Day I: Tours, Games, and Not Much Else

Well, the internship has officially begun. I arrived early, right behind Kevin, who was able to remember which building we needed to go to this time. The meeting was short; we 'punched' (More like 'swiped') in, then got a brief overview of Imaging Science in general. It was actually nothing new, Joe had given the same preso at school when he came and visited. There was a minor problem with my card, but it was nothing serious. After that, we headed out to the Red Barn.

Once there, we participated in a number of teambuilding/cooperation/communication exercises. We did a name game to begin with (Not like it helped me...I'm absolutely terrible with names. I've got my labmates and a couple others...) Other than that, I don't know anyone yet. There were a bunch of rock-climbing walls, but we didn't use those. I was kinda sad.

There were also a bunch of group based puzzles; sorting a scattered deck of cards (30.96 sec), the nail game (three tiers), building a tower out of pipes (5 ft), and an alphabet game (10.58 sec). It was a lot of fun. We've got a bunch of great people here and I can't wait to get to know them better.

We left the barn, and headed to lunch. We ate in Crossroads, which was a change for me. I normally eat in Gracie's when I'm on campus. It was really, really good food, and Joe paid for everyone, which was even better. It was also kinda cool, because I'd never been to that part of campus before.

Following lunch, we were given a brief campus tour by three previous interns (who are now Imaging Science students). I admit, I zoned out for a lot of it and talked with Kevin and Tom. But that's just because I've been on the campus so much and been on several tours before, so I'd seen everything before. Oh well. It was nice of them for those of us who hadn't been here before.

Once the tour was completed, we returned to the CIS building and watched the Bob and Joe Show, as they called it. Their tour took us through the entire CIS building. We saw the other labs where our colleagues would be working, and located our own. It's quite conveniently located, actually; 2nd floor, right near the conference room that we meet in at the beginning. And right near the computer lab. Anyways, one of the labs that really caught my interest was the Nanoimaging lab. Turns out that they actually DID take an intern for that lab. They removed it from the list, though, because they had selected someone immediately. That seems a bit unfair to me, to pick someone before anyone else gets to make a case, but I'm happy in VP. They have the absolute coolest microscope in there, though. It's the Atomic....something or other. I can't remember. It's damn powerful though, and it's tiny in comparison to the other electron microscopes I've seen and used before. It can see atoms. It was awesome.

Finally, we met with our individual departments. We got an overview of the equipment, which was pretty cool. They call the eye tracking glasses the '007' because you open up the case it's attached to and there's all these pieces of equipment...a camera, a screen, a power pack, all of these other things...it looked like something Q would make. Or maybe the Armourer. That would be more dangerous, but likely more fun. But I digress. Then, they showed us the two different types of software that they use to compile the two video feeds into something useful. One's a really old Windows-only program called ISCAN that's a pain, but works great. The second was made by a grad of the CIS VP program. It's called Yarbus. It's much more streamlined, easier to use, and right now it completely glitchy. Oh well. It's development in action. Then, we were shown how to calibrate the 007, but we didn't actually do anything of importance. That will come in time, I assume. They couldn't tell us anything about the experiments they'll be running, because we'll be the subjects. Thus, knowledge of the purpose will taint our performance and therefore their results. All will be revealed in time, I suppose.

And Jeff Pelz was out. From what the students told us, he's actually out quite frequently. He's been dubbed a 'mystery man' already by a couple of my labmates. I'll have to wait to discuss Philmont with him.

Also, I'm still having trouble calling Mr. Callens 'Bob'. It'll take some getting used to.