Week 7 proved to be a formidable opponent; however, the team was able to successfully traverse through the week (with a little assistance from American Independence). Let’s get caught up to speed/
Monday June 2
A day of diligence, for I spent most of it working on the incorporation and construction of my camera application. I also observed the work of Ray and Arash for some tips on troubleshooting. Arash’s application is coming together swimmingly, and the voice recording is taking a solid form. We still have difficulties with the delete method, but I believe that these errors will soon be eliminated. Ray has made tremendous gains with her part of the application as well. The note taking looks great and is easy to use. This week I want to get the poster draft finished so that we have the weekend to fix any issues and get it printed out. I must say I am excited to get it printed and then present. James has offered help and we all plan to meet to work together on it Thursday morning before our weekly workshop. I also spent a little bit of time on the lightning talk. I want to ensure that I mention the aims of the project so that my audience has a handle of what we are attempting to accomplish. 3 minutes seems like a daunting number, but I think I can quash my trepidations of public speaking and give a captivating presentation.
Tuesday June 3
As I look forward to my day off tomorrow, I cannot help but feel a bit giddy. Despite my excitement for a holiday, I continued to chug along and work on all items across the spectrum, from the ShareLatex document, to the my lighting talk, from camera application to the poster layout and templates. I met with Ray and Arash and we had a rather serious discussion about our plans after the projects conclusion. Ray and I both wanted to complete the application no matter how long it took. We got a bit disheartened that we probably would not have a finished product by the end of the summer, but I told her we need not fear. We have accumulated many skills, connections, and learned valuable lessons during our time at this REU. I learned that research may be a career path to seriously consider and I am happy to have created the connections that I have made. Dr. Clawson is a great mentor and will definitely assist us down the road. Arash is a great friend and colleague and can answer inquiries we may have about the PhD process and the selection of Graduate Schools. I cannot help but feel blessed to have been selected as a constituent of this program. These experiences I will not forget and I will take them with me in all career endeavors.
Wednesday July 4
Happy 4th of July!!!
Thursday July 5
As I assimilated back into the work schedule after an odd day off in the middle of the week, I found that these last two days of the week are going to be quite busy. Today I taught myself some image manipulation using the open source GIMP software in case we need to manipulate images or add filters for our application. It was a bit difficult and there was numerous trial and error, but I felt like I was beginning to get the hang of it. Then, I met with James, Arash, and Ray. He checked in with all of us and was content with our progress. I asked if he would brainstorm poster ideas with us and asked what he explicitly wanted on our poster, but he left that at our discretion and said he would look over the finished product. I liked that he gave us the room for creativity. We discussed some storage options and Arash informed us that we are still waiting for a response on whether or not we are able to get ten terabytes of storage for our application. James anticipates that we should have no difficulties. Our workshop today was also very informative. Dr. Crandell informed us about imposter syndrome, the psychological disorder that makes people believe their accomplishments are less valuable than they actually are. He showed us his impressive resume and said at times that not even he feels accomplished. It was very inspiring. I also learned a plethora about conferences and to not be shy when asking people about their projects. I cannot wait for Friday!
Friday June 6
Finally, the end of the week has arrived. Today we gave our lightning talks which I was pretty nervous about. I spent a large part of my day rehearsing and combing over the powerpoint slides. Watching everyone else present intensified my trepidation, for I had to give my talk last. When it was my turn to present, I faced my fears and went up to the podium, and thought I did relatively well. After the end of the lightning talks, I went and met with James, Arash, and Ray about establishing future goals for the remainder of the REU and discussing working on the project from remote locations. He said he would in form us of the procedure next week, so I have that to look forward to. I gave a presentation for the rough draft of the poster for my group and they seemed to like it. James recommend I blend some of the categories together and use a single slide for the poster instead of multiple slides. I will be sure to include this my final draft for July 11th. Attached are some UI designs; we hope to iterate upon them in the coming weeks. I created the last one, Ray created the first two.
