The Mentor Robots + Life + Blog Update

Hello everyone, Sorry I've been on a tad of a hiatus from the blog realm. Classes started, my brother's wedding, and a bunch of stressful stuff in between has kept me away. I will try my bring this blog back up from the grave once again. One special project that I would like to bring up is a side project I've been helping with for the past few months. My robotics teacher (Mr. Henry) called upon some of his loyal servants...I mean students and some professional mentors to help design two robots.

These robots are specifically designed to be teaching robots for new mentors arising in San Antonio. This will be very handy for demos, classes, or possibly for sponsor meetings. Most teams in San Antonio need their robots for the competition and because of the price of the equipment, they can be very hesitant when lending out their hunk of metal on wheels. So these will be very handy for many purposes. Mr. Henry has a few sponsorships already on hand so we are well on our way to building.

We started with an already built robot that students had built for a past game. Our first job was to tear it apart...WOOHOO!! We kept the chassis intact since it was just easier that way. Than we had to take apart the gear boxes, which my friend Rudy did since he is a pro, and took apart the wheels to take out some spacers that weren't needed. Anywho we have had 3 meetings so far and will continue till it is built.

I promise to document a little more than I have been and hopefully I can get some footage in photos or video before we get too far in the process. This will give me the experience I need since I plan on applying for the AmeriCorps VISTA Program with F.I.R.S.T., I'll explain more about that later, to help me be able to learn how to make a robot from the ground up.

I also need to ask if I can use some of the other mentors names on here as well, that wouldn't be good if I did and they weren't happy about it.

Anywho I will be adding a few more movie reviews, some posts about some work I'm doing in my classes, and a possible new blog dedicated to me reviewing TED Talks...maybe. I don't know yet. We will see...

STAY TUNED!

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Oh Mr. Humphrey Bogart...he is such a womanizer but oh so handsome with his manly goodness. Anywho, I decided to finally watch this movie after watching the TED Talk with Adam Savage where he talks about building a replica of the Maltese Falcon.

Samuel Spade (Bogart), is a private investigator who is hired to help interesting criminals find the "Maltese Falcon". The Maltese Falcon is a statue of a falcon encrusted in jewels that was supposedly worth millions of dollars. Mr. Spade is in the middle of all the twists and turns trying to figure out who is lying and who is telling the truth, while greed and money are still the basis for most of his decisions. This movie, says Wikipedia, was based off a book written by Samuel Dashiell Hammett and a remake from the 1931 film. This movie is also acclaimed to have been the first "major film in the genre film noir of the classic era".

Bogart is his usual pimp self, gotta love that tough sophisticated personality

Opening credits:

"In 1539 the Knight Templars of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels——but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day"                                                                                                

Check out Humphrey Bogart's Official Website for more info.

TED Talk with Adam Savage: Adam Savage's obsessions

I really was trying to not put more than one TED Talk post in one day but I just couldn't help it, this one was sooooo interesting. Everyone knows Adam Savage from the Discovery channel show "Mythbusters". I love this show and sometimes wish I could do something similar because I love building things just for the purpose of building things. On this TED Talk he goes into some of his interests of prop making, obsessive prop making. The Dodo Bird and the Maltese Falcon are the two he discusses, which makes me want to go home and watch the movie "The Maltese Falcon". I have this movie on my hard drive but I have yet to watch it. Oh Mr. Bogart and your movies...



GO WATCH MYTHBUSTERS!!

Must Watch: Only The Strong

Yesterday was a good day. While waiting for a ride I was sitting outside a Blockbuster in the Texas heat (105 degrees already) and decided to go inside for some water. Trying to keep cool I decided to walk around looking at the movies for sell, oh how I love movies. Then I saw..."Only The Strong" and couldn't believe my eyes. I have this movie in VHS but have no VCR, so It was on my list to eventually buy this movie. The movie just appeared, sitting on the shelf, priced at $7.99 and it was just one of those mindless acts that I grabbed it and almost immediately walked to the register to purchase the DVD. I browsed a tiny bit more just in case I found another gem in the stack. I almost giggled like a little school girl walking to the register. I'm a complete nerd when it comes to martial art movies, spawning from my brothers fascination with Bruce Lee. I am also a fan of Mark Decascos, who is also in "Brotherhood of the Wolf" which happens to be another must-see.

