AmyGreen - 30 July 2009 - 1:01

Tomorrow is the day we have been preparing for all summer.

HamadiMcIntosh - 30 Jul 2009 - 13:30

Nice blog.

AmyGreen - 28 July 2009 - 2:57

One of the things that I really enjoyed about my research this summer was that we were able to conduct a participant study. I thought it was so cool to have people come in and test all the research we had been working on for weeks. It was the busiest and most stressful week, but at the same time it was so beneficial and I learned so much. It was exciting to see what worked, and well to be honest it sucked to see things fail, but all of that information was important to our research.

Overall, this experience has helped me grow as a designer and pushed me to learn lots of new things that I would never even have known about (even though it was difficult at times.) I look back at the beginning when I first arrived and how I didn't know anything about the research I was going to do or anything about programming or HCI really, to now when I have learned how to program, learned how to work and program multi-touch interfaces, worked with a robot, did a participant study, made a poster, and wrote a research paper all in 10 weeks. At the beginning before I came if you would have told me that I was going to do that this summer I probably would have laughed. haha It is crazy to look back and see all that my research team and I were able to accomplish.

I also really really enjoyed making the poster and T-shirt designs.

AmyGreen - 27 July 2009 - 1:07

Fridays poster presentation went really well. The way it was set up was different than I was expecting and a little awkward if you were trying to talk about the poster and people were trying pass by, but other than that it was a good experience. One issue I had though was that my poster had a gray square around the entire picture of the robot and it changed the color of the title. It was weird because P.J. and I had our posters printed from the same file and P.J.'s did not have the gray box. So this morning I went back to the printing place to show them and they were confused too, but they said they can reprint it.

It is strange to think that we only have 5 days left. It will be weird not having to babysit Ivan anymore...I hope he can manage without me and P.J. hehe

AmyGreen - 22 July 2009 - 9:33

Okay, sorry I haven't blogged in a really long time...I think things might settle down for a little bit.

Well I will give an update on what we have been doing. So we have done about 23 participant studies in 5 days. The first full day was really rough because we had 5 people signed up for that day and each person had some technical problem during their study. In the end only 1 person was able to finish the entire study(even though MIA froze 5 times). It was frustrating and nothing seemed to be working but we learned a lot from that. The next day was much better because we learned how work with her quirks and battery timing. I think Saturday and Sunday I worked a total of 20 hours with participant studies and the poster. Yesterday we finished our last study! Now we are analyzing the results...The results should have an interesting outcome because the joystick was up and down in numbers and the multi-touch was pretty consistent. It was really fun to run the experiment and I learned so much about working with people and MIA. I was also able to save MIA many times from her death when participants would try to run her up the trees and into brick walls

AmyGreen - 9 July 2009 - 4:42

I don't really know what to blog about. Except maybe that our robots signal was supposed to be able to go through ten brick walls (we were having trouble getting through one) and we called this guy and he said that with the radio we have it maybe can get through one or two trees. hah, REALLY?!?!?! O man...all you can really do is laugh.

or maybe cry a little jk

UgonnaOhiri - 21 Jul 2009 - 00:10

BLOG ALERT!

BellaManoim - 10 Jul 2009 - 15:29

that was a good journal club discussion topic

UgonnaOhiri - 10 Jul 2009 - 15:04

Amy I feel so bad that I missed you guys Ted Talk...

IvanOjeda - 09 Jul 2009 - 17:04

Good work on the Blog >.>

AmyGreen - 7 July 2009 - 4:04

So today we were going to test MIA outside. PJ was going to be our test subject because Ivan and I already knew where the lost items were. It took us a long time to set up because we had to take the equipment to a hallway next to our location but we needed it close to an open door where the connection was good. PJ wasn't allowed to see the area where she was going to run MIA. After we got it set up and all the problems fixed, MIA's battery died. We were going to try and test it now but it is raining and wet. So tomorrow hopefully we will be able to run MIA and see how much time it will take to look for the items. Next week we will be testing our participants and so we have a lot we need to finish up this week. It has felt like we have been working with a lot things all at once but not really able to finish any one thing so now it is really nice to be completing things and feeling like we are getting somewhere for a change.

BellaManoim - 09 Jul 2009 - 15:24

please look at the email Pam sent and sign up for our study

BellaManoim - 09 Jul 2009 - 14:48

update blog

MinaChoi - 08 Jul 2009 - 23:47

wow... seems like a lot of frustrating work! hopefully it ran today! I like your t-shirt designs!!

