Well, work is over today. I'm really sad, actually...work was so much fun this summer. In that vein, the Guitar Hero video, the Eye Movement video, and the just-for-fun movie are all up on YouTube. If you want to find them, my account name is Zorial57. They're the only one's I've got, so enjoy.
The presentations, yes. It was a complete success. I stuttered a bit on a couple parts, I almost got ahead of myself (as per usual), but I managed and I think it came out all right. The green laser was a lot of fun. It's also $100, so I won't be getting one any time soon. Erika did great, the only problem was the projector. It kept flickering for some unknown reason every time she started to play a movie (all of which worked, thank God). But we all came out all right. It was hilarious, actually, watching the other groups. Jeff asked at least one question of every group. Just like our practices with the lab.
After that was finished, Bob and Joe handed out our posters. Blown up to full-scale, it looks awesome. I'll have to get it framed or laminated or something for school. Anyways, then I introduced Jeff and Andy to my parents. We gave them (our parents) a brief tour of the lab, and said our goodbyes. As it turned out, there was no lab lunch today. The only time it would have worked was yesterday, and we were at the U of R that day...drat. Well, Jeff said that we'd be having a lab reunion in a month or so, and Erika gets to pick the place. I believe she was going to go with Italian.
Crud...I don't want the internship to be over. I'm going to miss the money, certainly, but I'll have lifeguarding for that...it's more that I'm going to miss hanging out with the rest of the interns, working with the great people in the VP lab, excuse me, the MVRL, and the free food, and all that other stuff.
I'd just like to end this blog by saying 'Thank You' to Joe and Bob for the organization and guidance in this great activity, to Jeff and Andy and the entire MVRL for allowing us into your labs and for all the help and instruction you've given us this summer. I never thought I'd be coming out of this with another career option, but I have to say that I'm now looking at Imaging Science just as seriously as Chemical Engineering.
A final word to any future interns: Sign up! It's fun! It pays great! There's lots of food! It will be entirely worth it, I guarantee it.
Ja ne and sayonara,
AJ Lanphere
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Day XXIV: Practice Presentations...
You know, nothing happened today that I can make a funny title out of. That's probably because the most interesting thing today was getting to use a laser pointer in my section of the presentation. Well, I take that back. Nicole and Gretchen's presentation was really cool. I didn't know that they were involved in research like curing a disease, I had though their work was just running solutions through a spectrometer. Shows how much I know...I guess that's what happens once I stop reading blogs. Kevin and co. had a pretty interesting project going as well.
Our presentation went well. A bit of nervousness, a few glances at the script and a rather enthusiastic use of laser pointers, and we were fine. Tomorrow should be just as successful as today.
Our presentation went well. A bit of nervousness, a few glances at the script and a rather enthusiastic use of laser pointers, and we were fine. Tomorrow should be just as successful as today.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Day XXIII: Free Day? Wii Day? No, Not Quite.
Well, today was intended as basically a day of relaxation, because we turned in our final presentation to Joe within five minutes and had nothing else to do. Only Nick, Leanne and Jeff are left in the lab, so there weren't any experiments to help with, our project was completed, and we felt that it was time to have a bit of fun.
Not quite how it happened, as it turns out.
Jeff, understandably, wanted us to spend our day doing something a bit more productive than sitting around playing GH3, as much fun as that would have been. He decided that we should whip up a one-day mini-experiment based around Guitar Hero instead. So, after a few minutes, we decided to eyetrack me, (a semi-experienced player) and Leanne (who had never even watched someone play before. We chose to use the song 'Rock and Roll All Nite' by Kiss, being that it was a fun song that everybody knew and was not extremely difficult. I tried it once, and missed two notes for a final score of 99% (*****). Leanne did the song three times (to see if there was an improvement in score and a change in eye movements), and got scores of 33%, 67%, and 85% respectively. The trials were done in practice mode to get rid of the Star Power variable and also to prevent failing.
