Kevin Rustagi

   

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Camp_Kesem_National_Conference.zip (222 KB)

Photos: Me and MIT Camp Kesem, Myself and A counselor (Jennifer Truong) from another campus (Arizona State) at the Conference

This was amazing.  They talk about experiences in college that you really shouldn't pass up. I just got done with one of the craziest catch-up weeks I've ever had at MIT, and you know what?  It was worth it.

My journey started at 4:30 AM Friday 2/26 at MIT - admittedly not having slept much trying in vain to debug code for a Measurement Analysis Report (debugging tools are key).  I ran back over to my fraternity to do a quick packing job, and then went to my friend (the founder of the MIT branch and recent Rhodes Scholar) Caroline's dorm.

We grabbed the cab I'd called and headed to Logan Airport.  I've never taken a Virgin America flight, but Wow! That truly re-emphasized the importance of investing user experience.  Leather seats, an interactive flight system, and happy - really happy flight attendants.  Richard Branson is really smart.  I mean, who wouldn't be psyched about having great ABS (high quality plastic) seatbacks, leather seats, and pink/purple lights on a plane?!

Arriving at the conference we found that there was a new plan for Camp Kesem at this most important 10th Anniversary (see: http://www.campkesem.org ).  This camp, which has now grown to 23 campuses nation-wide, has long been getting requests from campuses around the country to start their own branch of this amazing camp for the children of cancer patients.  For those that know my family background - families dealing with illness is a huge cause for me.

And hey, wouldn't it be great if more campuses could host Camp Kesem??  The answer that the board was a resounding and confident," Yes!"  They set a dramatic vision to continue exponential growth and continue solid fundraising efforts to increase the number of camps by an order of magnitude to 123 camps by 2015. 

Now, I really have a passion for entrepreneurship and the music club has this in spades- so I can perceive the notion that growth encourages more growth funded by real dollars.  However, the vision was indeed dramatic.

We spent much of the conference discussing challenges and opportunities both as small groups and as a camp with the board about how both ends might be more effective and better served.  I was so pleased with how professional the board was and yet, how open.  This is the new age of business and now, non-profit work was what so resonated with me.  And the fact that everyone truly cared about continuing the stellar level of quality that the program sought to espouse and continues to deliver was also quite meaningful.  Change is a powerful tool, but, granted, one that must be accepted and accounted for.

The board members were available for individual and group discussion at any time.  I really enjoy speaking with people that have a wealth of experience and it was great to swap perspectives and see where the overlap existed. 

For the cause - It was such an intellectually and emotionally stimulating experience to witness the fact that others around the country cared as deeply as I do about this cause.  We heard from a few of the families affected as well as some former campers.  I also was able to meet a young woman who spoke at the anniversary dinner.  She lost her father in middle school and attended Camp Kesem, leading her to eventually now lead the Camp Kesem organization at UC Berkely as a Junior.  I have no doubt that her father would be proud.  She had such a maturity and grace about her.

Not only was the conference emotionally enlightening, but it was also useful for the other of Camp Kesem's foci - building student leaders.  We had myriad micro-talks from author of the Mark of a Leader and Self-Proclaimed -Chief Story Teller, Doug Keeley, as well as renowned Camp guru - Scott Arizala - check out his new book! great for conflict management and camp too!- http://thecampcounselor.com .

These made a lot of sense and helped to ease potential tensions as the camp continued to undergo what will be a massive change.

What I will not soon forget was the feeling that I had as I looked around the room at the Anniversary Dinner - I couldn't help but think - wow - there are thousands of hours of caring and hard work in this room, more than is put into most small companies.  I saw what the founder and those who followed her amazing vision had created and it inspired me.  I hope to one day feel that way about a community - having enabled the doing of so much good for so many.  I myself have grown in ways I had never even thought of through connecting with these kids - just helping them be kids.

I'll keep you posted with progress on the new Teen Program that I'm a part of planning.  I have to say - It's March 6th and I'm already excited for camp.

Logo: I put the finishing touches on this after the concept was generated by the VP of the music club I've helped start, MIT LMC stands for The MIT Live Music Connection

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JAM - hardcore.mp3 (8122 KB)

Music: An improvisational jam session workout with my MIT band, The Guitar Knives from this past weekend.

MIT is getting more intense these days.  There are all kinds of interesting roles with the organizations that I'm involved in: recruiting for my new club (link above next to logo explanation), interviewing new counselors for MIT Camp Kesem, and working with suppliers actively for my startup LaserKard.  I'll keep you guys posted on what goes on with the 3 projects into which I've been pouring my time these days.

