ICEX Malta 2009

Cal Poly Magazine

2009-04-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

An article about ICEX was published in the Cal Poly Magazine (Spring 2009 issue). The article is entitled "Of Robots and the Underworld: Professor Clark and His Students Explore the Secrets of Malta."

Click here for a link to the article.

ICEX on the Evening News

2009-04-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

Chris Clark and ICEX students were interviewed for the evening news on KCOY Channel 12. Click here for a link to the story.

To download and view the video, check the link on Chris Clark's home page and click on "local news station".

A Recap of Malta

2009-04-17T20:18:00.000-07:00

Going to a foreign country is always an exciting journey, and this trip was absolutely no exception. Malta was an interesting place to people-watch because it is a big tourist destination for many in Europe, so we met travelers from all over. It is hard for me to come to any conclusions about the Maltese because I would also be including at least a few other countries in my thoughts.

A few things I did make mental notes of were: Cory found out the hard way that the grocery store, and many other stores are closed on Sundays. In Valletta, most of the businesses would close by 5pm every day. The teenagers would go out to party until close to midnight and that the college students would be out past then. The police would follow groups of drunk people to see that no harm was done, but they didn't harass the party-goers simply for being inebriated. The airport in Rome is quite concerned with getting travelers through security checks as quickly as possible, however they make up for it by checking everyone a second time right before boarding the plane.

At the sites, we were able to speak with the residents in a one-on-one atmosphere which I think gave me the best impression about the people. Everyone was very hospitable, very prideful, and eager to share the history of their house, their country, or anything else that had a story behind it. We loved hearing all of the stories they had to tell us, but I often felt like I couldn't take notes fast enough to keep up with the amount of information being relayed to us.

In the hotel in Rome, Justin and I stayed in because we weren't feeling well, but this gave me a unique opportunity. The internet didn't work in the room I was in, so after determining it was a wiring problem, I called the front desk and they sent a repairman to fix it. While Dávide corrected the problem, I told him about our group and our experiences in Malta. I realized after a little while that he understood part of what I was saying, but some of the less common phrases like "underwater robot" and "sonar mapping of the cistern", understandably, did not cross the language gap. After he fixed the wiring, he opened up Google translator and we translated what we talked about so we actually had an idea of what the other person was saying. I had a great time telling and showing him what we did, and also hearing about similar research he had done in the old sewers of Rome. It was nice being able to use technology in such a practical way where it would have been difficult to understand each other without it.

On a technical level, I was the first to learn how to use the KCF Smart Tether, so I became the one to troubleshoot any problems we had with it. It was great to have for our data captures, and will be of great value in making the maps accurate, so we were very fortunate to use the equipment on our trip.

In order to synchronize the Smart Tether data with the sonar and SLAM data, Cory and I wrote a program to interpolate any gaps in the data caused by the loss of a GPS signal fix. This task gave us several nights of little sleep, but we became very familiar with GPS message frames and overcoming several issues in creating data for the variable-length gaps in the stream of actual data.

Lastly, this picture is funny to me (it was very windy on the boat to Gozo):

Final Cultural and Technical Entry

2009-04-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

As I discussed in my blog entry before leaving for Malta, my goal for this trip was to observe the exquisite architecture of Malta, and its impact on the modern day society. It was interesting to observe the daily lives of people amongst such a beautiful place. The capital city of Valletta was originally built in the mid-1500’s. As the capital, this city serves as the governmental and business center of Malta. This city is surrounded by fortifications and has a fortress (Fort St. Elmo) located at the tip of it. These fortifications were necessary then to protect the country from foreign invaders who attempted to seize the island nation. Today Fort St. Elmo is used as a police academy, and the fortifications remain as a memorial to those who fought so bravely to keep their country. In Mdina the local men and women live in homes that date back as early as 1200 CE. This is astounding considering that America wasn’t even known to most of the western world at this point in time. Remnants of Norman arches appear inside the homes showing the true age of these homes. The thought of owning a home with such rich history was beyond comprehension for me.

It was also interesting to observe how the driving culture has developed in Malta based on the initial design of streets within these cities. Since most of the cities were designed to confuse its enemies if they were able to survive long enough to reach the gates of the fortress, it is no wonder that the streets are very confusing. For this reason, traveling within the cities is very difficult and intricate for someone who does not know the city. Furthermore, since most of these cities were built before the automobile was even invented; the roads are also incredibly narrow. In the United States, many of these streets would be considered alleyways, not even large enough to constitute a one-way street. However, in Malta, the majority of these streets were astonishingly two-way roads. If two vehicles traveled down the road in opposing directions, they would have to maneuver, often times onto the sidewalk, in order to pass one another. The design of the cities have made for these drivers to be somewhat reckless, I even witnessed a car accident as two cars drove straight through a 4-way stop sign intersection. The narrow streets also lead to much smaller vehicles being driven. Most of the vehicles could not even be found in the US as they wouldn’t sell to our demographics, yet work perfectly in a Maltese environment.

Some of these once practical structures now provide an aesthetic value to the cities. Between Rabat and Sliema, there is an aqueduct that travels along the median of the main highway. This aqueduct was once used to bring water across to other areas of the island that did not have fresh water. Now, it remains, a beautiful structure separating lanes of traffic. This can also be seen as some cathedrals have been turned into museums, showcasing the architecture and intricate designs left by artists mandated by the Knights of the Order of St. John.

The most interesting architectural discovery for me was inside the cisterns. As the robot traveled down into the cistern, the development of the culture can be seen. As the robot goes deeper, the level of organization of the bricks change until the area is finally dug out. Seeing this is equivalent to traveling through time as each civilization developed. Malta was truly a sight to see, and nothing I say will ever compare nor truly capture actually being there to experience it.

The most interesting technical aspect for me in this excursion was the usage of the new micro-manipulator (or gripper) purchased from VideoRay. The purpose of the micro-manipulator is to pick up any interesting objects inside of the cisterns. While on the island Gozo, the robot without the manipulator was lowered into a cistern found outdoors. When the robot reached the bottom of the cistern, a large pile of pottery fragments was found. Once this was discovered, the robot with the micro-manipulator was placed into the well. At this point, we were able to pick up multiple pieces of pottery.

Using the gripper was more difficult than initially imagined. It required that robot controls be performed in the most delicate of manners in order to align and capture an object within the gripper. However, once accomplished, the feeling of picking up an artifact that could possibly be considered ancient is sublime. After some practice, it became easier to operate the micro-manipulator only taking a matter of a minute or two in order to pick up certain conveniently located objects. Some objects proved too difficult to reach with our equipment. In the second site at the Carmelite Priory in Mdina, an old glass bottle was found on a ledge inside the cistern. After several minutes of attempts, the bottle was too difficult to pick up. Given our limited time at each site, it was important to move on without obtaining the bottle. Though some pieces of pottery were easy to get at one location, the micro-manipulator is not necessarily a full solution to object retrieval in cisterns. Despite this, the micro-manipulator worked well overall for our uses. Furthermore, there are still many future applications that can be looked into with the micro-manipulator. These applications include the integration of gripper controls into the current robot user interface as well as possibly eventual autonomous control of the micro-manipulator.

ICEX Presentation

2009-04-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

ICEX MALTA 2009 PRESENTATION: Application of Robotics in Archeology

Tuesday, April 21, 11am-12pm (Bldg. 20-128)

This presentation will cover the technological, archeological, and cultural aspects of the 2009 ICEX trip to Malta. ICEX is the International Computer Engineering eXchange Program, coordinated by Prof. Chris Clark (Computer Engineering) and Christine Victorino (Center for Teaching and Learning). Computer Engineering students and faculty will be there to present their photos, discuss learning outcomes, and provide opporutnities to get involved in future trips to Malta and Norway (2010).

Contact: cmclark@calpoly.edu or cavictor@calpoly.edu.

A Fitting End

2009-04-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

It has been almost 2 weeks since I have returned home to San Luis Obispo, California. On March 29, we left Malta and arrived in Rome. Due to some delays, we were given the opportunity to explore a little bit of Rome in the afternoon and evening, before heading to the airport early in the morning to "catch" our flight to New York. While in Rome, a few of us got the opportunity to see the Colosseum, the Forum, Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps.

While in Rome we had dinner at a very nice Italian Pizza place. The food was great. Apparently, according to Phil's Pedometer, we walked over 10 miles that day. With all of the excitement it seemed like much less.

Before I close my final blog post, I would really like to talk about the one big cultural aspect and one big technological aspect that I took from my experiences in Malta.

In my blog before the trip, I mentioned that I wanted to learn more about the culinary aspect of the culture there. I would say that I more than accomplished my goal. While we were in Malta, Timmy Gambin, our local coordinator, set up a deal for us to have our dinners every night at this nice surf side Maltese cuisine Restaurant. Every night I experienced a new dish and got to experience a whole new style of food and ingredients. One of the most interesting observations I was able to make about the food in relation to US food was the use of oils. In our culinary culture we see mostly flavorless oils being used as a simple cooking medium and occasionally rich or enhanced oils for salads. In Malta, almost every dish I had was drizzled or cooked with oils that had such an intense amount of flavor, ranging from the most flavorful extra virgin olive oils to oils enriched with peppers, nuts, and even herbs. It was a shame I didn't bring a few bottles of infused oils home, as they not only complement the natural flavors of the food they were used on, but I could honestly make a meal out of it with bread and cheese.

