Day XV: High-Speed Hijinks

I took a slight gamble this morning and didn't eat breakfast, on the hope that Bob would bring us doughnuts again. My faith was rewarded, and I enjoyed a custard-filled and a jelly-filled before heading off to the lab. No one was awarded the Horse's Ass Award, which was a bit of a disappointment, but I don't think Joe was even in today, so that might be the reason.

Erika bought a couple of Where's Waldo books last night, so we had a great variety of images to work with. Thanks Erika! So our first idea was to take pictures of them with the Casio, since that worked so well with the Legos. Unfortunately, it didn't. When we attempted to put the images into our PowerPoint, they were far too dark and a bit distorted where the fold was. So, Jeff literally handed us an unopened printer/scanner and told us to use that. It worked much better, and now our PowerPoint is almost entirely complete.

Today also saw another videoconference. This time, though we were still guinea pigs, it was not an experiment. Sue, a VP student working for Pixar or something in California, needed to rehearse a presentation on her coding algorithm before giving the talk to a group out there. I hope that it does well, because the algorithm is amazing. It can code (designate fixations) videos that would take a human hours in less than a second! This would be a massive load off of anyone trying to conduct eyetracking experiments, so I hope that she's successful in refining it.

Before we went to lunch at Crossroads, Jeff called us into the conference room to discuss projects. We talked about our experiment, and he gave us two more assignments. First, he wants us to use the Casio camera to record (at ~60-300 fps) all of us interns making a variety of eye movements. (Saccades, smooth pursuit, opto-kinetic nystagmus, etc). Then, we have to put an eyetracker on someone who proceeds to experience all four observer/target combinations and demonstrates the respective eye movements. (These combinations being static/static, static/dynamic, dynamic/static, and dynamic/dynamic) We figure the best way to do this would be through watching a video clip such as a movie trailer. After a brief search period, we chose one of the previews for Kung Fu Panda. Shadoosh!!

Matt and Jane went outside after lunch to figure out the workings of the Casio, since it will be crucial to getting that task done next week. In the end, they produced a hilarious video of Jane giving a raspberry at 1200 fps. Watch it here. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

So, aside from all that, I managed to finish transcribing Px 21! I'm quite proud of myself. Actually, thinking about the high-speed algorithm got me thinking...what about using a transcription machine like is sometimes used for hearing-impaired people? Since checking a transcription is far faster than writing one and then checking it, we could implement one of those in the future. And since RIT has a large hearing-impaired population (does NTID ring any bells?) I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that there might be one available on campus.

Well, if you don't know all ready, I'm going to be out for the next two weeks at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, taking a grand olde 100 mile hike through the Rockies. I'm quite looking forward to it, but at the same time I feel really bad for abandoning my labmates just as we get another two projects to do. I know they'll survive, but I wish I could help them work on it too.

Ja ne and sayonara,

AJ Lanphere

Day XIV: Building an Experiment

Today, I played with Legos. Oh sure, we had a very important goal and a scientific reason, but that doesn't change the fact that a fair chunk of today was spent playing with Legos. This was a part of Matt and Jane's part of our research, when the participant is given a specific brick to find and must locate it as quickly as possible. We used a large baseplate and created a random pattern of bricks on it, with one unique one that was designated as the target. We took a picture of it with the lab's amazing digital camera and put it on Matt's computer. There, he could spin it and invert it and make many, many test images from one plate. In the end, we created three plates, some with a single-brick target and other (harder) ones where the target was a specific grouping of bricks. To help us set up our experiments, Jeff and Andy gave us some papers and textbook passages to read, which we did during lunch.

Since the weather was quite wet today, we passed on a rooftop lunch in favor of one of the corner conference rooms. It was great to see daylight while working again...windowless labs get a bit stuffy after a couple of weeks. So we discussed our papers and our projects and built another plate while laughing at the odd looks we were getting from passerby as we crowded around a Lego bucket. After that, Erika and I went back to work on our own project and got some advice from Jeff and Andy on formatting and procedure. It was pretty funny watching them race to find Waldo, too. (Jeff won). Joe was less funny, but that might have been because he spent a bunch of time in the Air Force examining satellite images and after that, spotting a red Lego probably isn't so hard.

After working on our PowerPoint and Matt/Jane's, I went back to transcribing. I think I knocked off ten-twenty more scenes, and the remainder won't take me long tomorrow. Well, now I'm off to write my summer project!

DAy XIII: Waldo? Where!?

