I started the week with an early morning! Above is a picture of me creating a paper circuit. Our program was helping with the SoIC summer camp for high school students. We had two session where I had to assist a few students with creating paper circuits. It was pretty fun to do service, and introduce them to fundamental technology concepts as well.

On Tuesday, for our project, we recruited once more, and did follow-up calls. I was not that successful, but Max was able to make great contacts! One of the counselors mentioned a conference that was coming up sponsored by the National Alliance for Grieving Children. I also did a little coursework on Codeacademy for HTML and CSS. Then later in the day I  brainstormed a few ideas for prototypes for our project. Max and I brainstormed together as well–below are a combination of our ideas:

• Digital Keychain that displays pictures of loved one/quotes
• Digital bracelet that slightly warms when others send condolences/support
• Choose your own adventure: Grief Edition
• Social media for grievers

As far as  the paper we are working on goes, Anna says she would like to submit to CHI. We have created our reviewer response table. There were not many meetings this week. We only met to continue developing our codebook. I no longer am seeing new themes for coding, and Anna says that I am experiencing information saturation. I am excited for the interviews that we have lined up for next week. On Monday, we will do a pilot interview, teach Anna about Lucidchart, and go back and recode in Dedoose based on the changes we make this Thursday.

Networking strategies from our Wednesday workshop were wonderfu, and l I now have a professional presence online! I even have a draft of my website that you can check out here. So, I feel official now!

By the end of this week we are able to organize the codebook a little better. We began taking a look at Lucidchart which is a wire framing tool (Patrick suggested).

We ended the week with our bi-weekly ProHealth Tea where we did an activity with leggos. The purpose of the activity was to understand the differences of others that we may work with. I realized that networking is important because it can help me where I am weak, or with achieving a goal that I cannot do on my own. Some people are more fortunate than me, but I can’t let that upset or distract me. I have to be able to work with what I have to get to the next level. Networking will allow me to learn, or get assistance with certain things that I would otherwise struggle with alone.

On Friday, we ended the day with a tour of the Cyberinfrastructure building and Datacenter here at Indiana University and we got to see the supercomputers!! The tour was really cool, and very informative, I’m glad I participated.

Now it’s time to ramp up for the remaining half of my summer here in Indiana!

Giving you my personal perspective from the palm trees of SC to the corn fields of IN.

-Meagan Price