Monday, August 15, 2016

August 15th

Today is the last Monday on this internship which is sad. The interns spent today presenting and refining their presentation. I, for one, spent most of my day making note cards and rehearsing them. After giving feedback to the other intern, we all finished the Dark Night Rises. This is the second time I have seen it and I can't say I regret seeing it a second time. The only thing that bothers me about this movie is Batman's voice.
I also think the Joker is extremely wise. Because of this, I started writing down all the quotes he said during the movie.
One of them might end up being my senior yearbook quote!

Saturday, August 13, 2016

August 12th

In the morning, I worked on refining the MVRL presentation. In addition, I made sure all our visuals were sighted. Alice and I then ran through our presentation before the two o'clock presentation.

The presentation really opened my eyes to aspects that needed revision. I thought that all the interns did great.

After the presentation, Alice , Emily and I went upstairs to the freshman lab to present again among each other. We made a plan to meet Sunday to further rehearse.

Thursday, August 11, 2016

August 11th

Today was a very productive day.
In the morning, Alice and I finished our presentation for the most part (we still have to add videos and pictures that our adviser will send us.)
Lunch was quick and brief because most of the interns wanted to present after lunch to each other to get feedback.
My presentation was first. The other interns gave Alice and I really helpful feedback. For example,they suggested some picture addition and also defining gaze parameters. I will make sure to add the appropriate pictures. As for the gaze parameters, I think I will briefly define it in the slide. However, we elaborate on it later on in the presentation and therefore I wouldn't spend much time defining it. However, overall, Alice and I did okay for our first time presenting. The other interns also did amazing. I think we all did great for our first time presenting.
After the presentation, Madi and I went to Java's (again). I really think this is our tradition now. Anyways, we got a strawberry smoothie.
It was the sketchiest smoothie I have ever had.
It was really just syrup and strawberries blended together.
The flavor for the smoothie was there but it was missing the consistency.
After I came back, I continued working on the presentation. I was able to import a video of the eye tracking onto the presentation.



Wednesday, August 10, 2016

August 10th

Today I did stuff!
In the morning, I finished tweaking the MVRL rough draft presentation. I am not quite done though. I do have to add some videos and practice the power point.
During lunch, Dr. Roger Easton gave us a lengthy presentation about document restoration. I was extremely impressed by everything he has done. Especially interesting to me was his visit to the Sinai peninsula in Egypt. I think it is amazing that he stayed at St. Catherine's monastery there. He was especially passionate about Georgia and their food. I hope I get to try their food (Add to bucket list).
Madi, Allyse, Alice and I then went to Java's. Madi and I shared a chocolate situation drink, which contrary to its name, is basically coffee. Madi was really disappointed!  like coffee so I didn't mind as much.
The rest of the afternoon I spent working.

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

August 9th

Today was a productive day. I worked on the power point most of the morning. After that, the interns and I watched Batman the movie. It is such a good movie. After lunch, I worked on some standardized test stuff. Then Madi and I categorized each one of the interns as a planet. I AM THE SUN! (of course- haha). Madi was Venus: the god of beauty and love ( of course- just kidding).
After that fun moment, I got back to work on the power point. 
Today was an okay day overall!

Monday, August 8, 2016

August 8th

Today was a pretty lazy Monday. Sadly, it is our second to last Monday.  Because, we don't have much time left, everyone was really feeling the stress. In the morning, I worked on the AOI and we actually ended up finishing 5 out of the 6. We decided to discard the last one because the calibration wasn't very good and thus wouldn't yield very accurate results.

After lunch, I continued working on the presentation. I got more of the slides done and Alice and I even practiced timing ourselves with the slides. I also filled out my time sheet for this week and next week sadly ( my last time). On the flip side, I did drink hot cocoa today! (Nestle is delicious).

Friday, August 5, 2016

August 5th

Today was one of my favorite Fridays. I met up with some interns to go to breakfast for the undergraduate symposium today. I must say, however, I was very disappointed with the breakfast. I mean it was pastries which is good, but I can't just eat pastries. I am a growing teenager and would have preferred eggs and waffles. However, I can't complain... It is free food after all!

