pivot for stem

our friends at geekdads are at it again, with the Pivot Stick Figure Editor is a Great Animation Tool for Kids post. ken introduced us to a cool tool called pivot. its basically a stick figure animation tool;

Pivot makes creating individual frames really easy, and moving animations is based on a simple click and drag process. Each figure has different points (red dots) that can be manipulated and a single point (yellow dot) to move the whole figure. A simple left-hand-side toolbar has about 5 or 6 options which are simple to grasp and not overwhelming for young users.

So I began to create a stick figure waving at us from the computer screen and within a couple of minutes I had about 5-10 seconds of animation. Within 5 minutes, my four year old and six year old were asking for a turn. They mastered the basic concept very quickly. Together we worked out you could insert any jpg background from the hard-drive and they were away.

Despite my own beliefs in the capacity of children and their ability to do things that we never acknowledge (so never see them do), I was amazed at the speed at which they picked up the basic concepts using Pivot. After a few days they had realized they could create their own stick figures to animate and had begun to use the simple drawing tool to save their own stick figure props like beds, cannons and barbells.

so, i thought this posting was pretty cool. it seems like something a teacher can bring into a computer class and make a lesson out of it. so, i decided to try pivot out.

here's what i thought;

its not the easiest thing in the world to get started with. i started up the program thinking that i would create an awesome demo animation. no such luck. i made one really lame animation.

as i worked through my own animation i'm not sure what i was learning. but, its definitely true that i was thinking. or maybe i was just confused on how to make my stick figure run.

i got the hang of it, but i quickly got a little impatient. it wasn't flashy enough.

well, those seemed negative. the fact that i made an animation is really cool. i had fun making it and running through the examples. i think its a pretty cool little application. here is my lame animation;

(click on the image to see my animation)

maybe its an entry point to bigger and better animation software. i don't know about that. but, i definitely think its shows kids that computers is cool and fun. to me thats the main point. it got me thinking. i think thats 90% of the battle. kick starting imagination is key!

ps. i'm thinking there must be hundreds of these little applications that teaches something different. i have a few others i want to share...

2008 hawaii's top high-tech leaders

tonight a few of us from referentia systems inc attended the 2008 flavors of technology and technology industry awards. it was at the hawaii prince hotel and it was awesome.

the cool thing was that i won an award for high tech leaders. here was a little info about it;

DESCRIPTION
Technology News Bytes and the Pacific Technology Foundation honor individuals who are highly regarded for their leadership and service in Hawaii’s high technology industry.

PURPOSE
To recognize and reward outstanding individuals for their leadership and service in Hawaii’s high technology industry, both within their organizations and in the community at large.

SELECTION CRITERIA
All nominees must be:
• Active professionals serving their current organization for at least one (1) year
• Individuals who have improved or advanced their organization using technology
• Recognized by their co-workers and collogues for their commitment to excellence in their profession
• Known for their expertise in technology
• Highly involved with professional organizations
• Active contributors and volunteers in the community
• Nominations are accepted from the private, public, and non-profit sectors. Nominations are limited to a maximum of two (2) nominees per company, and can be either self-nominations or third-party nomination

i was surprised to find that i was even nominated. thanks to ian kitajima for the nomination. i had to rush a little on the questions, but here is a first draft (which i revised later).

anyway, the event was awesome. there was a coat and tie dress code, so we all got dressed up. here are some pictures from the event (i hear that there is a video of me accepting the award).



we actually had a csdl reunion of sorts; austen ito, james wang, robert brewer, and me. we also cheered on rosemary sumajitfor for winning her high tech leader award. yay rosemary! i hear that robert and philip have won awards in the past too. csdl represent!

also congratulations to my friends lynn fujioka and dan leuck for their awards!

anyway, i'm not sure that i really deserve this award just yet. there is so much more that i need to accomplish. i'll continue to push forward. but, a lot of the credit has to go to the awesome people at referentia. starting with the leadership from nelson to all the engineers that help me help the students. referentia has allowed me to grow in this capacity and i think thats awesome.

