Bob brought us donuts for our morning meeting!!! That was so nice of him. So we just ate donuts because there wasn't really anything to talk about today. Who wouldn't want a meeting just to eat donuts? The donuts were one of the only highlights of my day. The other one being that I found gas for $4.05 on my way to work!!! Woot Woot! I was pretty pumped after I almost filled up for $4.29 because I was on empty. (Ok sorry that had no relevance but I'm bored right now and I was pretty excited about that)
So Today Bob had an assignment for us. He told us to pick a job off the student opportunities board in the hall that we would want to do if we had the credentials. So if i had to choose i would pick the imaging architect. The imaging architects work with designing new technologies dealing with personal computers etc. It seems like interesting work and its based out of oregon so that would be cool to live there. Plus it is a growing field that is always making new products and advances. It would be cool to say that i was involved in a project like that.
After the meeting we went to our labs and we convinced Jeff to let us have a key to one of the labs so we don't have to keep pestering the other students. The key also unlocks the "forbidden room" though but of course we won't go in there. Apparently there is a very expensive piece of equipment that only one man in the world knows how to repair. Therefore "it is hard to repair so don't break it" , once again we see the mantra of the VP lab.
Once in the lab we took turns coding again. While we weren't coding I played some Pinball again and did very well actually. Joe stole the boys to go and move a heavy piece of equipment. When the boys came back we sat around and coded some more and just hung out.
At 10:30 we went to our department meeting with everyone. First, we talked about some business for a good hour or so. Then we started talking about the article we read. Jeff explained some concepts such as smooth pursuit of an object Vs. trying to do a smooth pursuit and it being just a saccade. We had to cut the meeting short because we had made reservations at The King and I (Thai restaurant) for 12 o'clock. I don't really like Thai food but i was a good sport and just ordered something that was basically just chicken. I ate some of it but had to box up practically my whole lunch. I'm sure my parents will eat it for dinner tho, they enjoy that kind of food. Oh and today was our longest interaction with Jeff yet, since we had an hour and a half meeting with him and then lunch afterwards.
After lunch we took turns coding again. We still have to code the experiment the boys did. But we are leaving that for tomorrow since we are already so bored with coding. I coded some while Matt and Jane calibrated another tape. Yeah we basically hung out in the lab all afternoon. We decided we are going to bring in some speakers so we can listen to music and at least be somewhat entertained.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The Best Job I've ever Had
Yes this is the best job I've ever had! Ok so I've never had a job so this one wins by a long shot. We didn't get much done today, therefore we got paid for sitting in the lab which is why this is the best job ever.
So even though we didn't do much today Tristan came and showed us how to code a video which takes a really really long time. Apparently it takes a day or two just to go through and code a twenty minute video, so yeah we could be at this for a while. Oh and Jeff came in and talked to us for a bit about this lab meeting we will be going to tomorrow and then we'll be having lunch afterwards. That will be cool but it's going to be Thai food and I'm not a big fan.
At our 8:45 staff meeting Bob really didn't have any info for us so he did a demonstration with us. we went into a dark lab and got our eyes accustom to the darkness. We tryed walking around the room but we really couldn't see and kept bumping into people. After a couple of minutes we closed one eye and placed our hand over it and we walked out into the light and took a trip around the building. Afterwards we went back into the dark room and took our hand off and opened our eyes. Instantly we were able to see and walk around without knocking over the expensive equipment. Bob told us to find out why that is but I really have no clue. However, according to Aj there is a chemical produced in the eye when it's dark so by keeping the eye closed it keeps the chemical built up so when you return to the darkness the chemical is already made and your eye is accustomed. I don't really know if that is why but Aj sounds like he knows what he is talking about and it makes sense.
In the morning, Matt and I calibrated a tape of our experiment yesterday and recorded it onto a new tape. Meanwhile Aj digitized another tape and Jane worked on reading an article and writing down info for John. After we calibrated that tape we went and digitized it. Unfortunately we had to wait for that tape to finish before we went to lunch.
Then we went to crossroads for lunch again. This time a ordered a sub due to the recommendations of Aj and Matt. It was delicious!! If it was free or i didn't have to buy my own lunch I would probably eat at crossroads everyday! However that is not the case so next week I'll be bringing my own lunch :(
After lunch there was absolutely nothing to do so we sat in the lab for about 2 or 3 hours. Aj and Matt played some computer games while Jane and I read a book for school and listened to music.
After these two non-productive hours is about when Tristan came to save us. We took turns coding the video for about the next hour. While the others were coding I started playing Hearts but I was having a bad streak so I decided to play Pinball!! Haha That was fun at least.