After breakfast, I attended some really good talks. The first one was my favorite. It was about isolating streptococcus mutans serotype k ( a bad dental bacteria) that could be extremely detrimental to our health since it can cause things such as heart disease. It was a good talk but I already had previous knowledge about the topic and therefore I enjoyed it more than others. Emily and I then met up with Alice to attend a talk about carbon nanotubes. That talk was somewhat interesting but hard for me to comprehend at times. From what I understand, he was using the carbon nanotubes to reinforce hos materials. He talked a lot about testing the material's durability. However, I wish I understood some more of the details. The third talk I went to was a blur because I sat down for a minute and then it was over (she finished early and I had come in late.)

I then went back to the reading room where I polished up the abstract and talked through Emily's project with her. I also happened to learn more about space shuttles. Did you know there was a space station in space? I can practically see looks of disappointments as I type this sentence but one must not tell lies (Harry potter reference).

I then went to lunch. The talk during lunch was very interesting too. The lady who gave it was a high school dropout who went back to RIT and eventually ended up starting her own company that promotes solar powered technologies. It was an amazing talk.

After lunch, I came back to the reading room only to find out that Alice wasn't feeling well. I was extremely concerned. I gave her very vague medical advice . Being the good doctor that I hopefully will be, I told her to drink water and eat sugary fruits. I hope she feels better. I then polished up the abstract and learned some really cool math facts from Neils.

I think today was the most I have ever learned for a Friday.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

August 4th

Today was a very nice day overall. The morning meeting was brief and informative. After the morning meeting, I worked on refining the abstract. After that, I worked on the final presentation power point.
During lunch, the interns and I played Apples to Apples. It was fun overall but there was MAJOR CHEATING GOING ON... Ahem Ahem Madi and Cici.
Other than that, it went pretty well!
After lunch, I continued working on the power point and abstract. The MVRL group had a brief meeting with Gabe to update him on everything. After the meeting, I went back to work.

August 3rd

Today was a fun day. In the morning, we went down to the library to learn about how to research and use the library's databases. The librarian was enthusiastic and showed me a really cool medical database which I am really excited about because I like medicine and diagnosis.
After the library, we all came up to the reading room where Alice and I worked on the power point and the AOIs. After that, we went to the pizza talk! The talk was really interesting and showed me how science was used in real life. He talked about the polluting gases from the volcanoes near Rwanda. It was a really interesting talk!
After the lunch, I went down to the experiment and got a $5 Starbucks gift card which I am very excited about!
We then watched a movie at 3 o'clock! I really loved the movie! We are finishing it today in lunch!

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

August 2nd

"Bring a friend day" was fun but tiring. I felt like a mom trying to make sure everyone is ok and is having fun. For the most part, my siblings enjoyed it. However, they wished that they would have seen more because the day was kind of slow. They especially enjoyed the lunch at salsaritas though!

I spent the morning showing my siblings different parts of the lab including the eye tracking lab and the AOI. Emily was also pretty helpful with making sure that everyone saw most things. We then prepared for lunch.

After lunch, Sara (my sister) went with me to the MVRL lab and I showed her how to do the AOI. She did it for quite awhile! I think she enjoyed it!

George and Ereny saw Niel's astronomy lab. After that, they stayed in the reading room where they got book recommendations and interacted some more!

I am ready for a nap!

Monday, August 1, 2016

August 1st

Today was.... weird.
I started off the day with a daydream. You know those dreams you think you are awake but really asleep? That's how my day started off today. 
So I shook it off, and tried to get through the rest of the day. 
I then went to ear breakfast and realized WE RAN OUT OF CREAM CHEESE!!!!!!!!
How can I eat my bagel WITHOUT CREAM CHEESE?
It turns out, bagels taste pretty good with butter too. So I ate it with butter instead. 
Anyways, after my morning dilemma, I finally arrived at RIT for the morning meeting. Emily texted me that she was sick so I texted her "feel better". 
The morning meeting was pretty short and straight to the point. 
This morning was pretty laid back. I worked on python and programming. I also learned about tuples and sets and did another weird skit on Python. I had Alice test it and she liked it! (even though she just nodded her head "sure" when I asked her if she was impressed)
Lunch was delicious. I had chicken and rice so I was very happy. During lunch, I watched a presidential campaign and read some news.
After lunch, I kept programming. Programming is really fun! 
I left a little early today because I had a short appointment. Nonetheless, I still managed to be somewhat productive! ( I hope). 