IvanOjeda - 08 Jul 2009 - 16:38

My head hurts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

AmyGreen - 2 July 2009 - 2:07

Today I took measurements of the area that we will be working with and then I made a map of that area so that we will be able to know exactly where everything is and the distances between things.

I am so happy that the weekend is coming early. I am going to be home till Sunday!

HamadiMcIntosh - 07 Jul 2009 - 13:22

Thank you for adding my contribution to some of your t-shirt designs. Your designs are great. Is it okay to have favorites? I like tshirt_paint the best.

JoshuaSituka - 06 Jul 2009 - 22:52

Whatever you say, I am not a sore loser. Because, i don't lose.

JoshuaSituka - 04 Jul 2009 - 17:02

Please make the HCI t-shirt!!!!!!

UgonnaOhiri - 03 Jul 2009 - 00:19

Have Fun with the family Amy!!!

AmyGreen - 1 July 2009 - 1:39

So I thought there was going to be journal club tomorrow so I was preparing for it when I realized that we actually don't have journal club at all this week. That was a pleasant surprise. Also I am really enjoying that this other lab is warm enough not to have to wear winter gear, the only down fall is that I don't see everyone's beautiful faces as much anymore.

I was able to find more literature that will be helpful for our research paper which was exciting. I have read a lot of papers that have no relationship to our project so when I find something that helps support our research I like to celebrate a little. Our research team also was able to see the outside land area that we will be doing our experiment with MIA. I am excited that we will be able to work outside in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully the weather will be nice to us.

HamadiMcIntosh - 02 Jul 2009 - 13:00

Yes. I suppose I could.

BellaManoim - 01 Jul 2009 - 13:55

that's great as long as the days don't get too hot

AmyGreen - 30 June 2009 - 1:26

My research team and I are currently in the other lab working on connecting the multi-touch interface with MIA. I think that this is going to be the hardest part. Also we have a few things we need to finish with the multi-touch like finishing the wheel control and the camera connections. We have a quite a bit of stuff that we still need to finish before we have the participant experiment.

JoshuaSituka - 01 Jul 2009 - 12:46

I'm confident in your team. As long as you have the whip and chain, I think they'll be on point. btw, there's over 500 Amy Greens on facebook. do you have an original middle name?

AmyGreen - 18 June 2009 - 12:48

Today my research team and I are working on making the the GUIs for our multi-touch interface. Then in about an hour we are going to play with MIA and figure out how she runs. When she first arrived she wasn't working at all but now hopefully she is running smoothly.

I was also trying to research different articles on an effective # of participants dealing with performance research but I wasn't sure what or where to look. All the articles I found were not really applicable. Maybe I don't exactly know what I am supposed to be looking for but if you have any research information ideas let me know.

TaylorBergquist - 30 Jun 2009 - 00:01

This isn't really realistic in this situation, but Alex's lab has a sort of informal rule that nothing should be published with fewer than 1000 trials' worth of data to back it up. Good luck finding a thousand participants though, lol

BellaManoim - 24 Jun 2009 - 13:16

hmmm I don't know if it's going to be easy trying to find the right 'number' somewhere in research, I would just go with what you think will be most do-able (maybe have a sign up calendar/schedule and see how many people will sign up for 2 meets) and if you can schedule more people, all the better.

HamadiMcIntosh - 24 Jun 2009 - 13:11

You have a robot!

AmyGreen - 18 June 2009 - 1:01

MIA is here!!!!!!!!!!!

AmyGreen - 23 Jun 2009 - 13:13

MIA is the name of the robot.

ConnorSchenck - 23 Jun 2009 - 12:58

What is MIA?

BellaManoim - 22 Jun 2009 - 13:05

yay!

AmyGreen - 18 June 2009 - 3:02

Today I was working on designing the multi-touch interface in InDesign and I am almost finished with how it looks and theoretically how it should work. The hard part will be implementing that on the touch application. The robot is still not here which is delaying some of our work and hurting some of the design because we don't know exactly how it will work and run. Perhaps tomorrow will be better news.

Tambien Ivan me quiere escribir en espanol asi aqui...Que pasa calavasa! Nada nada limonanda.

AmyGreen - 22 Jun 2009 - 13:10

That was a good translation Mike. The second part is slang so the literal translation really doesn't work out.