We coded the videos quickly and saw that Leanne was keeping her eyes right at the bottom of the screen and was only looking at the next notes immediately before she was supposed to play them. I, however, looked almost to the top of the screen and used peripheral vision to time the strums while keeping my attention on a broader swath of the song.
So, those were our findings on our one-day GH3 experiment, which are now also on YouTube. Again. Jeff seems to like putting our work on the internet, I'm not entirely sure why.
Ugh, and we've got the U of R presentation practice tomorrow...this is gonna be fun...
Not quite how it happened, as it turns out.
Jeff, understandably, wanted us to spend our day doing something a bit more productive than sitting around playing GH3, as much fun as that would have been. He decided that we should whip up a one-day mini-experiment based around Guitar Hero instead. So, after a few minutes, we decided to eyetrack me, (a semi-experienced player) and Leanne (who had never even watched someone play before. We chose to use the song 'Rock and Roll All Nite' by Kiss, being that it was a fun song that everybody knew and was not extremely difficult. I tried it once, and missed two notes for a final score of 99% (*****). Leanne did the song three times (to see if there was an improvement in score and a change in eye movements), and got scores of 33%, 67%, and 85% respectively. The trials were done in practice mode to get rid of the Star Power variable and also to prevent failing.
We coded the videos quickly and saw that Leanne was keeping her eyes right at the bottom of the screen and was only looking at the next notes immediately before she was supposed to play them. I, however, looked almost to the top of the screen and used peripheral vision to time the strums while keeping my attention on a broader swath of the song.
So, those were our findings on our one-day GH3 experiment, which are now also on YouTube. Again. Jeff seems to like putting our work on the internet, I'm not entirely sure why.
Ugh, and we've got the U of R presentation practice tomorrow...this is gonna be fun...
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Day XXI: Statistics and Another Trial Run
Well, the first few hours were rather uneventful. Erika was there unexpectedly, we thought she'd be at Volleyball. Turns out she'd decided to quit because it booked full every weekend from now until graduation (Slight hyperbole). Anyways, we didn't have much to do until Jeff asked us a question about our data that we didn't know how to answer. That turned into a lesson on standard deviation and standard error, after which we put together a graph and redid our conclusion.
After lunch was another practice talk. It certainly went better, and we had far fewer changes to make afterwards. I'm feeling pretty confidant about our talk on Thursday and Friday. And hey, Guitar Hero tomorrow! Can't wait!
(My posts seem to be getting shorter as this internship comes to a close. Odd...)
After lunch was another practice talk. It certainly went better, and we had far fewer changes to make afterwards. I'm feeling pretty confidant about our talk on Thursday and Friday. And hey, Guitar Hero tomorrow! Can't wait!
(My posts seem to be getting shorter as this internship comes to a close. Odd...)
Monday, August 18, 2008
Day XXI: Hurry Up and Wait
This morning was a flurry of activity in the VP Lab. We compiled our data, reviewed our notes, and edited the poster and PowerPoint to within an inch of their lives. Then, when we sent the poster off to Joe, it turned out that there were some serious errors with some of the images. For whatever reason, several of the images refused to display themselves. So, as we were rushing to get our PowerPoint updated with or results and conclusions, we also were trying to fix the poster.
The reason we were in such a hurry was that the Girl Scouts were coming in today for a Career Fair-type activity...ITT showed up, Optimax was there, a whole bunch of other optics and imaging companies. Our labs were also open for touring, and that meant giving our presentation, so we had to get it ready. In the end, though...they never showed up. There were maybe ten Girl Scouts in the entire building, and they never came upstairs. We were waiting on tenterhooks from 1:00 onwards, but in the end we spent the last four hours of the day doing just about nothing.
It was a good day though, because the deadline made us finish our work a heck of a lot faster. Now we might get the chance to play Wii all day Wednesday instead of only a little bit. That is assuming we don't give another practice talk, of course.....