my academic journey

this is my academic journey

little kid days
i was a sports and outdoors kid. i wasn't allowed to have a nintendo and i couldn't watch tv during the week. so, that meant i found myself outside almost every single day after school from when i was in elementary to high school. i didn't need to be told i couldn't watch tv; i didn't want to. i played ayso soccer and little league baseball, played basketball and football with my friends, went surfing, hiking, bike riding, camping, fishing, etc. you name it we did it. it was a lot of fun.

i did okay in school;

i was a very curious kid; asking why about everything

i liked math and science and did everything i could to get out of reading

in elementary i won two science fairs for my demonstrations of magnets and the ozone.

for some reason i still remember winning a lei making contest and winning second place in our chess tournament.

i also remember taking two computer programming classes. one was in my elementary school where we learned logo. i really liked hacking logo on the macintoshes. next in my intermediate school we had a graphics programming class where we made animations. i remember these classes pretty well. i must have really liked them.

i remember my parents going over my report card with me every term. i was always upset that my friends got money for good grades and i didn't. my parents used to say my grades were for me and only me; and that i should do it for myself. this is where i eventually learned to be responsible for my education.

high school
high school centered around two things; baseball and having fun. i played for aiea high school JV and Varsity teams. baseball consumed a lot of my life and homework did not. i still got really good grades, but didn't do nearly as much studying as i probably should have.

i didn't learn trigonometry. i wasn't interested and it showed.

when we had reading assignments; i would do all i could do to fake it. i don't think i read one fiction book in high school.

i didn't learn anything about using the computer, i didn't even know we had a computer lab.


i'm not sure that i learned a lot in class, but i made sure we had a lot of fun. high school was a blast... but with all that, i still got pretty good grades. i graduated with honors. i even got a scholarship to the university of hawaii.

baseball
i really learned a lot about life playing baseball. i played baseball all my life, but things changed when i started playing at the high school level. we played baseball year around and my game changed and my roles on the teams changed. i went from a bench warmer to the veteran starter. i went from a freshman follower to a senior leader. these experiences were real. i learned a lot about being a leader. and i learned a lot about being a mentor.

i think the valuable thing about baseball was that i was able to really focus on baseball. i wasn't going to back down and i wasn't going to give up. competition drove my constant improvement of myself and my team. every practice meant something. every game was a stepping stone.

i mention baseball in my academic journey, because there is nothing quite like high school sports. for me, it was one of the most important academic experiences that i've gone through.

university
my first semester in college was shocking... my techniques for getting by at aiea high school wasn't working. i was playing to much... i couldn't BS my way through the tests by just being there in class. ha! i was actually pretty surprised. but, i wasn't playing baseball any more. so, i kind of lost focus. but, luckily some how one flunked pop quiz and a few family problems kicked me in the ass and i regained focus. this time i was focused on school. i was self driven. i didn't have a team anymore, i had to do this by myself and i better kick some butt. this was an important lesson for me.

agriculture
but! i was an agriculture major in the college of tropical agriculture and human resources. besides a scholarship, what the heck was i doing in there? this is where i made my second realization that i HATE WORKING OUTSIDE (but i love playing outside), i really don't care how plants drink water, and i really don't care about bugs and soil.

so, i quickly left CTAHR and ventured out into taking ICS (Information and Computer Science) 101 and ICS 111. i took these classes just because i remembered that i used to like computers when i was a kid. i really had no clue what programming was.

the internet!
this was right about the time when i got my first computer and got the internet! woah.. i was 19 years old learning about all this crazy internet stuff. i would ask my friends what does "www" mean and what does this yahoo site do. they'd laugh at me, but i was soaking up like a sponge. it was really interesting particularly because in high school i didn't geek out like this.

i did well in ICS 111 and i enjoyed learning java. so, i figured to keep on going. so i took another class. eventually, i told my CTAHR adviser i was out of the college and moved to ICS. the only problem was that i wanted to work with people and help people and i didn't know how would do that in ICS.

ICS
i got a few computer jobs, learned a lot more and realized that i really liked working with computers. i got good grades in my ics class, but i wasn't learning that much. i was a senior in college taking 400-level ICS classes and i began to think what i was going to do with my life. the scary thing was that i was pretty much getting a 4.0 in my major and i had no idea what i was going to do or where i was going to work. my initial thought was that i needed to work for a web company. thank goodness that changed when i took ICS 413 ...

