Author: Ethan Nowery, Email: nowery@unlv.nevada.edu
Date Last Modified: 07/12/2024

This week was spent in preparation for Robocup 2024 in the Netherlands this upcoming week. The course existed already here at the test facility, but we re-arranged it and updated it to match the current obstacles and design of the course in the Netherlands.

On Monday this past week, Adam (Project Leader) gave a tour of the facility to some of his Japanese contacts. These gentlemen were from the Fukushima Institute for Research, Education, and Innovation. They took us all out to lunch where we sat and talked for over an hour. The President of the F-REI, Yamazaki Koetsu, was one of the men that was there, and he gave me his business card.

This doesn't pertain to DASL, but rather the cultural differences in business talks between the Japanese and Americans. While at lunch, it was a very interesting situation to be a part of and to witness. Like typical Japanese culture, the President and VP were the only ones to talk business, while the others who were a lot younger and lower on the job totem pole just sat and observed. They only talked when spoken too, which was only once or twice.

Instead of a lesson I learned about myself, this week I will mention some things that I learned about the workforce in general. Over the several days, I have learned a lot of info about robot test facilities around the world, including ones in Germany and Fukushima. Adam has set up and visited every single one of them. This next week, my mentors will be at RoboCup in the Netherlands, and we have an intern trip to the capital planned so it might be a slower week.

While my mentor and the team are in the Netherlands this next week, I will use the time to start running trials with SPOT again. I will also take the time to learn the Telemax robot as well so that I can perform dexterity tests with the gripper.