Words cannot describe how stressful today was. I would not lie; I didn’t expect the program to get too intense in just a span of two days. But amidst all the stress of today, we still had some fun activities; we learned some soldering, Lilypad Arduino, and ShareLaTeX basics and went over some foundational information about IRBs and ethics. I personally had a very fun experience learning how to solder using copper wire tape and LEDs, attached is a picture of the experience;

Along with our paper circuit activity, we got introduced to Arduino. It is an interesting programming device that allows you to simply program it to do various tasks for you.

After the Arduino stint, our next presenter, Tom, went over the proper protocols for the handling of data storage using iu.box. He went into great detail on how to navigate the interface, and assign roles to people collaborating on the project, and ways to ensure that data will remain secure when people leave the university.

Observational Study – Mother Bears Pizza;

I entered the Mother Bear Pizza store around 9:10 PM to buy some wings. The first person I encountered was the entrance attendance, who greeted me and inquired what I wanted for the night. She wore a blue shirt with an apron and held a menu in her right hand ready to give it to me to go through and find which selection would best suit my needs. After 5 minutes, I placed my order and went to sit on a bench, where I began using my phone, waiting for my food to be prepared.

Unfortunately, I rarely saw people from my location since I was their last customer, and they were preparing to close. The chefs behind the counter seemed to prepare their last meal for the night and my order, and some also seemed packing their stuff to go home.

Research Articles:

We were given the task of reading and summarizing two articles;

(a) Defining Through Expansion: Conducting Asynchronous Remote Communities (ARC) Research with Stigmatized Groups J. Maestre, H. Macleod, C. Connelly et al.

This research primarily targeted people living with HIV, where HIV was referred to as PLH. Asynchronous Remote Communities, ARC, was used as the research method to attempt to learn more about their daily experiences by creating a safe space by an online format, Facebook. This HCI research originally conducted their study through a face to face, FtF format. This method was not very reliable because many felt uncomfortable in FtF settings. This was why ARC was used in this version. It was stated that participants recruited online were more willing to open up about their experiences concerning their HIV status than participants in FtF settings. Researchers used their authentic Facebook profiles to recruit participants for this study. Researchers opted for support groups with more than 1k members. Participants were given a $50 incentive to participate, regardless of their activity level. A total of 19 people were recruited(11 men, 7 women, 1 queer) with different sexual orientations (8 heterosexual, 8 homosexual, 3 bisexual). On average participants generated a total of 82 comments in the private group that was created for them. The private group was named Chicken Soup group. On average, a total of 17 activities were completed by all participants. ARC was a successful method chosen to study PLH. It allowed continuous recruitment and data collection.

(b) Asynchronous remote communities (arc) for researching distributed populations By: H. Macleod, B. Jelen, A. Prabhakar et al.

Asynchronous Remote Communities, ARC, was the method that was used to conduct this research. The duration of this research was 22 weeks. A total of 53 consent documents were distributed and 14 were returned.  The 22-week long research consisted of eleven female participants ranging from the age 32 to 68, who have a rare disease. The study was group-based and online, using Facebook as the only platform for interaction. The use of an online platform resulted in a lack of participation as time progressed. The researchers went in depth in analyzing their methods and their results and trying to find better approaches to optimize participation.  A secret Facebook group was used as a social media platform in which participants took multiple surveys online with no need for the participant to travel to the research. This research was fundamental for researchers to critique their own methods and not use their participants as scapegoats.