So even though we didn't do much today Tristan came and showed us how to code a video which takes a really really long time. Apparently it takes a day or two just to go through and code a twenty minute video, so yeah we could be at this for a while. Oh and Jeff came in and talked to us for a bit about this lab meeting we will be going to tomorrow and then we'll be having lunch afterwards. That will be cool but it's going to be Thai food and I'm not a big fan.
At our 8:45 staff meeting Bob really didn't have any info for us so he did a demonstration with us. we went into a dark lab and got our eyes accustom to the darkness. We tryed walking around the room but we really couldn't see and kept bumping into people. After a couple of minutes we closed one eye and placed our hand over it and we walked out into the light and took a trip around the building. Afterwards we went back into the dark room and took our hand off and opened our eyes. Instantly we were able to see and walk around without knocking over the expensive equipment. Bob told us to find out why that is but I really have no clue. However, according to Aj there is a chemical produced in the eye when it's dark so by keeping the eye closed it keeps the chemical built up so when you return to the darkness the chemical is already made and your eye is accustomed. I don't really know if that is why but Aj sounds like he knows what he is talking about and it makes sense.
In the morning, Matt and I calibrated a tape of our experiment yesterday and recorded it onto a new tape. Meanwhile Aj digitized another tape and Jane worked on reading an article and writing down info for John. After we calibrated that tape we went and digitized it. Unfortunately we had to wait for that tape to finish before we went to lunch.
Then we went to crossroads for lunch again. This time a ordered a sub due to the recommendations of Aj and Matt. It was delicious!! If it was free or i didn't have to buy my own lunch I would probably eat at crossroads everyday! However that is not the case so next week I'll be bringing my own lunch :(
After lunch there was absolutely nothing to do so we sat in the lab for about 2 or 3 hours. Aj and Matt played some computer games while Jane and I read a book for school and listened to music.
After these two non-productive hours is about when Tristan came to save us. We took turns coding the video for about the next hour. While the others were coding I started playing Hearts but I was having a bad streak so I decided to play Pinball!! Haha That was fun at least.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Free Food!
One of the highlights of today was that most of the interns and some of the people in the VP lab all went to the presentations given by some of the R.I.T students. The perk was free food which is why we all went. And by the way the pizza was awesome so i definitely think we are all going back next Wednesday. The presentations weren't too terrible. I didn't understand most of it but some things I understood so I suppose thats good.
We learned some good news today too. I guess Andy is on vacation this week but he is coming back next week, which means we will actually have some work to do!!
Hmm, let's see... Today we started off by reading some more of that article. Then we watched Leanne calibrate a tape. A little while after that John saved us by asking us to go hang up some fliers. So Jane and I went to do that but with our wonderful sense of direction and knowledge of the campus we went in the opposite direction and the furthest away from the building we wanted to go to. We finally asked a nice lady for directions and she told us it was in the other direction. So after a while we finally found it and it turned out to be right behind the Carlson building!! Oh well.
After the lovely flier insident Jane and I had to read through an article for John and pick out the important info. I thought it was going to worse than it was because it was 25 pages but we did the whole "seek and destroy" method. That is basically when you just search for the answers you want. Then we got used for Nick and Tristans experiment!! That was pretty cool because I got to just sit in a chair while the ASL system remotely tracked my eyes. Jane on the otherhand had to wear the mobile tracking device. Anyways, I'm not sure how that turned out cuz they never told us but I hope we were good pilot testers.
After that we worked on copying files on to Tweedledum (it's a hard drive-they name all the computers after someone) that Matt and Aj previously digitized. That was interesting since it was on a Mac computer and Jane and I had no clue how to use it BUT we did do it all by ourselfs so yeah I was proud of that. After that we really didn't have anything else to do so we just went home.
We learned some good news today too. I guess Andy is on vacation this week but he is coming back next week, which means we will actually have some work to do!!
Hmm, let's see... Today we started off by reading some more of that article. Then we watched Leanne calibrate a tape. A little while after that John saved us by asking us to go hang up some fliers. So Jane and I went to do that but with our wonderful sense of direction and knowledge of the campus we went in the opposite direction and the furthest away from the building we wanted to go to. We finally asked a nice lady for directions and she told us it was in the other direction. So after a while we finally found it and it turned out to be right behind the Carlson building!! Oh well.
