Futuristic Mental Hike day 2

Yesterday when I arrived for the first time I was really confused why there was so few people around, but assumed it was because most of the presentations were already done for the day, thinking tomorrow will be different.

Turned out there were, at least at the start, just as few people. Then a classmate pointed out the lack of crowd is likely due to the astronomical ticket prices -- 200-400 euros for regular visitors. Even 69 euros for a student's ticket sounded high (regarding how "much" stuff there actually was), but I really appreciate it how our school decided to sponsor this.

One specific happenstance irked me and almost made me lose hope for the event was when I tried to attend an academic research panel in Opus 1 & 2, but besides me there was only one guy... and no presenter. It took 20 minutes for the info desk staff to find out that Opus 1 & 2 were in fact not in use, and the panel I wanted was in Opus 3. Well I got there just on time to hear more about my favorite subject, robots!

I've met the particular Pepper bot a couple times already in Tampere, and I was really happy to witness a research done regarding how people react to a social robot like her. This is an important research subject as robots will continue to fill in more tasks, and this research was just about exploring those possibilities and how people would accept them around. This made me really feel like we're moving forward as a society. Living in the future almost!!

Not even sorry for including so many photos because I find this highly interesting and exciting.

Then I went to hear a presentation about AI, which wasn't completely on the subject, but still glad I went. I did learn about how AI is formed, what it's formed of, and how it can be used to learning. At its simplest, the definition of AI is pattern recognition. Feels like this was one of the most popular presentations as it was (next to lunch) the place where I saw the most people in one spot.

Right after that was a presentation that was glad I stuck around for; the use of video games for teaching and learning. The presenter was genuinely excited about the subject and the possibilities it offers and so it was delightful to follow. Also because I like games, and also because I just earlier made a short research report about other benefits of video games besides entertainment. Video games are a culturally significant and surprisingly underutilized medium!

A slide from the prestenation that made me chuckle

Highlight of the day was during the first presentation of the day with this slide regarding data management.

Welcome to Mindtrek.