The Zurich Trip Part 3 (Zurich)

After a much needed good night of sleep Malcolm made us a great breakfast. We had fried eggs, bacon, and toast with a variety pack of spreadable Swiss cheeses. It was a nice way to start our day of Masterlabing (The Atlantis STU term for working in Matlab). After breakfast Malcolm took us to his lab which is at ETH Zurich. The lab was full of technology that’d make any geek happy. For starters the meeting area were these tables that had an electronic box that raised up out of them with power connections as well as AV connections for the big screen tv. When the system was activated the blinds automatically shut. When we turned off the system later the blinds automatically re-opened. There was also a robot that delivered mail right outside the lab. Think star wars big black box on wheels roaming the Death Star. It apparently could interact with the elevators and go up and down floors as it needed. Then in the actual lab part its self it was like stepping into a neat freak mad scientists room. I think we all agreed there was more technology in that entire room than there was in our whole university if not Slovakia. It wasn’t long before we were all crowded around one another’s computers sharing our ideas and methods I think on both sides we learned quite a bit and gained an appreciation over all for the power of Matlab.

We worked in the lab for a good five hours or so and it was well after dark on a Sunday when we left. This is a good thing as we would have never gotten Laura-Ann out of the shopping area when Malcolm showed us the “main square”. Zurich is a very pretty town it incredibly clean and neat. Malcolm said he has seen normal citizens on more than one occasion picking up trash and putting it in the trash cans. His accommodation also has one day out of the semester where they come and do a cleanliness inspection and he said it was really intense and they were checking under the cabinets to see if that was clean. They also expected the stove top to be spotless. This mentality was well reflected in the actual city. Despite it being either dark or overcast when we went out and saw it, it was always very clean. Anyway the only thing open on a Sunday there was the main train station. So we headed there to grab a pre dinner dinner as we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and then took the amazing trams back to Malcolm’s. When we got back we found out that we would not be able to push our presentation back and we’d have to stay in Zurich longer than indented Malcolm was very accommodating and offered to let us stay as long as we needed (In fact he told us to stay Tuesday night after the presentation and just go in the morning). So while we Masterlabbed even more to make sure we could wow Dr. Enikov for the presentation Malcolm prepared a wonderful fondue dinner for us. It was a traditional Swiss Fondue with melted Apenzeller cheese and bread and potatoes for dipping. It was a very hearty and filling meal. After the meal there was a little more project discussion that was quickly surpassed by food coma.

The following morning we got up and saw the city. We walked around the lake under the recommendation of some of Malcolm’s friend. It was really pleasant there were also a ton of curious swans there. Every time we approached the edge of the lake they would stick their long necks up looking for food. We also saw a bunch of them flipping themselves over in the water and splashing about. It became pretty clear they were just cleaning but it was pretty funny to watch. The whole city was just nice to be in. When you look out over it though all you see are the church steeples stick up out of the rest of the buildings.

We passed by a big Swiss army knife store unfortunately there were none with forks and spoons but there were some pretty nifty ones and then the classic every tool!

After our little city tour we had to book it back to the car as we were meeting a friend of Steve’s who works in Frey’s chocolate factory. The friend, Johanas, was willing to give us a tour of the factory which happens to be the largest in Switzerland. When we pulled up you could smell the chocolate permeating the air even inside the car. Once inside we had to get all suited up for sanitation reasons; I had no idea they made beard hair nets. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside of the factory but I imagine I looked pretty goofy. During the tour we learned a fair bit about the factory there is still a surprisingly large number of people required to run the factory despite so much of it being automated. A lot of the checking systems were really cool though they were often based on balance and if the chocolate item was too heavy or light it would fall of the line into a bin to be melted down and put back through the line. After each pass of the line there were huge piles of samples of what was being made on the line. The samples were specifically for guest and well we started stuffing our faces with chocolate. We were absolutely shocked because Johanas picked up some stuff for us to try and said the chocolate was not good anymore and he just chucked it. He did the same with whatever we tried and didn’t finish. (We were all like wait that is still good chocolate). My favorite chocolates were the little truffles at the end. There were some with a pistachio filling that were to die for. We were all quite sick of chocolate by the end of the tour though.

To repay all of Malcolm’s generosity we decided to stop and buy a bunch of groceries and make some homemade fajitas for him and his roommates for dinner that night. They turned out quite well and I think every one really enjoyed them (It was a first for his roommates). After dinner it was back to work on the project which we had to give a big presentation for on Tuesday night. After another late night we turned in.

