In the summer of 2023, I was invited to give a talk to the students in SuperTech FT, the STEM education non-profit, about compute hardware for robotics and autonomous vehicles. Here’s a recording of that talk:
I discussed the evolution of both software
and hardware for robotics and autonomous vehicles, the different
paradigms of CPU vs GPU programming, where robots have been
successful and where they’re headed, and the evolution of programming
paradigms and how AI fits in.
Boasting powerful industrial hardware and a modern software architecture, this unit can effortlessly handle industrial ventilation systems throughout an entire factory. With improved measurements of ventilation values, pressures, air velocities, and air volume are measured and regulated.
We started with a goal to build nothing less than the greatest industrial dust collection controller the world has ever seen, and to build it with a software stack that the most successful tech companies in the world would be proud of. In this we have succeeded.
A cacophony of sounds. Quick images, hard to decypher. What is that? Forest. Jungle. Narrow roads. An old woman smiles.
Something is wrong. I was somewhere, doing something. I was excited about it. Why can’t I put it all together?
Suddenly I snap to, deep breath in.
An old man squats in front of me, looking me in the eyes. He’s worried. I am sitting on the side of a narrow road, deep in a jungle somewhere. There is only the man. No other people, no buildings.
“Where am I?” I ask. “What happened?”
“You had an accident,” he says, in a tone that says that he’s told me this already.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t remember.”
“I know,” he says, and he does. He explains it again: I am in Indonesia. I was riding my motorcycle. I had an accident.
I look around. My motorcycle stands at the side of the road, on its kickstand. No other vehicles are around.
The man is the owner of Warung Bucu, just down the road. He asks me if I can walk. I can, it turns out, and we walk to the Warung. He feeds me nasi goreng and tells me what had happened.
A few weeks ago my esteemed former colleague, Dr. Alberto Cruz of the California State University, Bakersfield, invited me for an interview with him and his college students about life as a software engineer and advice for Computer Science students who want to become one.
We talked about what to do in college to stand out from the crowd when applying for your first job, internships, projects, interview prep & tips, programming languages, tools of the trade, and what life is like as a software engineer.
When the team reached K2 base camp, they found it glum. There had been three avalanches, and all groups had turned back. No had reached the summit of K2 that year. Those who remained in base camp were stressed out and depressed.
But Nims Purja was undeterred. His grand adventure - Project Possible - required that he climb the mountain, and so that’s what he would do. First, though, he needed to break the depressed mood of the camp and convince others that it was indeed possible to reach the summit.
So he threw a party, K2-style. There was booze, music, dancing, good vibes, and letting go of fear.
Tonight we drink, tomorrow we plan!
– Nims Purja
These are scenes from 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible, the documentary of Nirmal Purja’s quest to climb all 14 eight-thousander peaks within in under 7 months (as compared to the previous record of over 7 years).
The documentary is great and well worth watching, and the turnaround in the base camp of K2 was one of my favorite parts. What lessons on leadership could we draw from it, I wondered?