Saturday 10 August 2013

(Short) Rambling #6 (thoughts on bots)

I was going thru the internet yesterday, and I found this awesome post on Realitypod that shows some really cool robots in action, most of them made by Boston Dynamics (man would that ever be a dream job! I think I would be happy sweeping the floor there!) It is truely worth a read (and a watch of all the videos embedded) I think my favourite bot they mention is RHex, that is one amazing hexapod, followed closely after by cheetah (almost half as fast as we are allowed to drive on the higway, but from a 4 legged robot, now THAT is impressive) anyway, a really good site to visit, great for inspiration (I think I might have to pull my lego out when I get home and try my hand at a lego RHex :) )

And after you are done watching the videos on that site, have a look at these ones:

All Finished Up.

Well, I have been a bit busy the last little while, and I never got a chance to post that I have completed a couple important things:

Firstly, On July 29th I passed the Transport Canada written exam with 87% overall. There are 4 sections, Air law, which I got 80% in, Navigation, 90%, Meteorology, 90% General Knowledge, 86.7% Overall, not a bad mark :)

 Secondly, On August 5th, I passed my flight test with 114/124 or 92%. That was one of the most stressful flights I have ever been on.

In addition to passing the written exam, and the flight test, in order to get your license, you need a minimum of 45 hours flying, and after I passed my flight test, I needed 5.8 more hours to get that magic number, so I went for a few more flights, and on August 7 my flight training ended, I am now just waiting for some paperwork to go through, and I will have my TC Private pilot's license, as well as a TC glider pilot's license (which I got last summer) both for free thru the Air Cadet program. Truely amazing.