Tuesday was a bit boring in terms traveling as we all got up late and spent the entire day working on the project. Malcolm made us another breakfast and then had to take off for class. Up until about four we worked on our project and presentation and at four we did a couple of practice runs. When Malcolm got home it was only a few minutes until we gave the presentation. It went over really well, there were a couple of things that Dr. Enikov really wants to see and soon, but it was things that we were aware of and just until we get the right equipment cannot proceed on. Dr. Rilo seemed pretty happy with our work as well although wants to show us the current system that is in place to see if we can implement some of the features. Once the presentation was over it was celebration time. We started with leftover Mexican food and margaritas. There was also an appearance of the Green Man.

It is still unclear how Malcolm arrange the appearance but we are grateful none the less. It was a pretty good party night that unfortunately had to end with an early morning in the car again.

The Zurich Trip Part 2 (Munich to Zurich)

After a short night, despite getting up later than intended, we all got cleaned up and had the free toast breakfast offered by the Hostel. Then we got on the road again. Our first intended stop was the Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle that Walt Disney based the castle at Disneyland after. The It was built for the King of Bavaria at the time. However he only lived in it for a few weeks. The castle was never completed but turned into a Museum only a couple weeks after the Kings premature death. The inside was absolutely unbelievable the entire castle was not decorated to celebrate the king but to be a story of plays written by a playwright the king was fond of. We arrived at an unfortunate time missing the English tour right before us. We did decide to wait the two hours to see the next tour which happened to be at two. This however did cut our daylight hours for the rest of the car trip a little short.

We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside of the castle but we could take them of the view from inside.

After the Castle we continued on our way to Liechtenstein. It was dark before we hit Vaduz

When we actually got into Liechtenstein we drove through the better part of the country (it is only 12miles long in its longest direction). While driving through a mountain road we found this huge private castle. Unfortunately it was too dark for any of our pictures to turn out very well but it was a nice view of the city as well from up on the hill. After driving around for a little while we decided to grab dinner in Vaduz. We stopped at a little restaurant and I had my first hamburger since being gone. We also ordered Riviella which I would not suggest. It is some sort of carbonated drink that was hard to get down. It was pretty late when we finished dinner so we headed straight on to Zurich. When we got in to Zurich around midnight we were greeted by Malcolm who was kind enough to let us stay at his flat. The flat was very nice, especially for student accommodation. It is a four bedroom place with two bathrooms a big kitchen a spare side room (where they had put out the sleeping pads for us. And the whole front of the flat is just these huge sun windows. We were all exhausted but somehow managed to stay up for a good while talking, and making plans for the next day. I think we went to bed around two.

Zurich Trip Part 1 (Bratislava to Munich)

The Zurich trip's main purpose was to meet with a fellow student, Malcolm, in Zurich to talk about our project and share ideas because he is working on something similar. However, you really can't expect a group of four students to hop on a train and go to Zurich and miss out on all the fun along the way. So Wednesday before we left a friend of ours here at the school helped us find a local small car rental company where we were able to rent a Scoda Fabia 1.4 for a total of 140euros over 6 and a half days.

The car that barely could.

Thursday night we went to go pick up the car. The rental place was literally a some guys house with a bunch of Skodas parked out front. It was interesting to say the least but he was very friendly as was (we think he wife who translated for us). After Steve signed some papers the showed us the car and handed over the keys and we drove off to pick up supplies.

After picking up the necessary road trip food we turned in for the night as we planned to leave before dawn. Very early the next day while it was still dark out we loaded up the car and took off. I was in the right rear passenger seat and passed out for a good while so I don't know what happened but we made it out of Slovakia and into Austria just fine. Later that day we made some detours of the high way just to see the country side. We were driving down some dirt roads with big fields on either side of us with some very nice country homes around them. When we convinced Laura to get out and ask this women if we were near Munich and how to get to Munich. We where no where near Munich and it was pretty clear but the women played a long a little amused and gave us directions back to the highway and which direction to take (this conversation took place in German between Laura and the woman so what I write now is based only on facial expressions and Laura's translation). We thanked her continued on our way. While headed back to the high way we came across this pleasant little stream and stopped from some pictures.

While driving we decided to stop in Braunau. The town of Braunau is the birthplace of Hitler. There is a memorial stone in front of the house, which now is a center for children and people with learning disabilities. The stone reads

"For Peace, Freedom and Democracy. Never Again Fascism. Millions of Dead Warn (us)".

I have mixed feelings about including this here, but I feel it is important to remember history both good and bad. So that we do not let such horrors repeat them selves.

There was also a very nice church in Braunau. It had very nice stone work on the outside, and a guy with a beard that puts mine to shame.

Before returning to the road we stopped in a Bakery. I mean how could you pass this stuff up.

We got back on the road and took another detour. After our little pictures stop I stole the wheel from Steve and did a little driving through the country roads. The cars here are a little different. Reverse is in the wrong place. It is on the left side of first gear but you have to push down on the stick to get it to go over far enough and engage.

The car is still a little too clean.

While flirting with the Austrian German border we encountered a number of beautiful sights.

We turned this big corner and all of a sudden this thing was in our face.