As for my technical learning experience, I would like to talk about my experience with two different facets -- one related to what I learned about technology in Malta, and what I have learned from the work we actually performed there.

In my blog post about what I wanted to learn and bring to Malta, I talked about how our culture uses technology as an extension of our social experience in the US. While I was in Malta I spoke many times with Timmy and briefly with some of his colleges from the University of Malta about how technology affects their social lives. I found that there were actually quite a lot of parallels in our societies when it comes to our social link to technology. Apparently text messaging is quite big there, and quite a few of the people I talked to like to use MySpace, Flickr, and Twitter (apparently Facebook has not really taken off there). In terms of the raw uses of technology, I saw adds for some very impressive smart phones that don't even exist in the states yet, but the percentage of people with web-enabled (smart phones) seemed to be much lower than what I had been observing in the US before I left.

While doing our technical work, I occasionally picked up some very useful practices and facts about the programs and hardware we were using. In fact, I managed to actually see how things were working when we did our exploration and make changes to how the Malta Box operated to better utilize the time we had there. A slight modification was made to make it so that even if the serial ports were activated, they did not turn into a blocking state (blocks manual control from the control box) until the VideoRay software was activated taking control of the robot. Without even knowing it, I became well versed in the physical and software systems of the Video Ray ROV. It was nice to become so familiar with a specific product and its corresponding software, I feel that I could honestly consider myself an expert in the systems we used there.

Overall this trip was amazing. This was without a doubt the best trip I had ever taken. The technical and cultural knowledge I absorbed while I was there was priceless and I have become a much more well-rounded engineer. Thank you to all of those people who helped make this program possible.

ICEX Malta Retrospective and Conclusion

2009-04-02T21:30:00.000-07:00

The Malta ICEX expedition has been an incredible success, surpassing all of my expectations. Each day was action and adventure-filled with site visits around various access points on Malta and Gozo including ancient fortresses, exquisite private homes, and humble Friaries. Through great teamwork and collaborative efforts, several technical difficulties were quickly overcome and data was successfully collected from every adequately filled cistern. The months of planning, training, and preparation for this trip clearly paid off, and the horizon for future applied robotics ICEX trips has been significantly bolstered through the accomplishments ascertained here.

In terms of technical knowledge gained, I learned more about how the KCF Smart Tether data can be utilized by our SLAM implementation. At a very basic level, our algorithm makes use of a “prediction step” and a “correction step”. The prediction step applies a physics model of the our Video Ray such that when given control inputs, this model will produce resulting speeds, positions, etc. of the ROV under ideal conditions. However, the real world (our cisterns, for example) often contribute additional noise and are therefore far from ideal. This encountered interference can be dealt with through the correction step, where the perceptions of the submarine (in our case, the sonar data) is utilized to help correct for any differences between the calculations of the ideal model and the real location of the submarine. On this expedition, we were lucky to have been loaned a KCF Smart Tether, which calculates the exact location of the ROV through the use of GPS and smart nodes on the tether without the need of a physics-based estimation model. Through discussions with Professor Clark, I learned that we could now incorporate an additional correction step, which would utilize the data collected from the smart tether. Thus, a potential new implementation of our SLAM algorithm would make use of the same prediction step, a first correction step that uses the data from the sonar, and a second correction step that utilizes the data taken from the smart tether. Ideally, this new implementation would assist in a more precise calculation of the actual position of our Video Ray when running our algorithm on the data collected from our site visits in Malta and, therefore, produce more accurate maps of the cisterns.

As for learning about the Maltese culture, I luckily had a few opportunities to research my original interest: The academic culture. I first learned a few details about the college pedagogy through Timmy Gambin, a visiting lecturer at the Department of Classics and Archaeology at the University of Malta. He teaches an architecture class which requires 28 hours of ‘face-time’ or lecture-time along with a written paper due during the middle of the term and a final examination at the end of the term in order to earn two credits towards graduation. Mapped over the term, this boils down to two hours of lecture time per week. When I first learned this, I found it to be fairly similar with 2-unit classes I’ve taken at Cal Poly, and if this class/time ratio were to be extended to 12 or 16 units (which is a normal load of a Cal Poly student), the resulting class time would be about the same (about 16 hours of class time per week, excluding the 3-hour engineering labs). However, during our Friday night dinner, I had the opportunity to speak with Maxine Anastasi, a current Masters student at the University of Malta, and she informed me that during a typical school term, students are expected to take about 40 credits! This shattered my original understanding of making the parallel between Cal Poly and Malta University, since the total lecture-time at Malta could easily be 40 hours per week. Though this is significantly different from Cal Poly’s pedagogy, it does match with what I’ve heard in the past about European colleges (as already stated in my original cultural post).

Another fascinating fact about Malta is that going to college is free! In fact, so long as a student maintains the 40 credit class load and progresses through classes as required to make progress towards a desired degree, the government actually pays the student a stipend of about 60 euros a month (approximately 84 dollars, US)! This is clearly quite different from the paradigm at Cal Poly, which costs over $1,400 per quarter (equating to about 1000 euros). When I informed Maxine of this fact, she was taken aback--never having imagined that simply going through college could come at such a high price. And lastly, another interesting fact is that the vast majority of students attending Malta university actually live at home (since the island isn’t really large enough to actually move into on-campus dorms). This results in a few more variations between Maltese and Cal Poly cultures, specifically in terms of study groups. Since so many students live at home, rarely do students hang around campus to study or work together with others. Moreover, according to Maxine, the campus library only recently created a group study floor to help facilitate such group dynamics. All in all, the comparative academic cultures between Cal Poly and Malta university clearly differ in several core ways.

Along with the technical achievements and cultural encounters, the context of being in Malta was a superb experience as well. Having created the holistic chronological historical timeline of Malta and Gozo before setting foot on the islands, seeing the sites enriched with several thousand years of history was beyond awesome. Moreover, the fact that our work provided us with first-hand mapping of cisterns that were created during the days of the Phoenician and Roman occupation eras (over 2000 years ago!), provided for even more of an exceptional experience. Furthermore, having studied much about the Order of the Knights of St. John and of The Great Siege of Malta in 1565, seeing Fort St. Elmo (the location where a contingent of the Knights fought the Turks to their death) as well as spending a day at Fort St. Angelo (a location where the Knights defenses never fell) was equally incredible. Enriching the history further, we were privileged to actually meet with a living Knight (the current resident of Fort St. Angelo)—another surreal and rare treat. Viewing other influences of the Knights, such as St. John’s Cathedral and the capital city Valletta, had a significantly poignant affect. And lastly, from researching my Grandfather’s tour in the Allied armies through Africa and into Italy, witnessing a few of the remaining scars from the perpetual bombings that took place (such as the destroyed Opera House in Valletta, and the rebuilt walls at Fort St. Angelo) personalized the knowledge that I had only, up till this point, retained through literature.

All in all, the work was successful, the sites and historical context were incredible, and the overall experience was most definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I’m glad I didn’t miss. An exceptionally special thanks is very well deserved to Christine, Chris, and, of course, Timmy for their hard work in organizing the logistics for planning this trip, ensuring that our days were filled with activities, and training us for the tasks that have now been completed. I am very grateful to have been chosen and included on this ICEX Malta expedition.

A Brief Tour of Rome

2009-03-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

After a relatively short flight from Malta to Rome, the team quickly found and settled into the Courtyard Marriott in Fiumicino. With the hotel accommodations accounted for (and a bit of a hassle to acquire a rather pricey Taxi…), two-thirds of the team ventured to the heart of Rome itself (Daniel and Justin remained at the hotel to rest).

Our first steps on Roman soil took place directly in front of the massive and infamous Colosseum.

After marveling at the giant masterpiece of ancient architecture, we unfortunately found that we were about 15 minutes late of gaining access to the inside. However, the team concluded that simply seeing the outside of the structure in person was worth the trip.

Next, we moved to the Forum…to once again find that we were just too late to gain entry. However, we made the best of our situation and took in what view we could from the outside.

We then decided to take a hike through Rome to see more of the sights, including the Republica, and to eat dinner.

Our first dinner in Rome, though quite over-priced, was rather tasty. Following dinner, we continued on our site-seeing quest, finding Fontana di Trevi and the Spanish Steps.

Before leaving Rome for the hotel, we felt it necessary to stop for a Gelato. Italian Gelato lived up to its hype. The rich flavor and creamy consistency, not to mention the ridiculous amount received in their smallest size, made for a perfect end to our evening.

Overall, what started as a drastically long layover in Rome turned out to be a lucky opportunity for the team and a great way to end our brief tour in Europe.

Final Day in Malta

2009-03-28T12:52:00.001-07:00

After a week of exploring impressive sites across the islands of Malta, our final day was no less exciting. We visited a Carmelite Priory outside of the city of Rabat. On this day, we were accompanied by Keith Buhagiar and his family. Keith is a PhD candidate studying at the University of Malta. Keith's dissertation focuses on medieval water management systems, and he provided us with expertise and historical context for our site.

The structure of the priory dates back to the 12th century, and our first site was a cistern located in the main courtyard.

