Michael Bastoni
Click
here for Michael's Interviews and Photos!
¨ Do you have any
pets?
¨ What does bipedal mean?
¨ What is a trebuchet?
¨ What does I.Q. stand for in Battlebots IQ?
¨ Do you have other hobbies?
¨ Is your life going the way you had planned?
¨ If you had an offer as a job as a scientist,
would you take it?
¨ Do you enjoy what you are doing now?
¨ Did you have any other non-favorite subjects
in school?
¨ How do skills developed from BattleBotsIQ
help those in non-engineering fields?
¨ What are Rooms 222 and 223?
¨ How did author Ken
Kesey influence your life? Did you ever meet him in
person?
Previous
[Links provided here were
valid at the time the question was answered. If you
find a broken link, please Contact Us so we can remove it.]
QUESTION:
Do you have any pets?
ANSWER
from Mike Bastoni on 10 October 2002:
Yes, Mikey my cat who is trying to help me type these
answers.
Return to list of questions
QUESTION:
What does bipedal mean?
ANSWER
from Mike Bastoni on 10 October 2002:
Two footed. Refers to two-legged walking creatures,
of which I strongly suspect you are one.
Return to list of questions
QUESTION:
What is a trebuchet?
ANSWER
from Mike Bastoni on 10 October 2002:
It is an ancient siege weapon. Medieval warriors
used them to knock down castle walls and enemy
fortifications. Do a web search using keyword
trebuchet. You'll be amazed at what you will find!
Return to list of questions
QUESTION:
What does I.Q. stand for in Battlebots IQ?
ANSWER
from Mike Bastoni on 10 October 2002:
Intelligence Quotient. The reference being that it
takes hard thinking to build competitive BattleBots.
From the quality of your questions, I know you'd have a
high BattleBots IQ.
Return to list of questions
QUESTION:
Do you have other hobbies?
ANSWER
from Mike Bastoni on 10 October 2002:
Yeah! I do laundry, clean the house, make repairs,
cook, shop and drop my kids off every place they can't
walk, which is everywhere. ;) Actually I enjoy
surfing, photography and bicycling.
Return to list of questions
QUESTION:
Is your life going the way you had planned?
ANSWER
from Mike Bastoni on 10 October 2002:
"Life is what happens to you when your busy making
other plans". I plan my life in much the same
way a sailboat captain plans a long voyage. I take
advantage of wind shifts. Some of the best things
that have ever happened to me, I did not plan. So I
guess I have to say no it has not. I had actually
planned to be a singer in a rock band... but things like
not being able to sing kinda messed up my plans. :)
Return to list of questions
QUESTION:
If you had an offer as a job as a scientist, would you
take it?
ANSWER
from Mike Bastoni on 10 October 2002:
No thank you. I lean more towards engineering.
You might question how scientists and engineers differ.
Well, as I see it, scientists search for specific answers
to specific questions. They (Scientists) refer to
the answers they seek as "The Truth". For
example, a scientist might ask "What is the age of
this fossil I've just dug up?" There can only
be one truthful answer to that question, and therefore
only one answer to their question.
Engineers on the other
hand seek the best answer from many possible good answers.
An engineer might ask, "What is the best design for
a windmill that can generate 500 kilowatts of electrical
power?" There are several "Best"
designs depending on the constraints the engineer(s) are
working under. Engineering constraints often
include: Time, Money, Knowledge, Materials, Power and
Weight. The engineer can choose from many possible
answers to the question, because "Best" is
relative to the circumstances at a given moment in time.
In engineering the "Best" answer can change,
and it often does. This is why we keep seeing newer
and better cars.
Return to list of questions
QUESTION:
Do you enjoy what you are doing now?
ANSWER
from Mike Bastoni on 10 October 2002:
Very much. School is a much better place to be when
your free to decide what you want to learn, and how to go
about learning as much as you can about things you find
fascinating.
Return to list of questions
QUESTION:
Did you have any other non-favorite subjects in school?
ANSWER
from Mike Bastoni on 10 October 2002:
Well, let's just say I endured school and did my best to
work through the day.
Return to list of questions
QUESTION:
How do skills developed in programs like BattleBotsIQ
serve individuals entering other fields?
ANSWER
from Michael Bastoni on 28 August 2002:
On a recent trip to Los Angeles, where a new church was
being dedicated, I learned something. There is a
beautiful statue of the Virgin Mary atop a set of massive
bronze doors at The Cathedral of Our Lady of the
Angels, 555 West
Temple Street Los Angeles, California. The artist
is Robert Graham. It's an incredible piece of art.
I was astounded to learn that, unlike the days of
Michelangelo, great artists today create the statuary in
a model form and scan it with a 3D scanner and send it
off to the shop. You have these giant XYZ axis flat
bed router tables and this is how it is done. So,
these skills are transferrable across the board. We
don't care if you are an artist or a musician or
something else. We live in a world of digital
creation.
Return to list of questions
QUESTION:
What are Rooms 222 and 223?
ANSWER
from Michael Bastoni on 5 August 2002:
Room 222 is a design, graphics and communication lab.
The technological core of the room is a 20-station
network running NT4 through a 100 base t hub. My
students built all the computers, the network and even
the tables they sit on. We have the full Autodesk
suite of products as well as 3DMAX. We also have
Adobe/Macromedia/Microsoft/and many assorted other apps.
We also have analog and digital video capabilities.
Room 223 is directly
adjacent to 222 (of course) and that is a fabrication lab
... we can form, shape, cut and fasten just about any
material into whatever we need ... at least on a
prototype (bench test) level after the design is fully
developed, working drawings are made and the parts and
assemblies are jobbed out to local machine shops.
Return to list of questions
QUESTION:
How did author Ken Kesey influence your life? Did
you ever meet him in person?
ANSWER
from Michael Bastoni on 5 August 2002:
In college I read "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest"
by Ken Kesey. Right after I read the ending of the
novel:
Brief Synopsis:
Chief Broom realizes his (now lobotomized) McMurphy has
given him the insight that he (Chief Broom) has the power
to be free. Armed with this new empowerment, Chief
does the "Impossible" by tearing a stone
latrine from the floor of the bathroom and throwing it
through a window escapes the Asylum.
I quit college, got in an
old school bus my high school friend and I had purchased
a few years earlier and headed off to California to meet
Kesey, the author of a book that had resonated with my
spirit and planted a seed deep in my soul. A seed
that would over the next few decades, mature into a
passion and a lifelong career of empowering people.
Eventually I went back to
school and graduated with a MS in Industrial Education.
Return to list of questions
|
Q&A Archives![[line]](../../../images/line.gif){kind=small}
