Since it is hard to find a good name for a daitng site that has not been taken I registered the following domains which were still free. Unfortunately some people have no clue what AI is about (well it is Artiificial Intelligence), which I used in the names www.aidating.nl and www.aidating.co.uk, as an alternative I also registered datingatmosphere.com. If anyone knows an original name thatis not taken, please let me know.

After a long time I tried my luck on a coin shifting machine, something I last did when I was young at the carnival in my village. Luckily it took just small coins and I therefore spended just a small fee of a few pounds on it altogether. The weather was beautiful als you can see on the picture, where Chaekith is wading through the sea.

Also near the coast there was an enourmous crowd of mini cars. The modern ones but even more classical ones and many of them were adjusted by there owners. There was even a limousine version built by someone. These cars are quite cute, and who else drives one as Mini Mouse himself. A really nice trip, though quite a long journey from Leicester, however that gave me some time to study my exam in the coach.

The photos of the Brighton trip can be seen on the web site: Gallery for Brighton Pier.

On the photos you can see some shots of us developing our LEGO vehicles in the robotics lab at DMU. As usual we working till late, or better till early with our out of hours permit. We tested the robot in the lab and it worked very well, it's too bad that it nevertheless had trouble in the real challenge. However, apart from the results the Vienna trip was a great experience.

On Friday we took the plane to Bratislava (that was cheaper), where our terrorist, Chaekith was almost sent back at the border. At the airport they picked us up with a bus so we didn't have to walk to the border control for the impressive distance of about 80 metres. I hardly took a seat. Taxi's brought us to our apartments in Vienna.

In the evening it was time to go out. Simon brought us to a nice pub with a dance floor in the basement (the brewery / der brennerei). The music was quite good there. We had some pizza and partied till around 4 AM when the pubs were closing. At 5 in the morning we usually slept. The next morning we had breakfast early and went to the Siemens buildings where the robotics challenge took place.

Several people from our course participated in different challenges. Ben won a prize in the freestyle challenge where he presented his flying miniature helicopter. He used this helicopter in his project where he had developed a control using an evolutionary computing methodology. Constans participated in more or less every other challenge. Jonathan participated in the Sumo challenge where robots had to pull each other out of the sumo area. Sometimes however it was better not to run out of the area accidentally than to really defeat your opponent. I was thinking of using a sticker for the purpose of a robot, which can never been pushed out of the area (unless someone has a build in grabber). Ian, Chaekith and I participated in the slalom challenges.

In the parallel slalom the aim was to follow a line as fast as possible. The line consisted of different tiles that were put together resulting in arcs and corners that were a difficulty to take. We had to deal with the lighting conditions in which Ians robot failed but our robot used auto-calibration and performed quite well in that sense. Since we used LEGO mindstorms we were somewhat limited by the processing speed, number of sensors and especially the low accuracy of the sensors. Our robots had difficulty at the 90 degree corner and lost the track just before the finish. What a shame. At least we know it can do it, since it performed rather well on our test track in UK even for the enhanced parallel slalom.

In the enhanced parallel slalom a tunnel a discontinuation of the track and a brick obstacle were added as extra difficulties. At our testing track our robot dealt well with these difficulties however in the real challenge it was detecting bricks everywhere for some reason and it therefore went into brick avoidance mode too often. This issue is still unresolved.

In the evening we went to a restaurant with our group from DMU. The restaurant was about five floors under the ground in a historical building. In the night it was of course time to go out and to see more of the city. With our unlimited underground pass we used this extensively and we have seen loads of the city. In the photographs you see many nice buildings. Not everyone went in the city however, some people went to the pub directly. We were lucky that our roommates opened the door in the mornings to let us in. The next morning we missed out our breakfast, that was just too early.

That they the finals were there. The dedicated robots (electronics) were performing the best since they were manufactured especially for the purpose of the challenge. We hadn't got the money for that option however. In the afternoon we went to a small island in the city where we had dinner in a Greek restaurant with all of us. We ended that day with an after party for participants where we were for a short time. After which we travelled through the city till the U-bahn closed and we were frightened that we had to walk back al the way from the south of Vienna. But luckily there were night buses which were also free with our card. When the pub was closing that night we went on in another pub that was open until late (or early).

Last day we choose to join Jenny and her husband Wilson. Wilson had lived in Vienna for some time. We saw several places of which we had seen some already. Later that day we went to a more peaceful suburb where we had a large lunch and some nice wines. We finished the day with a walk in the hills, on the photo you see me pushing the pram with Rose inside up the hill. Although the pavement was horrible Rose seemed to be able to sleep all the way. On top of the hill we came to a place where we had a nice lookout over the city. Finally we took the bus in the wrong direction which made us return late at the hotel after which we returned home.

This was only a few days but an awesome experience. The photos can be seen individually or as a slideshow.

Some months ago we have been to Manchester. Visiting the stadium and the city centre. On the photo you see our guide in the stadium. Many Dutch players seem to play for the club (e.g. Van der Sar). The city centre was definitely not as good as Oxford or Stratford upon Avond. We met Chinsky there while visiting the museum for modern arts. Photos of the city centre and the stadium can be found on on facebook.

And as a present we all got a calendar, so the ISKCON calendar in my room for last year has been replaced for a mosque of the month calendar this year. With this month the mosque from Casablanca.

The photos of the visit to the mosque are publicly available and can be found on facebook.