It is a wild ride indeed.  The band is as alive as ever - keeping me sane and pushing me to go further with drumming and mixing.  In addition, having the boldness to have a vision - getting a singer and winning (we will compete in a Boston wide Battle of the Bands as well as one at MIT, both in April).  Through Camp Kesem - I've gotten to read and review over 60 applications of some amazingly motivated students who want to help the children of cancer patients.  With the business - I've learned what it means to have a supplier pledge positively and then flake in a heartbeat.  And also the thrill of having people tell me to call them when things get big - "If you want to make this big, give me a call."  It's commonly known of as Friends and Family or Angel Investing.  You can guess: I'm a fan.  And with the music club, I'm learning what it means to unite a community.

Oh, and I'm doing classes.  Haha, let's not forget those.  I'm actively pursuing higher goals with each of my classes.  Meaning holds me firmly to the ground.  There must be meaning in my academic pursuits.  Intrinsic motivators are the only way for me to truly be committed.

1. Chinese Level 4 - Pursuing Conversational Fluency and Written Competency

2. Measurement and Instrumentation - Understanding how Well Thought out science and statistical analysis works.

3. Advanced Product Design - I seek to fully gain an aptitude for the tools of the trade - web design, sketching, photoshop, illustrator - to basically be able to  take what's in my head and make it a visual and then a prototyped reality.

4. Engineering Innovation and Design (A class utilizing Speech Interfaces) - taught by Designer Blade Kotelly (he actually wrote the book we are reading in class!), this is a class purely about design.  Usability, understanding what makes a product good.  In this case we are creating awesome voice interactive apps (I'll post a youtube video by the end of the semester.)

This is life.  This is MIT.  

Is it work, or play?  I'm not sure.  (by the way - great book I read last month: Drive by Daniel Pink)

The opportunities are here.  I'm game.

   

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LaserKard_Website_Beta_-_My_St.zip (331 KB)

Screenshot: The new site's homepage http://laserkard.com, the design page

Please don't buy any just yet! 

There's been a lot of progress at LaserKard over the past 8 weeks.  We hired a person who will be in charge of marketing efforts as well as graphic design.  And we've also been working diligently on optimizing our lean supply chain.  Shopping around for great packaging as well as customizing the logo and themes have been paramount as of late.  I've been negotiating avidly with suppliers in China to obtain new materials over the next few months.  There's always more to do, more challenges to conquer.

It's been a lot of work and a lot of fun. 

To visit the site, head to: http://laserkard.com

Any feedback is greatly appreciated - seriously on that point, feedback is invaluable.  We hope to move to fill our pre-orders within the next month.

A special thanks to Justin Lai for helping us out with product pictures and my Co-Founder Robert for hanging tough and staying committed to incredible quality and usability.

I'll keep you posted as we get further with the business.  Constant improvement and constant outdoing of one's self.

Who better to compete with than yourself, right?

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The Rising Tide - Jam 1-25-2010.mp3 (10044 KB)

Music: An original improvisational piece (from today's practice)

   

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Starting_Again_at_Square_One_-.zip (8079 KB)

Photos: Me with the team (still with outer gear on, between races)

You don't understand anything until you learn it more than one way.  ~Marvin Minsky

There is a beauty in learning something new, or rather should I say, learning something that I know, or think I know in a new way.

I've been spending the past few weeks racing with the MIT ski team and it has been quite an experience.  Though I skied recreationally since I was 13 with family out in Colorado.  My Uncle was nice enough to teach me (a young Texan devoid of mountains previously) how to ski.

But racing is different.  The skis are actually arched to cut into the snow, which by the way - is pretty icy compared to what I'm used to out in Colorado.  But the strenuous, more technical skiing has really helped me focus on my technique.

We raced 2 types of races - slalom and giant slalom.  I've been placing consistently towards last place, which is a humbling experience to say the least. 

It is definitely an experience that really forces me to focus on simply competing with myself, rather than worrying about comparing.  It is also an exercise in calming my mind and 'zoning' on the task at hand - in this instance, getting my skis to turn cleanly around gates that are coming at me at 30+ miles/hour. 

I'll keep you posted on how the second half of the season goes and how far I get after starting again at square one. 

Keeping an optimistic head about things was never so vital.  I'm getting faster on the slopes all the time.

Also - a quick note, my business is gaining momentum as we move towards our first product launch - more news on that soon ..

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The Setting Sun - compressed.mp3 (7981 KB)

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Amigos - compressed.mp3 (9433 KB)

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Marks Song - - compressed.mp3 (4057 KB)

Music: 12-31-2009 from my Houston, TX band, The Füture - We play together when we are all back in town from school.

What better way to finish out the year then with some musical improvisation, better known as 'jamming'.  The Houston cast - my friends Mark, Rehan and I sat down on the last day of the year in 2009 to lay down these tracks.

