chess

I started writing my paper months ago. In the beginning I just wrote down some small thoughts, sentences and idea's I had, without taking readability in mind. Now is the time to start making it a coherent paper, so I've been restructuring it the last days.

All three my supervisors gave their comments this week, and I've tried to incorporate their ideas. It's important for a paper like this that the first chapter, the introduction, is well-written. This keeps the reader interested, and allows him to better understand what the whole paper will be about.

Another important thing that could increase readability a lot is the use of (more) examples and illustrations. This is something I'll do next week.

Latest version of my paper.

A new version of my paper is online. Finally crossed the psychologically important 30-page limit, and I've been reorganizing the structure quite a lot today.

It even has a picture for those who are interested in pictures. Tomorrow morning I'll see Ralf to discuss the paper.

Tools - the sequel:

It's 8:30 am and I'm ready to study. Every morning the waking up gets a little bit easier, that gives me hope for the future.


This morning I'll stay home and write on my thesis. There is a lot to read and sometimes is good not to be distracted by the laptop etc.

In the days before Christmas I realized it will be very difficult to actually generate hardware. There are a lot of small details I just don't know enough about. Moreover: to be honest I don't think these details are interesting enough to spent many weeks of my internship on.

Obviously I'll have to discuss these things more with my supervisors, but I'm thinking of staying on a bit more theorethical level. The assignment itself wouldn't really change; there is still a lot of interesting research to do in comparing different Co-Design methods. I'm now writing a bit in the theorethical part of my draft thesis, the newest version is here (sources BibTex).

Today I've been working on the algorithm for the traffic lights controller. At first, potentially lethal situations occurred frequently as I let cars on both road cross at the same time but it works okay now.

Because there are no lights in the Lego Mindstorms set a small motor is doing the traffic light's job: a rotating motor is green, a slow rotating motor is yellow and when the motor is off it indicates the light is red.

Bought a Christmas tree today too.

I've just started my first real prototype of a traffic light controller.

It's made using a Lego Mindstorms set. The controlling software is written in Esterel, which is one of the languages I want to use in the real projects too. However the hardware is 'just' a processor, not an FGPA.

Unfortunately the appointment in Eindhoven didn't go on. Today I'm reading "Computers as Components" by W. Wolf, about embedded computing system design.


The building here is decorated for Christmas. Some quick pictures.

	The halway.
	Christmas tree.
	The elevator.
	My desk, with Christmas lights.

Yesterday and today I've been thinking about a scenario to use for my internship. It shouldn't be too complicated (due to limited time) but at the same time it must be complex enough to make comparisons of the various methods possible.


My current plan is to make a small-scale traffic light controller: a crossing of two roads with tiny traffic lights that are operated using the system I'll develop.


I spoke with my supervisors at Chess today and they liked it, although it still needs some refinement. Tomorrow afternoon I'll go to Chess in Eindhoven to meet a few people there.