Friday, July 29, 2016

July 29th

The morning meeting was brief. We talked about our picnic today and  "bring a friend day" on Tuesday. After the morning meeting, I kept working on coding. I am keeping track of what I learned and what I didn't learn to make sure to ask about anything I am confused on.

The picnic lunch was delicious. We had Italian sausages and oven baked chips. It was extremely delicious. Most of the interns and I also watched a you tuber during lunch. I am proud to say I introduced them to it and that they are now obsessed!

After lunch, I kept working on learning Python. I learned many things including the define statement, and lower and upper case statements. I was also introduced to the while statements. I am confused on them, but I will keep working on them next week.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

July 28th

Today was the best day! I had a blast at the museum. It made me appreciate photography more. I even learned what a daguerreotype was! The best part about today, however, was Amiel's. The gyro sandwich was amazing!
After lunch, the interns and I talked a little about the picnic lunch. I am excited about being with everyone tomorrow. I then got to work by learning more about python and going through the vizard tutorial.
Tomorrow is the picnic lunch!

Outline

Outline:

Introduction: 

  • History and toil of the remote eye trackers
  • Different kinds of eye movements 
  • Question of interest and general results
Methodology: 
  • How we went about our experiment
  • methods used for setting up the experiment
  • IRB (Institutional Review Board) approval
  • number of participants 
  • procedure: calibration, image viewing, post viewing recollection, survey 
  • Further explain the difference between the real and virtual settings of experiment. 
  • Add a slide with the directions given to participants.
  • Add some of the audio recordings of participant's recollection? (with permission of the participants of course!)
Virtual Reality: 
  • Computer programming and using python
  • Reason for virtual relaity setting
  • How we built our virtual reality scene
  • to be continued....
Conclusion: 
  • Results in deep detail
Acknowledgements: 
  • Susan Farnand
  • Elena Fedorovskaya
  • Bob Callens
  • Joe Pow
  • Jeff Pelz
  • Gabe Diaz
  • All Graduate Students
  • All Participants in experiment

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

July 27th

I was running late this morning because my alarm didn't go off! But thankfully, I managed to make it! The morning meeting was nice and short. We were reminded about our field trip tomorrow which is something I am very excited about!
After the meeting, I worked on programming python and learning all about code academy. During lunch, I had pizza which is still amazing and attended the talk. The talk was given by Gabe Diaz in the perform lab.  This made me even more excited about working in the virtual reality and motivated me to learn to code even more.
After the talk, I kept on coding. I made a story  using code. I Cannot wait for the field trip tomorrow and to do more with python.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

July 26th

In the morning meeting, we discussed our field trip on Thursday to the George Eastman building. I am excited to see it and am also excited for the free lunch. We then further discussed our projects and updates. Mr. Callens brought in doughnuts which were the highlight of my morning.

After that, I went to the lab where I worked on the arduous  area of interest until lunch. During lunch, I talked and laughed with Madi. We discussed schools and colleges and her sisters. It was a great time for me.

After lunch, I went back to the lab and further worked on the area of interest until 3 o'clock. At three, I went down to the Perform Lab where a graduate student introduced us to coding and gave us an assignment for tomorrow. I hope I will be able to do this assignment! It is interesting but time consuming. 

Monday, July 25, 2016

July 25th

Today was a very rainy day. Driving was pretty difficult in the morning but I managed to make it! ( thank god). The morning meeting was brief and quiet. Everyone was completely dead this morning. After the meeting, my group and I went down to the visual perception lab and worked some more on BeGaze and AOI. I brainstormed a brief outline of our presentation this morning. Susan then came in to tell us that we will be working with Gabe tomorrow ( I am very excited) on building another part of our experiment.

Lunch today was quiet in the beginning, but then it got louder as we progressed. All of the interns played a board game (Trivial Pursuit). Can I just say that that game was really hard?. We only managed to answer two questions!. Nevertheless, it was fun watching everyone struggling and laughing together. I also learned the correct pronunciation for Calvin Klein (you don't stress the ien in case you wanted to know!). 

