sort of marriage between ______form___________ and ______function___________.”


2. The folks at IDEO state that they are not experts in any given area. But, they do claim to be experts on the _Process of Design______, which they apply to the innovation of consumer products.


3. After the team of designers is brought together, told the problem, and informed they have five days to “pull it off,” what phase of the design process do they immediately engage in?

They first listed all the issues and safety hazards and then got out to observe shoppers.

4. Give two examples of what the team members did during this phase.
a. Went to the supermarket to see the product in use

b. took pictures to later analyse what was going on


5. List five rules-of-thumb that IDEO employees follow when they share ideas during the brainstorming phase:

a. One conversation at a time.
b. Stay focused on topic.
c. Encourage wild ideas.

d. Differ Judgement

e. Build on the ideas of others.

6. Why should wild (and sometimes crazy) ideas be entertained during the brainstorming phase?
Because others can than build of those ideas.


7. After the brainstorming phase was over, the team narrowed down the hundreds of ideas by ___Voting____ for those ideas that were not only “cool” but also _____Build-able____ in a short period of time. What phase of the design process is this called?

Enlightened trial and error

8. IDEO believes that the ideas and efforts of a ____Team____ will always be more successful than the planning of a lone genius.



9. Once the ideas were narrowed down and divided into categories, the group was split into four smaller teams. What phase(s) of the design process was each of these groups responsible for?

1. Shopping
2. Safety
3. Check out
4. Finding what you're looking for.

10. The leaders at IDEO believe that _____Crazy_____ behavior and a ____Playful____ environment are two important reasons why their employees are able to think quickly and creatively to produce innovative results.



11. Sometimes, people come up with great solutions that work by trying their ideas first, and asking for _____Forgiveness_____ later.



12. Design is often a process of going too far and having to take a few steps back. What phase of the design process would the critique of the four mock-ups come under?

Iterative Design

13. Upon critique of the four teams’ models, it was obvious that none of the teams had developed an optimum solution. However, the people at IDEO believe that it is important to ___Fail___ often in order to ____Succeed___ sooner.


14. What percentage of the entire week’s time did it take to fabricate the final prototype?

I'm not totally clear on the percent but they did spend the whole last night building it.

15. Instead of showering his design team with a tremendous amount of praise, what did the boss require his employees to do with their new design?

Test it out and outside people's opinions.

16. Of all the things that we are surrounded by every day, what has not been placed through the design process?

Nature.




Conclusion

1. What did you find to be the most impressive part of the team’s effort?

 I think was most impressive was the perseverance the team had to accomplish the task. They didn't give up.

2. What advantages are there to having a design team with members that have non-engineering backgrounds?

It gives room to more wild ideas that they can build off of when designing new things.

3. There was a point in the process where a self-appointed group of adults stepped up, stopped the ideas, and redirected the group to break up into teams. Why was this done?

The breaking up into groups was necessary because it helped redirect the group and have a better focus on different aspects of building the car, or else that phase of the design process could have gone on forever.


4. At the end of the video, Dave Kelly states, “Look around. The only things that are not designed are the things we find in nature.” Can you think of anything that would contradict this statement?

Parks and gardens would be a contradiction because landscape architects design an area by using plants, etc to make an area look more appealing.

Energy Resources

1. The thing that surprised me the most was the fact that energy is conserved. It can neither be created or destroy and only a percent of the energy created is actually useful to us.

2. One thing that surprised me was that natural gas accounts for 1/5 of energy production in the word. It also is 90% efficient meaning that only 10% would be considered waste, but it counts for 60% of pollution.

3. Describe and defend what you believe to be the best energy source(s) to be investing in.
I definitly believe we should be investing our time and money into using all the inexahaustable energy sources espicially solar beacuse solar panels can easily be placed on top of houses and building so everyone would be producing their own energy and there are very low bad consecuences to using this type of energy source. It won't have effects on the enviroment like those of using nuclear energy or coal powered energy.