The reason we were in such a hurry was that the Girl Scouts were coming in today for a Career Fair-type activity...ITT showed up, Optimax was there, a whole bunch of other optics and imaging companies. Our labs were also open for touring, and that meant giving our presentation, so we had to get it ready. In the end, though...they never showed up. There were maybe ten Girl Scouts in the entire building, and they never came upstairs. We were waiting on tenterhooks from 1:00 onwards, but in the end we spent the last four hours of the day doing just about nothing.
It was a good day though, because the deadline made us finish our work a heck of a lot faster. Now we might get the chance to play Wii all day Wednesday instead of only a little bit. That is assuming we don't give another practice talk, of course.....
Day XX: Constructive Criticism
This post is actually for last friday.
True to my word, I did bring in doughnuts today. However, only the VP Lab and the Astro lab showed up to the staff meeting! Kevin texted Tom and told him there weren't any doughnuts, he should head straight to the lab. So Tom missed doughnuts, and we all laughed. The six of us there ate one box, we took one to the VP Lab, and Kevin took the other (So Tom got doughnuts after all.)
The main event of today was our practice presentation. Let's just say that they didn't hold anything back. Andy himself had three pages of notes. They made a lot of suggestions, including more video demonstrations and slide reorganization. Also, we need a lot more data. (read: we need any data) so I'm taking two videos home to code. Thank god that both Fugu and RITCode are free on the internet.
This weekend's work is actually extremely important; our poster is due on Monday and we need to perfect our presentation for the Girl Scout Career Fair. So yeah, I'd better get coding.
True to my word, I did bring in doughnuts today. However, only the VP Lab and the Astro lab showed up to the staff meeting! Kevin texted Tom and told him there weren't any doughnuts, he should head straight to the lab. So Tom missed doughnuts, and we all laughed. The six of us there ate one box, we took one to the VP Lab, and Kevin took the other (So Tom got doughnuts after all.)
The main event of today was our practice presentation. Let's just say that they didn't hold anything back. Andy himself had three pages of notes. They made a lot of suggestions, including more video demonstrations and slide reorganization. Also, we need a lot more data. (read: we need any data) so I'm taking two videos home to code. Thank god that both Fugu and RITCode are free on the internet.
This weekend's work is actually extremely important; our poster is due on Monday and we need to perfect our presentation for the Girl Scout Career Fair. So yeah, I'd better get coding.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Day XIX: The Finishing Touches
Today was basically a day to get our poster in tip-top shape and prepare our presentation for...well, presentation, what else? As it turns out, Jeff and Andy want us to give a practice talk tomorrow so they can offer constructive criticism. I'm a bit anxious about that, but I know it will be helpful for us.
We were having lunch in Crossroads when out of nowhere it started to pour! Just like we were at Philmont, a thunderstorm came out of nowhere. So, we charged back to towards Carlson, took shelter under the bridge to Golisano, ducked through Gleason, out the Collaboratory, and made it back considerably drier than Nick, who left just before we did. He seriously was holding his shirt under the hand drier, it was so wet.
After he dried off, we went out and did the driving experiment again. It went excellently, and the sun came out just as we pulled into the lot to finish.
We also went to Java Wally's for smoothies and a snack after we finished our preso. We didn't really do anything else afterwards....I would have calibrated some more videos, but Nick needs every second of the PowerMac to compress a whole bunch of videos for Feng's project.
We were having lunch in Crossroads when out of nowhere it started to pour! Just like we were at Philmont, a thunderstorm came out of nowhere. So, we charged back to towards Carlson, took shelter under the bridge to Golisano, ducked through Gleason, out the Collaboratory, and made it back considerably drier than Nick, who left just before we did. He seriously was holding his shirt under the hand drier, it was so wet.
After he dried off, we went out and did the driving experiment again. It went excellently, and the sun came out just as we pulled into the lot to finish.
We also went to Java Wally's for smoothies and a snack after we finished our preso. We didn't really do anything else afterwards....I would have calibrated some more videos, but Nick needs every second of the PowerMac to compress a whole bunch of videos for Feng's project.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