Immediately upon reaching water at the bottom of the cistern, the sonar image as well as the video camera identified three tunnels attached to the cistern - an unexpected surprise that exceeded our initial expectations! The next challenge was to navigate the robot through each of the tunnels and gather enough data to map the tunnels sufficiently. Despite having issues with the sonar and smart tether, we were able to capture enough data and managed to keep in good spirits with the cold and windy conditions.

After completing the first cistern, we proceeded to a nearby water gallery connected directly to the underground water table. Keith described the water gallery as being interconnected to multiple sites through very long tunnels. The gallery was located underneath a cave church and found beyond overgrown plants through a hidden entryway.

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At this final site, Chris was eager to take control of the robot and drive it through the gallery's main tunnel. After driving for some time and collecting excellent sonar date and video images, we soon realized that the tether was not long enough to explore the entire length of the tunnel. We had already used approximately 250 feet of tether, and there was still much of the tunnel to explore.

We ended the exploration with ample data to construct an initial map of the water gallery. And, although our trip to Malta has come to an end, there is still much work to do in order to create maps using the sonar data, SLAM algorithms, and GPS readings. We also look forward to sharing the maps with our Maltese colleagues in order to piece together the historical and archeological significance of the ancient water storage systems. Special thanks to Timmy Gambin and Keith Buhagiar for providing us with unprecedented access to archeological sites during our trip.

Before I end this blog post, I've added some memorable images from our time here in Malta. We look forward to keeping in touch over the next few weeks as well in the coming year for future ICEX trips. Ciao!

Return to Mdina

2009-03-27T15:02:00.001-07:00

Today we explored the most complex cistern found during our trip thusfar. We gained access to the Carmelite Priory, located in the fortress city of Mdina. The robot was lowered down a square shaft until it hit water; it then descended 14 ft until it reached the bottom. Upon rotating the robot, we discovered a small tunnel that led to a second chamber. Another tunnel connected the second chamber to yet a third. This was by far the most complex cistern discovered on our trip. We even deployed 2 robots at once.

The priory had a flat screen tv used for displaying educational videos, and we hooked it up to the ROV's videocamera output for public viewing of the exploration.

Following a successful morning of cistern mapping, students explored Mdina as tourists.

First stop after lunch was the St. Pauls grotto and a walk through the underground catacombs.

The main highlight was the dungeon museum. Wax dolls offered some graphic scences, and Matt was caught pillaging and plundering.

They weren't kind to Matt in the torture chamber.

Our day concluded at dinner, and we were joined by Timmy's colleagues from the University of Malta and archeologists from Italy.

Mdina

2009-03-26T15:20:00.003-07:00

Yesterday we worked in the city Rabat, which is a suburb of the fortress-city Mdina. Today we ventured past Rabat and through the fortress walls into Mdina itself—a city at the heart of Malta whose history dates back to 1800 BC!

The location of the city, in relation to Malta, is shown in red on the map below.

The fortress-city itself:

Site 1

Our first site of the day was within a private home in Mdina. Through talking with Timmy, we found that the architecture of the home and surrounding buildings date back to the fourteenth century.

The homeowner granted us access to the courtyard area of the access point as well as a room within the house for our equipment setup. In the courtyard, our first site was an old well with a waterline that was over seventy feet down—the largest depth we’ve seen so far on our expedition.

Once we were set up, the robot was lowered down the deep well. On the way down, we could see about 30 feet of stacked blocks; but further down the blocks transformed into more medieval stones, revealing the rich history of the building. Once the robot hit water, we were able to collect a good amount of sonar and SLAM data. However, exploration of the well was difficult due to a large amount of loose silt. Simply setting the Video Ray down would frequently equate to the robot sinking into the earth. Moreover, as we explored the cistern, navigation was also problematic due to a pump that was situated near the center of the well. So, as we used the ROV to scout and examine the crevices of the cistern, our tether inevitably became entangled with the well-pump’s pipes and cables.

In the end, things came up just fine—data was collected, our prized Video Ray was salvaged, and everything was placed back just as it was found. Once the excitement of rescuing our robot settled, we were ready to move onto the next access point.

Site 2

The second deployment of the ROV today took place within the same courtyard as Site 1. Only a few meters away from the well access point of Site 1, there was a narrow passage under a stone slab that we thought might be connected to the same cistern.

After some careful maneuvering to slide the robot through the small opening and lowering it to the floor, we were disappointed to find that this cistern only contained a few inches of water. This unfortunately concluded our work at this private home. We thanked the owner and moved out to our next location.

Site 3

The next deployment was stationed at another private home within the city walls of Mdina. There was a large access point within a courtyard with a promising pool of water sitting about 30 feet down.

Once again we deployed our equipment and lowered the robot down into the cistern. Unfortunately, yet again, as the robot reached the water surface, we found that it contained about 6 inches of water—not quite enough to use the ROV’s sonar. However, we didn’t give up so easily. We lifted the submarine a few inches above the surface and gently swung it into a slightly deeper location. As the ROV landed, the sonar was submerged and sonar reading splashed upon our computer screen. Unfortunately, the contours of the cistern, combined with the low water level yielded us unable to get consistent and reliable sonar readings. We then disappointingly recoiled our submarine for the last time today and moved onto other adventures for the day.

Though we suffered a robot entanglement issue and only one of the three sites explored today allowed us to collect some good data, we decided to move on and make the best of the day starting with lunch. We chose to dine at the restaurant Fontanella, situated atop the fortress walls of Mdina, with a breath-taking vista overlooking the lower cities of Malta—even Valletta was visible from our table.

As for the food, a few of the members enjoyed a cold pint of Cisk and we strangely received our cake desserts before our main course of fantastic pizza. Thus, the lunch experience was ever more unique as we dined upon a meal of cake and beer while sitting upon fortress walls.

Following lunch, we saw another awesome archway located on the walls of Mdina. This passageway was of particular interest because of the figure overlooking the crown of the arch--holding both a sword and cross; well symbolizing the Knights of St. John.

Upon leaving Mdina, the team once again made the decision to attempt seeing St. John’s Cathedral, and this time it was a success! St. John’s Cathedral was built after The Great Siege by the Knights of Malta (Knights of the Order of St. John) during the 1570s. The Cathedral thus served as the tomb for several of the Grand Masters of the Knights throughout the following centuries.

Upon reaching the inside of St. John’s, the team agreed that it is the most opulent and exquisite cathedral any of us have ever seen…words honestly cannot describe the beauty and magnificence that we had the opportunity to view. In any case, I’m glad we took the advice of Fryer John and saw the cathedral before leaving Malta—it certainly was an amazing experience.

Five wells and a moment of fear

2009-03-25T15:54:00.000-07:00

Today was another exciting day. We started out thinking we would be visiting only two sites in Rabat, but we finished up the day with five sites at four locations!

Our first dive was in a Friary where with a well in the central courtyard. This well has seen many hundreds of years of water flow through it, but the water level hasn't risen in the last hundred plus years. With this information, we looked for passages from this well to others, because the water would have to be flowing somewhere.

Once the robot was in the well, we unfortunately found that it was fairly shallow and there wasn't much room to drive around. This is due to hundreds of years of silt and debris piling up, so there was not much we could do. Also while Justin was driving, he kept telling us he was having a hard time going straight, and that the robot would curve off to the side. When we pulled the robot back out of the well, we found a large amount of twine was wrapped around one of the thrusters, so it was barely able to move. Phil whipped out his trusty pocket knife, and Michael went to work on fixing it.

We then moved to another well East of the first well. Michael hypothesized there could have been a passage to the East of the first well from the sonar data we logged. We explored this well as much as we could, but it was also quite full of silt. It looked like there could have been a passage between the two wells, but it was difficult to tell.

Father Eugene, our host at the Friary, led us on a tour and gave us some history about the building as well as showed us the church. The paintings and decorations inside of the churches in Malta are incredible, so we are always eager to see the chapels.

We stopped for a snack, and headed to the residence of Joseph Muscat. After stepping foot into his home, we found many handmade sculptures similar to boats in bottles, but they were essentially elaborate layers of handmade cities in large glass cases. He had studied the ships of Malta and wrote a book about them, Sails Round Malta, so our project was very exciting for him to see.

He showed us a handmade ship that was dated back to around the 1750s which didn't have the same impact on me until Cory pointed out it was older than the United States!

This well was quite deep and very clear compared to all of the others we have seen so far. It was close to 15 feet deep compared to the 3 - 6 feet of the others, and had very little silt and debris stirring up while navigating. While we were taking data, one of Joseph's neighbors stopped by to see what the commotion was about. After we explained what we were doing, he said he had an access point and invited us into his home for us to explore his well. We dropped the robot into this new well, but it was quite shallow and narrow. Due to silt, we couldn't see very much.

We then moved to another Friary and found another well that was built very far down into the ground. We lowered the robot close to 40 feet to touch the water, but it was disappointing that there was only close to 2 feet of water to submerge in.

Once we finished packing up, Chris went back to the apartments and the rest of the guys went to Valleta. Our goal was to visit the church of Saint John, but it closed 3 minutes before we got there. Darn. We wandered through the town following signs to other churches, and ended up at the church of Saint Dominico. It had beautiful paintings, decoration, and ceilings, which was nice to see after missing Saint John's church. We visited the tourist parts of the city and then headed back to the buses.