Cardboard Canoe

13 ACHIEVEMENTS (Potentially 14 or 15)

Tape Selection

• 2'' by 60 yds =      $ 10 = 4320 in square          $1  = 432 in. square
• 1.88'' by 45 yds = $ 6 = 3045.6  in. square       $1 = 507.6 in. square

Achievements:

Design Process:

• Define the Problem: Build a canoe out of cardboard that follows the above constraints.
• Brainstorm:
1. Lightest person inside the canoe
2. Not to long(hard to maneuver)
3. Not to low on the sides (water can get inside)
4. Not to high on the sides ( too heavy)
5. Calculate buoyancy
6. Trimaran
7. Catamaran
8. Box inside so that person can sit
9. Person lay flat on canoe
10. Outside people push the canoe to make it move
11. Make Paddles
12. Bend big piece of cardboard hotdog style, cut ends in half and tape them
13. Cut big piece of cardboard in half, cut each half into trapezoid
14. Incorporate origami so it can fold into a good shape with fair structure
15. Have canoe be shape that can glide through water (not like a box shape)
16. stable side so bending is avoided
17. Use cardboard strips that span the width of the canoe to hold sides up together\
18. Have a rudder to help steer
19. Tape the whole outside of the canoe so it won't disintegrate
20. Tape should be vertically place
• Criteria & Constraints
• Criteria: Build a canoe out of cardboard on which one person stands on it for 10 seconds whilst it moves. 
• Constraints
• You may only use Cardboard and Duct Tape for this event.
• All Staples or other foreign material must be removed from your cardboard. If we trash the pool, we will not be invited back for other activities during the year (yes, we have other activities in mind for 2nd semester).
• Cardboard must meet our quality standard and be approved by the instructor (more info to follow)
• Each boat must have a minimum of a 3" tall "sidewall" (no completely flat designs).
• All exposed cardboard must be covered in duct tape (this will reduce cardboard disintegration in the pool).
• Each team will be provided one "versa table" cardboard box piece and two 60yrd rolls of duct tape. Any materials beyond this (likely need more cardboard) need to be resourced by your team.
• + Person cannot grab on to sides of the boat. Person on the boat has to make boat move not have someone push the boat
• Sketches:


• Prototype:
• Select an Approach:
• Positives: Matches the V-bottom
• Negatives: Sides open to wide when sitting inside the boat.
• Ideas: Make a seat or connect top of sides with a cross bar.
• Questions: Will it float?

Building Achievement:

• Build it!

• The Early Bird Gets The Achievement: Yes!
• V-Bottom: Yes!

Test Achievements

• Testing was a fail because we had difficulty getting in the boat first. Once it got wet it was practically destroyed. Although, we did improvise and used it as a surf board which lasted the rest of the time.

• Videographer
• To be posted later

Reflection Achievements: 

• Feedback -
• Positives: According to calculations it would have been able to support a lot of weight.
• Negatives: Not stable
• Ideas: Should have put the hulls on the sides to help stablize it.
• Questions:
• How Low Did You Go?
• The water roughly went half way up the canoe.
• Yes, it was surprising that it didn't go down to far into the water we thought it might spill in.
• What is the unit weight of water in pounds? 62.4 lb/cu. ft
• How much did your pilot weigh (roughly)? 105lbs. 
• Since our boat was roughly 24 cu. ft it should have been able to hold (62.4*24)= 1497.6 lbs. so that is plenty enough for us not to sink.
• Redesign
• 
• I'd probably build a flat bottom design because it would have increased the surface area and made it more stable for it to turn.  And maybe add wings to also prevent it from flipping.
• Make Your Own Achievement:
• "Improvisation" : although our canoe sunk, our team was able to convert it into a surfboard style design and continue competeting.

Rules of the Road

what Criteria (rules) would you add to the Mousetrap Racecar Challenge to help "level" the playing field?

• Who can build a working car faster?
• Maximum amount of pieces that can be used or maximum price
• Lightness of car in weight