In scientific research, Jiang Maoran has a correct attitude and works hard to study the challenges encountered; in public service positions, he is conscientious and conscientiously completes the work of the post; in daily life, he is willing to help others and actively contributes to the collective construction of the laboratory . However, Jiang Maoran's work has not been smooth sailing. Unlike the current situation, when he first came into contact with scientific research work, he also felt confused and fearful of difficulties. In order to understand Jiang Maoran's transformation process of overcoming difficulties and completing transformation, the monthly magazine invited him to participate in the interview.
Yunhao Liu: What was your mentality when you first started to study Bluetooth connection? What difficulties did you encounter?
Maoran Jiang: When I first started working on the Bluetooth connection project, I felt that the goal was very far away. I felt that a lot of work could not be done from the perspective of low-power tags, and it was not feasible. At the same time, I did not understand the specific meaning of the project. I think the main difficulty is the lack of skills and knowledge, such as FPGA programming, real-time operating system, protocol stack and other system programming experience. Lack of direction and logic, many times it is the headache treats the head, the foot treats the foot, there is no rational analysis of the problem, and failure to think and solve difficulties from the correct perspective.
Yunhao Liu: That is to say, you had barriers in thinking and ability in the early stage. How did you get out of this difficult period?
Maoran Jiang: The teacher gave me a lot of encouragement, let me dare to touch unfamiliar fields, and guided me to write some GUIs to improve my programming skills. In addition, the teacher also taught me many scientific research methods. I started with the idea of making low-power tags establish connections like commercial Bluetooth in a short period of time. Later, under the guidance of my teacher, I realized that this subject has a huge amount of content and cannot be accomplished overnight. So I followed the teacher's guidance, used the correct scientific research ideas, disassembled and simplified the problems and difficulties, and achieved the goal step by step.
Yunhao Liu: When you felt lost, you chose to seek help from others and the laboratory. Can you give some more examples? Why didn't you choose to explore alone?
Maoran Jiang: Yes, when I am confused, I still hope that the teacher will provide some guidance and seek some help from other students. When I was confused, I communicated with the teacher during the group meeting, seeking ideas from the teacher for splitting and simplifying the problem, and overcoming the fear of difficulty, so as to improve myself in many aspects such as the perspective of looking at the problem and the thinking of solving the problem. In the daily experiments, when I encountered problems that I was not familiar with and I was not good at, many students also provided me with help. For example, I asked Zhaoyuan Xu how to use USRP sampling to analyze IQ data; for example, I asked Longzhi Yuan to evaluate the experiment when making a detector, and asked Yunyun Feng to help evaluate the experiment, review manuscripts, and so on.
In general, I think it is necessary to seek help from others when you are confused. As the saying goes, The authorities are obsessed, but the bystanders are clear. Through the perspective of others, it may be possible to see the problem more clearly and get a different way of thinking. If you grope alone, you are likely to fall into a dead end and work behind closed doors to achieve nothing.
Maoran Jiang often helps others, and many students in the laboratory have been helped by Maoran Jiang. During the interview, we were lucky enough to meet Yunyun Feng and invited her to join the interview.
Yunhao Liu: Have you ever received help from Jiang Maoran? What difficulties did you encounter at that time?
Yunyun Feng: Yes. When I first joined the research group, the teacher asked me to work with Maoran Jiang on the topic of WiFi. At that time, there was a lot of relevant knowledge that I didn’t know. A lot of help. When I first came into contact with hardware such as an oscilloscope, I didn't know how to use it at all, and I always asked Maoran Jiang how to operate and how to debug, and finally understood and mastered the method of use step by step. When I did the INFOCOM evaluation test last year, it was difficult for me to complete the test alone because the receiver needs to constantly adjust its position. With the help of Maoran Jiang, I finally successfully completed the evaluation experiment, so the submission of the paper was not delayed.
Yunhao Liu: When Maoran Jiang helped you, what did you think in your heart?
Yunyun Feng: I am very grateful to Maoran Jiang for his help. When I was doing the evaluation experiment, Maoran Jiang was also preparing to submit a paper to the INFOCOM conference. When he is busy, he is still willing to contribute his strength to others. I think this is very rare. Through these experiences, I feel that the mutual help among the laboratory students is very warm. I think that when Maoran Jiang or other students in the laboratory need help, I will do my best to provide help.
From being helped to being happy to help others, from being confused to helping others, we are eager to know the connection behind these changes and understand the true thoughts of Maoran Jiang.
Yunhao Liu: You usually help classmates in the laboratory to weld, debug equipment, etc. What motivates you behind the scenes?
Maoran Jiang: I think helping others is also a process of self-learning. Scientific research is improved through mutual discussion and mutual help. For example, in the process of communicating with other students to learn welding, I learned some new welding methods. Everyone always has one aspect that they are slightly good at. Helping each other reduces the time spent on groping alone and speeds up efficiency. Being able to help other students gives me a sense of gain. Even if it didn't help in the end, I took the initiative to think and I can always gain something.
Yunhao Liu: A united group is inseparable from the construction of each student. Could you please share your own experience in terms of scientific research and public service?
Maoran Jiang: First of all, in terms of scientific research, everyone's subjects are intertwined, and our work has a strong correlation. Helping each other can gain quickly, and helping others is also a process of practice, which can consolidate what we have learned and deepen our understanding of knowledge. In addition, if you help others, others will help you, which is a reciprocal process . At the same time, I also want to say that helping is not giving a man a fish, and we also need to think proactively so that we can better understand it. The laboratory also provides a variety of public services outside of scientific research, and has established a good environment for learning and scientific research, which is inseparable from the strength of every student. In public service, each person undertakes part of the responsibilities. Only when everyone puts the collective interests first, completes our own work conscientiously, and actively cooperates with others, the efficiency can be improved, so that the scientific research work will be more organized and orderly and common convenience will be obtained. Although our work is different, we have the same goal as a group. Only by uniting and helping each other, thinking and working hard, can we make the collective cake bigger and bigger and get more gains.
(Interview time: July 12, 2022, Yunhao Liu, Maoran Jiang, Yunyun Feng)