On the way back to Sliema I was watching out the window, someone getting assistance from the Polizija due to hitting something in their car. Not realizing what I was doing, I started folding up my bus ticket receipt to make patterns in the paper. We thought it was a silly idea to print out receipts because we couldn't figure out how a person would get on the bus without going past the driver, so the folding soon became tearing and overall turned into a rolled up piece of paper that was much smaller than it started out. Almost 3/4 of the way back to Sliema, I quickly realized why they print receipts. A man in uniform (fortunately not the bus driver since we were still moving!) made his way to the back of the bus and started checking our tickets. At this point I scrambled to piece together the scraps of chaos in my minds and managed to find the pieces that had the date, time, and bus number on them. I handed these to him with a sheepish look on my face, he took a quick, puzzled, look and handed them back to me. After he left, I found out he didn't even ask Matt for his ticket because he looked like he was asleep. From now on, I think I'll keep my receipts intact till I'm back to the apartment.

Also to add to the story of me with the group of kids, they surrounded me because while they were playing with a ball, it fell down the side of the cliff and rolled down the street. This was the second time we saw them do it, so I started taking pictures of the ball rolling down the street and cars trying to dodge it. As it rolled to a stop, a car following it also stopped and a kid jumped out of the back. He ran over to the ball, grabbed it, and jumped back into the car as it drove off. All the while, I was taking pictures. After Cory, Phil, and I looked at each other thinking "Did that really just happen?", I went over to the kids and showed them the pictures. I knew they wouldn't be able to do much since the person was in a shadow, but I at least gave them the license plate of the car in case they knew the person. What I didn't think about was that the kids would want to call the police and have me stay until they came to show the pictures. After a few minutes, they led me to their parents where I relayed the information, and we were on our way again.

Gozo

2009-03-24T15:38:00.000-07:00

Today, we took a ferry to explore four sites on the island of Gozo. After arriving in Gozo, we made our way to what is known as the Citadel. The Citadel is heavily fortified and built on a hill that rises steeply above the surrounding countryside. The views from the fortress walls were amazing, and (once again) we all felt extremely lucky to have the opportunity to tour such a beautiful site.

Site 1: Ta Rikardu Restaurant
Our first access point of the day was located in a restaurant named Ta Rikardu. Our sonar scans revealed that this cistern had a rectangular shape. The shape of the cistern can tell the archaeologists a lot about when the cistern was made. This cistern's rectangular shape is characteristic of Roman cisterns built around 200 or 300 BC. It's astonishing that we're looking into cisterns that date back to more than 2000 years ago.

Site 2
The next site was a private residence just down the road from the restaurant. While we were setting up our equipment, the owner mentioned that one day he dropped a serving tray into the well. When he tried to retrieve it, he ended up pulling up a short sword. This news excited us, but unfortunately, we could not find another sword (or the owner's lost tray). Still, we had lots of fun exploring this cistern, and discovered that the cistern had a large oval shape. We also found lots of modern items (such us CD cases and Marlboro cigarette packs) on the cistern's floor. Some of these items couldn't be more than 20 years old, but already had a considerable amount of silt built up on top of them. This made us wonder what ancient artifacts remained hidden under the layers of silt.

Site 3
The cistern at this site was one of the smallest ones we've encountered. Despite its small size, this cistern was the most interesting. We found various pieces of pottery on the cistern's floor. According to the archaeologists, the pottery pieces with a gray inner strip most likely dated back to ancient times. The gray strip is typical in ancient pieces, since ancient pottery makers did not yet have the technology to properly oxidize the entire piece of pottery. We were given the permission to use our gripper to pull some pieces of pottery out of the cistern. The process of pulling the pottery pieces was extremely exciting for the entire team. We even cheered as we pulled the pottery pieces out of the cistern's shaft. We managed to pick up two pieces off pottery. We gave the pieces to a local archaeologist to store in a museum.

Site 4
This access point was in a building adjacent to the private residence we explored in site 2. Unfortunately, we discovered that the access point dropped into the same cistern. However, we still collected some valuable information. With our sonar scan, we could determine the location of this access point relative to the location of the access point in site 2.

Overall, we had a tiring, but action-packed day. Still, we all can't wait to continue our cistern explorations tomorrow!

Fort St. Angelo

2009-03-23T15:04:00.000-07:00

Today we went to fort St. Angelo for our first work day. It was an amazing way to kick off our project as everyone was in awe of the place. The fort stands directly across the Great Harbor from the city of Valletta. Fort St. Angelo holds tremendous significance in Maltese history and is currently closed to the public for reconstruction. The second level is a private space occupied by the Order of St. John knights, known as defenders of the Holy Land and providers of the first "hospitals".

While there we met the resident knight of the castle, Friar John Edward Critien, who provided us with a wealth of knowledge about the history of the site. Apparently, before the knights occupied Malta, there was a small fort built on the hill. When the knights came in the mid 1500’s, they built fortifications that extended to the seaside. Built by the Order of St. John Knights, these fortifications became the main point of resistance against the Ottoman forces during the Great Siege of 1565. During World War II, the site was used by the British forces as a military base.

Site one:

The first site we visited was in the courtyard grotto. Our access point was a well-like structure topped with a hollowed column base that was likely part of an older roman pillar. It took a little while to set up all of our equipment for the first time, but once we had it things progressed smoothly much to our delight.

Once we lowered our robot into the water, we quickly discovered that the water was very murky which made it hard to see video. Even though the visibility was poor, we were able to use the sonar to map the interior very clearly. The cistern was bell-shaped with about 5 meters across at the widest, with 7 feet of water. By moving up slowly from the bottom while recording sonar data, we were able to collect enough data that we hope to be able to construct a 3d map of the site at some later time.

Site two:

The next site was found on top of the actual grotto. Apparently the grotto was built using the wall of one of the towers of the original fortress. When the tower portion became obsolete due to the new fortifications, it was turned into water storage. The roof of the grotto and adjacent building were designed with trenches so that rain water would fill the cistern. Our access point was a trapdoor on the roof of the grotto.

The water in this cistern was much clearer than the previous one, and we had a lot of fun exploring the area with video. To our surprise there was quite a lot of water in the relatively small area with about 7 feet deep. When we mapped the area with our sonar we were initially misled by the double barrel shape that was shown. Upon a video inspection of the area, we determined that the area was ‘D’ shaped and that the previous maps were anomalies produced by our sonar reflecting off the walls in the tight space.

Site three:

Our third site was by far the largest in area. The cistern was located near the chapel of St. Anne with an access point built into the wall. Along the floor around the chapel there were stones with small holes to let the rain water collect in the cistern.

At first we were worried that the water would be to shallow to drive in, but it proved to be just enough with a little less then two feet of water. The cistern was rectangular about 12 meters in length and 6 meters wide.

Here we also decided to try sync our video recordings with our localization data. In this way we can watch the video at a later time and know exactly where on the map the footage was taken.

Technical Module: Sunday, March 22nd 2009

2009-03-22T17:42:00.000-07:00

Before heading out to our first site tomorrow, we had to test all of the equipment, and make some modifications to our robots. The robots were fully functional with testing, everyone’s computer is set with the capability to record sonar data, and two of the computers are set to record video.

We had an unfortunate incident with TSA as they searched one of the boxes containing a robot and had placed it back improperly. The damage resulted in having to place a new base onto the robot. The replacement base also contains the new micro-manipulator (gripper) so we can hopefully pick up artifacts found inside the cisterns. Though this is not the immediate purpose of the project, it would be incredible to find something, and possibly open new doors to the project and capabilities of the robot.

We received our assignments for tomorrow and are eagerly awaiting our first excursion.

Culture Module: Sunday, March 22nd 2009

2009-03-22T16:44:00.000-07:00

Since we didn’t have any sites to work on today, we had the opportunity to visit the capital city of Malta, Valletta. This city is truly something to see. The entire city is fortified! Each of us took at least a hundred pictures today, trying to capture the beauty this city holds. The limestone fortresses and buildings are truly a testament to the labors of a people protecting the country they love.

For lunch we ate at Café Cordina, one of the oldest café’s in the city (circa late 1800’s). We each sampled the fine cuisine of Malta. The food consists mostly of seafood with an Italian-style flare. There are however, some local foods that are truly unique to the island, such as pan fried rabbit. Delicious! The desserts are rich with gelato and various types of pastries.

After lunch, I guided the walking tour around Valletta. This gave me the opportunity to learn a good deal about the city, and the various memorials and buildings we were seeing.

St. Paul’s Cathedral was a spectacular site as was the Barrakka gardens, which hold the memorial for Sir Alexandre Ball, who took the island of Malta from France in 1800. During our time taking pictures, Daniel befriended some local kids as he helped them track down their futbol.

Before leaving the city we toured the Museum of Archeology. There we learned of the ancient history of Malta dating back to 4000-5000BCE. This country has such a vast history. Artifacts and slates of megalithic structures adorned the museum. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside of the museum, but take it from me, it was really amazing.

This first day was the perfect start to our adventures throughout Malta. I feel that I have already learned so much, and our experiences here have just begun.