Today was quite an enjoyable one. And why not? Free lunch seminar, and no coding! It was great. The staff meeting was nothing special, except that Alex started to watch Shoot 'em Up on his laptop before the meeting started and I finally got to see the scene that my friend Joe kept telling me about where he kills a goon with a carrot. It was...interesting. Oh, and Erika fell asleep on the conference table while we were waiting. I though about sneaking off and holding the meeting somewhere else while she was asleep, so she'd wake up and find us all gone, but I decided against it. Bob thought it was funny. After all, it was him who'd told us about when he'd done it to an intern a couple of years ago.

I started off my actual work with more transcribing. I finished fifteen or so more pictures, and now the long-viewing segment is done. That may be a big difference to a coder, but I'm not doing that yet. So my pace remained unchanged. That took up a lot of the morning, actually, and at about eleven I made my way back into the main room for a break and to see what was happening over there. Matt and I ended up helping with the TV some more, then we discussed our impending project. We didn't really come up with anything in that brainstorm, though, so we headed out to the lunch lecture instead.

I loved the lecture because it used an awesome projector setup that put huge screens on five walls. It was cool, I'd never seen it used that way before. There were actually a couple of neat things I learned about Ultrasound too. But it also ended early. I was sad.

When we got back, I fully intended to get right back to coding. Really, I swear. But I ended up having another brainstorming session with Matt, Erika, and Jane, and we came up with some great ideas for our presentations and posters. We're going to analyze the methods people use to search for a particular object out of a group of similar ones. Matt and Jane will work on one mini-study, Erika and I a separate one. As I assume you've guessed by now, Erika and I will be watching people search a Where's Waldo picture, (Or several ones) and analyze the patterns that emerge. Hopefully, our fellow interns will allow themselves to be used as test subjects. After reaching that idea, Erika found a couple papers on the subject for us to look over and I found some Where's Waldo images to use. We put together a PowerPoint to use in the experiment, but that will require tweaking tomorrow. I expect that to be the major project for tomorrow, but I know I'll have to get back to coding sometime.

Day XII: Bausch & Lunch

We started the day with a trip over to B&L for a tour of their manufacturing lines and research labs. They provided a nice bus to get us there, and it ended up taking a longer time that I would have thought just to get into Rochester. It's like any sort of chartered transportation is guaranteed to take a longer-than necessary route, y'know? But I digress. The first step was to get all suited up like we were in the clean room from MicroE at RIT. I was hoping they'd let us keep the disposable safety glasses, they were actually really nice, but they made us give them back. Drat.

Anyways, we were given an overview of the contact lens, and we (the VP people) had a bit of an advantage because we'd heard a lot of this information in Boot Camp. We proceeded into the automated lines for contact production, which were really cool. It's not at all like the factory that shows the same process on How It's Made, but that's because the product was different. High-speed lines are generally for Daily lenses, this line was producing monthlies. Unfortunately, they were between runs, so most of the machinery was not active. Oh well.

After taking off the clean room gear, we went into their prototype analysis lab, or some similar thing. They showed us a bunch of different types of equipment that they use to look at the quality of the lenses they've produced and also to design new types of lenses to correct other ocular problems. It was pretty sweet, especially because I knew (again from boot camp) what the heck they were talking about. I felt a bit sorry for the other people there, I don't know how many of them knew the terms. Zonules, for example.

Once we were done there, we headed back to campus. Of course, no field trip would be complete without food, so the bus made a stop at a sub shop near Millennium. Amiel's, or something similar. It was pretty good, but I think I would have enjoyed Diabella's more. Oh well, a free lunch is a free lunch, and a good lunch it was. Thanks to Joe, for covering. I had a huge roast beef sub. (can't...believe...I ate it...all) But I regret nothing. It was a good sub.

When we returned to CIS, I returned to exile. I coded another two-three minutes of the Px #8, and that took about two and a half hours. Yep, I'm into the longer ones now...no big breaks in video to skip, so my pace has slowed down like a snail on barbiturates. So after a bit of time spent transferring files from one external hard drive to another, I began to transcribe a new tape. So someone will have to go and check this later, but for now my job is pretty simple. Tomorrow I hope to finish both the transcription of Px #21 and the coding of Px #8, then I can move on to the next set of tapes. The fun never stops.

