Presentations
At the end of my SURF, we’d made quite a bit of progress. We had a working prototype which we coulddemonstrate! My mentor arranged for us to present at the Smart Grid Symposium, which was sponsored by Southern California Edison. They were interested in our work because they would like to be able to protect the electric grid in the event of an earthquake.
My mentor was one of the keynote speakers. In the middle of his presentation, he stopped and told everybody to make sure to check out our poster. I was so happy!
Our poster was a little big for their easels, so it hung off the sides. We had to watch it carefully to make sure it didn’t fall over!
Our presentation required three laptops. The organizers were astonished! We got our own table.
Several of the Caltech professors presented their current research. In addition to Mani Chandy (my mentor), Steven Low, Adam Weirman (who is currently running the RankManiac 2010 contest in his CS 144 class), and Andreas Krause all talked about what they were currently working on.
In addition to the SmartGrid symposium, I got to do three on-campus presentations. My mentor arranged for me to present to the Rigorous Systems Research Group, which is composed of several of the CS professors and graduate students. They asked quite a few probing questions, which kept us on our toes! They also had some good suggestions.
I got to present to the CS 9 class as well. It’s a class that reviews the current Caltech CS research, intended for freshmen. I highly recommend it.
Lastly, I presented at SURF seminar day. I was really pleased to see that my sponsors, Dr. and Mrs. Kiyo (BS ‘40) and Eiko Tomiyasu. He graduated with a degree in EE, back in the day. It was really nice that they took the time to come and see my presentation.
Whew! That’s a lot of presentations!
