Thursday, July 30, 2009

According to the calendar, today is the last day for blogging, so even though I may blog tomorrow I'm going to go ahead and write this as my last blog.

I've been thinking back to the day that I found out that I had gotten accepted to this REU and how surprised I was that I got in. This was my first choice for an REU, but I really wasn't too confident that I would get in because I didn't think that I had the necessary computing background to participate in an HCI REU. Then after I got assigned to the project of Tracing the Decision Making Process in Augmented Reality, I remember wondering what type of work I would be doing on the project. People would ask me what I was doing for the summer and I would tell them that I was doing an REU and sometimes they would ask me what I would be researching and I would tell them that I really didn't know other that knowing the title of the project. I could not have imagined this time last year that I would help to create an augmented reality system to study the effects of interface domains on the decision making experience. This has been an amazing opportunity for me that has allowed me to learn something new and learn to do things that I didn't think I would be doing.

This REU has been a great experience that I have really enjoyed. It's been a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Now that we are at the end of writing thousands of lines of code to design an AR system with a decision matrix (including four selection algorithms before finding one that worked), finding sources for the lit review, finding fifty-one participants, running experiments, analyzing results, writing a paper, creating a poster, and preparing a demo, I really feel that I have accomplished a lot and I'm proud of the work that we've done. I want to thank Bella and Richard for being great teammates and always doing what they needed to for the project and then going above and beyond that. I also want to thank our mentors, Ross and Nir. Even though there were times when we would have something in the AR system working, they would say that it wasn't good enough; it was frustrating at the time, but they really pushed us to make the best AR system we could and without them our project could not have been the success that it was. I also appreciate the work of Stephen, Pam, Mike, and Zayira who organized the REU, they did a great job. Finally, I have really enjoyed getting to know all of the other interns here this summer, and wish all of you continued success in what ever you do after leaving here.

BellaManoim - 30 Jul 2009 - 14:35

great post! thank you for being a great teammate.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Today I've been working on revising the paper as well as analyzing the results from the C6 experiments yesterday. There isn't a lot to blog about. Everything seems to be winding down and there isn't a lot for my team to work on. We are basically finished pending the feedback that we get on the paper. Three days left. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl tonight at the game night.

JohnNewman - 29 Jul 2009 - 15:36

Yeah that was probably the worst experience especially because it was right after we thought we had the AR system working but it would be two days of working all day before we got it ready for participants.

BellaManoim - 29 Jul 2009 - 14:53

switching schedules and technology failing 5 mins before ppl arrived?

BellaManoim - 29 Jul 2009 - 14:53

yeah, probably weirdest. what was the worst experience?

ConnorSchenck - 29 Jul 2009 - 13:37

lucky, we still have to compose our paper

BellaManoim - 29 Jul 2009 - 13:36

yay!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Today I've been working on making the Decision Matrix program more user friendly and have been continuing to write documentation for it so that it can be used by Ross and Nir for future experiments. I did a lot of revision on the paper yesterday and am awaiting feedback from Nir and Ross on that. Otherwise, I think that I should blog about some of the best and worst experiences of the summer. I really thought that most of the courses during the summer have been useful although I did not really like the statistics course. I also liked how there were a lot of courses at the beginning but fewer and fewer throughout the summer. I thought that that gave us a chance to learn some new things early on while allowing us time to work on the project during the later part of the summer. I'll write more on the best and worst of the summer later in the week.

Monday, July 27, 2009

I had a good weekend celebrating my birthday and now I'm ready to finish out the summer. There isn't a whole lot left for my group to do, we have a few more results to analyze and the paper needs to be revised some more which is what I've been working on. We will certainly be easily able to finish in time for Friday's symposium.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Today I've mostly been working on revising the paper. Ross offered many suggestions for how to improve the paper and I am implementing those improvements as well as making a few other changes to it. Beyond that there is not much for me to work on. Although I found out that next week Ross will be running ten participants through the VR domain. That will likely be too late to analyze those results and revise the paper for July 31st, but we will be making changes later to submit the paper to a conference that has a submission deadline of September. So, it looks like there will be a little left to do on the project after we leave, but it will probably allow our paper to be published.