It translates something like this... "Also, Ivan told me to write in Spanish so here...(question)What's up!(answer) The sky (or something sarcastic to that effect)." It literally translates Whats up pumpkin...nothing nothing lemonade. I used it because it rhymes and it fun to say.

MichaelOren - 19 Jun 2009 - 15:08

My Spanish is extremely rusty, but here's what I comprehend from that:

"Thanks to Ivan, I am writing in Spanish here. What's up [unknown]! No, no lemonade."

I probably left some words off there and probably messed up parts of it, but I'm curious how I did... I took 2 years of Spanish in high school (freshman and sophomore year--so I finished it 8 or 9 years ago); I managed to retain enough to test out of a foreign language as an undergraduate though, but I don't know how much I still have retained. When I was younger I used to have a near photographic memory but I can't say I have that anymore...

You should post some pictures of your design

BellaManoim - 19 Jun 2009 - 13:19

hola Amy! que es calavasa?

IvanOjeda - 19 Jun 2009 - 00:31

Muy bien. Sigue practicando

UgonnaOhiri - 18 Jun 2009 - 17:00

maybe i shouldn't have played spades my whole spanish education career...i could have understood your last sentence lol

PJ Campbell - 18 Jun 2009 - 15:38

MIA is not coming...

AmyGreen - 16 June 2009 - 4:14

Our research group is starting to design the multi-touch interface this week. Also the company said they shipped the robot from Ohio on Friday. Which is good news but the "funny" thing is we think they were stalling because they want to market our version of the robot. Today when we were looking online for a similar robot we found they just put up images of our exact robot trying to market its capabilities and setup. So their stalling was maybe more than just bugs. We will just be happy to get the robot hopefully this week or so.

PJ Campbell - 18 Jun 2009 - 11:15

Estoy de acuerdo con Ivan!

IvanOjeda - 17 Jun 2009 - 00:34

Hola Amy. Como estas? Creo que debes hacer tus Blogs en espa~ol.

AmyGreen - 12 June 2009 - 3:13

Well the robot is still MIA...I think that should be the robots name...perhaps it will come on Monday. I will keep all you devoted blog readers posted on its whereabouts. Also thank you for keeping me honest with writing my blogs...there are no excuses.

So today we made a sketch of what our group is doing for our open GL project and I am really excited about it because I get to also use InDesign . This weekend I have a lot to accomplish but I feel much more organized and informed about what I need to be working on.

BellaManoim - 16 Jun 2009 - 14:43

I'm looking forward to the robots arrival

JoshuaSituka - 15 Jun 2009 - 17:17

Im a devoted AmyGreen blog reader. Having to go cold turkey for a couple days worried me a little bit, but glad to see your back writing. If there was an AmyGreen subscription I'll have the lifetime membership to the magazine. And I would have the cool toy sized action models of Amy kicking a soccer ball, and Amy rollerskating. Of course, I would get the special edition of the lifetime subsrciption coming with an exclusive AmyGreen bobblehead. : )

AmyGreen

Today in our Open GL class we learned how to make points and draw lines and circles. It was really good to see the demos and how you can use Open GL before we started learning the program.

This week I have a lot to accomplish and little time to do it all. It just seems that the list of things to do gets longer as the timeline gets smaller. Such is life.

Also, I think our robot is supposed to come Thursday so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

HamadiMcIntosh - 12 Jun 2009 - 13:18

Today's Thursday.

JoshuaSituka - 12 Jun 2009 - 13:08

Amy! Ugonna is correct you slacking on the blogs. we want to hear your thoughts and feelings...even if they are NEGATIVE. lol

BellaManoim - 12 Jun 2009 - 12:50

did the robot come yet?

PJ Campbell - 11 Jun 2009 - 22:15

Ugonna is always critiquing someone about their blogging activities...

UgonnaOhiri - 11 Jun 2009 - 15:14

I think you are due for a blog sometime soon...lol

BellaManoim - 10 Jun 2009 - 16:36

that's exciting your robot is coming soon.

MinaChoi - 10 Jun 2009 - 15:54

actually, we're in the same boat.. the EEG amplifier won't get hooked up till Friday. We won't be able to see it till next week. =(

MinaChoi - 10 Jun 2009 - 15:50

lol your robot hasn't come in yet?