This is a movie that has a "Stand And Deliver" type plot where a former high school student turned Ex-Special Forces comes back to his drug and violence ridden school to try and help students like him through teaching them Capoeira, a Brazilian Martial Art. With the help of his former teacher, he takes the "bottom of the barrel" kids and shows them discipline and teaches them that there is more to life than gangs, drugs, and violence. Like in most movies, you have the "bad guy" which happens to be a drug lord who he crosses path with who just so happens to know Capoeira as well.

One of the reasons I really was attracted to this movie is because I've always been a fan of Capoeira and even once tried to learn it from a friend. The music, the heartfelt story, and the bits of humor and sheer determination also make this a movie to watch. But mostly, its the fighting though it is highly choreographed. Then again, what martial arts movie isn't choreographed? In a real world sense, beating a drug lord through martial arts would never happen because you would end up being shot in the end, but it is nice to think about.

Here is the trailer:

Movies I've Watched This Week (June 19-26)

Still, June is a slow month for movie watching. Since going to the movies is so gosh darn expensive I am trying to watch movies that I find online or older movies.


-Grown Ups
-Just Go With It
-Lonesome Dove


I do like Adam Sandler, though he does seem to play pretty much the same character in most movies. However I did enjoy "Grown Ups" and "Just Go With It". I had really low expectations for "Grown Ups" but it was pretty funny and Rob Schneider's character was in itself kind of silly. David Spade and Chris Rock really added to the movie. I was surprised to see Nicole Kidman and Dave Matthews in "Just Go With It". "Lonesome Dove" is probably the longest movie I've ever sat through in its entirety (minus the bathroom breaks). About six hours long, the movie was filled with well known actors including Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, Diane Lane, Anjelica Huston, and even Steve Buscemi. Great movie in all, my grandfather insisted we watch it and I'm glad we did.

Movies I've Watched This Week (June 12-19)

Well this has been a slow month for movie watching for me. Though I did happen to finish watching all six seasons of the show Criminal Minds. The show is absolutely addicting and the main character (Thomas Gibson AKA Aaron Hotchner) lives in San Antonio, woohoo! But anywho on for the movies...three of these were recommended by people at work so I decided to watch them.

-Paul
-Black Swan
-The Lovely Bones
-Hop

The Lovely Bones, Hop, and Black Swan were recommended to me though I only really liked Black Swan between the three. It was a pretty messed up movie, gave me a weird dream. The Lovely Bones just kinda pisses you off at the end. The whole purgatory type place is just kinda odd looking though there were excellent cast of actors. Hop...was Hop. Paul was pretty funny I would say, though I am a tad biased because I like the main actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead & Hot Fuzz) as well as Kristen Wiig. But would I pay money for any of these...probably not.

Movies I've Watched this week (May 22-May 29)

This week has been full of movie watching since I finally decided to explore Hulu, enough to keep any movie buff content. No classes at the moment so perfect time to catch up...

-Ink
-Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)
-Joy Division
-The Secret of NIMH
-Shooting Gallery
-LaMB

I would recommend in that order. Shooting Gallery and LaMB I particularly did not have a fondness to for many reasons. If you are interested in seeing a movie about billards, I would suggest you watch Poolhall Junkies. LaMB was an animation about, well it was just odd talking about enslaving humans to do duties and they find out that one still has feelings or something like that. I really don't want to give synopsis's of the movies because many other people have far better descriptions than me and most of the time I like to get my own opinion of a movie, so I will let you do the same.