Malta Update Saturday March 21st

2009-03-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

So we landed in Malta about 5 hours ago, and it is very cold and windy here. We spent a total of 23 hours on planes and in airports to get here, but so far it seems to have been well worth it. The sights alone are mesmerizing. Our housing accommodations are about 2 blocks from the ocean, and the water is actually blue. Coming from California I was shocked to the see the ocean any color besides green or brown. We found an internet cafe quite close to our apartments, and that is what we are currently using to add stuff to our blog as well as make calls to our friends and families. We are about to go off for dinner and I think a few of us are going to be trying some rabbit. Sorry about no pictures yet, but we plan to have some ready to upload by our blog post tomorrow.

As for the technological side of our project we are in the process of implementing "WASD" controls, We only have one joystick so this could be very useful. WASD refers to the keys on the keyboard generally used to control the player in a first-person shooter game.

Keep following us, and we hope to be able to share some awesome news very soon.

Malta Cultural Learning Golas

2009-03-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

Being that our group is composed primarily of Computer Engineers, I would like to show people in Malta how technology effects our lives. Our primary technical goal in Malta is to explore and map the cistern caverns using our the VideoRay ROVs. But The technology that we bring with us can serve us in many ways. The average American, not just computer engineers, are connected to the internet in one way or another for most of the day. I realize that Malta has these technologies as well, but I want to show how technology can be as much a social accessory as well as a research tool. Smart Phones are becoming more and more popular, and are giving people the ability to stay in touch, and socialize in an increasing number of ways.
While in Malta I would like to learn more about their Culinary arts. Cooking has always been a hobby of mine, and this will be a prime opportunity for me to see first hand what Maltese food is all about. In many cultures there is history/stories associated with dishes or types of food, understanding the purpose for why something is the way it is makes the dish that more interesting. While I am there I must be sure to try a drink called Kinnie, a non-alcoholic fizzy drink made from bitter oranges and slightly reminiscent of a Martini. As well I would like to try the local beer known as Cisk (pronounced Chisk"), which is a premium Lager. I am truly excited to learn about someones culture via taste above all other senses.

Cultural Learning Goals

2009-03-18T21:46:00.000-07:00

The article "Practical Planet: Avoiding the 'Ugly American' stereotype" by Gary Wederspahn analyzes various features of American culture. One of these features Wederspahn mentions is individualism. According to the article, our tendency to value individualism has given other cultures the impression that Americans are self-centered and poor team players. In fact, a survey by sociologist Geert Hofstede ranks American culture as the most individualistic culture in the world. My wish is that the ICEX project will allow us to showcase our ability to work effectively as a team. I hope to show that despite our culture's emphasis on individual accountability, we still hold the ability to work on a team in high regard.

I'd like to learn more about Maltese music. Considering Malta has a very rich history spanning thousands of years, it'll be very interesting to hear what traditional Maltese music sounds like. I'd also like to take the opportunity to turn on a radio and see what's popular in Malta today. This blog post even has me thinking that a traditional Maltese instrument would make a very good souvenir.

Data Collection in Los Angeles

2009-03-18T14:53:00.000-07:00

I decided to take some data at my pool in LA, and record this little video:
My Qik Video.
With any luck, I will be able to make videos like this from Malta.

Cultural Learning Goals

2009-03-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

An aspect of American culture that I would like to share with people while we are overseas is academic culture, specifically the teaching methodology and corresponding work ethic associated with an engineering major. Engineering classes at Cal Poly typically involve a short amount of lecture time (3 - 4 hours per week) and also commonly incorporate a 3-hour lab that meets once a week. However, to compensate for this limited amount of class time, students are expected to complete ample amounts of homework, reading assignments, as well as individual and group projects outside of class. Such a pedagogy routinely keeps the self-motivated and studious students studying at a library or working in front of a computer for much of their time outside of class. Having been a Cal Poly engineering student for over five years now, I'm more than willing to share my perspective of this aspect of American culture.

Extending this line of thought, I hope to explore the academic Maltese culture. I've worked with people in the past who currently attend universities in France where the teaching style is much different--school is more like a full time job of 30-40 hours of in-class time per week. However, the out-of-class assignments are significantly less than here in the United States. Therefore, I'm curious to see what style of teaching holds in Malta. Moreover, I'd also like to learn about the group dynamics of project work as well as group study in comparison to my experiences at Cal Poly.

Cultural Learning Goals

2009-03-16T22:04:00.000-07:00

As an American traveling abroad, a cultural aspect I would like to bring to Malta is our professional, yet friendly work ethic. I wish to show that Californians and Americans alike are not the stubborn, impatient people that is commonly associated with the American professional. Instead, we conduct ourselves appropriately, are courteous to others, and exact a level of patience and understanding with our colleagues. Considering I will be working for my first time outside of the US, it won't be difficult to come off as a friendly and excited worker.

A cultural aspect that I would like to learn about in Malta is their architectural styles and influences. As a small island filled with such rich history spanning the time of man, it will be interesting to observe how the people have developed into a modern society amidst ancient ruins and fortresses. Though these sights can be read about in a book and seen in pictures, it truly is not the same as being there. Considering the United States is such a young country, with most of its ancient history lost during the settlement process and colonial days, it is not often we get to stand in awe of a civilization thousands of years in the making.

Cultural Learning Goals

2009-03-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

One cultural aspect I would like to share with people while we are overseas is to show that all Americans, and more specifically Californians, are not how we are repeatedly portrayed on TV and in movies. It is easy to get lost in the stereotypes from TV shows like The O.C., or to be looked at as having the same beliefs as past Presidents, so it will be important to bring some dignity back to being an American traveler and not hide behind the phrase "I'm from Canada". The group we have is quite far from these stereotypes, so I look forward to not having to wear these hats:

I also look forward to seeing how Maltese people interact with each other and foreigners. In America, we need a bubble of personal space at all times which is easy to contrast to China or Japan where having a few inches of personal space is a luxury at times. In India it is quite common to invite a newly-met person home for drinks and snacks whereas here in America it would be considered unsafe.

It is taboo to ask how much a person makes at their job, have a drop of alcohol before turning 21, talk about any subject matter pertaining to the inside of a bedroom, but it is perfectly normal to go to a movie theater and watch the latest Saw movie with body parts flying off left and right.

These are a few of the social oddities in America, and I can't wait to see how the Maltese view them as well as pick up on their unspoken rules.

ICEX Story in Malta News

2009-03-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

An article about ICEX was written by Zahra Latif for the Malta online newspaper www.di-ve.com. Click here to view the article: "Robots uncover hidden Malta".

Mustang Daily

2009-03-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

The ICEX 2009 project made it into Cal Poly's Mustang Daily newspaper today. The article can be read online at:

Engineers specialize robots to explore water in Malta.

There is also an online audio slideshow that can be found here.

A Video of the VideoRay in Action

2009-03-04T14:29:00.000-08:00

This video was taken at the Poly Canyon Village pool showing Phil driving the ROV

Technical Training #6

2009-03-04T13:50:00.000-08:00

Training#6: Testing two VideoRays and a Smart Tether in the Poly Village Pool

Today we had the ability to test two separate VideoRay ROVs in the pool with different laptops, as well as test out our new KCF Smart Tether which KCF is letting us use for free!We got quite a bit done in this session compared to last time - we were able to read sonar data on Matt's laptop, log the sonar data onto the computer, control the VideoRay with the joystick or through the GUI, deploy both VideoRays, and test the Smart Tether. It was a busy day!We came away from this test with a few items on our to do list, the first being that we need to add more weights to the second ROV. It had less weight than the first VideoRay, and because of this it was too bouyant even in fresh water to dive under the surface.
The second item is to tweak the joystick controls. The VideoRay can rotate much faster than it can move forward or backward, so we need to lessen the gains on the rotation thruster commands. Another nice-to-have is to change the rotation command from the joystick x-axis (pushing left/right) to the axis of rotation around the z-axis (twisting left/right) because this more closely matches the motion of the ROV.We successfully tested the KCF Smart Tether which will bring several enhancements to our data. This tether is made to house several sensor nodes which help the computer find the position of the robot, as well as the orientation of the tether itself.Having the Smart Tether will be critical to gathering accurate data especially in the case when the tether gets snagged or caught on something.

The software that estimates where the robot is located is based on where it thinks the robot's current position is plus the amount of movement it is commanded to have for the next time period. If the tether is snagged, the robot physically can't move, but the software will think it should have moved based on the control inputs. With the Smart Tether, we will be able to use the data from the nodes embedded in the tether to see if the robot truly did move when it was commanded to, so we will greatly lessen the error of our data if the tether does get stuck.

We did have issues again with seeing the laptop screens in daylight, so we improved upon our previous design and constructed a two-jacket sun-reducer.
I don't think Matt enjoyed how hot it was under there.

ICEX Dinner #2

2009-03-02T14:56:00.000-08:00

Our second cultural training session was hosted by Matt and Michael. They cooked an excellent bragoli (Malta steak dish) - kudos to the chefs!

In preparation for the training, everyone read the following articles on stereotypes of Americans travelling abroad:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/13/america/letter.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/magazine/03wwln_lede.html

As a group, we watched a series of ABC News stories on "Ugly Americans" in Paris: http://i.abcnews.com/WhatWouldYouDo/story?id=6556024&page=1

The videos were fairly exaggerated but provided a good starting point for discussion. We discussed conceptions and misconceptions of Americans traveling abroad. We also examined how travel can be an opportunity to explore other cultures, but also a time to better understand our own cultures. The cultural iceberg analogy was used to discuss how most features of culture are hidden beneath the surface, e.g. values, gender roles, historical context.