Day XI: Code Seclusion

As one could expect from my title, I finally could not find another task to occupy me from my main job, that of coding. In the morning, I realized that four or five more tapes needed to be digitized and tried to do that early so I could code in the afternoon. In the end, it did take me all morning, and I didn't digitize a single frame. The problem was that my computer did not possess iMovie HD, which is the converter we use. The computer did not come pre-loaded with the software, nor did the lab have an iLife disc from which we could install it. So, I tried the internet. It turns out that it is available to download, but only if you have iLife '08 installed. Back to square one.

Though I tried for a rather long time to circumvent this, in the end Apple prevailed. The time was also compounded by the fact that I'm now located in the ASL room, all the way down the hall from the main room, a room which I have no key to. So, since I can't leave the door open, I need to shut it (locked) and then get someone else to let me back in. Thanks to Tristan for letting me borrow his key later on. Anyhoo, eventually the search for iMovie was abandoned as futile, and I gave Erika the tapes to digitize. I borrowed the portable hard drive and received a Descriptions coding course from Erika and Matt and got to work. (I'd missed the official word from Andy while trying to get the software off the net) By then, though, we decided to break for lunch.

Lunch was uneventful, so we returned to the lab to resume work on coding. I am currently in the middle of the same participant I transcribed, so the eye movements and image sequence are familiar. The coding itself is pretty easy, we don't need to physically designate fixation points, only apply a label to the fixated object. And the beginning half only show the images for a few seconds (which is still many frames, but it could be worse). The large blanks where the participants describe from memory speed it along as well. In the end, I coded somewhere between six and eight minutes of video in about five hours. Only downside is that I was sitting alone in the ASL room for that entire duration. Fun, fun. And again, I had to make trips back to the other lab and ask questions, then be let in again. I apologize for buggin you, Andy! Thanks for putting up with me!

Well, I'll have to be careful in my post tomorrow night, seeing as we'll be touring Bausch & Lomb. Can't spill any corporate secrets. Shhh!

Day X: The Prime Directive

The staff meeting went well, mainly because of the doughnuts. A most excellent breakfast.
We also were introduced to the Horse's Ass Award, for the intern with the worst blog of the week. I wasn't worried until Bob mentioned that not just really short but also really long blogs were equally likely to receive the award. Oops. I'll have to watch myself from here on out.

Not much was accomplished before the lab meeting, mainly because so few of us were there. I worked on my transcription for a bit, reviewed the paper that Tristan gave us to read, and headed off to the meeting.

It turns out that there is a whole lot more to do in the lab than we'd initially thought. Our main task, though important, is to be set aside if Leanne needs help with an experiment. If Leanne doesn't but Jon does, we go and help him. If Jon doesn't need help but Nick does...etc. We've also got to clean up both the main rooms so Leanne and Jon have space for their participants. And we need to set up another workstation for Matt when he comes back. And finally, our Prime Directive over everything else is to help Andy or Jeff is they ask us to do something. Naturally, we all got assignments.

I have to go around and check the ethernet ports in the labs. A lot of this has been done already, but there is a long list of ports that haven't been checked in a while. We're looking to turn on some new ports so that us interns could be out of the main rooms next week, so I had to locate a couple that we could use. In fact, I found a couple that we didn't know were even activated! So, the Twiki was updated and then I set about moving more hardware to make a new workstation in the ASL room. Andy got a brand-new iMac, so I relocated his old PowerMac and set it up in the ASL room. Yeah, that's probably going to be my workstation for next week. After that, I had to leave for College and Careers, which is why my blog is so late.

Day IX: The True Work Begins

All right. To begin, our assignment. Bob gave us a word, ISOTARA, and told us to unscramble it and tell him how it related to the Center. Thankfully, Gary figured out that ISOTARA was an anagram of Astoria, and I was able to work from that. Turns out that Chester Carlson created xerography in his lab in Astoria, and the first words actually copied by this process was the date and the word 'Astoria'. Pretty neat.

Anyways, today we actually received our assignment for what looks like the majority of the rest of our time here. After going over a transcription of one of the older experiments, Andy gave us the run-down on our job. A while ago, Leanne and Tristan ran an experiment to see if people use the parts of an image they fixate on to describe it. Well, thirty-five participants later, they have a lot of work on their hands turning those tapes into useful data. Guess where we come in? Those tapes are in varying stages of processing, and our job is now to calibrate, digitize, transcribe, and code our little intern hearts out until every one of them is completed. The files are scattered around different computers and hard drives, some are corrupted by static or equipment failure, and some are just not there at all, so we've got our work cut out for us. On the bright side, we now have something to do every day.