UgonnaOhiri - 26 Jul 2009 - 10:09

Make sure you blog about your interesting experience at Cazador on Saturday...lol

MinaChoi - 25 Jul 2009 - 22:26

Happy Birthday!!

TaylorBergquist - 24 Jul 2009 - 16:01

You're going to submit your paper? Good luck! If it gets in, Iowa State would probably pay for your team to fly to the conference.

Also, happy birthday.

JohnNewman - 24 Jul 2009 - 15:58

Thank you

HamadiMcIntosh - 24 Jul 2009 - 13:45

Happy Birthday!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Today we've had several participants come to participate in our experiment however there are some who aren't showing up, but that's what I expected when we started asking people in front of the library to participate and I am pleased with how many have actually shown up out of those we asked on Monday. I've been working on analyzing the results and writing the results paragraphs, but I realize that I will have to change some of this as we get more results today, which is our last day of experiments. We ended up with about 15 people in each domain except for Virtual Reality where we only had one. I think that Ross and Nir may do more with the virtual reality domain after the REU is over, but for our purposes we only have results in three domains.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

We were able to find more participants yesterday and most of them have shown up or at least contacted us to reschedule which is great. At this rate we definitely should have enough participants to get meaningful results in three of the domains. The virtual reality domain has not been easy to run experiments in as there have been problems with reserving the C6, but I guess limitation of virtual reality resources is why augmented reality is the focus of our project, because it easier to be able to use because it is more readily available. Otherwise, I've just started looking at our survey results to see what we've learned from the experiment.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Things seem to be winding down now, we have finished writing code and have gotten about 30 people though the experiment. We are finishing up the poster and still have to understand our results and finish the paper, but it does seem like I can relax more now even though there are definitely still plenty of things to finish. With only two weeks left though I guess this is where we should be as far as the project goes.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Today we've continued doing our experiments and I have been working on cleaning up and documenting the code for my decision matrix program because Nir says that they might use it for future experiments, so I'm writing a manual for it and cleaning up the code and commenting it better. It's a little boring but not having to write code for the AR is a good change of pace and I'm glad it's Friday and that I'll be able to have a fairly relaxing weekend.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Today we finally began experiments in augmented reality. It's been nice today that the coding for AR is finished and we just have to do the experiments. Yesterday, I was here from 8 am to a little after midnight running experiments and helping Ross and Richard finish up the AR code. And, we eventually got a pretty stable system; so, not having to worry about coding so much today has been good after all the work I did yesterday.

ConnorSchenck - 16 Jul 2009 - 13:33

wow you guys have really been going at it hard. It's good that you're getting a chance to relax a bit

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Yesterday we did four trials of the experiment, two in 2-D and two in paper and pencil. We thought that today we could begin running AR trials but Richard and I met with Ross and Nir this morning and everything started to go wrong. First, the head mounted device that worked yesterday wouldn't work today, then when we switched it out with the other HMD, the AR programs wouldn't work. We checked the code to see if the problem was there and it wasn't so we had to change all of the AR experiments to 2D or paper and pencil at least for today if not the rest of the week while we work to find out whats wrong. However, I still think that we will be able to get it working and get some results in the AR domain before our presentation.

BellaManoim - 15 Jul 2009 - 15:49

i'm working on rescheduling everybody that was in AR for the week, into Paper and Pencil and 2D. loooot of changes.

ConnorSchenck - 15 Jul 2009 - 14:42

oh man, you guys just seem to be getting all the bugs. Keep it up though, you'll get it to work eventually.

Monday, July 13, 2009

We were supposed to begin our experiments today, but due to a lot of small problems we had to postpone the experiments to tomorrow and later in the week. I guess its just that there were situations that we didn't exactly prepare for.

