Jan 31 - Feb 20 Journal
This past week, Robert and I were in Yosemite for the annual trip up to the national park. We were originally supposed to leave on Sunday but snow delayed us to Monday. Because of the heavy snow, the usual Crane Flats campsite was inaccessible so we stayed in Yosemite Valley at the Yosemite Lodge. While this was not our original plane, I actually enjoyed staying in the valley more than at Crane Flats because we were at the center of the many attractions. For example, out hotel was right in front of Yosemite Falls (pictured below).
On our first day of activity, the Winter Survival group was split into three different groups and my group and I got together to pass out lunch and discuss our day plans. While waiting for our group counselors from Naturebridge, we played in the snow and had a snow ball fight. After our counselors arrived, we hiked over to Yosemite Falls. At the base of the trail, we went through Spider Cave first. This was a cave made from large rocks that fell from the nearby cliffside and getting through the tunnel was a fun team-building activity. The cave was pitch-black and we could not use any lights. It was basically an extreme game of Telephone and I thought that it was a very unique experience as the cave was also very skinny. Afterwards, we went up to the falls and had lunch after digging from the snow a table and seats for lunch. We then hikes around the valley and learned about Yosemite geology and history.
The next day, we went up to the Crane Flats campsite and went cross-country skiing. It was raining very hard though so we only skied into an open meadow and made a loop back. It turned out that my water-proof pants were only water-resistant so my pants got wet. The rain also got into my backpack and some of my other clothes also got wet. Unlike other Winter Survival groups, my group was the only one who had lunch out in the rain and snow. We pitched a tarp that we carried on sleds and had lunch and tea. After the tarp blew open a couple times, we finally made our way back and I managed to dry off as much as possible. Surprisingly, the food at Crane Flats was a lot better than in the valley. We then left on Thursday and finally got home after taking a detour.
In regards to research, Robert and I were looking into reinforcement learning. I chose the SARSA Reinforcement Learning algorithm which is similar to Q learning. The main difference between the two is that Q learning is off-policy while SARSA is on-policy. Prior to leaving for Yosemite, I also learned from reading that Reinforcement learning would be well suited for our game in that it creates its own data. Q learning uses a greedy algorithm and I think by splitting up our exploration of the different reinforcement learning algorithms, that we will find the best algorithm for our situation. The group went to Caltech last week but Dr. Hassibi was not available, so in the end, I did not seem to miss much from that visit.
On our first day of activity, the Winter Survival group was split into three different groups and my group and I got together to pass out lunch and discuss our day plans. While waiting for our group counselors from Naturebridge, we played in the snow and had a snow ball fight. After our counselors arrived, we hiked over to Yosemite Falls. At the base of the trail, we went through Spider Cave first. This was a cave made from large rocks that fell from the nearby cliffside and getting through the tunnel was a fun team-building activity. The cave was pitch-black and we could not use any lights. It was basically an extreme game of Telephone and I thought that it was a very unique experience as the cave was also very skinny. Afterwards, we went up to the falls and had lunch after digging from the snow a table and seats for lunch. We then hikes around the valley and learned about Yosemite geology and history.
The next day, we went up to the Crane Flats campsite and went cross-country skiing. It was raining very hard though so we only skied into an open meadow and made a loop back. It turned out that my water-proof pants were only water-resistant so my pants got wet. The rain also got into my backpack and some of my other clothes also got wet. Unlike other Winter Survival groups, my group was the only one who had lunch out in the rain and snow. We pitched a tarp that we carried on sleds and had lunch and tea. After the tarp blew open a couple times, we finally made our way back and I managed to dry off as much as possible. Surprisingly, the food at Crane Flats was a lot better than in the valley. We then left on Thursday and finally got home after taking a detour.
In regards to research, Robert and I were looking into reinforcement learning. I chose the SARSA Reinforcement Learning algorithm which is similar to Q learning. The main difference between the two is that Q learning is off-policy while SARSA is on-policy. Prior to leaving for Yosemite, I also learned from reading that Reinforcement learning would be well suited for our game in that it creates its own data. Q learning uses a greedy algorithm and I think by splitting up our exploration of the different reinforcement learning algorithms, that we will find the best algorithm for our situation. The group went to Caltech last week but Dr. Hassibi was not available, so in the end, I did not seem to miss much from that visit.
Comments
Post a Comment