To get to work, we first had to do a little bit of rearranging. We need Macs to code. There are four in the lab already, so no problem, right? Wrong. Jon kicked us off the Mac Pro so he can work on Yarbus. Andy's computer can only be used when he's not there and when Jon's not running a test. So, Erika is now using the other Mac in the main lab, Jane is set up on the one in the Purkinje Tracker room (a.k.a. the Room of Doom), and we set up another one in there for me. Problem is, there's only one internet connection for two computers, and the wireless doesn't reach this half of the building. So, for a university calling itself an 'Institute of Technology', swapping one internet lead between two computers every time someone else needs the internet seems rather counterintuitive, doesn't it? Oh well. I'll bring in a longer cable to steal a connection from the lab proper tomorrow.

After a quick meal at Crossroads with Gretchin and Laura, we returned to get cracking on the Descriptions Transcriptions. So, we located both the scripts and the movies and compared the two in a check for accuracy. We got through two each with only minor issues, and will hopefully make even better progress tomorrow.

Day VIII: Minor Experimental Error

Bob had nothing to say at our staff meeting, and there were no doughnuts, so the meeting itself was nonexistent. We made plans to collect the people interested in the lecture at quarter to one, and dispersed to the labs. There, we attempted to calibrate the tracks from yesterday, only to discover that each and every one were utter failures. Jane's was full of noise and static, Erika's cameras wouldn't sit still, and both beginning and end calibration points were cut off mine. So, we were left with no choice but to redo all three trials.

We used a different eyetracker for the second set, and this one worked much better for us. The cameras stayed put and I got the best mobile track yet. Erika's was odd, in the sense that the calibration points were good but the actual gaze direction was very glitchy. Jane's still didn't work, for whatever reason.

We ran into a whole new set of problems when we tried to calibrate the tapes, though. Batteries failed, components were missing, and the display just didn't want to display clearly. After spending fifteen minutes just looking for a power cable, we managed to calibrate my trial. However, the camera refused to cooperate with Erika's tape; the display was far too bright for reasons unknown. We couldn't see any of the calibration points! So after a bit of trial and quite a bit more error, we decided to shut everything down and go to the seminar.

This week's seminar was pretty cool. Three different people presented different parts of a large-scale experiment on biodegradable plastic. First up was a girl who discussed the creation of the catalyst that would fuel the polymerization process. The second speaker detailed this process and how a starch component would be added to allow fungi to break it down. Finally, the third speaker outlined how it would be broken down and the impact it would have on the environment. This impact, as it turns out, is amazing. An object made of a starch-integrated polyethylene would degrade in a matter of weeks instead of centuries. This is why I want to be a chemist.

After we got back, the guys showed us a set of goggles that is designed to correct a lazy eye or 'squint'. However, to someone with normal vision they basically function as drunk goggles, throwing off our depth perception and shifting our vision to one side. We did a bunch of minor tests to see the effects. I've never had so much fun watching someone try to pick up a thumbtack. Anyways, they also talked about upside-down glasses (I'll leave you to figure out what they do). I really want to try those.

After that, we turned all the equipment back on and tried Erika's tape again. We futzed with everything for another twenty minutes before realizing that the second camera...wasn't connected. Oops. The screen normalized, and we got a fairly good track from Erika. So we calibrated, digitized, and coded both mine and Erika's. Jane's was still too noisy to be useful.

As we were working, John gave us some articles to look over, and told us potential projects for tomorrow. Seems that there's a problem that's 'holding back the floodgates' of assignments to give us. That sounds like a pretty double-edged sword to me, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see what tomorrow holds.

Day VII: Boot Camp Concludes

Before we could finish the 100 or so slides left of the Boot Camp presentation, Bob took us on a brief journey across the plaza to the IT Collaboratory. Don't ask me what a collaboratory is, I don't know either. Leaving that aside, we were there for a tour of the Remote Sensing Lab, in which they observe the Earth from satellites and planes. They've developed such things as a camera to detect signs of spreading wildefires, and one that can see hydrocarbon gases. This latter camera was demonstrated for us with a propane torch. It was cool, because the propane was visible as a stream of black mist on the camera even though it was invisible to our eyes.

After returning to the lab, we fell back into Boot Camp. The first thing they did was quiz us on our assignments from the day before. I actually was able to find the required data between last night and this morning, which places the mucin thickness at .8 micron, just over Jeff's prediction. Following that, we continued with Boot Camp, discussing further the details of the different types of eyetracking, including the bright- and dark-pupil techniques.