Germany here we come

More spectacular country roads!

It was getting later in the day and we found this lake, but we couldn't find any place to stop so we drove around and around and we eventually found this little park and dock so we stopped and had our packed lunches. It was so pretty it was almost surreal.

When we finally pulled in to Munich we freshened up and headed out to see the town. We wandered down to the Rathaus which was this imposing gothic style building.

Unfortunately the little dancing people under the clock didn't go off while we were there but we caught a live musical street performance instead. The group was quite good and I have no idea how they had the dexterity to play considering it was close to freezing out!

After the group finished playing and started to pack up we wandered our way to the Hofbrauhaus. For what was to be only one beer. I mean we couldn't very well go to Munich and not have one could we?

The place was incredibly crowded but this nice German family who had come into the city specifically for beer that night let us join them. The father and daughters were very happy and were doing their best to talk to us and they were all nothing but smiles. It was very pleasant but after a good bit of prosting we ran out of beer and well ordered more.

After two liters of strong beer they had to return home for the night and we were joined by a group of Canadians allegedly part of the National Canadian Ski team. After almost 3 liters of strong beer I had to turn in for the night. Steve and I made it back to the Hostel where I conked out, first and not sure what the rest of the team did for the night.

Munich to Zurich coming soon.

Big Project Breakthrough

The official point of our Zurich trip was to meet up with a fellow U of A student, Malcolm, who is doing similar work in matlab to exchange ideas. The trip was great and I will put up an epic post about it soon. During our meeting with Malcolm I had a huge breakthrough in our program and have figured out how to access and correctly use the position data that our simulink model is generating. Matlab and Simulink have some different standards of dealing with images and the position points that might have been intuitive and so when I first brought the positions out of the model into the workspace it the graphed points looked like a jumbled mess that didn't match the fishes trajectory. However after some manipulation (that I later found out makes perfect sense with how matlab handles this data) there is a perfect overlay with the trajectory of the fish in the video. From here we were also able to pull out the velocity and acceleration vectors of the fish as well and plot them. I put a short little video together to demonstrate that the graphed trajectory is actually the fishes trajectory. I apologize the as the video has to be heavily compressed for uploading, but I think it still gets the point across.

Note: The fish's position is marked by the center of the area of the viewable fish

Here is the actual trajectory graph. The values correspond to the number of pixels and the

y-axis is negative due to matlabs way of handling images where the origin of the image is in the upper left corner.

During our trip we also gave a presentation to Dr. Enikov and Dr Rilo, our bosses if you will, they both seemed pretty happy with the progress we have made and had some suggestions as well. We should be having a meeting soon to talk again about functionality of our code which will be good as of now we have been just making assumptions to the data that we need to harvest and what might be useful to the end user. I think we're all looking forward to getting real input from the end users and having some more concrete goals to pursue.

I will get on posting about the actual trip it self soon. It was an amazing trip and there were some major reality checks like: I'm in the middle of Europe in the Austrian alps; I'm driving on the Autobahn; Wow the U.S. economy sucks and the Dollar is frustratingly weak!

The Steve and Rick Day Trip

Last Monday Steve still had the car for a day after his and Kevin's trip to Hungry. Neither of us had anything to do so we decided to take the car and see some of western Slovakia. The first town we went to I do not remember the name but we went up to this awesome castle on a hill. What is cool about all of these towns around here is they all have castles on a hill, however out of the ones we have come across this was probably one of the coolest.

The leaves were falling on the way in and it was absolutely gorgeous.

Steve and I were greeted by peacocks that were just roaming the grounds.

The inner court yard.

We had just found a geo cash outside the walls which were huge.

On our way to Trnava, after the castle, we drove through the country side and just passed through a number of small towns. They all had very similar layouts with the church near the center of town surrounded by a couple of pubs and then the rest of it was residential.

Once in Trnava we walked grabbed a Kabab and walked around. The old town was really cool, it was entirely surrounded by a wall with this old European stately buildings. there were a number of old churches here but they were all closed. We also passed by a synagogue.

It too was closed but it was an interesting looking building. Once we had walked by all the major sites in Trnava we headed back to Bratislava by way of a few more small towns, that Steve had discovered while on his road biking trip. We saw some interesting things. I wish I had some pictures of this residential area we passed through. It was one of the few places where it looked like things were in very good repair and there weren't abandoned buildings everywhere. I think this is probably one of the nicest residential areas in all of Slovakia but 5 minutes down the road we found this.

It was so weird to go from from luxury homes to what looked like a partially demolished building and trash dump with abandoned military base and equipment across the street.

After our last little detour we headed back to the airport to return the car and caught a bus back to the city center. It was a pretty nice day and definitely worth getting up that morning. It was just a shame that we didn't do it in reverse the Castle would have probably been a nicer note to end on.