I arrived back home from the commercialization workshop at 11 p.m. this last Friday night, only to be getting up early the next morning to drive out to do my first 24-hour rogaine. My research colleague, who was the 2007 national rogaine champion, was one of the people who set the course for the 2008 NSW state championship rogaine. Since he's one of the people who has inspired me to go see more of the bush country here, he easily convinced me to enter this competition. I partnered with Keith again, although it took a bit more effort to convince him to do the 24-hour event over the 6-hour one.
The course was huge compared to the last one I did, but much of it was in a national park and along a really nice stretch of beach. Our goal was to beat our score from the previous rogaine, and to improve our navigation skills.
The day started off adversely. First, when Keith arrived and we were about to load my stuff in his car, he realized he had locked his keys inside. We tried a coat hanger, but were unsuccessful; so Keith called his company's road service number. The dispatch would arrive in an hour, so we went to the local McDonald's for a quick breakfast and coffee. After the key was retrieved, we were off. Then, just an hour from the destination, the car's computer started acting up, reducing the engine performance to safe mode and giving a warning about some traction sensor being out. Keith pulled over and restarted the car a couple of times, and at least got the engine performance back.
By the time we made it to the campsite, checked in for the competition, pitched the tents, and planned our route, we were 30 minutes past the official start time. Since we were planning to take it easy and focus more on the navigation skills than trying to brute force our way through the course, we were not terribly bothered by this. Within the first couple of hours, we had found the first four targets we planned. That lifted our spirits quite a bit, as a great deal of that was navigated off the trail. The next target proved to be tougher. We were going fine most of the way, then we hit dense rain forest and blackberry bushes. After spending a half hour looking for the target, we gave up, thinking we were closer to the next one. As we made our way to a nearby trail, I noticed a small black worm stuck to the lower part of my shirt. We had picked up leeches. Keith found 4-5 fat ones on his ankles, and although I had none feeding on me, there were 4-5 crawling around on my backpack. We spent several minutes ridding ourselves of these pests before looking for our original target in that area. Another half hour later, we decided we were not going to be able to locate the target in a reasonable time and moved on.
Our original plan had us following a long north-bound course, but it was about 4:30 by this time, and would be getting dark soon. So we altered our course to shorten the north part more, which would allow us to hit the beach before the night was too late. We found the next target easily enough. By the time we arrived in the area for the subsequent one, it was dark. With a little careful navigation and attention to detail, we were able to find that target, proving to ourselves that we could navigate an night. The target after that doubled as an all-night cafe stop for weary competitors. When we reached that one, the cooking area was on fire. Someone apparently tripped over something that sparked one of the gas canisters, and the local bush fire department was en route. We took a short break, ate a snack, drank water, and watched the action. Shortly after the fire was put out, we headed on.
Our route took us about 6 kilometers from there to the beach, and was a long walk. Keith had only agreed to do six hours of rogaining the first day, and six the next. We were approaching the eighth hour by this time. The beach portion turned out to be a much longer route than we thought, but we managed to find all the targets along there except one. It was 11:30 p.m. when we finally made it back to the camp to enjoy a six-pack and a hot meal. We felt incredibly tired at this point, having done eleven straight hours of rigorous walking/hiking. It rained heavily that night for an hour or so, and I felt glad we were at least in our tents instead of pulling an all-nighter on the course.
The next morning, we woke up in our own time, had a nice breakfast and coffee, then headed out to get four more targets. We found them all in barely two hours, and felt happy with our overall results. Back at the hash house, we turned in our entries, had a light lunch, packed up camp, changed clothes, and left before the crowds. Our total score was 760, which we felt was respectable given the terrain and the length of the course.
This morning I got to talk more about the event with my research colleague, and he told me the winning team actually got every single target, which meant a total traveling distance of 130 km! That's the equivalent of about 3 marathons (through forest, trails, mountains, sand, and water)! And they had 30 minutes to spare at the end! What an amazing feat. Nevertheless, we feel we did great, too, and vastly improved our capabilities for the next rogaine we decide on.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Commercialization Workshop
For the latter half of last week I was on the Sunshine Coast, about 100 km outside of Brisbane, for a research commercialization workshop. The universities here in Australia, as well as a respectable number of venture capitalist entities, view research students as potential idea factories, and are eager to partner with the students to capitalize on those ideas. The partnership can provide everything the student needs to bring ideas to full fruition, although the effort still requires a great deal of work, patience, and time. Funding may start with a seed for further research to solidify results, and end up in a world-changing start-up company.