After lunch, my group and I went back to the lab where we continued working. I had a new task though! For the rest of the afternoon, I performed statistical analysis of our data to further analyze the data and hopefully aid in the conclusion of our lab. 

Thursday, July 21, 2016

July 21st

We started off the day asking ourselves, "What was the craziest thing that happened in your high school?". Common responses included pulling the fire alarm, school pranks, and creepy teachers. After that interesting morning, we planned out the picnic tomorrow which I unfortunately wouldn't attend but it was still fun to see what everyone is bringing.

After the morning meeting, my group and I went down to the visual perception lab and finished the experiment with 5 out of the 6 interns. Cici wasn't here so my group members will make sure that she finishes on Friday. In addition, we continued analyzing our data using BeGaze.

When it was time for lunch, the interns and I went to Student Union where we ate lots od delicious but interesting food. We especially enjoyed Madi's laughing fit as Allyse pulled out random things from her backpack.

After lunch, we almost got lost. However, we asked people nearby for help and managed to get to our lab safely where we continued analyzing data using BeGaze and tracking the area of interest for every participant.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

July 20th

The morning meeting today was pretty short. We further discussed our projects and our trip next week which I am very excited about. After the meeting, Allyse planned out Friday's barbecue which I unfortunately/fortunately will be missing due to a wedding that I will be attending. 

Nate, Alice and I then got to work on our experiment. Three out of the six test subjects finished the experiment today. The other three will be doing it tomorrow. After gathering all of the data, my group and I should have a better understanding of how we will analyze the data. 

We then went to the pizza lunch. The pizza was late but is Absolutely DELICIOUS. One of these days, I will remember to ask where they buy the pizza from. The talk today was given by Chris about machine vision (which isn't really a topic I have ever considered going into) , but after he talked more about it, I thought it was interesting and definitely a highly valued career. 

After lunch, some of the other interns came to visit our little room and asked us to show them around a bit! (of course we told them nothing that would screw up the experiment nor shown them anything that they will see later on). However, they seemed satisfied with the little information we gave them anyways. After they left, my group and I further worked on analyzing the data and working with Be Gaze to determine the area of interest. 

Hopefully, we will make a breakthrough discovery! (probably not but a 17 year old girl can dream). 

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

July 19th

In the morning meeting, we all gave an update on our projects. Everyone's project sounded very cool. I can't wait till the final presentation where I will get to learn some more!  Zihao was late during the morning meeting. We all assumed he slept in but he was actually sick ( hope he feels better).
After that, my fellow interns and I started the experiment for treatment group 2. We made sure everyone was calibrated and we put final touches on the second part of our experiment. After we tested everyone, the interns and I went to lunch  where Madi graciously brought us all oreo balls ( they were absolutely delicious). We then talked about Korean restaurants and having a Korean barbecue some day! It sounds interesting. I have only had Korean food a couple of times but I found it delicious!
After lunch, my group and I got to work. Alice and I worked on analyzing data on be gaze while Nate created spreadsheets to hopefully help us further with our analysis. Overall, it was a productive day!

Monday, July 18, 2016

July 18th

We started off the day with a very productive analysis of our starts. Our group figured out what we need to work on ( rewording and adding more description). We also gave helpful feedback to the rest of the groups. Overall, it was very productive and a good time.

After that, my group and I set up the rest of the experiment and made sure that the eye trackers worked and were in good shape.

We then ran the experiment and got 3 out of the 6 interns done. We tried to analyze some of the results afterwards. In terms of analysis and correlation, we need to o some work. However, overall, it gave us positive feedback and mistakes to avoid.