Interesting Points: Completely spontaneous, these have only been edited to bring out the true clarity of the room.  Music is very much a conversation between instruments, each instrument subtly giving the others clues as to what's coming next.  One thing that I felt was fairly remarkable and awesome was the switch in time signatures in Amigos - around the 4:35 mark.  This was something that I thought of as we were going along.  Though jamming is often void of marked verbal communication, I held up my left hand with four fingers repeatedly to signal the change to 4/4 (a 1/4 note gets the beat, and there are 4 beats to a measure.)  Also, on that song, what amazed me was what the guys came up with on guitar based on my loop feel, designed to repeatedly circle around.

In addiiton, Mark had a song that he's been working on that I accompanied him on using my djembe, an African hand drum. 

Music is a great way for me to express creativity and simply rock out.  It's like the world could stop and I could just keep playing forever.  Nothing beats the real thing and I look forward to creating more music in the future with my friends. 

A Note on the New Year: I see 2010 coming with open eyes.  The challenge this year is sustainability in my organizations.  I've created them.  Now it's time to make sure that (in the case of the Live Music Connection ) they gain a solid foothold from which to continue to provide good to MIT, (in the case of my company Laser Kard) become financially self-supporting, and (in the case of Camp Kesem) establish a firm program that will better the lives of teens whose parents have been affected by cancer. 

I will be working this year to see to it that these projects can gain a real footing from which they can continue to provide value.

A world of opportunity lays ahead and in the words of Bono all you need, "is a red guitar, 3 chords, and the truth."

Welcome, 2010.

                 

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The_Philosophy_of_Shiny_Things.zip (19896 KB)

Photos of Shiny Things to which I've contributed: LaserKard (my new product - shipping soon! - the white on the right side is the flash's reflection), the arcade machine my friend and I rebuilt after high school, the yoyo from 2.008 (Design & Manufacturing II), clock that I built using a waterjet, the toy from 2.00b (toy product design), modular backboard from 2.009 (Product Engineering), Mother's Day gift, robot from 2.007 (Design for Manufacturing I), The Guitar Knives' (my band's) recent show

Over the past several months, I have been slowly constructing my latest philosophy on life.

Behold!  The latest and (perhaps) greatest philosophy to come out of the venerated halls of MIT.  A few friends of mine encouraged me to write it down.  Fundamentally, it is the theory that well-done and well-finished products and experiences have an exponentially higher value than the (though extensive) work put into them to make them 'shiny'.

The Philosophy of Shiny Things:

1) People like shiny things.

Think about something shiny.  It doesn't have to necessarily be physically shiny.  What I mean by shiny is that it has a certain well-finished quality to it.  It could in fact be a matte finish.  Shiny things often happen to be optically shiny though.  It could be a great work of art, an awesome building, or fireworks. 

Whatever it may be, if it is shiny, people tend to be naturally attracted to it and also generally want to keep it.  Apple products are a great example of something shiny.

2) You don't talk about fight club.... just kidding... 

Classic line from a great Brad Pitt, Edward Norton thriller, potentially something shiny, though not actually included in the philosophy of shiny things.

2)  Shiny things make people feel good.

Think about the last time you felt something shiny.  Take a new car for example.  Anyone who's test driven a car with a leather interior knows what I'm talking about.  Feeling that leather (matte, but still shiny) just makes you tingle.  If I was a neuroscience major, I might provide some explanation of electrical signals flowing through nerve axons allowing for the release of dopamine and endorphins, but I'm not, so I won't. 

Invariably, as far as I can tell, running into shiny things (as long as they're friendly) allows one to feel shiny themselves.

3) Shiny things must be truly shiny to qualify as shiny things.

A fake Mona Lisa- almost shiny, but not quite shiny.  One of those Holllywood sets, again, shiny, but only surface -shiny.  Wood veneer, almost shiny - but then you see the seam.  Not quite.

Things that are truly shiny:  the Iphone, Porshe automobiles (I heard a quote the other day that I feel epitomizes the notion of shiny things - "There are only two types of guys in this world - those who have a Porsche, and those who want one."), the Tesla Roadster, La-Z-Boy Chairs, Nikon DSLRs, The Sydney Opera House, The Taj Mahal, and the list goes on.

4) People will pay a lot for shiny things.

Diamonds are forever, and they are also always shiny.  The same goes for gold.  Though economics would have us believe that supply and demand drive the price of these precious gems and metals, I would argue that it may be simply because they are shiny.  Science tells us that diamonds and gold do have special properties, namely being the hardest stone and also fairly untarnishable, respectively.  However, those traits are only secondary to how shiny they are.

This points to the notion that people somehow equate monetary value with shininess.  For those that wish to defeat my argument with claims of iron pyrite and fake glass engagement rings, I would point out Tenet 3.

5) If something is shiny, it is universally shiny, without regard to geographic or chronological locale.