ICS 413 taught by Dr. Philip Johnson turned my university education around. for the first time, i learned what it was like to write real software. imagine that... i took ten ICS classes and didn't know what it was like to write software. this class changed my life. i felt like i just learned what computer science was all about, so i couldn't bear graduating right after that ICS 413 semester. it tuns out that Dr. Philip Johnson convinced me to do my Honors Thesis. committing to this meant that i delayed my graduation for at least a year. i was in no rush, so i did it. (now, i realize that everyone should do an honors thesis).

during my honors thesis work, i started to see that software was all about people. wring software is people management; its peopleware. AHA! i found out that i can help people with my geek knowledge. geek + people is awesome! i found my calling! i found myself using the same people techniques i learned in baseball.

i eventually finished my honors thesis; The design, implementation, and evaluation of CLEW: An improved Collegiate Department Website.

grad school
now, i was about to graduate with my bachelors of science in information and computer science with high honors and was faced with another "what now". i still had no clue where i would working in hawaii. so, i applied to various graduate programs around the country, but i got rejected from all of them. luckily i was offered a spot in CSDL as a graduate research assistant. i jumped at that opportunity.

i did my graduate research working on the hackystat system. while working on that project i got to be part of a few publications:

Comparing personal project metrics to support process and product improvement

Practical automated process and product metric collection and analysis in a classroom setting: Lessons learned from Hackystat-UH

The Hackystat-JPL Configuration: Round 2 Results

Hackystat MDS supporting MSL MMR

Hackystat MDS supporting MSL MMR: Round 2 Results

Hackystat-SQI: Modeling different development processes

Hackystat-SQI: First Progress Report

Improving Software Development Management through Software Project Telemetry


one of the awesome things that i got to do during my graduate studies was an internship at the jet propulsion laboratory in pasadena california. it was a great experience and was really useful as a talking point for interviews, etc. not to mention a really really really really cool place. i got to see the mars rovers, went into the mission control rooms, saw them testing the mars rovers, saw them building the next satellites, watch cassini fly through saturn's rings, and talked to a lot of rocket scientists!

after my internship i finally finished my masters thesis; Priority Ranked Inspection: Supporting Effective Inspection in Resource-limited Organizations. yay! school is over. (actually i got into the PhD program, but i decided that i was done for a while. write a thesis is a lot of hard work).

work work work
i entered the job hunting with relatively little information. unfortunately, my time at the ICS department didn't teach me about our local high tech industry. so, i applied to places were my friends worked. and it turns out i accepted a job where i didn't know anyone; Referentia Systems Inc was my new home.

i've been working at Referentia for the past 3 years now. i was hired as a software engineer and now i'm a engineering supervisor. at the end of it all, i rely on much more of my soft skills, outward thinking, and the wonderful paradox than my technical skills.

moral of the story
i don't think there is a moral of the story... its just the way that i did it. its has been a long journey and i feel really fortunate and grateful to be where i am now.

i think its ironic that some of the most important lessons that i use today in the real world comes from times out on the baseball field.

there is so much yet to come. i've recently become really interested in helping others through their journey. i've learned this from leaders like ian kitajima. i've just started this next chapter but some things are already in motion;

making students awesome

Dept ICS TopCoder Software Engineering Competition

ics alumni association for real this time


wish me luck!

my public shared items update

if you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that i really like the idea of sharing information and knowledge with people. so, i started a few public shared items from my google reader. here is an updated to my list:

p-stem (new) - these are items related to the STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) initiative, which aims to help bolster education in these subject areas in our school systems to create more future scientists and engineers. i try to share cool things that can be shown in school, that parents can show their kids, or for me to just learn more. STEM is really important and i think these little cool things need to make its way to the kids. here is another community that leading STEM in hawaii; SIP.

p-maps (new) - i'm becoming interested in GIS (geographic information systems) and mapping software. i wanted a place to organize things that i liked. google shares doesn't seem like the best place to put it, but its the only thing that i've go going. besides, the point of this share makes me consciously look out for GIS-mapping-posts.