ConnorSchenck - 14 Jul 2009 - 14:42

Haha, don't you just love it when technical details force you to rearrange everything? (sarcasm, by the way)

JohnNewman - 13 Jul 2009 - 14:54

No, we only rescheduled the people that we had for today.

HamadiMcIntosh - 13 Jul 2009 - 13:27

Does this mean I will go on Thursday now instead of Wednesday?

Friday, July 10, 2009

We met with Nir and Ross this morning and they had a lot of suggestions to change the AR before we start experimenting. I thought yesterday that it was about ready to go, but apparently not, so I'm a little frustrated about that. At this point, I'm not really sure how much of the remaining problems we can actually fix and how many are just limitations of the hardware. Also, sometimes the program crashes at the end of it when the user has selected a final entry. So far though I have only been able to replicate that error when I go through the entire process that a participant will go through in the experiment. Whenever I try to isolate what is causing the error, everything works perfectly. It is incredibly frustrating and there are probably hundreds of possible cause, so I may have to adapt the code so that data can still be collected even if the program crashes at the end. There are some other issues as well, so today has kind of been a frustrating day where it seems like we're almost there and then all of a sudden we encounter unforeseen setbacks and have to change a lot of the code.

UgonnaOhiri - 10 Jul 2009 - 15:02

Oh no! Wish you the best of luck...The worst part is that it could end up being the minutest of things.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Today I was actually able to get the AR decision matrix working with the presentation remote which is good, but I'm kind of tired of changing the selection algorithm for the matrix every week. Two weeks ago I spent a few days getting marker intersection working with the decision matrix. Then we decided we didn't like that so I changed it to a selection that works with the keyboard. Then two days ago, Nir said that he wanted it to work with a presentation remote. Today, I was able to get that working. So using a presentation remote is hopefully the final selection algorithm that I have to program and will be the one we end up using.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

After our meeting yesterday, I realize that there are a lot of fine details to work though before we begin experiments on Monday. Although yesterday we set those goals, I think that today we have had to modify them to be more attainable by the end of the week which is a little disappointing, but I think that it must be done. For example, we wanted to have the selection on the decision matrix be done with a remote that is used for power point presentations. The trouble with the remote that we had though was that it didn't have buttons to navigate in four directions, but instead had something like a control stick from a game controller. Therefore to change it I would have had to create an entirely new navigation set up and if I had more time I could do that but I think that with experiment starting on Monday, it is best to come up with another, quicker-to-implement solution.

BellaManoim - 08 Jul 2009 - 16:43

now that we have the number keypad I don't think it'll be a problem

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The AR system is just about at a place where it can be used for experiments. The matrix can be navigated using keys instead of intersection, which while functional was difficult to use. Having navigation work this way is also good because it works exactly like it does in the VR and 2D domains. Our group has a meeting at 3 and hopefully at that meeting we will be able to do a practice run through of the experiment.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Today, I've been working on getting keyboard selection to work in the AR decision matrix. After spending a good part of the last two weeks working on the intersection algorithm to do selection with another marker, we realized that even though it works, intersection just isn't a very usable way to select boxes of the matrix. So what I'm trying to do is get it so the "WASD" keys can be used to select a box. While the functionality of these keys does what I want it to do, when I look at the matrix and when it is in view the last box is always selected. Pressing a key will change it for a few milliseconds and then it goes back to the last box. I don't really know how I will solve this problem, but I have to solve it by tomorrow which is when I need to give a demo of it.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Today, I worked on the OpenGL decision matrix again to refine it to be used in our 2-D domain study. That was pretty straightforward, but needed to be done anyway. I really enjoyed the luncheon lecture today; I thought it was very interesting. Otherwise, I'm leaving for the airport in a couple of hours to go home.