Lunch was provided unexpectedly. Nick had to buy the lab a sheet pizza because he lost a bet or something, and he decided to pay up today. So that was nice. Good, free pizza. Thanks, Nick!

After lunch, we held an open-forum discussion where we took turns bouncing questions off of Jeff and Andy. It was cool; I learned a lot about optical illusions and cool ways you can trick your eyes into seeing certain things. It was also more fun because we were all involved in the discussion.

Following that, Tristan gave us another lesson on coding. It was helpful, especially because last time he neglected to tell us that you had to designate the location of each fixation manually. Which we hadn't done over the two minutes of tape that the four of us had already coded. Thank god that it's not actually going to be used. Anyways, then Andy helped us set up the mobile eyetracker and put it on. Then, the three of us interns did a quick experiment so we'll have practice with all the steps of an eyetracking experiment: Setup, execution, calibration, digitization, and coding. Today, we did the task with each of us wearing the eyetracker, and tomorrow comes calibration and coding. At least we know what we're doing this time...

Day VI: Visual Boot Camp Begins!

Yep, the infamous VP 'boot camp' began today for Jane, Erika and I. Matt's gone off to football camp so it's just the three of us for a while. We began the day, following the staff meeting, with a bit more lifting tasks. What are we, slave labor? Oh yeah...

Anyways, our first task was to bring some tables into our lab so the entire department had a place to sit for the boot camp presentation. After that, we went down to the first floor and picked up some special equipment that had just arrived from France. It was a set of three special targets used to test the clarity and quality of lenses in almost any sort of optical device, something of extreme importance to the Center. Therefore, we return once again to the VP mantra. 'It's fragile and expensive, don't break it!'

Following that, we took seats in the lab, grabbed a bagel and some coffee (Ah, free food....) and opened our notebooks for the presentation. The boot camp PowerPoint is actually something along the lines of 285 slides, and we managed to get through about 187 of them
before we had to leave today. Yep, besides a brief jump over to Crossroads for lunch, I did not leave the lab today.

It actually was very painless. There was a great deal of information presented, but Jeff and Andy did an excellent job with it. Even if, to paraphrase Andy, they 'lacked the ability to focus on one topic for more than thirty seconds.' It was quite entertaining, and also very informative, because the questions and discussion led to information that might not have been discussed normally.

The PowerPoint covered everything I could ever want to know about the eye, its structure, its movements, and research done on it. We discussed the parts of the eye, the muscles that move it, the individual types of cells that allow us to see, how poor vision is caused and how it can be corrected, the specific types of eye movements, what they do for us, and how scientists have gone about tracking these movements down the years. From magnets to lasers, from mirrors to cameras, and even...cocaine and hallucinogens!? Yeah, I was surprised too. We did a few small tests to illustrate certain concepts (How to give yourself temporary glaucoma, for instance), and the constant stream of information was surprisingly easy to process. I am extremely interested in what's coming on the next 100 slides, though. Hopefully, it will go as smoothly as today.

Oh, yes. My homework assignment. When we were discussing the tear layer (the barrier that keeps the eye from drying out), we were presented with a bit of contradiction. The data that came from Jeff stated that the mucin layer was ~.5 microns in size. However, the slide said that this layer was ~.05 microns. I was assigned the duty of resolving this discrepancy. I fear, however, that I will be rather unhelpful in this task. Though aided by the resources of Google Scholar and Wikipedia, I was unable to find a definitive number that indicated mucin layer thickness. I did find one paper, published by a quartet of Japanese scientists who believed that the "Three-layer theory" was false, that there were only the mucin layer and the lipid layer, but even they failed to provide the data I needed.

Day V: The King and the VP Department

My day began excellently, and continued as such. The reason? Free food, of course! Actually, there was a lot of free food today. It all began in the morning meeting. Bob brought us two big boxes of doughnuts! I had two. They were excellent. It was fortunate I did so, because immediately after we arrived in the lab, Bob and Joe came to collect some 'volunteers' to help them move an old optical measuring bench from a lab on the third floor to display in the lobby. I though, 'Oh, just moving some pieces of equipment...shouldn't be hard.'

Boy, was I wrong.

This bench was actually eight feet long and made of solid steel. It was also resting on two granite blocks that make it extremely stable and accurate. I guess in the world of lasers 'stable and accurate' translate to 'huge and heavy', because it took the four of us plus Tom and Kevin to even lift the bench off of the granite blocks. We got it downstairs without issue, but then we had to move the blocks. Thankfully, we had a dolly-type thing that could hold them both. Maneuvering them into place was a bit difficult, but we got them down eventually. So yeah, now the CIS lobby has a new addition. Hope you enjoy it.