Finally, we reviewed the following tips and resources on travel etiquette and American cultural values:
http://www.worldcitizensguide.org/guides.cfm
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TRAVEL/10/31/cultural.etiquette/
http://www.talesmag.com/tales/practical/ugly_american.shtml
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/educators/lessonplans/lesson.cfm?lpid=347&gid=3
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/educators/lessonplans/lesson.cfm?lpid=350&gid=3

To follow-up on the cultural training, each participant will post a blog covering the following:
1. One aspect of American culture you'd like to share while abroad and why.
2. One aspect of Maltese culture you'd like to explore and why.

Matt showing off the delicious steak

Watching the Ugly American video article on American tourists

The whole group

Technical Training #5

2009-02-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

Training#5: Testing the VideoRay in the Poly Village Pool

Today we tested the VideoRay in the Poly Canyon Poly Village swimming pool. After we got past the initial shock of how beautiful a day it was, and regret for not bringing swimming shorts, we went to work setting up for our tests. We wanted to test some of the changes we had made to the code in the last few weeks involving the joystick controller, mapping features, and the GUI.

The first item of business was to a set up a workstation for all of our equipment. Utilizing the latest in table technology, we sourced a patio chair and made our base.

Testing in the pool was very different from driving the ROV in the ocean for several reasons. First off, we were able to see the robot's physical location. The water in a pool is very clear compared to ocean water, so this made driving the robot much easier.

Another big different was buoyancy. Saltwater is much more dense than freshwater (well.. as "fresh" as pool water can be!), so the robot floats much more easily in the ocean. With the much less dense pool water, we were constantly having to give it positive vertical thruster commands to keep it from sinking to the bottom of the pool.

We ran into some software problems between the different laptops, different software versions, and finding the correct software for the serial to USB converters, so we spent a bit of time trying to sort these issues out. One positive that came from this was that we all had a chance to drive the robot while troubleshooting.

I took the liberty to toss my shoes off and enjoy the cool water while the robot explored the depths of the pool floor.

The robot was curious about this new intruder (my legs), and came close enough to inspect, but luckily did not attack.

After our tests, we took the robot out of the water and reconciled our differences.

We then had to do a few more tests because we weren't getting data through the RS-485 to RS-232 converter which brings the sonar data from the control box into our laptops.

This data is what creates the maps of the robot's surroundings, so it was a high priority to see what could be done to remedy this problem.

It was very difficult to see the laptop screens in daylight, so we constructed a device to increase the apparent contrast of the monitor.
We called it a 'jacket'.

At the end of the session, we didn't have much luck in accomplishing our software tests on the changes we have made, but we were very glad the issues that arose happened before we arrive in Malta.
We practiced troubleshooting on the fly, and were able to narrow down devices that need to be individually tested before integrating them into the system again. Keeping our composure when running into problems like we saw is essential, and today we certainly made the best of them.

Technical Training #4

2009-02-23T01:24:00.000-08:00

We began our 4th and final technical training discussing some of the details of the actual trip such as the apartments we are staying and how meal arrangements will work. We also learned that the Archeologists we will be working with have already laid out a whole list of new sites we will be exploring. Being able to talk about these details with only a month away from actually being in Malta really caused a lot of group excitement.

During the now routine deployment exercise of the ROV, a side thruster appeared to be broken and would not respond. However have doing a full tear down and rebuilding of the robot, the motor kindly decided to work again. Even so we it was decided it would be best to send it to video ray for a full check and tune up.

The other task that we worked on was merging code all three code bases together. During this progress a bug was discovered in the mapping mode of our software that causes it to crash. Fixing this is our top priority as of now, and we are aiming to finish it in time for our mapping test on Tuesday at the Poly Canyon pool.

Architecture of Malta

2009-02-16T23:49:00.000-08:00

Maltese architecture has a very long history and has a large number of influences from different mediterranean cultures. The variety of the architecture ranges from the oldest freestanding stone structure in the world to magnificent baroque style cathedrals, making Malta one of the most architecturally interesting places in the world.

The oldest architecture of Malta is its chain of megalithic stone temples. These temples were built by the earliest known settlers of Malta who came from Sicily during the early Neolithic era around 5200 BC. Most of the temples date back to around 3500 BC, making them the oldest stone structures in the world. Archeological evidence indicates that the temples were used in animal sacrifices, burnt offerings, and ritual oracles.

Hagar Qim is located on the sourthern edge of the island Malta and dates back to 3600 BC. The builders used limestone that is a common outcropping on the island.

Fort St. Angelo

Due to Malta’s location in the Mediterranean it has been valued highly valued as a strategic point throughout its history. As a result the island is scattered with forts and battlements that were constructed throughout the years to defend the island.The largest fort building effort was started by the Knight of St. John under the leadership of Jean Parisot de Valette in 1552, when tensions with the Ottoman Empire were at its highest.

At the time, Valette was convinced that an Ottoman attack was inevitable and ordered the construction and reinforcement of nearly half a dozen large fort complexes, nearly all of which stand today. These forts later proved pivotal to the defeat of Ottoman forces in during the Siege of Malta in 1565.

Fort St. Elmo

One of the most significant contributions of the Order of St. John was the many cathedrals and chapels that were built during their rule. The order was known for shamelessly displaying its wealth by commissioning the construction of eloquently decorated cathedrals in baroque style. Italian and Flemish painters were contracted to decorate the interior with spanning murals.

St. Johns Co-Cathedral was built by the Order of St. John shortly after the end of the Great Siege in the newly founded city Vellatta. While outside resembles a military fort, the inside is exceedingly ornate. Most of the internal artistry was done by the Italian baroque artist and Knight Mattia Preti. Preti’s paintings on the vaulted ceiling and side altars depict the life of St. John, from birth to death.

The Dome of Malta in Mosta was started in 1833 on the site of a previous church and not finished until 1860. It was designed by the Maltese architect Giorgio Grognet and was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The rotunda dome spans 37 meters making it the third largest dome in Europe and the ninth in the world.

On April 9th, 1942 during a daytime air raid, a Luftwaffe bomb shell crashed through the dome into a congregation of about 300 people. The bomb did not explode and no one was hurt. A replica of the bomb is now on display in the building.

A few Pictures from the last Technical Trainings

2009-02-09T19:54:00.000-08:00

Training Day #1:

It was a beautiful day driving out to Avila Beach. A beautiful day in January. We must be in California.

We drove through a locked gate and down a long pier. The "road" turns from concrete to metal grating with a warning sign that says "Warning: Grates may be removed at any time". Fantastic.

Luckily, we all made it to the end and found the building we will be spending the next few Sundays in.

We met a few Biology students concentrating in marine biology already out there working hard by studying their samples under microscopes. The pier was donated to Cal Poly for research, and it is the perfect location for marine biology, as well as what we are here for - chasing fish with an underwater robot. Okay, maybe a little more than that, but this is what it really boils down to!

We first had to setup our station, which since we were using the LBV150 ROV consisted of first finding a video display. The video display we found was a top-heavy television bolted to its platform, but this was no problem for our team!

We carried it outside, locked it in place, and continued setting up the robot.

We drove around for a bit in the water, exploring the open sea*. Having the television outside did let us see what the ROV saw, but there was very little contrast in daylight so it was difficult to tell if we were looking ahead of us, at the ocean floor, or at a pylon.
*"open sea" in this case means about 20 feet in any direction

After driving the robot, we gathered inside to warm by the dim light of our laptop screens and install the different software suites to be able to run the control and simulation programs.

This was a frustrating experience since we all were trying to download the same files at once, so we decided to finish the installations on our own time.

Training Day #2:

This time we were able to use the VideoRay ROV which is the actual unit we will acquire data with in Malta.
We practiced setting up and tearing down of all the accompanying equipment, which we will continue to do until we are all more than comfortable handling the task on our own.

The existing software for controlling and monitoring the VideoRay was put together as a student project in the Capstone course. This course is designed to have a group of Computer Engineering students incorporate their last several years of knowledge into a project.

The Capstone group working on this project produced a fully-functioning product, but from prior experience in gathering data in the cisterns, Chris had a few things to improve upon.

We created three teams to: improve the joystick controller response, add manual input boxes in the thruster control window for exact thrust values, and to add features to the mapping GUI to have different modes.

This is what we worked on for the last two weeks.

Training Day #3:

Michael had a great overview of the day, so my only contribution is this picture of Chris and Justin laughing about something on Justin's laptop, Cory being curious about what they're doing, Matt setting up the software as a drill, and I was likely eating a few Cheez-its as I took this picture.

Technical Training 2/08/2009

2009-02-08T17:51:00.000-08:00

Training #3: Development of Software and Practice Setup of ROV

The first task for the third technical training was for each team to practice setting up the ROV for deployment. After all teams completed this task, the teams broke off and worked toward completing their assigned tasks.

Current Status:

VideoRay software is now able to run on all computers, including the Mac Powerbook.
Thruster GUI is updated with set and reset buttons as well as text fields to enter desired thrust control.
Joystick controls are completed. Simplified Depth control was implemented and X-Y gains and control was modified with smoother control algorithms.
Mapping GUI is being modified with resizable borders and a new logging only mode.

