More asd

The second part of the data collect did not happen today (not really surprised) due to a slight landing gear difficulty the team coming down from Canada to take our pictures had. For some reason when they had their camera on then turned on the landing gear, they lost power in the plane. Luckily the problem should be fixed now and no one was hurt. Despite this delay though still more people wanted asd data, so out Nina and I went AGAIN, and spent another hour and a half taking measurements of tarps and the backgrounds they were on. Now all I want to do is sit. But the freeze pops afterwards did help and I know how to work the asd machine now. What was learned today? AFTER WHITE REFERENCING MAKE SURE TO MOVE THE BLOCK!

So very very tired

Even though the entire collect didn't happen as planned, WASP still flew today for the experiments that needed it. After an 8am meeting with all the research groups I helped Nina and Rolando haul everything out to H Lot and we began setting up tarps. A few of the other non-RS interns came to help, which was good. After setting up and sitting in the lot as the plane made its runs it was time for the asd measurements to be taken. Starting around 1pm it took us till around 2:30 to get the data we needed, and we still haven't gotten it all. When all the other interns left I stayed and continued helping Nina for at least another hour if not more. The second half of the collect is probably going to be done tomorrow. And of the 10+ targets we collected data for we may need to do any number of them again, and then more. I am so tired right now!

Rain, and lots of it

Just like Wednesday it started POURING today. It wouldn't have been that bad though, had Nina not given Sean and I the task of trying to calibrate a few of her GPSs. We couldn't find signal anywhere so she told us go go outside to Sean's car and try it there. So we run out, first going under the building people use to wait for buses, but there was a puddle of water at least two inches deep covering the entire floor. Finally we bolt across the parking lot, a tiny umbrella the only thing to keep us both even semi dry, get into his car, and set the GPSs by the window so it can hopefully get some sort of signal. "To few satellites found." We ran all that way and got completely drenched for nothing! My shoes still arnt dry. After that little adventure we set more stuff up for the collect. I copied about 300 pages worth of maps and charts for the different research teams and then helped Sean attach pens to clipboards. What was learned today? TGIF!

Setting up

As anticipated, the collect didn't happen today. Now the people on the RS team are saying Sunday, but even that probably wont work due to weather so tentatively the date has been rescheduled to Monday. During the afternoon today I went out and helped Nina tape markers and get some target locations planned out in H Lot. We also got to go on the second layer of the roof! The ladder is very steep and you kind of have to vault yourself over the wall, but we got there none the less. What was learned today? EVERYTHING CAN CHANGE!

Beginning to speed up

At the beginning of the day today Bob gave all of us a challenge; a word we had to unscramble. Turns out that the word was intrapreneurship. Intrapreneurship is defined as entrepreneurship within large companies, and can be applied to any big organization that is forward thinking and comes up with new, profitable ideas. Like RIT.

Other than that today was another day spent prepping for the data collection fly-by which has now been tentatively set for Thursday. This, however =, might change because we are the backup plan for a team in another location. If the weather is nice they are going to do their collect before ours. I made some Excel spreadsheets for Nina listing all the targets that require asd data, this way it will be easier to keep track of which ones we have done. Earlier in the morning we also went onto the roof to check some things out. Not only was the view awesome but we worked out a basic communication system using two different-colored tarps that we will hang off the side of the building. Along with all of this the RS interns and I are going to see a thesis defense tomorrow morning, after that we have another field-trip in the afternoon (this time to the University of Rochester), and the day will finish with some volleyball outside the building. So much is happening in such a small amount of time!

Coming up....

This thursday might possibly be the fly-by for the Remote Sensing department, when as few planes will fly over the RIT campus and take aerial photos of the locations we will provide them with. Apparently this whole process should have been done a month ago, but even with the limited time till the deadline the research staff still seem to be getting everything sufficiently organized. The RS interns' job will be to do the grunt work; moving targets around and such. What was learned today? PLAN IN ADVANCE!

Planning

Today was a day of meetings. First off I met with Dr. K's daughter and talked to her a little about getting into a computer-based career, in which I think she has a strong interest. The second was a little closer to lunch and consisted of Mike and myself going through more of his process of taking images from Envi to Blender, I believe we have almost covered everything now and I just have to apply the bug fixes he told me about. Before lunch I also went with Sean and Kevin to see a master's thesis defense on the identification of vegetation and plant life. Lastly, at the very end of the day, we met with a group of Remote Sensing researchers and listened as they planned a fly-by that is going to occur next week using the wasp planes. It will be the job of us three interns as well as others to set things us for them. Part of it will be done on the RIT campus and will involve moving tee-shirts around the H parking lot, should be fun.