Robert Dixon

Robocode

Robert — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:43:41 +0000

I went to the Computer Science department at the University of St. Andrews on Saturday, and was there introduced to a new game:

The concept is quite simple. Have you ever watched ‘Robot Wars’? Well it’s a similar thing, but everyone has mechanically identical robots, except they aren’t remotely controlled. They have to ‘think’ for themselves. Your job is program the artificial intelligence algorithm to get your robot to ‘out-smart’ the others. What a fantastic concept!

How to Repair a Calculator

Robert — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:49:25 +0000

A while ago, a friend of mine was going on an expedition to Peru and didn’t want to run the risk of his iPod loosing power. His cunning solution was to take the solar panels out of all the calculators he could find in order to build a solar charger to attach to the top of his rucksack. For a while, this wasn’t an issue until the battery in the calculator ran out and had no way of recharging. Something had to be done, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

When the battery was replaced, it was clear the back would never fit on again, but calculator casing is over-rated anyway. As is the orientation and presence of all its buttons.

Geometry is Broken

Robert — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:28:15 +0000

I was staring at this one for a good half-hour. I really enjoyed this question (when I finally completed it)

Why do the extra two red squares not seem to contribute to the area of the whole triangle?

I am not going to give away the solution, but I will give you this clue: think about similar triangles. Happy mathsing.

Dennis Ritchie

Robert — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:28:21 +0000

Steve Jobs did great things to the computing industry and was responsible for some of the nicest devices available. His death in October filled the media and respects were paid by many loyal Apple fans. Seven days later, however, came the death of another man, whose works were in my opinion far more important to the field of computing, and on whose ingenuity Apple’s success (along with that of so many other technology firms) relied. Dennis Ritchie invented the ‘C’ programming language: what is probably the most famous and most widely used language in existence. In fact there are almost no computer architectures in existence for which a C compiler has not been created. Not only was he responsible for the most successful programming language, he also co-invented the UNIX operating system (upon which Apple’s operating systems are incidentally based). Little was said in the media about the death of this man, but the result of his genius can be found in far more abundance than that of Steve Jobs’.

New Year’s Resolutions

Robert — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:48:32 +0000

I apologise profusely to all my reader(s) for the infrequency with which I have been making these posts. I shall endeavour to create a lot more blog posts in the following year, which should indeed be a very important year in my life. Next year is the year in which I turn 18, get my A-levels, start university and move away from home so it would be a great shame not to reflect upon my adventures in this blog.

Special Relativity

Robert — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:16:20 +0000

Charge Coupled Devices

Robert — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:54:07 +0000

Here is my physics presentation for you all to see…

Rubik’s Cube Maths

Robert — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 19:23:29 +0000

This is a failed attempt at a calculation of the number of Rubik’s Cube possibilities.

Pi ain’t all that

Robert — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 19:22:33 +0000

It has been a while since my last post, so I feel I owe you a video to make up for it.

Dark Flow

Robert — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:34:56 +0000

I am currently in the middle of working on some software called "Dark Flow". It is a tool to make games for many different consoles, but is far from finished yet. So far, the emphasis has been on making the program look nice, which indeed it does:

The Dark Flow Game Studio in its present state

I will keep you posted on our progress with this project, and you can also read the blog on the Dark Flow website.