Assigned Tasks:

Merge code with new thruster GUI and Joystick GUI
Complete mapping GUI adjustments
Merge mapping GUI with rest of code

Technical Training 1/25/2009

2009-02-05T13:44:00.000-08:00

The following is a brief description of the work that was done during the 2nd technical meeting our group had:

How to Unpack The ROV
How to Set up the ROV, control box, and computer for underwater use.
Practice as 2-man groups setting up the Equipment
Lecture by Professor Clark on SLAM
Getting the code base to run on Laptops
Getting Video Capture working on Mac Book Pro.
Assigning jobs and teams for the next meeting.

Chris' Introduction

2009-01-25T00:39:00.001-08:00

My name is Chris Clark and I am the technical lead on the ICEX program. I have been at Cal Poly for 2 years as an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science and Computer Engineering programs. My teaching and research have primarily been related to robotics. Firstly, I am interested in developing field robot systems that can serve the needs of other disciplines of study. Secondly, I am trying to make contributions to the area of multi-robot systems.

I developed the ICEX program with Christine to provide computer engineers with skills neccessary for succeeding as global engineers. To accomplish this, each ICEX program will require students to apply their technical skills in a foreign setting where they may be confronted with new cultures, languages, and the difficulties of travel. Ideally they will gain a more global perspective.

Last Winter I spent 8 days in Malta to obtain the first ever maps of cistern's underneath Malta's fortresses. This year, I am excited to have students help me. There are more cisterns to explore, and I hope to improve our mapping technology on the way. Unfortunately I won't be able to join the group on the outbound flights, since I am coming to Malta en route from Svalbad, Norway!

Justin's Introduction

2009-01-24T22:12:00.000-08:00

Hi, my name is Justin Kuehn. I am a third year student currently working towards my BS in Computer Engineering, but also plan to pursue a MS degree. My technical interests include robotics, intelligent systems, and computer architecture; however I am also interested in history and architecture. In my spare time I like to bike, hike, and be anywhere outdoors.

What brought me to this project is my desire to travel and see different parts of the world as well as the interesting work with robotics. As my first excursion outside North America I cannot think of any better way to spend it. Having taken an architecture history class, being able to explore the cisterns under many historic buildings is just fascinating to me. I am also looking forward to learning and working on the sonar mapping technology that our robot is equipped with.

In short I am extremely excited to be able to participate in such a wonderful opportunity and aim to make the most of it any way possible.

Maltese Cuisine

2009-01-24T17:54:00.000-08:00

Maltese Cuisine is an important part of Maltese Culture. Traditional Maltese food is rustic and based on the seasons. Some specialties include:

Lampuki Pie (fish pie)
Kapunata – version of Ratatouille
Bragioli
Meat filled with a bread stuffing
Bigilla
Pate of broad beans with garlic
Hobs biz-zejt (round of bread dipped in olive oil, rubbed with ripe tomatoes and filled with a mix of tuna, onion, garlic, tomatoes and capers)
Pastizzi (flaky pastry parcel filled with ricotta or mashed peas)
Kangaroo Meat
Quail

Fish plays an important part of many dishes as Malta is surrounded by the sea. Local seafood served on the island is:

Aljotta (Fish Soup)
Spnotta
Dott
Cerna
Dentici
Trill
Lampuka (Dolphin Fish)
Octopus
Squid

Desserts on the island include Kannoli, Semi-Freddo Dessert and Gelato, as well as Helwa tat-Tork, a sweet sugary mixture of crushed and whole almonds.

There are two types of unique wines that are made on the Malta. These are Gellewza and Ghirghentina. These grapes are indigenous to the island. Though their wine is not as well renowned as Italian wine, it has won many international accolades.

History of the Maltese Cross

2009-01-24T17:51:00.001-08:00

The Maltese cross was introduced to Malta by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and was formally adopted by the Knights Hospitallers of St. John. The original cross was a symbol of the Christian Warrior whose origins go back to the crusades. The 8 points on the cross denote the 8 obligations/aspirations of the knights

1. Loyalty
2. Piety
3. Frankness
4. Bravery
5. Glory and honour
6. Contempt of death
7. Helpfulness towards the poor and the sick
8. Respect for the church

The 8 points also came to represent the 8 tongue’s or national groupings:

1. Auvergne
2. Provence
3. France
4. Aragon
5. Castille and Portugal
6. Italy
7. Baviere (Germany)
8. England (with Scotland and Ireland)

The Cross arrived in Malta with the Knights in 1530, and remains the Symbol of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. It is also on the Civil Ensign, and decorates many buildings, churches, and artifacts found on the island.

Maltese Government

2009-01-24T17:14:00.000-08:00

The current Maltese government is run as a commonwealth republic that is administered directly from the capital city of Valletta. Other than this republic, local councils are used to carry out administrative orders. Malta received independence on September 21, 1964. The legal system is largely based on English common law and Roman civil law. Malta also accepts the jurisdiction of the international court of justice. The legal voting age in Malta is 18.

The executive branch of government consists of a president, prime minister, deputy prime minister, and various cabinet members. The president is elected by the House of Representatives for a 5-year term with the eligibility for 2 terms. The prime minister is appointed by the president, and serves a 5-year term. Usually the leader of the majority party or leader of a majority coalition is appointed as prime minister. The deputy prime minister and the cabinet are appointed by the president on the advice of the prime minister. The current president is Edward Fenech-Adami, and was elected in April 4, 2004. He is the 7^th president of Malta. The prime minister is Lawrence Gonzi.

The legislative branch of government is a Unicameral House of Representatives. The House of Representatives usually has 65 seats. People are elected by popu;ar vote on the basis of proportional representation. Members of the House have 5-year terms. Also, additional seats are given to the party with the largest popular vote to ensure legislative majority.

The judicial branch of government contains a Constitutional Court and a Court of Appeal. Judges are appointed by the president on the advice of the prime minister.

The Maltese Flag has two equal vertical bands of white in the hoist and red in the fly. The flag also contains the George Cross in the upper left corner of the hoist. The George Cross was awarded to the islanders by King George VI of Britain for heroism in WWII, and is outlined on the flag in red. Furthermore, the Maltese Flag is the only national flag bearing a decoration from another country.

Malta Climate and Geography

2009-01-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

I found some very valuable information at the encyclopedia britanica website.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/360532/Malta/23497/Climate

Matthew Schlachtman's Short Intro

2009-01-24T16:56:00.000-08:00

My Name is Matthew Schlachtman, I am currently working on getting my Masters in Computer Science with in the field of Robotics. The cultural aspect of the program that I plan on working with deals with the Climate and Geography of the Island Country of Malta. Currently my technical background has centered on the serial communication with the ROV robot we are using for our trip.

Michael's Introduction

2009-01-24T16:54:00.000-08:00

My name is Michael Boardman. I am a 5th year 4+1 student getting my MS in Electrical Engineering, my BS in Computer Engineering, and a minor in Physics. I am interested in robotics as well as remote sensing, and embedded systems. In my free time, I like to go hiking, kayaking, and snowboarding. I also love to travel whenever possible.

I first learned about the Malta Cistern Mapping project almost a year ago. As a student of Professor Clark's for 4 quarters, I have seen several lectures regarding the research he first performed in Malta. I thought the premise was fascinating, and had never thought of using robots for archeological purposes. When I first heard about the ICEX program, and that the first project would be to revisit the cisterns in Malta, I was ecstatic. I thought of this as an exciting way to use my knowledge of robotics for a practical application, as well as be a part of a truly unique opportunity to perform work and see another country thousands of miles away. I can't wait to explore this wonderful country, and I am honored to be working with such a fine group of people.

I plan to graduate Cal Poly in Spring quarter of next year. At this point I hope to travel for a few months before I begin a career in robotics.

Phil's Introduction

2009-01-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

My name is Phil Phillips and I'm a fourth year Computer Engineering student at Cal Poly. My interests include computer architecture, remote sensing, and embedded systems. In my free time, I enjoy playing basketball and going to the beach.

I have a second degree black belt in taekwondo, a great endeavor that gave me wonderful experiences including the opportunity to travel the U.S. and Korea for tournaments, demonstrations and training. Apart from my family's occasional travels to my mom's birthplace, the Philippines, the trip to Korea is one of my favorite experiences. I had the chance to stay at the dormitories at Yong-In University in Seoul for a week of martial arts training, which allowed me to experience and appreciate a different culture.

I was very excited when I first heard of ICEX. It is a chance to experience another interesting culture in a beautiful country such as Malta, not to mention an excellent opportunity to apply and share my interests and technical skills in an impressive and inspiring real-world project. I hope that this incredible undertaking allows us to bring about a meaningful contribution to Malta, to Cal Poly, and to the project itself. I am very excited to be a part of this wonderful endeavor...beautiful country, great team and awesome project...what can be more exciting to a robotic fanatic like me?

I plan to graduate from Cal Poly this spring and hopefully land an exciting job in my areas of interest.

Malta History Timeline

2009-01-19T01:11:00.000-08:00

Through my research of the history of Malta, I have been putting together a holistic timeline of the island starting at approximately 5250 BC and ending at the present. Since the content of the timeline is a bit too lengthy for display in this blog, it can be found at http://maltatimeline.webs.com/

Cory's Introduction

2009-01-19T00:53:00.000-08:00

My name is Cory White, and I am a sixth year 4+1 Computer Science masters student with undergraduate majors in Computer Engineering and Mathematics at Cal Poly. My technical interests are applied robotics, machine learning, and constructive mathematics, and non-technical interests are history, art, film, and Capoeira.