BellaManoim - 02 Jul 2009 - 13:39

that's exciting i hope you have fun going home

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

It's hard to believe that it is already July. It doesn't seem like I've been here for over a month. Anyway, today I basically continued what I was doing yesterday and the decision matrix is now relatively functional. There are a few problems we will need to work out, but I think that this version turned out great for the first functional iteration of the AR decision matrix. We also have the capability to render cars in the AR environment that actually look pretty good so I think that the augmented reality portion has really come together nicely this week. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to going home tomorrow for the holiday weekend.

BellaManoim - 02 Jul 2009 - 13:39

i know, time really flies

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Today I've worked a lot on making the decision matrix functional and right now it works but it isn't exactly easy to use. Also, the image in the head mounted device is very bad. I've tried to adjust it but still the matrix text is not readable which is a problem but I'm sure that once I know how to fix it, fixing will be easy so I'm not too concerned about that right now. I'm really more focused on getting the matrix working.

Monday, June 29, 2009

We got the intersection of the point and the decision matrix working this morning... sort of. The program can detect when the point intersects the matrix but only when the matrix is lying down, if we stand it up the rotation prevents the intersection from working. Also, we just know when the point intersects the matrix in general, not when it intersects a particular part of the matrix, so there is still some work to do but we are making progress.

BellaManoim - 29 Jun 2009 - 13:51

hamadi, sure matrices can lay down. in the virtual world, they can also have feet and eyes

JohnNewman - 29 Jun 2009 - 13:20

You're right. Correction: It only works when the matrix is on the xy plane.

HamadiMcIntosh - 29 Jun 2009 - 13:17

"When the matrix is lying down." I didn't know matrices lay down. Lol.

Friday, June 26, 2009

This morning we continued working on the problem of trying to get the decision matrix to recognize when the selection pointer intersects it. I have been able to work though the math involved and know how it should work, but the challenge now is writing the code to implement it which isn't as straightforward as I thought it would be. Currently the point can be navigated by the marker but is not at the origin like I am expecting it to be.

Otherwise, it's the end of week five, we're half way through the REU. Also, I am looking forward to being able to go home next weekend for the Fourth of July.

UgonnaOhiri - 26 Jun 2009 - 13:38

your going home? Hey Andrew what about us? lol

BellaManoim - 26 Jun 2009 - 13:30

have fun going home for the 4th

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Yesterday we were able to get the decision matrix program to build with the AR toolkit and after making a few changes to it, we got the decision matrix to appear correctly on the marker. However, the issue now is getting selection of a cell to work, so we have another marker that displays the selection pointer. We now have to figure out how to get the selection of a cell to register when the selection pointer intersects a box. The problem is that the ARToolkit works as though the camera is still, (i.e. if the camera moves, the coordinates change as though what the camera is looking at has moved.) Also the matrix and the pointer exist in separate 3-D coordinate spaces that are on the markers and the ARToolkit detects the location of the origin of these spaces, so getting all of this to work will be difficult and also ARToolkit uses the Z axis as the vertical axis and OpenGL uses Y as the vertical axis, so that adds to the problem as well. I will be trying to figure out how to make this work, likely for the rest of today and maybe tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Today is the day that we integrate the decision matrix with augmented reality and it has caused a lot of problems. The main issue is that my decision matrix program is written in C++ but ARToolkit is designed to run programs written in C. So we encountered errors with including certain things such as iostream. What I have to do now is change all lines of code related to iostream or fstream into their C equivalent. Hopefully this will end up allowing the program to build and run with ARToolkit.

ConnorSchenck - 24 Jun 2009 - 13:34

Dang, that sucks. I thought there was some # command where you could define certain chunks of code to be compiled in C. Our robot code has something similar, and I vaguely remember the grad students telling us about a command that forces the compiler to compile certain parts of the code as C.