Also at the staff meeting, we were given a homework assignment. We were tasked to go to the 'Student Opportunities' board and, assuming we possessed all the qualifications, choose a job we would be interested in applying for. I chose a position as a polymer chemist. This is interesting to me because I loved chemistry since I first began the course last year, and as I've looked at different majors and programs I've discovered an interest in ChemE and Materials Science. This looks like it could be pretty close to that type of work, but the description of duties was a bit slim. 

On that same note, I heard today that RIT has approved a Chemical Engineering program! This is excellent news if they can get it accredited and open to admission by the time I need to make a choice of majors...I'm extremely interested in ChemE, and RIT is the only one of my top 4 colleges that doesn't have it.

Jeff was in today, and when we went back to the lab I asked him if he had a spare key so we wouldn't have to bother Leanne or Jon to let us into the lab all the time. He only had one extra copy, so he said he'd give it to the most responsible person. Everyone pointed at me. It was pretty funny. Now we've got unrestricted access, I suppose. The key also opens the Room of Doom, which houses the most powerful of the eye-tracking systems in the building. Of course, this also means it is the most valuable. To give you an idea, this is one of four such machines in the world, and only one man on the entire planet knows how to fix it. Needless to say, we don't even look at the door funny. In keeping with the VP Mantra: "It's the only one we have and it's really expensive, so don't break it."

Soon after, we took turns coding the Interaction pilot tape. It was slow going, and we didn't finish it before heading over to the VP lab meeting at 10:30. That was an interesting experience. Jeff spent a bit of time discussing projects with the actual students/grads, then we moved on to our discussion of the upcoming 'boot camp'. This is their term for the two days where we have an intense series of classroom-style discussions to get us somewhat aware of the terminology and basic background knowledge that we'll need to have in order to help them in more ways than just the basic grunt work that we've been doing this week. That said, we'll also be planning, conducting, and studying the results of our own eyetracking experiment. The one I have planned involves placing the 007 unit or possibly the new digital model (if they get it fixed) on one or several bikers and watching how they observe the world around them as they ride. Seeing as there is a wide variety of people already participating in weekly bike rides, I should have a fairly large subject pool to work from. It looks like it'll be fun! (But it also looks like a lot more coding. I need to get better at that.)

Anyhoo, the presentations that we'll be making at the end of the summer were also discussed. First up is the presentation of our labs and our work to the U of R interns that will be visiting in a couple of weeks. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your view, I will be absent for that day. Next is a symposium-type presentation where many different students present their research to each other. That preso is the one that I'm considering the biking experiment for. Finally, the presentation to the other RIT interns. I've got a lot of time to work on that, though...no need to worry yet.

Following the meeting, we went to The King and I, a Thai restaurant. I'd been several times before, so I knew the food was amazing. History repeated itself, and the pineapple fried rice with chicken was as good as I remembered. It was also free. Which was even better. We also talked a lot about our (me and my fellow interns') college interests. This, coincidentally, was how I found out about RIT's possible ChemE program.

When we got back, we returned to coding. Eventually, we got that finished. I can't believe that 02:10:00 of video took us an entire day to code. And we still have three more tapes to look at. Ugh. Well, we're planning on bringing in speakers next week so we have some music to listen to while we work. After we finish boot camp, anyways...

Day IV: Downtime and Tower Defense

Today's staff meeting turned out to be a reproduction of the MythBusters' Pirate Eye patch Myth. We sat in a dark lab for awhile, until our eyes adjusted to the blackness. We stumbled and bumbled our way around the room, trying to make sense of the vague silhouettes and avoid any invasion of personal space. For the most part, we were unsuccessful. Then, Bob told us to completely cover one eye with our hand and come outside. We took a lap around the third floor (Which really hurt my exposed eye) then returned to the lab and darkness. Then, we took our hand away. It was like putting on night-vision goggles. We could see perfectly. It was awesome.

After the morning's excitement, we had a bit of a slow day in the office. As Matt and Erika began to calibrate another tape, it was back to digitization for me. This time it was of the conversation experiments run yesterday. I processed the tape of Erika and myself, which didn't need calibration because of the ASL system used to make it. The tapes recorded in there are calibrated live and recorded with the crosshairs. So I played the Sand Falling Game while I waited for the tapes to transfer. 