AmyGreen - 5 June 2009 - 01:06

Today is Friday!!!!!!!!!!! My brain is dead.

MinaChoi - 07 Jun 2009 - 03:00

lol... greatest blog.

BellaManoim - 05 Jun 2009 - 16:33

thanks for joining me in the Zoo request. I felt alone there : )

MichaelOren - 05 Jun 2009 - 13:34

And that's why there's no HCI course today

AmyGreen - 4 June 2009 -

Out research group met today and it was really helpful to talk about the things that we will be working on in the next couple of weeks. I have a feeling that it is going to get really busy trying to write programs, learn about the robot, and design the interface in the two weeks. I am excited though.

Well we are supposed to be in a staff meeting right now and I m not sure what that is, but no one has said anything about it. Also tomorrow is our last C++ programming class...I will say no more.

ZayiraJordan - 05 Jun 2009 - 09:18

The staff meeting is for administrators of the program so don't worry about it. : )

IvanOjeda - 05 Jun 2009 - 01:38

Tomorrow is our last C++ class. Programming I don't think we'll stop learning new stuff in this summer so get prepared.

AmyGreen - 3 June 2009 -

Today in our C++ programming class we learned a lot about arrays. I don't know if I fully grasp it, but I was able to understand the basics. It is a lot of information crammed into a little bit of time. I found that I am able to understand things faster, and that is exciting but I still have a long way to go. Ivan and PJ have been so helpful and patient with me when it comes to programming. I have really enjoyed having them in my group. Also, I am looking forward to actually getting our robot and starting the research.

AmyGreen - 2 June 2009 -

Bad Designs/ Bad interfaces

The user would like to open the doors whether it is one at a time or both at the same time.

If both doors need to be open then a user must open one door and prop it then go on the other side and open the other door and prop it open. Also it swings different directions which gets in the way of trying to get objects and people through the door.

It is a better design to have both the doors pushed open on the same side and pull handles on the other. If they desired that only one door could open at a time they can lock the one side until needed.

It is not very “effective” to have the doors swing different ways and inconvenient to get around both of them to have them both open. It is safer to have the ability to open both doors in the same direction because you don’t have to worry about another person swinging the opposite door in a different direction as you are trying to enter. Also it easy to remember that both the doors go in the same direction rather than constantly trying to switch sides and remember which door is able to open with the other design.

The user would like to be able to highlight with all the colors.

The shape of this highlighter is odd and irritating to hold and it is at an awkward angle for highlighting items.

It would have been better to take the different colors and put them into squares blocks that can plug into one anther to make a more effective marker.

It is definitely more “efficient” and “effective” because with a block design because you can use it faster (it is familiar like a pen) and you can highlight more accurate compared to the original design. Also it keeps the “engaging” element of all the colors which you are able to assemble and change to whatever color order you choose making the over all design more pleasant and engaging.

BellaManoim - 03 Jun 2009 - 15:04

I've used these highlighters before too. I'm not a fan. especially if you have 2 caps off, and get ink all over your hand

HamadiMcIntosh - 03 Jun 2009 - 14:38

I've seen highlighters like this. It looks like a children's toy, but I don't know any children that need highlighters. Have these designers never seen a hand before?

AmyGreen - 1 June 2009 -

So today we had our PWSE orientation and our first programming class. Both went well.

In the PWSE orientation we were given a brief overview of the panels and activities going on. It was interesting to see all the people involved. There are about 32 people. I didn't know the class was going to be that big.

I also tried to study some of the terms and codes for programming over the weekend. It was really helpful to know the terms but even more helpful to actually practice making the codes. I have a lot more to learn but I feel more confident about learning it now.

UgonnaOhiri - 01 Jun 2009 - 16:41

GREAT!!! C+++++++++++++++++++++++++ is the way to go!!!

MinaChoi - 01 Jun 2009 - 13:14

Amy!! Do u want to watch UP in 3D by any chance?

The past couple days have been lots of information and orientation stuff.

We took a C++ pre-test today and it was a bit overwhelming but so far the experience has been good. It was also really exciting to finally get into our groups today and go over what we will be researching.

-- AmyGreen- 29 May 2009

MichaelCurtis - 29 May 2009 - 15:10

Yay pretest!

MichaelOren - 29 May 2009 - 13:37

Copy and paste the comment code into your blog entries so your peers can comment. Hope your enjoying yourself (also, I'd be interested to know more about your Bible studies co-major).