I first learned about ICEX while taking CPE580: Probabilistic Robotics with Dr. Clark. Since CPE580 was centered around the Video Ray submarine, I was able to work on some the very technology that will be used in the cistern mapping of Malta. Thus, ICEX captured my attention because I felt it would be a great international and interdisciplinary experience which would allow me to contribute my technical knowledge to a real-world project. Additionally, having studied a significant amount of World War II history, the chance to see firsthand one of the most embattled areas during the fight for the Mediterranean was another compelling reason for traveling to Malta. These combined aspects of technical work along with a cultural and historical experience characterized this ICEX trip as definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me.

I plan on graduating from Cal Poly in Fall of 2009, at which point I hope to work in the computing industry and tackle more challenging problems. As a long-term goal, I also aspire to pursue a PhD in Computer Engineering and return to academia as a professor at a university.

The Languages of Malta

2009-01-18T18:33:00.000-08:00

In my research on the languages of Malta, I found that the two national languages are English and Maltese. Almost the entire population speaks Maltese, most (around 85%) speak English, and that French and Italian are also taught in schools. Italian used to be an official language until 1934 when English and Maltese were decided to be the only two national languages. Maltese is the only Semitic language that is an official language of the European Nation.

This language map highlights the influences of other languages and their relation to Maltese.

Maltese is the only Semitic language that is written in the Latin alphabet, and several characters were added to represent the Semitic sounds. There are 29 characters in the Maltese alphabet, and the 'Q' sound represents a glottal sound which can also be found in Syriac and Aramaic (the native language of Jesus).

There is debate about whether Maltese descended from Siculo-Arabic (spoken in Southern Italy and Sicily), or Phoenician-Punic which was spoken near Egypt. Maltese was influenced heavily by both of these languages, and it especially seen as influenced by the Arab languages due to it being written in the Latin alphabet. Maltese borrowed many words from Italian, French, and English so it is a language that has been formed and continually changed over time.

Some of the common phrases and pronunciations which will be useful to us are:
Hello = Merhba (Merhh-buh)
Bye/Cheers = Sahha (Suh-hha)
Please = Jekk Joghgbok (hYek hYoj-bok)
Yes = Iva (Ee-vuh)
No = Le (Leh)
I don’t understand = Ma nifhimx (Mah Nih-Fimsch)
Ġiebja = Cistern (Jih-eh-byuh)

Malta Dinner

2009-01-15T10:58:00.000-08:00

Chris and I hosted a Malta-themed dinner, where both students and additional Cal Poly faculty were invited to attend. Students presented topics such as history, architecture, language, climate, and geography of Malta. Don Choi (PhD, Architecture) and Molly Loberg (PhD, History) helped inform our discussion and confirmed the old adage - "the more, the merrier".

Although heavily influenced by Spain, Italy, and Northern Africa, Maltese cuisine is very unique. Typical ingredients include tomatoes, parsley, lemons, and olive oil -- all of which are abundant in Malta. Some unusual, but quite popular recipes include rabbit, octopus, lampuki (white fish), horse and kangaroo meat.

I settled upon making a sardine salad and timpana. Timpana is a baked pasta pie that is typical during holidays such as Easter. We'll be having another cultural dinner in March, and hopefully we'll have some new recipes and pictures to post then.

Christine's Introduction

2009-01-15T10:46:00.000-08:00

I'm excited to be part of the Malta ICEX program. My background is in education, primarily with international and service-learning programs. At Stanford University and the University of Guelph (Canada), I coordinated student programs throughout Asia and Latin America. However, I've never traveled to Europe and am looking forward to working on this interdisciplinary, robotics project.

Technical Training 1/11/09

2009-01-12T13:10:00.000-08:00

Training#1: An Introduction to the Pier, Software, and LBV150

For the first day of training, we met out at the Cal Poly research pier in Avila Beach. Our day started by getting acquainted with the LBV150 underwater ROV. We will be using the VideoRay ROV for later training sessions and for the trip, but this gave us a general idea of how to control a robot with a tether.

We did need to consult the instruction manual while connecting the cables since this was a first time with the LVB150 for all of us, but we successfully had them connected and the robot in the water in no time.

After diving the ROV to the ocean floor, we found it was difficult to see many details on the monitor due to glare, so the focus of the mission turned to driving the robot without getting the tether wrapped around the pylons. Half of the group went with Chris for a tour of the pier to see the ongoing research, and the other half stayed to acquaint themselves with the robot. The group with the robot did manage to get stuck on a pylon, but were freed by the time we returned from the tour.

After we pulled the robot back up, we broke out our laptops and started installing Microsoft Visual Studio. We will need this program suite to run the code which will control the VideoRay, and it was good practice to start from scratch in case we need to reinstall the software while in Malta.

Chris gave us an introduction lecture to the structure of the code while we fought with installing the programs, and we discussed the existing software and created a list of functionality to improve on. At the end of the day, we paired up to further study the dependencies and scopes of the GUI, mapping, and communication classes to have for the next meeting.

Homework for next meeting:
- Add contact and schedule information to Google Group
- Finish installing MS Visual Studio and supporting software on the laptops
- Become familiar with the existing code and project files
- Describe the functions for the assigned code groups (GUI, Mapping, Serial Communication) : how it works, what it does, etc.
- Create block diagrams for Class relationships and order of events when code is run

Next meeting to do list:
- Create a list for setup and tear down of equipment
- Combine block diagrams to create a comprehensive diagram of the software
- Get familiar with VideoRay in the water running the existing control software
- Lecture on SLAM

Open item list for the future:
- Speed up SLAM algorithm to view sonar data in realtime
- Drop frame rate on video and test live video capture while mapping
- Find/add default values for freshwater and saltwater parameters
- Improve joystick response/gains
- Test and possibly fix issue of starting new data capture without having to restart the software after each capture session

ICEX Malta 2009

New Tether For the Trip

2009-01-12T12:56:00.001-08:00

After discussions with the company KCF, an agreement was made that permits the group to use KCF's "Smart Tether" This tether outputs cm level positioning of the vehicle, which will greatly improve our Mapping results.

Daniel's Introduction

2009-01-11T23:12:00.000-08:00

My name is Daniel Hiranandani and I am a fifth year CPE major at Cal Poly. ICEX stood out to me because I had a great time in CPE482 Autonomous Mobile Robots with Professor Clark, and I knew this would be a great learning opportunity on both the technical and social levels. I am always interested in experiencing different cultures, so being able to see a new country while working with robots sounded like a very exciting and unique opportunity.

I was fortunate to have traveled to India when I was 10 so I could see where my dad's family lived and grew up. On that trip, I was very fascinated by Hong Kong. The skyline from Victoria's Peak is amazing, and it is a city I will return to at some point in my life. I also went to Greece, Italy, and Turkey on a senior trip after high school. By far my favorite part of the trip was a cruise around the Greek Islands. One of them had very narrow roads that were akin to a maze in an effort to confuse and trap any invaders to the island. The beaches and the architecture were beautiful on each of the islands, and I look forward to seeing these aspects of Malta.

I will be graduating in June 09 and will be continuing at another university for my MS in CPE. My focus will be in Embedded Systems, but I am also hoping to research Computer Networks, and Computer Architecture as well. I always have at least one microcontroller-involved side project I am working on in my spare time, so I am constantly reassured I am in the right major.

Welcome to ICEX Malta 2009!

2009-01-09T13:55:00.000-08:00

This is the beginning of our journey to Malta. The trip takes place on March 20-29, but we begin with our cultural and technical training tonight. We will be hosting a Malta-themed dinner to share our individual research on Malta culture, history, and architecture.

Check back soon with details and photos from the dinner!

ICEX Malta 2009

Cal Poly Magazine

ICEX on the Evening News

More Videos and Pictures

A Recap of Malta

Final Cultural and Technical Entry

ICEX Presentation

A Fitting End

ICEX Malta Retrospective and Conclusion

A Brief Tour of Rome

Final Day in Malta

Return to Mdina

Mdina

Five wells and a moment of fear

Gozo

Fort St. Angelo

Technical Module: Sunday, March 22nd 2009

Culture Module: Sunday, March 22nd 2009

Malta Update Saturday March 21st

Malta Cultural Learning Golas

Cultural Learning Goals

Data Collection in Los Angeles

Cultural Learning Goals

Cultural Learning Goals

Cultural Learning Goals

ICEX Story in Malta News

Mustang Daily

A Video of the VideoRay in Action

Technical Training #6

ICEX Dinner #2

Technical Training #5

Technical Training #4

Architecture of Malta

A few Pictures from the last Technical Trainings

Technical Training 2/08/2009

Technical Training 1/25/2009

Chris' Introduction

Justin's Introduction

Maltese Cuisine

History of the Maltese Cross

Maltese Government

Malta Climate and Geography

Matthew Schlachtman's Short Intro

Michael's Introduction

Phil's Introduction

Malta History Timeline

Cory's Introduction

The Languages of Malta

Malta Dinner

Christine's Introduction

Technical Training 1/11/09

New Tether For the Trip

Daniel's Introduction

Welcome to ICEX Malta 2009!