The focus of the workshop was to educate the students about the commercialization process. It doesn't always involve a patentable product or lead to the next big start-up company. An avenue that hadn't really occurred to me was the idea of being a consultant -- using research expertise to help guide a company assessing cutting edge ideas. The students represented were not all scientists, either. There were students from art, information technology, and psychology departments there, as well. In all, 170 students attended this year.
Essentially, the theme of the workshop was to expand the entrepreneurial mindset of the students, to show them how to make the most out of a PhD in the career world. While partnering with a venture capitol firm does mean the student doesn't get 100% of the money from the developed idea -- the idea might never make it out to the world otherwise. One thing I have to say about the investors here, is they seem to have a much fairer approach to sharing the wealth, so the students would still stand to make a great deal of money if the idea is big enough.
I came away from the workshop with a much better understanding of what is involved in taking an idea to a finished product; a wider network of contacts to help me in this process; and a great deal of confidence that getting the PhD won't limit my career in the least.
The focus of the workshop was to educate the students about the commercialization process. It doesn't always involve a patentable product or lead to the next big start-up company. An avenue that hadn't really occurred to me was the idea of being a consultant -- using research expertise to help guide a company assessing cutting edge ideas. The students represented were not all scientists, either. There were students from art, information technology, and psychology departments there, as well. In all, 170 students attended this year.
Essentially, the theme of the workshop was to expand the entrepreneurial mindset of the students, to show them how to make the most out of a PhD in the career world. While partnering with a venture capitol firm does mean the student doesn't get 100% of the money from the developed idea -- the idea might never make it out to the world otherwise. One thing I have to say about the investors here, is they seem to have a much fairer approach to sharing the wealth, so the students would still stand to make a great deal of money if the idea is big enough.
I came away from the workshop with a much better understanding of what is involved in taking an idea to a finished product; a wider network of contacts to help me in this process; and a great deal of confidence that getting the PhD won't limit my career in the least.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
An Australian Hamburger
What's so special about a hamburger that deserves a post on a blog? The traditional hamburger in Australia is truly unique -- there is nothing quite like it.
To begin with, it has all the basic ingredients of the typical American hamburger. Then the extras are added: bacon (similar to Canadian bacon), a fried egg, and a slice or two of beet (it's almost an unwritten law for these to be on a hamburger here). The end result is a very filling meal, still not the healthiest item, but definitely nice to enjoy once in awhile.
If you only do one trip to Australia in your lifetime, I definitely recommend experiencing a hamburger like this one.
This was my hamburger (although the beets and egg are not visible, they are there) at a pub/hotel we stayed at the night before the rogaine mentioned in the previous post. The food selection was all bar food, and this was probably the healthiest item. (The hotel itself was nice and felt like home; the staff were all nice and the atmosphere of the pub was great.)
Monday, April 7, 2008
Rogaining
Yesterday Michelle and I did our first rogaine. We were each on different teams. It's not the sport of hair-growing, but rather, of orienteering. I partnered with Keith, and Michelle partnered with Belinda, the wife of one of my research colleagues (she's been a past national rogaining champion, and he's the current rogaining champion).
At the beginning of the competition, teams are given topographical maps with small circles indicating where the targets are. Targets are worth various points. The larger the number for a target, the more points it is worth, but that also generally means the route to get to it is tougher. Before the start, teams have about 30-45 minutes to plan a route and prepare themselves. The time given for this event was six hours. Courses are planned and targets laid out such that it's not possible for anyone to actually collect all targets.
The targets themselves are fairly visible orange and white striped flags hanging from a tree in the defined area. Along with the flag, there is an electronic sensor and a puncher. When a team arrives at a target, each member must touch the sensor to their wrist band counterpart, and use the puncher to mark the paper target matrix (record back-up to the electronic sensors).
The hardest part of rogaining is the navigation. Teams are only allowed to navigate using a compass and the map. GPS, pedomoters, and altimeters are not allowed. To make matters more difficult, the topography in the maps can be a little out of date, and some areas of the land can have very similar geographic features to others -- making the distinction for a target area harder. In this case, the satellite image and air survey of the land used to define the topography was last done in 2002. There were trails and many dried rivulets that were not indicated on the map.
So how did we do? Well, Michelle and Belinda got 1080 points, while Keith and I barely got 480 points (we still beat 11 other teams). The big mistake that cost Keith and I lots of time was getting lost in relation to the map. We were first going after big number targets, leaving easier ones for the latter half of the time. The very first target we went after was one that even Belinda told us later she couldn't find. But we had wasted about 40 minutes in that area right at the beginning. We got off the trail and started following the land for the next target, and that seemed to work better. We were on a roll for the next three targets, and we decided to cut across the land for a really difficult one. We lost about an hour on that target -- we were completely on the wrong ridge, almost out of bounds. Once we figured that out, we found the target and continued across the land to another one.
