Week 2 Post 2

It was a day of inspiration and enthusiasm for me today. After listening to Dr. Voyles performing his presentation for undergraduate students, some interesting thoughts came to my mind. I was truly amazed by the intelligence and creativity of the people who work in the Robotics lab. Dr. Voyles was presenting all the projects that people in the lab are currently working on, and there are much more than what Mythra introduced us to. Some projects like "The Plane," "Mothership," "The Drone," and "Sustainable Precision Animal Agriculture" each deserve an entire lecture that could take hours, in my opinion. For example, "Mothership" is a tread/limb hybrid robot that uses treads as the primary mode of locomotion, augmented by active limb-like joints that articulate the discrete tread modules. This project's purpose is the application of Urban Search and Rescue. When I saw Mothership live, performing its motions, I could not believe that this was once just an idea that nobody even thought of. And then there comes a talented Ph.D. student with such an idea that poses a question, answers to which could solve problems for many people in Urban Search and Rescue more efficiently and effectively. This is what I aspire to be. I am looking forward to solving the problems to questions that have never been asked before. As an undergraduate student, I got used to solving issues that have been answered before. In my opinion, that is what our universal education teaches us in school and college. We are purposefully looking at the tasks and problems in mathematics and computer science to go over the concepts that teach us the one or a few ways that could solve the problem. However, by doing this, we deprive ourselves of using each person's creativity to solve a question in a new way or to pose a new question that could shatter the limits of our minds and lead to that sweet spot of a "Eureka" moment. Personally, I believe that is what research is about, to come up with a question that no one ever thought of so that there are many ways of answering that question in various novel ways. This is why I chose to work as a research intern this summer, and I do not regret this decision at all. In a day spent with people with brilliant ideas and unique solutions, I feel like I am absorbing creativity and freedom of thought much more than I ever did. I am extremely inspired and am ready to see the development of myself as a computer scientist and a researcher.

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