Our trip to Nara was lengthy, affording us ample time to enjoy the scenery. We took a bus to Kyoto Station, then transferred to an express train, followed by a local train, and finally a city bus to arrive at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST).
Our trip to Nara was lengthy, affording us ample time to enjoy the scenery. We took a bus to Kyoto Station, then transferred to an express train, followed by a local train, and finally a city bus to arrive at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST).
At NAIST, we participated in several 'ideathons.' Described by our hosts as akin to hackathons, participants developed and presented ideas instead of creating programs. Teams comprised both University of Minnesota (UMN) and NAIST students, discussing theoretical applications and potential research projects related to the given theme.
In total, we had five ideathon sessions over three days. Each session followed the same format: introduction to research, group formation, brainstorming, discussion, ideation, and presentation of ideas.
These had a variety of themes, which were “Autonomous Vehicles and Extended Reality”, “Human Augmentation”, “Augmented Reality Applications of the Future”, “Human-Robot Interaction”, and “Life with Artificial Intelligence”. The groups were set up so that we worked with NAIST students every time, and usually the split was about half UMN and half NAIST students in each group.
—Blog post by Skylar
