Summer 2016: Visiting the University of Bremen Pt.2

For the past month, I’ve been visiting the Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IAI) at the University of Bremen. At Tufts, I (along with most other members of the HRI Lab) am enrolled in a joint Computer Science – Cognitive Science Ph.D. program, which has an extra-hefty course load. This means that summers are typically our only time to buckle down and devote ourselves entirely to research – and so this has been my first opportunity to do graduate research outside of our lab.

Working at the IAI

My primary projects involved integration of my natural language understanding system with the IAI’s aerial search-and-rescue simulation, and more generally integrating our robot architecture with the intelligent logging, reasoning, and visualization capabilities provided by their KnowRob and OpenEase frameworks.

An IAI PR2 doing chemistry experiments for the local youth.

In addition to this, however, I’ve had a variety of projects competing for my attention:

• Preparing a 1/2-hour research seminar that I presented for the IAI while I was here, and preparing a 1-hour research seminar that I’ll present at MITRE corporation when I return home.
• Preparing my job application package, which needs to be finalized when universities start advertising faculty positions in the fall.
• Preparing and submitting a journal article.
• Helping to organize the AAAI Fall Symposium on AI for HRI (AI-HRI 2016).
• Coordinating multiple experiments being conducted or analyzed back in Boston.

All told, I ended up working 12-15 hours a day, six days a week. It was hard work, but it was also nice to dive so deeply into “focus mode”. Hopefully some interesting papers will come out of our collaboration, at which point I’ll be able to share more details of my work here.

DFKI and the Arithmeum

While I was here, the Robotics Innovation Center of the DFKI (the German Research Center for AI) had a rare open house – which meant I got to spend a morning checking out some incredible new technology. Here are a few photos from that event.

A humanoid robot intended for use on the ISS. Looks cool, but not sure about the choice to make it so obviously gendered.


A gosh-darned Transformer. Almost. This driverless car can change its pitch to take up less space, or rotate its wheels so that it can slide sideways into a parking space.


A mantis-like robot.

Continuing on the topic of mechanical marvels, I had the opportunity to visit the Arithmeum – a fascinating museum in Bonn chronicling the history of calculation. Here are a few of the gorgeous machines on display there.

A model of Babbage's Difference Engine


A model of Babbage's Analytical Engine

Living in Germany

Since I was pretty much working all the time, daily life was pretty ordinary. To be honest, the largest deviations from my expectations came when I had to purchase food.

Purchasing groceries was… unpleasant. The closest grocery store nearest to me was massively overcrowded, with only two registers, and no baggers (perhaps because you’re charged by-the-bag unless you’re using a reusable bag). I thus had to try to stuff food into my backpack as quickly as it was being scanned so that I wouldn’t cause a holdup for the next person. This is in stark contrast to our supermarket at home, with something like twenty registers. Half of which are self-scan, meaning you need to bag things yourself, but it’s rare that you have more than a single person behind you in line, so the rush to bag isn’t quite as frenzied.

My other option here for purchasing groceries was the mini-mart down the street from my apartment. Once again, the unpleasantness here came on the bagging front. My first night in Bremen I visited the minimart to load up on essentials. At the register, the cashier asked if I’d like a bag, and I responded that I was going to try to fit everything in my backpack. When I ended up needing a bag for my last few items, the cashier gave me a gloating look and said “So now you need a bag. We can think!”

It wasn’t all bad, of course. I originally intended to bring leftovers for lunch, but this ended up being unnecessary. Pretty much all the grad students in the lab ate at the university’s dining hall, where you could get a nice lunch for $2.35. This was fairly jaw-dropping given that at Tufts, if I don’t bring my lunch, a burrito from the grocery store next to our lab costs over $8. I also attended a free barbeque for international students, which was nice, although it felt odd to be considered an “international student”, due to my 27 years of exposure to ethnocentric US norms.

There and Back Again

It’s been a great month in Bremen, but I’m excited to go home! This is one Br-exit I can support.