In the fish bowl

The most interesting thing that happened today was actually what we did during lunch. Bob brought all of the interns down to the fishbowl (a semi circular room with a huge projector screen or presentations) and we listened to Dr. Easton describe his work in document restoration. He has been to places all over the world and uses different spectrums of light to draw out the faded text in important historical documents. One that he has been working on for ten + years is the Archimedes Palimpsest; a book written by Archimedes about his theories which was written over again to become a Christian prayerbook. I was shocked anyone would destroy something so important. It was extremely interesting to me, I already love ancient history and if I did not want to be a software engineer I think I would enjoy the field of document restoration.

Wait for iiiiit...

THE COLLECT IS FINALLY DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nothing more need be said.

Almost there!

No collect today, again. Currently our team is on standby for sometime tomorrow and hopefully the collect will happen sometime this week. Right now all there is left to do is wait until the plane comes down from Canada and the weather decides to cooperate. We are keeping our fingers crossed!

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.

Progress

Today was a day for accomplishments. After talking with Mike some more both in his office and over AIM I finally got the Pontchartrain images to open in Envi. While that is only the first step of what I need to accomplish in the end, it is still a step forward which I could not begin without. Tomorrow I am going to meet with Mike again so we can get started as well as go see a thesis defense. I have never seen a defense before and am very interested in seeing one. I also fiddled with Blender some more, trying to figure out the application of textures. Sadly I forgot my headphones again so I couldn't hear any of the audio for the videos I watched. What was learned today? BRING HEADPHONES!

Fun Day

Today we took a small field-trip out to JML Optical to get an inside look at the inner workings of their production line. Overall I found the tour interesting, and it intrigued me how they could actually put coatings on the glass to make them clearer. Doesn't adding anything to an object make it less light-permiable? Besides that though we saw how each piece of glass is polished, how it is assembled, and such. I would hate to be one of the workers there who works on a lens for weeks and then finds there is a single particle of dust in it, then the entire process has to start all over until it can be corrected. All in all an interesting few hours. Lunch at the sub shop afterwards wasn't bad either. ^^ To finish off this fun day, at about 4pm all us interns went out and played volleyball in the grass just outside the building. It got pretty intense towards the end to. What was learned today? PAY ATTENTION TO DETAILS!

Tuesday

Nothing much new to report today; I stayed in the DIP Lab again and got some work done. I converted multiple folders of data for May using the IDL Workbench application so that they can be sent back to her, got some more images and data for my Lake Ponchartrain 3d modeling project, and had a brief but helpful meeting with Mike Gartley whose work I have to make a tutorial for. Everything is moving along at just the right pace for me to keep up and keep my sanity. On a funner note tomorrow we are having not only a field-trip but a volleyball tournament as well, I cant wait!

In the lab again

Yet another day spent in the DIP Lab, but good news; I found everyone! Sean and I hunted down May in her upstairs grad student office and she gave us some work converting/fixing images, and I ALSO got in touch with the man whose work Nina said I had to make a tutorial for! Despite the converting work being a slow, multi-hour babysitting process, at least we accomplished more today. I am so glad I finally got in touch with everyone (or at least most everyone) we had to meet. It might be corny but what was learned today? PERSEVERE!

Almost the weekend.... TGIF

Today was the first full day we spent on our own. There was no one hovering over our shoulders and we were each free to work on what needs to get done. I did a few Envi tutorials that involved more mapping and georefrancing, then went on to try and figure out more about my first 'milestone' (making a tutorial based on transferring map data from Envi to Blender) but quickly found I had no idea where to begin, and lastly went hunting on the internet for pictures of the causeway that could help my modeling. I also had time to look up a few Blender tutorials on youtube but they were not much good without headphones. Maybe I'll bring in my skullcandy ones on Monday. What was learned today? PEOPLE NEED TO CHECK THIER EMAIL MORE!

A very strange day

Today we got information as to what specific projects we are going to be working on this summer, and I am happy to report that I will be using Blender. My assignment is to make a Blender model of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, which is apparently one of the longest bridges in the world. Before I get started though I have to get all the measurements and my plan is to set up some sort of scale between miles on the bridge and the background squares on Blender. Another milestone Nina has set before me is making a tutorial based on someone else's work. While I don't fully understand the task yet I am trying my best to unravel its mystery. It wont be easy but I always did love a challenge. ^^ There was also another challenge this afternoon which came to my in the form of my computer going nuts. This is where things got strange.

After restarting the computer and trying to get an official desktop which would allow my files to follow me anywhere on campus, then making one manually when nothing happened, everything got weird; I couldn't delete anything without 'admin permission' which was then denied once an actual admin came to help me, then I could not open the notes i had saved as a simple word document because apparently the application 'did not exist', and finally the new folders I was trying to create turned into random files that even stumped the IT people for a while. Every time I right clicked to make a new untitled folder a different file came instead. This continued to the point where I had 47 unknown and unusable files on my desktop. The bizarre thing was that when they file names were called up by the Unix command prompt, they all showed with the name 'unknown folder' followed by a number (a normal occurrence when you have multiple files with the same name). Finally though my computer was cured and I could resume work. What was learned today? ALWAYS LET THE COMPUTER MAKE ITS OWN DESKTOP!

Dia Dos

Once we finished our tour of the Remote Sensing department, the rest today was spent in the computer lab trying to unravel the mystery that is Envi; it's coming along well though. But we weren't outside in the 90+ degree weather today! The computer lab on the second floor is actually quite comfy.

1st day at the internship

Waaaaaaah, really really loathing stupid Macs right now. After our scavenger hunt I could have done the Dvd in about 15mins had it not been for frickin iMovie crashing FOUR TIMES! Windows Moviemaker is by far better. Besides that though the day was very fun; some of the items on the scavenger hunt were interesting (fountain) and it was relaxing to walk around campus. I also got to finally meet Dr. Raqueno and am looking forward to working with her more. On to the rest of the summer ^^