Beyond Murphy's Law

If you're working in robotics, I'm pretty sure that you have experienced a variation of Murphy's law even if you don't know what it is! Murphy's law simply states that "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". For example imagine that you're going to demonstrate your robot and you still have a technical problem; be sure you'll face that problem but in almost all cases not during the demonstrating your robot but only half an hour before it -- That is why I named it "Beyond Murphy's Law" quite similar to Prof. Robin R. Murphy's "Beyond Asimov's Law" ;-) Having a technical problem is very common in complex systems like robots (honestly I usually become worry if everything goes fine with my robots in my first attempts) but, your reaction after facing a problem shows if you are an experienced person or not! I have seen numerous people that cannot do very simple things (e.g. checking the wiring) when they become stressed.
As a person who designs and builds robots for several years I suggest taking these points in your account if you want to demonstrate your robot:

1. Be sure your robot is not perfect and it is not the first system in the world that is not perfect!
2. Nobody can guarantee that everything will go fine!
3. Don't be angry or embarrassed if you noticed your robot don't work at all before demonstration, just calm down!
4. Check obvious things at first (e.g. if your robot has battery or not)!
5. Don't think about "philosophy of life" if you couldn't fix the problem!

Research is done by money!

Few weeks ago I was at Iran-Open 2010 RoboCup competitions which again was held in Tehran International Fair. Our team, AriAnA&AVA, was participated as previous but, this time without its staff members (except me only for evaluating performance of new members to be selected for future collaborations). Although it didn't go that much well for us and we stopped at semi-final round but, I had enough time to talk to participants and spectators.
One of disappointing facts that I usually notice in Iran-Open competitions is that most Iranian universities poorly support their RoboCup teams if they do it. It's one of reasons that I never expect to see an advanced research in the biggest annual robotics event in Iran.
This problem could never exist in my opinion if our universities (professors and students) knew how to demonstrate their capabilities to get found from industry and our industry believed that paying for research is not a waste at all.
Anyway, I'm so happy that I'm working in a team that its university side (our staff members) know how to get budget from industry and its industry side believe in what we're paid for.

Kicking off my blog!

Since a while, I was thinking about having a web-log to publish what we (AriAnA rescue robot team) are doing. Finally I found out that it won't take place if I wait for other team members or the university staffs.
So I decided to have my own blog to post personal news about what I'm doing in our robotics team, at university or in office. I'll also post my ideas about robotics events that I participate or robots that I see.
Who knows, maybe I'm not the only person that check this blog! ;-)