The magician David Blaine is famous for having traveled the world over demonstrating his unique form of street magic to many people who do not speak English.  His tricks are still shiny.  I made 70 of my laser cut business cards (see entry below) to take to China.  I gave them out during business meetings with vendors.  A very business card - driven culture, these shiny cards were very shiny there.

Though beauty is something that has been noted as subjective (ie. India and China prefer light skin, while America and the West view tanned as beautiful), one might still argue that beautiful people are often quite shiny. 

And who can forget that many cultures possess festivals that deal directly with lights.  July 4th, Chinese New Year, India's Diwali, Hanukkah, and many others. 

Conclusion: Though it may seem a bit facetious for someone who is supposed to be going to a university that values quantitative logic and reason so highly to be touting this subjective right-brain ideology, I strongly believe in this philosophy.

I stayed up most of the night before the robot competition last semester putting racing stripes on my robot precisely for this reason.  It seems that there is some sort of exponential value to to spending that extra 20% effort right at the end to finish a project to the highest quality, both functional and aesthetic. 

There is perhaps some large amount of value derived in that final push for shiny-ness.  I'm currently working on the packaging for my new product, Laser Kard (http://kevinrustagi.com/project-z) and shiny-ness is something that we pride ourselves on moving toward.

By shiny, I mean that something is well-done.  Attention to detail is everything in a global culture that moves as fast as we can imagine.  I find more often that as populations and product shipments grow larger in scale and mass, businesses and countries tend to approach situations from a much more statistical and probabilistic perspective.

Overall, I would say that such a quantitative approach is generally warranted and prudent.  However, I believe that in modern-day civilization, there is therefore an immense value to attention given on the individual level to each product and each person.  When I talk about something being shiny, what I'm really talking about is something that has a great deal of thought and attention put into it.  In a world where productivity is the name of the game, I feel that going the opposite direction and demanding quality is perhaps the only way to disrupt the wasteful cycle to which society has oft committed itself.

And really, who doesn't like shiny things anyway?

Recommended Reading: A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink - a unique study on how the right brain and design is fast becoming the weapon of choice among the world's crowded markets.

Screenshot: This depicts the editing of my new song with the Texas band.  We get together when we're all on break from school and back in Houston.  All of this editing is done from one take.  (Splits etc. that are visible are mainly for volume and frequency band equalization changes.)  Interpreting the Graphic: Track 1: Bass Drum, Track 2: Snare Drum, Track 3: Cymbals/Overhead Drums, Track 4: Rhythm Guitar, Track 5: Lead Guitar

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The Optimist -.mp3 (21691 KB)

After playing with that setup (me on guitar) for 10 to 15 minutes, we switched back (me on drums and him on guitar now) and recorded this.  This was improvised for the most part and all shifts were made without verbal cues.

This is part of the magic of improvisational music.  At the 4:11 mark, for instance - we all just felt that we should go back to the softer part of the song.  We smiled to each other as we realized that we are all of one mind.

This song's emotional objective is to elicit the feeling of happiness that comes with knowledge, which indeed has somewhat bittersweet overtones.  The offbeat guitar and driving backbeat help to move the song forward.  Also, the mix between acoustic and electric guitar gives it a very rustic feel.

Recording: For 5 years now, I've been experimenting with home audio recording.  Initially, I knew absolutely nothing and my friends and I taught ourselves from the ground up.  I've now transitioned fully into what is known as multi-tracking, a method of recording each instrument as its own track.  Specifically, each microphone or input receives its own track.  This enables me to individually edit each piece as I like.  Because of this ability recordings come out sounding much cleaner and more polished. 

I am a strong believer in being able to produce one's own work and recording music (especially live music) has been a large challenge consistently.

Moreover, the object of recording and editing live music played on real instruments is not to create or augment the music but rather enable the listener to achieve the experience of listening to it at such a high quality that it feels like they are in the room with the musicians.

What I've done now to possess such control is to limit my variables using certain pieces of technology, namely decent microphones, fairly professional software, and a piece of hardware known as a firewire interface that has built-in mic pre-amplifiers and compressors to elevate and control the microphone's signal individually.

As with video editing, there is a wide variety of different software packages, each with its own fans.  I have been using a software package by MAGIX, known as Samplitude Pro (for PC).  Many recording studios use a package known as Pro-Tools that integrates with Apple computers.  

What I enjoy so much about using this software is that, despite all of the issues that can arise during recording, if you're able to conquer those challenges, you've got a great sounding recording that is infinitely editable at the end of the day.

I look forward to continuing to use these skills to bolster the club I've helped start, the MIT Live Music Connection.   I'll keep you posted as I continue to pursue my passions.

Enjoy the instrumental of this new tune from The Füture.  We'll be adding vocals soon, as time allows.