BellaManoim - 24 Jun 2009 - 13:17

good luck guys! I'm working on lit review/methods

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The OpenGL decision matrix is virtually complete. I still have to make it so that the text appears in a way that is more readable, but otherwise I think that tomorrow we'll be able to implement it in augmented reality.

BellaManoim - 23 Jun 2009 - 13:05

thats exciting

Monday, June 22, 2009

I thought that today's "How to give a talk" was very informative and applicable to what we are going to be doing tomorrow. Since then I have been working on the OpenGL decision matrix and am running into an issue. I want the program to record the different cells that the user is viewing and to output this record to a file. I'm getting it to output but the problem is that it outputs every time the image is refreshed so if the user spends 2 seconds looking at the price value of car 1 for example, that will be recorded in the file about 10 times. I need to find a way so that it is recorded only once.

JohnNewman - 22 Jun 2009 - 15:05

The time is important and I do have the time included in the output.

TaylorBergquist - 22 Jun 2009 - 14:06

Just a thought... couldn't the amount of time spent looking at something also be useful information? It seems to me that this metric would be related to the importance of that aspect of the decision as well as to the difficulty of performing cost/benefit analysis (heuristically, ofc.) on the trade-offs involved.

Friday, June 19, 2009

I've been able to get a lot of work done on the graphic decision matrix this week, I was able to get the problem I was talking about in yesterday's blog solved at about five yesterday. I'm surprised at how quickly I have been able to put it together. There is still a little left to do but I'm sure that I will be able to finish it by Tuesday.

BellaManoim - 19 Jun 2009 - 13:25

good job

Thursday, June 18, 2009

I've been working on implementing a decision matrix in OpenGL as I mentioned yesterday and I'm stuck so I've decided to blog about the problem I'm encountering. The OpenGL window right now shows a decision matrix that is created by input into a C++ program as well as a dot. What this dot is for is selecting and viewing entries in the matrix. I want the program right now to recognize when this dot intersects with an entry in the matrix, or basically when it is in a particular box. I have a function that specifies the parameters for saying the dot is intersecting an entry. I was trying to create a for loop to continually check each entry for the dot, but the problem is that this becomes an infinite loop because the number of entries is ever-increasing because the matrix is continually being redrawn as the image refreshes itself as the dot moves so the number of entries, or boxes, increases. I'm not sure what to do to fix this problem exactly, but blogging about it has given me an idea.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

I have spent this morning working on creating the decision matrix with OpenGL. I have made a lot more progress today than I thought I would, but I still have a lot to do. It is my goal to have the OpenGL decision matrix finished by Tuesday.

ConnorSchenck - 18 Jun 2009 - 10:40

Hopefully you get it done, but don't spend all your free time on it; relaxing is important.

HamadiMcIntosh - 17 Jun 2009 - 13:29

So nice to have all this spare time to work on our projects.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

This morning we went to the GMAP symposium and while it was good experience to see research presented, it was a little boring and I would have rather been working in the lab. The food was good though. Now that it's over, we have been putting the finishing touches on our OpenGL project and are presenting them in just a few minutes. Overall, I think that our project looks good and I'm happy with how it turned out.

Monday, June 15, 2009

I've spent a lot of time today working on the OpenGL project and it is coming together. I'm glad that the number of classes is decreasing and that this week we may have more time to work on the big project. My group also finally has a definite timetable to work with and plan to do our experiment in two weeks. So there will be a lot to work on during this week and next week.

BellaManoim - 16 Jun 2009 - 14:45

we'll be busy

Friday, June 12, 2009

I forgot to blog after lunch today so I'm doing it now. During these past two days it has seemed like I have finally been able to get substantial work done on the OpenGL project, I like that the HCI course was cancelled yesterday, it gave me a chance to work on some things without having to stay in the lab into the late evening. Today, my group got to go into the C6 and see some of what Ross has done to create virtual environments to test decision making in Virtual Reality and I actually got to navigate in the C6 which was really cool. At times I really thought that I was moving and had to remind myself that I was standing still inside of a giant cube. It's very immersive and I really appreciate the opportunity to experience virtual reality. Otherwise, I'm glad that it's Friday and am looking forward to a hopefully relaxing weekend even though I will probably have to work on the OpenGL project tomorrow.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

So today, it seems like I was able to get more done than I have been able to do earlier in the week because there haven't been as many structured classes and meetings. However, I have hit a wall on the OpenGL program and don't know how to correct the errors I am getting. I have posted on the graphical programming message board and am waiting for Vijay to respond. Until then, I guess I'll work on Lit Review and possibly other parts of the projects.