Friday, July 15, 2016

july 15th

today was a rather productive day. we talked about our abstract in the morning meeting and also talked about bring a friend day where we eventually agreed to do so on august 2nd. i wish it was bring friends day because i want to bring all of my siblings!

after the morning meeting, my group went to set up part of the experiment in a classroom. it was toilsome but we made it. we then obtained materials for our experiment and mase sure we are ready to go on monday.

we then went to the picnic lunch where we ate hotdogs, lots of chips and neopolitan icecream. everything was so good especially the icecream!

after lunch, my group and I Spent time getting familiar with begaze and using eyetrackers. it was pretty fun and i learned alot.

i cannt wait for Monday where everyone will bring thier permission slips( i hope) so that we can begin the experiment.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

July 14th

Today was a pretty interesting day over all. During the meeting, Mr. Callens,  talked about our abstract and doing them before Monday morning. Thus, the first thing that our group did was write it collaboratively (see Nate's page for the abstract). The abstract was a little difficult to write but overall we managed to do it well ( I think). I am looking forward to the constructive criticism though.

After writing the abstract, we spent time exploring the program that we are going to use to track eye movements. there are many different features that are provided through this program. Although I am not the best with computers in general, I found the program to be interesting overall. Elena then came in and discussed with us the wording of our overarching research questions. We also talked about our conditions and perfecting our experimental design.

We then went to lunch where all the interns went to Salsaritas and ate together. it was expensive but a fun lunch together.

After lunch, Alice, Nate and I went down to see the 3d printers in action. They are very interesting. They use different colored plastics to produce the materials needed. However, they are very expensive and time consuming ( A single minuscule object could take up to 3 hours to produce). However, we are getting the nose pieces 3d printed for us for use on the eye trackers.

My group then went back to the MVRL lab to try out the program using the nose pieces that we got 3d printed. After that, we spent time classifying our objects of interest ( not going to say what they are or else this might ruin our experiment). We did run into trouble while doing so due to many subjective criteria. However, I think our group finally agreed on general classifications.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

July 13th

Today was a very fun day. we started off the day planning the picnic while Zihao was half asleep. We then talked about all of us going to lunch in global village on Thursdays. After that, my group and I went to meet up with Susan who talked to us more about refining our questions for the experiment. Today we finished most of the questionnaire that we are going to ask the other interns. Moreover, we sent all the interns the informed consent to make sure they can be part of our experiment. Later on the day, we went to lunch at 11 o'clock to attend the talk. The pizza was fantastic ( I really need to figure out where they buy it!). We then attended the talk with Professor Pelz who is my professor. His power point was very familiar to what we actually had in boot camp and thus I knew most of the stuff. By the way, when he asked me how many neurons in the brain and I said 250,000, I actually thought he was asking how many cones are in the eyes. The right answer is 150,000 so 250,000 is pretty close! Thus, I am not completely stupid. Anyways, after the talk, we went up to the lab again where my co-interns and I worked on our online questionnaire and the virtual program. We went with bobby for a couple of minutes to pick out the pictures that we would have in our gallery and then used them to upload thumbnails on the virtual gallery. It was a very productive day today!

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

July 12th

Today was a pretty interesting day. We started off the day with a question that we had about computer programming. We learned more about binary language that computers use ( they only use 0s and 1s and operate in 8 bit piece data). After talking to Mr. Pelz, we went with Susan to view the gallery. Alice, Nate and I started thinking about the wording of the questions that we would ask the other interns. We tried to think about confounding variables and word bias. We then went to lunch where I ate my beautiful buttery bagel. After lunch, my group and I went to the lab where we met with Elena and talked about abstract art. We talked about a french artist and viewed some of his images to try to analyze his art. It was pretty interesting to see everyone's interpretations of the abstract art. for example, Alice saw a proposal, while I saw a guy and a girl dancing together and a devil starting down at them. Clearly, we understand the purpose of the abstract art. After that, Bobby (a grad student brought down a program for us that we will be using for the virtual part of our experiment. Then, Nate took charge of the computer and we started the slideshow of the virtual gallery that we will be presenting to the other interns.
Overall, it was a very rewarding day!