At that point, we realized we were getting short on time, so we thought we would cut across southwest to pick up another four targets before heading back to the hash house (starting point). We severely miscalculated the distance for that part, and picked up a trail, thinking it was the one we wanted. We wandered up and down the trail, losing another 40 or so minutes until we ran into another team near a target. That target was in the far northeast corner of the map, and we still can't entirely figure out how we messed up that badly. After the final target, we decided to head back to a trail we knew, and continue on to the hash house. (Teams are penalized if they arrive back late.) We walked briskly for most of the way, and we neared a point where the map indicated a target near the trail. I saw the flag from the trial, so we ran to collect those points, then ran back to the trail again. We had 20 minutes to cover the remaining distance to the hash house, half of that time we walked, the other half we ran. We made it back to the hash house with 2 minutes to spare.
Rogaining is definitely one of those sports that one gets better at with more practice. To get a really good score, teams have to be constantly moving the entire time -- no rest breaks -- and know how to decently navigate. Enough water has to be carried, ideally in a bag with a sipping hose, strapped on the back. Food should be such that one can eat while moving.
It was a very tiring event, but definitely something I'd like to try again. It's a neat way to see many different aspects of bush country. Obviously, we weren't taking pictures here, but the event website has some good pictures of the actual terrain we went through.
http://act.rogaine.asn.au/gallery/v/08PP6hr/
At the beginning of the competition, teams are given topographical maps with small circles indicating where the targets are. Targets are worth various points. The larger the number for a target, the more points it is worth, but that also generally means the route to get to it is tougher. Before the start, teams have about 30-45 minutes to plan a route and prepare themselves. The time given for this event was six hours. Courses are planned and targets laid out such that it's not possible for anyone to actually collect all targets.
The targets themselves are fairly visible orange and white striped flags hanging from a tree in the defined area. Along with the flag, there is an electronic sensor and a puncher. When a team arrives at a target, each member must touch the sensor to their wrist band counterpart, and use the puncher to mark the paper target matrix (record back-up to the electronic sensors).
The hardest part of rogaining is the navigation. Teams are only allowed to navigate using a compass and the map. GPS, pedomoters, and altimeters are not allowed. To make matters more difficult, the topography in the maps can be a little out of date, and some areas of the land can have very similar geographic features to others -- making the distinction for a target area harder. In this case, the satellite image and air survey of the land used to define the topography was last done in 2002. There were trails and many dried rivulets that were not indicated on the map.
So how did we do? Well, Michelle and Belinda got 1080 points, while Keith and I barely got 480 points (we still beat 11 other teams). The big mistake that cost Keith and I lots of time was getting lost in relation to the map. We were first going after big number targets, leaving easier ones for the latter half of the time. The very first target we went after was one that even Belinda told us later she couldn't find. But we had wasted about 40 minutes in that area right at the beginning. We got off the trail and started following the land for the next target, and that seemed to work better. We were on a roll for the next three targets, and we decided to cut across the land for a really difficult one. We lost about an hour on that target -- we were completely on the wrong ridge, almost out of bounds. Once we figured that out, we found the target and continued across the land to another one.
At that point, we realized we were getting short on time, so we thought we would cut across southwest to pick up another four targets before heading back to the hash house (starting point). We severely miscalculated the distance for that part, and picked up a trail, thinking it was the one we wanted. We wandered up and down the trail, losing another 40 or so minutes until we ran into another team near a target. That target was in the far northeast corner of the map, and we still can't entirely figure out how we messed up that badly. After the final target, we decided to head back to a trail we knew, and continue on to the hash house. (Teams are penalized if they arrive back late.) We walked briskly for most of the way, and we neared a point where the map indicated a target near the trail. I saw the flag from the trial, so we ran to collect those points, then ran back to the trail again. We had 20 minutes to cover the remaining distance to the hash house, half of that time we walked, the other half we ran. We made it back to the hash house with 2 minutes to spare.
Rogaining is definitely one of those sports that one gets better at with more practice. To get a really good score, teams have to be constantly moving the entire time -- no rest breaks -- and know how to decently navigate. Enough water has to be carried, ideally in a bag with a sipping hose, strapped on the back. Food should be such that one can eat while moving.
It was a very tiring event, but definitely something I'd like to try again. It's a neat way to see many different aspects of bush country. Obviously, we weren't taking pictures here, but the event website has some good pictures of the actual terrain we went through.
http://act.rogaine.asn.au/gallery/v/08PP6hr/
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