Then, we noticed another problem. The camera I was using was the one that Erika and Matt needed to calibrate. So I had to stop my progress, give them the camera, find a new one, and hook it all up again. That set both of us back, but we finished calibrating and uploading two tapes before we broke for lunch. 

The four of us trooped over to Crossroads again because Matt and Erika were buying again. I'd brought lunch. I'm only going to buy lunch about once a week, or else I'd never make any money at all this summer! But I digress. It only took us a minute or two, we've found the fast way to get there. As Jane and I waited for our labmates to get their food, we chatted with Gretchen and Nicole about their work in the MRI lab. They've been scanning and graphing for three days now. Sounds about as exciting as the coding I'm doing today and will likely be doing all tomorrow. Absolutely enthralling, not even kidding. Bob and Joe stopped by our table on their way out, and Bob made a joke about the eyelash curlers that Jane mentioned in her blog. Word spreads faster than a wildfire in CA, I guess. Sheesh.

From lunch until about two, we really didn't have anything to do. At all. I updated the Twiki page and created a new page for the Interaction experiment we've been working with for the past day and a half, but other than that I did nothing of significance. I did beat VR Defender Y3K on easy mode, though. All 51 levels and only took 5 damage. Don't scoff about the low difficulty, that game is hard. The learning curve is an exponential function, that's for sure. Moving on past my geekiness, at 2 o'clock or so Tristan gave us an explanation of coding. This is great, I'm telling you. We get the privilege of going through every last frame of video designating fixations, blinks, and losses of track. It's riveting. 

Honestly. 

Yeah, not at all. But hey, and task is a task, and an intern is an intern. It'll be more interesting tomorrow. Sure, we've got to code some more, but it's useful work and there's a lab meeting too. We'll be discussing the paper we read the other day. And after that, The King and I for lunch! Can't wait!

Now if only I didn't feel quite so much like Asok...

Day III: Pizza, Posters, and YouTube

Well, our day began much the same as the two previous ones; sitting in the meeting room with Bob and getting more dates to remember. Don't tell him, but I multitasked and finished the 'History of Eyetracking' paper that we were assigned yesterday. One thing that he did say was that we should consider carpooling to work if possible. Good idea, I thought, and since Kevin lives right down the road...I'll have to look into that.

Since both Jeff and Andy (Our advisors/department staff) are both frequently or totally absent this week, there was little for us to do today. Jane and I began with the attempted calibration of the video recorded yesterday, but there was an experimental error and most of the data was useless. The video calibration points were set too far down, and looking at those points moved our eyes into a position that was unscannable. I blame my long eyelashes. Jane and Erika suggested that I use an eyelash curler, which I flatly refuse to do. I mean, come on! Everyone else was amused, though, so I let it slide. This time.

Since calibration was a bust, we were assigned a stack of seven cassettes to digitize and upload onto the Virtual Perception Twiki. This was a simple process, once the correct equipment was located. (The lab seems to have exactly one of every important piece of tech, and locating it is often a scavenger hunt across three rooms) Unfortunately, digitizing each tape took about a half-hour, so we were left with quite a span of time in which to amuse ourselves. This quickly turned to YouTube, and we watched a good number of very funny videos (Example being Dimitri Martin's 'Large Pad' sketch)

After two such tapes, Jane and Erika were tasked with posting fliers advertising Leanne's study. $10 for each student who participated in her eyetracking experiment seems like a pretty good deal to me. I'd sign up, if I wasn't being paid hourly to do the same thing. Meanwhile, Matt and I kept the iMovie rolling and YouTube playing.

Shortly after the girls left, John gave us another assignment to keep us busy. He's part of a group working on a paper about how babies process what they see. In creating their experiment, they need the background work done by a couple of similar, previously-published studie. Therefore, Matt and I were given a 25-page paper to sift certain facts from. Fortunately, we were saved by Jane and Erika returning and summoning us off to the lunch seminar.

This was easily the highlight of the day. We walked over to the College of Science with a couple of the other interns at about 12:45 so we would have time to grab some free pizza before it ran out. The lectures themselves were pretty awesome. The first one was on the synthesis of a chemical called...something or other, all I can think of is 'elephant', but I know that's not the case. It was great, because I could actually understand what he was talking about, for the most part. Reminds me why I love chemistry in the first place. The second talk was much less interesting. Oh well. I'm looking forward to next week's seminar. (But more importantly, next week's free lunch!)

