Reflection of 2019. Goals for 2020 (and onwards)

2019 was an interesting year overall. Above all the events and projects I took part in, it made me think deeply about quite fundamental question regarding why I am doing what I am doing right now, what I want to be doing in the future, and if that is the correct path. As like every year, I thought it is a good idea to collect my thoughts and put them into writing to share them, but also for articulating them to myself.

Reflection:

The year starts off with three general directions in mind (also posted in a similar format last year) which went something like this: 1. Keep up academics, 2. continue with projects, 3. acquire new tech skills and knowledge. I did come back to these throughout the year, and it gave me some guidelines to the tasks I am doing. 1 and 2 were fairly well achieved, whereas 3 could have been done better. Instead of expanding my skillset towards new frontiers, many times I ended up sharpening my already existing knowledge and skills; which one can argue is an equally important process, but it would have been nice to learn new areas. Mainly from time and efficiency reasons (efficiency referring to the workflow in an engineering project).

Throughout mid-January and February, I was immersed in a coursework project, which requires you to build a robot in a team of six for an internal competition. The actual contents of the project is irrelevant here, and technically there was very little that I learnt. In fact, the coursework was irrelevant by nature. Everyone would basically get equal marks by participation (so no real incentive to perform well), and the task is arbitrary. So why am I writing this now? Because of this nature, the only reason to spend time doing this (additional to the planned sessions) was because it was fun and interesting: which is something increasingly rare to find, because of its low priority compared to something that is actually “important” (but because it was coursework, there was justification to spend time in a purely fun project). Looking back, that feeling of wanting to solve a problem purely for the sake of it (in the context of robotics), was something I have forgotten recently. Likewise the whole brief of the competition was reminiscent of my middle/high school life, back when that was all I did. It is an innocent look towards doing something, but it felt quite significant. It made me think, why I am spending time on robotics projects or engineering in general; and its root lies in the purest form of joy which comes from doing what you like to do.

Having had this mini-revelation, March and April moved past with greater focus on projects and events that I enjoy doing. Soon after exams followed where all activities except for studying stopped for a month and a bit (with persuasion from friends to do so), leading to an end of 2nd year/half my undergrad life.

Summer, spanning from July to October, most of my time was spent in Cambridge (except for RoboCup 2019 Sydney. Lots of great experiences here too, but that’s for another time). For two month I did some research at the Bio-Inspired Robotics Lab, while spending the rest of my time usually at the department working on robotics society projects. In hindsight, this research project turned out to be (rather unexpectedly) interesting, and even life changing to some regards. The project it self was only about 2 months, where I went through developing an omelette making robot (specifically the manipulator) with a customised setup, running experiments, and writing a paper on it (with great help from the lab. I was a complete beginner in this field). On the surface level, the day-to-day life of experimentation and robotics was entertaining. At a deeper state, the lab culture, semi-philosophical questions that flies back and forth, and discussions on robotics research was perhaps the most intriguing aspect of all.

Maybe for the first time, I tried thinking about and writing down basic but core questions: why am I doing what I am doing?, what do I want to do in the next 10, 20, 30 years?, where do I fit in the current storyline of the science/engineering world?, what vision do I have for the future, and how can I direct myself towards that?, etc (Some further thoughts on these will come later in this post). Not that I can answer this now any better, but at least I know that I don’t know certain things clearly.

Following summer, 3rd year started. It may well have been the busiest term in Cambridge. To be honest it was a bit exhausting, and I’m glad to have a chance to load off for a while at home now. Following 2st year I thought, “it was generally pretty busy, but all an all nothing failed catastrophically. I wonder how much stuff I can take on?”. Now I know. I am actually getting close to the limit of how much stuff I can take on. The work load next term seems a big frightening, but it is also mega exciting. Projects and coursework is geared towards my particular interest areas, but above all I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by friends and real teammates who I can trust - both from a general life perspective but also on the technical/project side.

Which brings me to now: the end of 2019

More evaluations and towards 2020:

What stands out the most from 2019 is the fundamental aspects and questions of life (professional life) I encountered. The transition from rediscovering the pure joys of doing what I do, to forcing myself to sit down and think about essential questions, characterise the changes I’ve seen this year.

If anything that I have decided, it is that I want to continue on my academic career as a Ph.D student. Until this year, “robotics” was very much directed towards finding technical solutions fairly well-defined problems (which is the case for robotics competitions). But through seeing a glimpse of robotics research, I’ve been introduced to thinking about the questions themselves, and then trying to tackle them. It sound (and is) a simple step, but that change in mindset never came to me, and thus it a whole new perspective of what I call “spending time doing robotics”. It’s the difference in mindset between an engineer vs a researcher. Despite having done scientific experiments throughout school/university, performing research turned out to be a whole new frontier, and thus challenging; but also exciting. If robotics has previously been driven (at a fundamental level) by enjoyment, this adds a new dimension to that.

So I want to move on into a Ph.D which is great. But what exactly I want to focus my research is still out in the blue - but here are some thoughts. When pondering about the future of robotics technology, a big purpose is to integrate these robotics technologies to the general society - I think. How interesting (from a societal and technical perspective) of a world would it be when robotic technologies are introduced that actually make life better in the millions - kind of like how cars or computers became critical tools? So I’m in the midst of searching for a specific lab that tackles a roadblock in this path of robotics development. It will have to be something that will involve a physical hardware design element (because that’s a big aspect of robotics I love + considering morphology is necessary when tackling this problem), but whether that is soft robotics, HRI, or something else is yet to be decided.

In terms of general directions of this year, I have 3 in mind like last year.

1. Keep up my academics

2. Continue my project oriented lifestyle

3. Narrow down my plans after graduation

1 is straightforward, especially if I am going to stay in the academic world after graduation. 2 involves all the projects, committees, etc that I am in charge and want to spend time on. For 3, I want to have decided on a particular lab (or a number of labs) that I want to go after graduation, actually visit there, and send in applications/secure positions by this time next year.

I have focused a great deal on thoughts about my future and specific experiences from 2019, but in general I have been spending most of my time on robotics society work, academics, and other random “stuff” in that order. In terms of something new, I’ve taken on volleyball, bringing sporting activities (VB + ultimate) high up in the list of stuff that occupies my daily routine. What’s planned for 2020 seems to be fairly similar to what came in 2019.

In particular, for the robotics society, we are looking towards participation in a RoboCup major league and maybe WRS as well. My 4th year project (masters project) will begin official from October, but preliminary research and preparation will happen throughout the year. During the summer, I am not planning on any internship or official research positions. Instead I want to focus on a) visiting labs and universities, b) working on projects, and c) learning new skillsets - details will be thought through until then. These are some aspects I am very much looking forward for 2020.

2020 also marks my 10th year involved in robotics projects. It is a privilege to be able to be involved with something I love doing for such as long time, thanks to my family, friends, and everyone in support. I hope for an equally exciting 10 years until 2030.

Thank you for reading, and I hope each and everyone has a great year ahead.

(Picture from a vineyard in Luxembourg, near my friend’s place)