PJ Campbell - 11 Jun 2009 - 22:16

I think you and Richard should do my HW

BellaManoim - 11 Jun 2009 - 16:45

I have the same problem with the texture

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

It seems like we have a lot to do this week and not much time to do all of it. I think that there have been a lot more structured activities this week and the graphics programming course assignments take up the rest of day. As it is I don't know when we will find time to do the graphics project, the lit review, and prepare a presentation to present our progress to our faculty mentor tomorrow. I know that in the past two days I haven't been able to work on the C++ decision matrix so it seems like our main project is on hold this week as we learn OpenGL.

BellaManoim - 10 Jun 2009 - 16:32

I feel the same way

MinaChoi - 10 Jun 2009 - 15:57

i feel sorry for you... =*( progress presentations?

MichaelOren - 10 Jun 2009 - 15:53

OpenGL is fun, but (sadly) unless you are writing OpenGL code you likely won't remember much of it (that's why almost everybody owns 'the red book'). Still, you get awesome demos out of it to show off (and some projects are making use of it). Sorry about the overload this week. Next week things start opening up.

On the plus side, the lit review does run directly with your research (it's not as 'fun' or 'glorious' as getting something working, but it is a crucial part of research in any field).

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Today we had the second day of OpenGL. I had fun doing the assignment today, and was able to figure it out better than I figured out the assignment from yesterday. I think that I will enjoy the rest of that class. I'm also looking forward to working on the OpenGL project; my group is going to be creating a 3-D version of Super Mario Bros. world 1-1, so that will be cool when it's finished. I also really liked today's luncheon lecture, I thought that the topic was interesting. It seems like there is a lot to do this week, definitely more work than last week. We have the OpenGL project as well as lit review and the assigned tasks for our summer long project. So, there will be a lot to blog about later this week.

JoshuaSituka - 10 Jun 2009 - 13:21

I would like to play that game when you get done with it. Your OpenGL projects have been pretty good.

BellaManoim - 09 Jun 2009 - 20:37

it'll definitely be cool

Monday, June 8, 2009

Today was the first day of the graphics programming course, which was entirely new information for me. I was able to complete the assignment and while I didn't create the circle using polar coordinates, I did get a circle to be drawn. However, I wanted to try to add an animation to make the circle rotate but in trying to copy from the rotating cube code I ended up causing Visual Studio to crash. Hopefully soon Vijay will show us how to create animations in OpenGL. As far as the project, we have divided up the work and each of us know what we will be doing. I will spend some time this afternoon working more on the decision matrix in C++. Maybe, it will be possible to eventually use OpenGL to create a more interactive display of the matrix, but at this point, I don't know how to do that.

MinaChoi - 08 Jun 2009 - 18:41

haha I tried to get the circle to rotate around my initials also... but failed... X(

Friday, June 5, 2009

Today has been a bit more structured than other days this week, so I haven't done a lot of work on the project today. I am just about finished with the decision matrix program in C++. The next tasks will be to learn the AR tool kit so we can create the augmented reality decision matrix. We also have some reading to do for the project. By Monday we are supposed to decide how we will divide up the work so we'll try to figure that out this afternoon. I feel like we have gotten a lot accomplished this week and I am looking forward to the weekend.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Today we had our weekly meeting with Nir and Ross and got a better idea of what we need to be working toward. I have just spent the last couple of hours working on the decision matrix program and it is close to completion. Our group also needs to work on dividing up the tasks so that we all aren't working on the same thing. We also got some literature to read to get background information on decision making and augmented reality. From now on we will try to set daily goals as a group and work to meet those goals each day, so that we are not overwhelmed toward the end of the program.

