Is cold, why do I need to still mow? It always surprises me that anything actually grows, when the sun disappears, and the sky turns grey in autumn. But hey it does, the grass, and in itself that also signals the way life is. Life does its thing, continues … till it is really too cold I suppose.
I was thinking of buying one for a while, then, someone suggested ‘I can make you a robot grass cutter’. Of course not everyone can say that. It happened to be someone who just finished a Master’s in robotics. Felt like a welcome change of direction since I am drowning deep in ‘philosophy of AI’ readings for my upcoming assignments – (robots one can say, challenge the embodiment argument against Alan Turing’s question – ‘can machines think?’).
So back to that mowing problem – he showed up in my garden with the parts which would make the insides of this robot: Brushless (BLDC motor) A2212/ST 2700KV, 3S Lipo battery 11.1V 3000mAh 35c, ESC – electronic speed controller, servo tester and banana wires (electrical engineers have a fun way of naming things I guess). He did a trial run. Of course the current was too high and so the banana wires were not strong enough and so the plastic casing melted through. ‘So now I know, I need different banana wires’.
Doing it and sometimes getting it wrong, and then learning from both the doing it and the mistakes (cancel that), rather the error(s); that is learning in general. For me it was fascinating just watching and (trying to) understand. In our VUCA world, plus that the body of knowledge keeps getting bigger, we now have an urgent need for pursuing lifelong learning, actively, in all possible ways. To give us more opportunities to get the errors out of the way.
Just as it is important to mow the grass, if you want to enjoy your garden; it is also important to continuously learn and grow in our jobs, so we can also enjoy those as well! I now know what is happening in a robot mower and can enjoy the gain in that knowledge, and the grass.
Vind ik leuk
Over Kiran Aswani
Exploration of human nature has been a lifelong interest, and gathering the knowledge and deeper understanding of the world, a constant pursuit. Having lived on four continents and having been exposed to so many places and persons, I find myself even more curious, and with a heightened awareness. In Fontys, I teach finance and accounting in the International Business program. My blog is an exercise in critical thinking, looking at the intersection between finance-education-life.