my shared items - this is a generic list of things that i like. posts that make it to here are items that i really like. if you are going to only subscribe to one feed, subscribe to this one. (haha of course that is just my personal opinion, i have heard people say that my shares suck)

p-environ - this feed is for environmental things that i come across. these postings aren't necessarily good or bad; its just that they are somewhat interesting and have to do with the environment. i started this feed to discuss things with my cousin dana. interestingly, i find my self sharing a lot of google related environmental initiatives.

p-google - this feed is for google stuff. duh.. i set this feed up because i noticed that i like a lot of things from google and that people that read my shared stuff might not care a lot about google stuff. i like google stuff, so i wanted a place to put it; then figured why not make it public.

p-robotics - this feed is for robotics stuff. robotics is coming on strong these days. its a buzz word these days. anything with robotics gets some attention, especially in hawaii. anyway, i set up this blog for my friend tom (oleg the intern), to help feed him information that might be helpful to him as he figures out what interests him. i also am sending to this feed to lynn, maybe it might be useful for her. there are other robotics groups out there that i'm starting to look into; gorobot.org and the techhui robotics group.

so, there are a few reasons why i share with google reader:

it helps me keep a look out and focus on subjects that i care about

it helps me keep a record of interesting posts, which allows me to find it faster when talking to people about it.

it helps me share with people (although i'm not sure how many people are looking at my public shares)

somethings that i don't like about using google reader for this:

its hard to build "knowledge" from all these individual shares

it is impossible to discuss individual posts.

it is impossible to work collaboratively on a subject matter. something like twine can do a much better job, but i don't really have a community to collaborate with on these subjects.

anyway, those are my public shares. it is a work in progress. i continue to strive to share knowledge and making the process easier. here is what you can do to help me:

add these shares to your google reader and let me know what you think of the content

let me know if there are better ways that i should be considering; twine or other sharing sites

share back, send me your public rss feeds

ahead of the majority

In 1965, Patsy Takemoto Mink became the first woman of color in the U.S. Congress. Seven years later, she ran for the U.S. presidency and co-authored Title IX, the landmark legislation that opened up higher education and athletics to America's women. PATSY MINK: AHEAD OF THE MAJORITY is the story of this dynamic trailblazer who, battling racism and sexism, redefined American politics.



Ten reasons why you should know about patsy mink

She co-authored Title IX.

She was the first woman of color to serve in the U.S. Congress.

She was one of the first women to run for president, entering the Oregon presidential primary in 1972.

She ran in 22 elections, more than any other politician from Hawai'i then or since. She is the only Hawai'i politician to serve at the county, territorial, state and federal levels.

She introduced the nation's first comprehensive Early Childhood Education Act in 1971. Congress passed the legislation, but President Nixon vetoed it.

She authored Hawai'i's "equal pay for equal work" law in 1957. The national law was passed six years later.

She defended a strong civil rights plank at the 1960 Democratic National Convention.

She was the first Asian American woman elected to public office in Hawai'i.

She was the first Japanese American female lawyer in Hawai'i. She originally wanted to be a doctor but was rejected by all the medical schools she applied to in 1948.

She led a crusade in college against the the University of Nebraska's segregated housing policy. The school rescinded the discriminatory policy because of her efforts.




Patsy Takemoto Mink is my grand aunt. aunty patsy has been a guiding force in my life to help others and standing up for whats right. my life goal is to help people and i hope continue my aunty's legacy.

i feel greatly honored and humbled by Kimberlee Bassford's work on her documentary PATSY MINK: AHEAD OF THE MAJORITY. the documentary is going to be debuted this month in the hawaii film festival. we are really looking forward to seeing the movie and participating in the events.

trying to keep my creativity alive

i guess i have an active imagination, because i keep on thinking of new ideas. although, i have no idea how good they are. but, as someone pointed out, i should write them down. so, i try formalize my ideas and build upon them. if you are wondering why this is important watch this video; Talks Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
here are some of the highlights:

"we get educated out of creativity"

"if you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original"

"you become frightened to become wrong"

"we are now running companies where mistakes are the worst things you can make"

"we don't grow into creativity we get educated out of it"

"professors look at their body as a transport for their heads"

"you have been steered away from things you like "

"suddenly degrees are worth nothing"

