Prologue - Summer at Yale and Nantucket

I'm leaving for China in less than a week - it's hard to believe how quickly this summer has flown by. For the months of June and July, I worked as an intern at the Yale Social Robotics Lab, where I helped design and program demonstrations to show off the abilities of the robots owned and created by the lab. I learned so much and had an amazing time working with the brilliant people in the lab. Some of my projects include creating an interactive game where the Baxter industrial robot defends goals from a human player, and a program that allows you to fully control the Nao humanoid robot just by moving your arms and hands in the air. I also designed an object tracking algorithm that will hopefully be useful to the lab in future projects.

After my two months at the lab, I took some time off with my family in Nantucket. I had a wonderful and relaxing time, and I spent much of it on the beach, but I have been surprisingly busy too. Between preparing for China and working on a new app that I'm designing for the iPhone, I've had a lot to do!

Now I'm on my way home, where I'll see my friends and family before I leave.  I've included some of my favorite pictures from the summer in this post.

– Jack Gartland