Monday, July 11, 2016

July 11th

Today was an overall nice transition back from the internship. We started off with out morning meeting where all of the interns talked little about what they will be doing. It was very productive as we all gained insight into the kinds of thing that we will be learning about. We then went to professor Pelz who gave us a quick recap about what we did in Boot Camp and talked more about computer programming ( language of computer) that uses 0 and 1s. It was fun to learn a little bit about that. After that, we met Susan and Elena who showed us the gallery that we will be using to see the eye movements in the real life. We then went to the media design lab to see more of the virtual world lab and really try out the  mobile eye tracker that we will be working with. The interns and I discovered a new place downstairs to sit for a change of scenery for lunch. It was great talking to everyone some more. After lunch, I was in a lot of pain ( my stomach really hurt so it was hard for me to concentrate for the most part) but Alice and Nick tried out the eye tracker again and got more familiar with the system. We concluded the day with a talk about color perception using the eye trackers given by a student of Professor Elena. It dealt with salience and which colors were more attractable to the eye. It was an amazing talk that ended the day just right!.

Friday, July 8, 2016

July 8th

Today was a more laid back day. I arrived at around 8:30 and waited a couple minutes till the morning meeting at 8:45. During the meeting, we discussed a little about the abstract and our eventual/ ultimate question. After the meeting, I went to the MVRL lab where we talked about the articles that we picked out last time. I learned so much about jealousy and its correlations with the brain. for example, the experiment determined that there was a lot of left frontal cortex activity associated with feelings of jealousy and that the left frontal cortex is associated with approach. Thus, it does make sense that the two are correlated. My co intern picked an article about decision making and its correlation with eye movements. That article was also extremely interesting and original. Their experiment involved two people each having a single penny. If they get the same faced pennies, then one of them wins and if different pennies then the other wins (they decide this beforehand). The experiment studied the eye movements between the two partners and how these movements eventually correlated with who won. My other co intern did research on machine vision and an algorithm that was used to determine the percentage and distribution of pizza toppings on a pizza which in addition to being extremely entertaining, was full of knowledge. We then headed out to lunch and had our first picnic together. Although it was raining, we used the tent to grill cheese burgers and complemented the meal with chips. After it stopped raining, the interns and I played volleyball for approximately 20 minutes before we had to head back inside. We aren't exactly a varsity team but we had a lot of fun together!. I headed back up to the lab where we were assigned the task of seeing if we can find another article that cited our previously chosen article to see if any further research as been done on that topic. Although i didn't have much luck finding that, I did find another article that was extremely interesting about using fMRI to diagnose the severity of a coma. I can't wait to read that article!

Thursday, July 7, 2016

July 7th

Today was yet another interesting day at RIT. We had a tour of the vitual perception lab and met another one of our advisers who talked to us a little about virtual reality and its application to human life. We further discussed out interests and how that is applicable to eye movements and coordination. After that, we met up with our professor to learn more in "boot camp". Today, we reviewed all the information from yesterday and learned more about the making of eye trackers. We then  talked a little about our ultimate goal for the project which in very broad terms is simply "How does vision impact action?". we then learned that we are working on a new and efficient eye tracking device and we looked at the tracking of corneal reflection and pupil reflection and the relative movements of each. Then, we were to find an article about an experiment that deals with eye movement that interests us. I picked an article about the correlation between eye movements and jealousy. We did this using google scholar which is an amazing website that i wish I knew about sooner!. By tomorrow, we need to read the intro, abstract and conclusion and discuss it broadly.
I am extremely interested in my article and excited about the eye tracking device! 

July 6th

Today, we started off with simple introductions and got to know all of the interns. Then, we had a tour of the Carlson building and learned all about Carlson who basically founded Xerox. After that, we went down to the barn to do team bonding exercises. We were assigned many different challenges to work together on to find solutions. For example, the most difficult challenge we were assigned in my opinion was the challenge in which we had to purify the container full of toxic waste ( water jar full of water) by getting past the force field using only a rope. We had to communicate together efficiently to purify the container without any individual going past the force field. Although we failed miserable, we still had lots of fun and learned so many different lessons that will help us in our work. After the bonding exercises, we went for lunch and had burritos. They were amazing!. After that, we went out Visual perception professor and he taught us many things. We learned about the anatomy of the eye like the cornea and the ancillary muscles surrounding them. We also learned about the retina which is a film like structure that "keeps" the image. In addition to this, the optic nerve serves as the transmitter from the eye to the brain. We then learned about the different eye movements and focused specifically on saccades which are shifts back and force. Moreover, we learned about smooth pursuit where the eye travels along a smooth line. Then, we learned about the history of the eye tracking devices. 
It was a great first day!