"academic inflation"

"creativity is having original ideas that are useful"

"rethink the fundamental principles that we are educating our children"

"remove all insects from earth in 50 years all life will perish. remove all humans from earth in 50 years all life will flourish"

anyway, here are some of the ideas that i had recently.

twitter twin
not sure how i thought about this one, but wouldn't it be cool to find your twitter twin? the basic idea is that since the character limit is set and there are only a set amount of things you could type in, i would think that some of your tweets have to be duplicates. so, lets say you twittered, "obama is cool" then maybe you could see that 20,000 other twitter users said the same thing. but if you said something like, "new rule: stop putting down the other candidates. its lame." i wonder how many other people think like that.

when i twitter something my "followers" can respond. but i often think about how my thoughts, tweets, are similar to totally random people. this might work better if the subject area is narrowed; for example the elections twitter view.

hawaii night life pics
everyone has mobile phones with cameras these days. you see these pictures all over peoples facebook or myspace profiles. its pretty cool to see your friends pictures from their nights out. you can kind of get a sense of the "quality" of the club by looking at the pictures. whether its crowded, how dark it is, etc.

i began to think that it would be cool to organize all of our pictures by time and location instead of user profile. what if we chunked up a friday night into hour blocks and then categorized it by location (ie, pearl, level4, bar35, etc). then as the night goes on the people take pictures and upload it to the site, which is automatically sorted and categorized.

its kinda like the hawaii nightlife diaries, but created by masses.

world perception
after the presidential debate, i got to thinking... i wonder which candidate other countries prefer. i'm not sure that will change my preference, but knowing that answer is definitely interesting. i think there are a bunch of things i would like to know what the world thinks. what does the world think about Tibet? what does the world think of global warming? what does the world think about America?

maybe we can find out the answers to these questions with a world wide polling system of some sort. i really like this idea, because I (we) are only fed what we hear in the news, what we read in the newspaper, etc. that information is very country specific and in some cases that is not a good thing.

it would be fantastic if there was a virtual world wide meeting place to express your thoughts on world problems.

tangible internet
it would be cool to some how make the internet tangible. something you can touch and gain information from. something not traditional (not like a printed paper or something). i guess i just realized that i hate having to sit in front of this computer screen to get information.

learning a lot from the geekdads

geekdad is a blog from wired magazine; "Tech toys, science projects and other nerdy things to do with your kids." its a pretty good blog especially when they talk about cool things parents can do with with their kids. for example, this posting making fireflies, or 10 websites for geeky kids. this blog is fun.

but, there are other geekdads and geekmoms out there. and i'm finding that i'm learning a lot about being a good dad from their blog postings, web pictures, and twitter messages. i really appreciate the view into their family activities. i really do appreciate it. i gives me new ideas of what i can do with my family. their posts reminds me that i need to stop working and start playing. i've made it a real point to stop working during the weekends and instead take family field trips (well, i should have said try).

like this blog posting from geekdad ryan:

We got Blake a guitar for his birthday... the reason I thought a guitar might be good for him is this... I secretly believe that he has some sort of hidden musical talent.

i've been thinking about getting my kid a drum set. he totally loves listening and dancing (or what seems to be dancing) to music. he has one little drum that he plays all day and goes into a total fit if i take it away. he knows how to play different sounds on the drum too. i've been thinking about getting him a little kid drum set. but, i didn't know if people actually punished themselves with that sort of decision. maybe i'll buy it and take it to grandma's.

or like this twitter from geekdad russel:

swam in the pool with the kids. so fun! no one else around

i can't wait to play in the pool with my kid. sounds like good times!

these geekdads share their stories of awesome family times; whether its a trip to the zoo, a surprise weekend at a hotel, or taking the kids to the park. technology makes sharing these stories possible. cause lets face it, geekdads' don't typically sit around the lunch table and talk about family outings.

i look up to geekdads like pavel, ryan, and quinn. i'm learning a lot from their example! thanks guys.

i try to do my share of sharing with my family blog, posting of videos and my picasa web album.

UPDATE. i just recently saw this website http://hawaii.momslikeme.com/ from the honlulu advertiser. whats the deal with that. is there a dadslikeme site?