Upon returning to the VP lab, Matt and I were assigned poster hanging. We were grateful, because it got us out of the lab and out of analyzing the paper! (Apologies, Jane and Erika...) We went all over half of the campus and put up the rest of the posters. I hope that Leanne gets lots of volunteers.

Once we got back, Travis and Nick took us aside for an ASL pilot test. It took awhile to get the machine to cooperate, but in the end the tracking was extremely successful. I hope. After that, Matt had to leave, and the girls did soon after. I stuck around, and ended up looking on as Jon and Leanne tried to solve a problem with the projector/videoconference setup. The issue is this: If you make eye contact with the projection of your partner, your image on their screen will show you staring at the tabletop or their chest. Which can be awkward or inconvenient, depending. Looking at the camera will allow virtual eye contact, but you can't see your partner like that. It's an interesting conundrum, and one I hope I can help solve.

Day II: The Experiment Begins

Today was a day of progress for the Visual Perception lab. We began by learning the simplistic, yet tedious process by which ISCAN compiles and calibrates the two video signals into something we can use. I actually never got to try my hand at it, unfortunately. The girls worked with that (to mixed results initially, but they got it by the end) while Matt and I learned how to operate the far easier ASL remote tracker. By the time we were finished, Jane and Erika had begun transferring the finished video. That took a half-hour, so we'll get our chance some other time.

We've actually got homework now. Jon printed off a twenty-odd page paper on the history of eye tracking and the related research that we have to read by Friday, and we spent awhile reading that. In the meantime, Leanne worked on setting up her experiment for when we returned from lunch.

At noonish, we broke for lunch. Erika ditched us because her Mom had her money, but Jane, Matt and I went over to Crossroads again. None of us exactly remembered where Crossroads was, however, so we meandered our way across campus until we found it. Food was good, again. They serve excellent subs. It was a significantly shorter walk back when we realized where we were.

After that, Leanne took Jane and I into the main lab for the experiment. I'm not entirely sure that I can talk about it yet, so details will be forthcoming when I learn more. Suffice to say it involved the 007 eyepieces, Skype, and videoconference screens. It was pretty cool.

When that was concluded, we realized that Jeff Pelz had arrived in the lab. Turns out he's teaching a class this week and is rarely able to make it into the VP facility. He'd come in to help resolve some electrical issues, and ended up discussing their new portable tracker, which is more efficient, easier to use, and produces much higher-quality video than the 007 setup. (it doesn't require 'plexing, you see) Unfortunately, they're having problems with Macrovision, among other things, and the system is still improving. Actually, Jon is tinkering with it right now in an attempt to solve the Macrovision issue.

Speaking of Jeff, I talked to him about Philmont, but he said basically 'We'll work something out later.' He seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing, which was nice. I'm sure we'll be able to work something out.

Today also saw a lot of logistics issues, also. To our dismay, when Matt and I attempted to activate our cards to get into the computer lab and the front door, our cards wouldn't respond. There's also the minor issue of the timeclock not registering our swipes in and out. Joe Pow has been inserting our hours manually for the last day and a half, so we went down to the registrar to fix both of these problems. Turns out that when Matt and I registered for College & Careers, it generated a second University ID for each of us. Our cards, therefore, used those numbers instead of the ones that Joe Pow assigned to us. Eventually, the problem was resolved and we were issued correct cards. But it was still a pain.

Well, that's that. Nothing earth-shaking or ground-breaking today, but we've gotten started and everything is going well. Just remember the mantra of Visual Perception, and you'll do all right; "That's the only one in the department, don't mess it up!"

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.

Introduction

As of next Monday, July 7th, I will be employed by the Rochester Institute of Technology's Center for Imaging Science. Specifically, the Visual Perception department. I'm not entirely sure what that entails, only that I'll be wearing a neat little headset that records where I'm looking, what I'm looking at, and how long I focus on something. The intention is to learn about what you focus on when, let's say, walking over difficult terrain such as a forest as opposed to a sidewalk or hallway.

Essentially, I'm a guinea pig. Or perhaps a lab rat. My purpose, as I understand it so far, is to help a group of students and professors gather data with this eye-tracking device, running experiments and creating new ones. Which is especially cool, because my work there will go to support a doctoral thesis.

Besides that, I'm going to get all sorts of opportunities to sit in on lectures and listen to dissertations, which I can't wait for. After the lecture on nanotechnology I heard at ImagineRIT I've wanted to go and listen to more of the professors talk. Looks like I'm going to get all sorts of great opportunities here.

Can't wait to get started!