Thursday July 22, 2021
Question: What do you think will happen in a Gambler's Ruins problem when the odds are slightly not fair? For example 51% to 49% odds for the two gamblers.
Response: When the Gambler's Ruins problem has 50% odds, the probability at a certain point is the mean of its surrounding points, making the probability that a gambler will win linear with respect to the position because each probability is equally spaced. If the odds are changed, however, the probability at a certain point becomes the geometric mean, creating an exponential relationship rather than linear. Because of the way that exponential function rapidly grow, even just a small common factor such as 51/49 between probabilities of points will make one gambler's odds significantly higher.
Response: When the Gambler's Ruins problem has 50% odds, the probability at a certain point is the mean of its surrounding points, making the probability that a gambler will win linear with respect to the position because each probability is equally spaced. If the odds are changed, however, the probability at a certain point becomes the geometric mean, creating an exponential relationship rather than linear. Because of the way that exponential function rapidly grow, even just a small common factor such as 51/49 between probabilities of points will make one gambler's odds significantly higher.
Wednesday July 21, 2021
Dr. Gravish's talk was about studying the the biomechanics of locomotion in small animals, specifically the locomotion of legged insects such as ants. One thing I learned and found very interesting was the use of compliance in designing robots. Mimicking the nature of insects' exoskeletons, they were able to 3d print small parts and combine them together to create flexible mechanisms. This provides the advantage of maintaining structural integrity while also making them more navigable able to adapt to different environments. Perhaps, robots in the future will all be flexible or soft-body such that they will mimic the biology that has taken millions of years to evolve.
Tuesday July 20, 2021
For our robotics project, we are making a drawing machine that can process and draw an SVG file. What concerns me is whether the EV3 and RobotC have a high-level method for accessing files. To solve this, we will look for references to see if any other people have attempted a similar task. If that does not work, we can still proceed by defining our own objects or even preloading the data into the program. However, before we try accomplishing this, we will try to make an easier manual control to ensure that the robot can move properly.
Thursday July 16, 2021
We've been using Python extensively during Biophysics, which I will compare with Java, which I am more familiar with. That biggest difference between them would be object oriented programming. Java has a very strict object-oriented structure, where almost everything must be defined through classes and objects. This can be helpful for creating complex organized structures such as robots, where there may be many concurrently-moving parts. However, the strict object oriented nature can lead to extremely verbose syntax compared to Python such as with list comprehension. Python, while it does have object oriented parts, is not as strict in its syntax. This leads to quick, easy, and understandable solutions to problems, especially when processing data. On this flip side, this might make it difficult to program complex machines with Python. Overall Python and Java are both very powerful languages that accomplish different goals.
Wednesday, July 15, 2021
Through the device presentations in robotics, I picked up some "pebbles" regarding how worm gears can be used to change the direction of rotation while also massively increasing the torque. I also gained an intuition for how noise and bias should be used when determining how to reduce error in any decision. I thought Dr. Koehl's presentation was very insightful not only in the experiments themselves, combining so many interdisciplinary fields and modelling techniques, but also showing us how to get involved in the research scene.
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
Today, for the robot final project, we began using the critique process to improve our designs. At this point, most teams have not fully fleshed out a design, and there isn't much to critique on other than ideation, so it was relatively unproductive besides learning about other people's projects. However, once people start sketching out concrete designs and coming up with prototypes, I'm sure that the critique process will be useful for getting a fresh pair of eyes and a new opinion on our projects to point out points of improvement.
Monday, July 12, 2021
During robotics, we learned about logic and propositions. We also discussed the difference between bias and noise, where bias is a systematic deviation from a desired value whereas noise is just variation. It's analogous to accuracy and precision respectively, and ideally it would be good to minimize both. Taking an example of a pricing system, a biased system would consistently price things too high or low whereas a noisy one may have varied prices for similar items. In biophysics, we continued working with Python, but we also discussed the broad categories of biomolecules and how they interact with water, which forms the environment of all microscopic life.
Thursday, July 8, 2021
Over the course of the day, we worked on our robots, listened to a guest speaker, and began brainstorming for our final robot project. While working with the robot, I experienced how much error there could be with no feedback system in the robot, how small imprecisions accumulate greatly over time. The guest speaker was about mRNA and it's transition unto use as a vaccine. One aspect I found interesting about the vaccine manufacture process was how much the vaccine needs to be adjusted so that the immune system does not overreact and causes symptoms such as inflammation. For the project, my partner and I decided to try making drawing robots, and we're excited to get started making projects.