After the lovely flier insident Jane and I had to read through an article for John and pick out the important info. I thought it was going to worse than it was because it was 25 pages but we did the whole "seek and destroy" method. That is basically when you just search for the answers you want. Then we got used for Nick and Tristans experiment!! That was pretty cool because I got to just sit in a chair while the ASL system remotely tracked my eyes. Jane on the otherhand had to wear the mobile tracking device. Anyways, I'm not sure how that turned out cuz they never told us but I hope we were good pilot testers.
After that we worked on copying files on to Tweedledum (it's a hard drive-they name all the computers after someone) that Matt and Aj previously digitized. That was interesting since it was on a Mac computer and Jane and I had no clue how to use it BUT we did do it all by ourselfs so yeah I was proud of that. After that we really didn't have anything else to do so we just went home.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Second Day
So, overall today was a pretty good day. Jon showed us how to use the Iscan software and then Nick showed us how to use the Remote Tracking software. Honestly when they were explaining how to use it I zoned out a couple times and didn't really understand it all. Thankfully, Jane was our designated scribe for the group and took wonderful notes! The notes helped but it still took Jane and I 4 times to somewhat accurately calibrate a tape haha. Anyways the remote tracker was much easier to use and the other John helped me out a lot since i really didn't understand it at first.
After lunch we were assigned a reading so we read that for a bit. Jon showed us how to assemble the mobile eye tracker and then he tried setting Matt and I up with an experiment but the videos weren't working due to a glitch with the video recorder. So we tried to do another experiment but the ASL system wasn't working either. Basically nothing was working and Jeff Pelz came down to fix it and I met him for the first time!! He seems really nice and explained to us what he thought the problem was. He thinks there was too much voltage being put into the video player and it was enabling the copy protection on the video files. (I'm not sure i got that right but it's something like that) Anyways, they are trying to fix the problem so hopefully everything will work tomorrow.
This sums up the day because we didn't due much in the afternoon due to the equipment not working. :( But learning to calibrate the tapes wasn't actually that bad once I could play around with the programs and go through it myself. I personally like the ASL system (remote tracking) much better. It's only been two days but I feel like I am learning a lot and I'm having a lot of fun even though we haven't done much, what we did do was fun.
My favorite motto of yesterday and today was "It's expensive so don't break it!!"
After lunch we were assigned a reading so we read that for a bit. Jon showed us how to assemble the mobile eye tracker and then he tried setting Matt and I up with an experiment but the videos weren't working due to a glitch with the video recorder. So we tried to do another experiment but the ASL system wasn't working either. Basically nothing was working and Jeff Pelz came down to fix it and I met him for the first time!! He seems really nice and explained to us what he thought the problem was. He thinks there was too much voltage being put into the video player and it was enabling the copy protection on the video files. (I'm not sure i got that right but it's something like that) Anyways, they are trying to fix the problem so hopefully everything will work tomorrow.
This sums up the day because we didn't due much in the afternoon due to the equipment not working. :( But learning to calibrate the tapes wasn't actually that bad once I could play around with the programs and go through it myself. I personally like the ASL system (remote tracking) much better. It's only been two days but I feel like I am learning a lot and I'm having a lot of fun even though we haven't done much, what we did do was fun.
My favorite motto of yesterday and today was "It's expensive so don't break it!!"
Monday, July 7, 2008
First Day
So, today was my first day as an R.I.T intern and we basically did no work. We started in the Red Barn playing games, which was fun and I got to know most of the other interns. We ate lunch at crossroads for free, which had awesome pizza!! After lunch we went on a tour and we were shown Java Wally's, which looked cool, plus another ice cream stand which I will make a point of visiting very soon. Then our Visual Perception group got together and we learned about some of the equipment we will be using, although most of the info went right over my head.
One thing that I did learn was that some of the equipment was really expensive (In other words I learned to make sure that I didn't break any of it). The people that were in the lab today( I'm not really sure but I think they are grad students) helped us out by showing us some software, the eye trackers, and basically what they are used for. Tomorrow will probably be more of learning about the equipment and me not understanding any of it but I'm sure someone will help me out. However, Jane, Matt, and Aj are pretty awesome and I look forward to working with them.
P.S. I still have not met Jeff Pelz and he is beginning to seem like a mystery man!!
One thing that I did learn was that some of the equipment was really expensive (In other words I learned to make sure that I didn't break any of it). The people that were in the lab today( I'm not really sure but I think they are grad students) helped us out by showing us some software, the eye trackers, and basically what they are used for. Tomorrow will probably be more of learning about the equipment and me not understanding any of it but I'm sure someone will help me out. However, Jane, Matt, and Aj are pretty awesome and I look forward to working with them.
P.S. I still have not met Jeff Pelz and he is beginning to seem like a mystery man!!
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