ZayiraJordan - 05 Jun 2009 - 09:20

You should communicate your concern about dividing tasks to your grad mentors. Better earlier...

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

This morning we had the third day of the programming course and today there was actually some information presented that I had not seen before, so I learned a few things. For example, Eric mentioned vectors in today's lecture but didn't go into detail. However, what he did say gave my group the idea to use vectors to create our decision matrix instead of an array. But none of us had used C++ vectors before so we all spent some time researching them and were able to learn them. Otherwise, there's nothing else to blog about today.

ZayiraJordan - 04 Jun 2009 - 10:23

Good initiative!!!

MichaelOren - 03 Jun 2009 - 13:47

I think they waited until the end of the 2nd or beginning of the 3rd year before finally telling the undergraduate CS majors at my university about vectors... They wanted us to do everything the hard way first so we knew how the general concepts work. If you are using/only need a fixed sized matrix though then a two-dimensional array may still be the simpler solution. Vectors greatest strength are their more dynamic nature.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Today was the second day of the programming course and like yesterday I pretty much already knew everything that we learned today. However, the homework assignments took a little longer to do. We also had our first Luncheon Lecture today with Stephen Gilbert lecturing on his research on creating classroom tutoring software. I thought that this was a very relevant for me because I am a math education major and I plan to teach high school when I graduate. So, I thought that software he showed looks like something that would be very effective in a math classroom in high school.

Otherwise, I'm hoping to be able to start more intensive work on the project soon. It seems like some of the other groups are ahead of us and have gotten a pretty good start and have already met with their mentors several times whereas we are still more in the beginning stages of doing internet searches for relevant papers. On the other hand I think that we have a great start to the C++ course project so finishing that up will allow us more time later in the week to work on the Decision Making in Augmented Reality project.

-- JohnNewman - 02 Jun 2009

BellaManoim - 03 Jun 2009 - 11:56

Using vector arrays http://www.codeguru.com/Cpp/Cpp/cpp_mfc/arrays/article.php/c4071/

BellaManoim - 03 Jun 2009 - 11:54

vectors http://www.mochima.com/tutorials/vectors.html

MichaelOren - 02 Jun 2009 - 14:42

Tell Ross you're feeling your group is behind, I'm sure he can find some more substantial work for you if you feel up to it.

On Bad Usability

This afternoon we had our first session of the HCI course and our assignment was to find two examples of bad usability and blog about them. The first example of bad usability comes from a website used by Franklin College, myfc.franklincollege.edu, which is a website for students to access various forms. However, if you accidentally try to log in to MyFC with the wrong password you are taken to this screen:

which is a very unhelpful message that just says an unexpected error occurred but offers no solution. Furthermore to fix it you have to close out of the browser and open back up to try again. After finding that one I really did know where to look for another example so I decided to break and play my 360 for a while. When I went to play my 360 I found that it had been unplugged so I plugged it back in and realized that that meant I had to reset the clock on it because whenever the 360 is unplugged the clock on it resets to November 22, 2005 at 6:00 AM and so that means that save files are created based on this time so if I save and load later, my most recent file will be labeled as 11/22/2005 even though it was created today. I had my other example of bad usability:

This seems like something that would be easy to fix, other game systems and computers and some alarm clocks don't need to be set after being unplugged and then plugged back in. This is bad usability because it creates issues with finding the most recent save files.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Today was the first day of the C++ programming course. The course today was a little boring because I already knew everything the was presented. We also started to work on our programming project, I think we have a good idea for it and writing the program will be fun. As far as our main project goes, we have started to search for information about decision making and our goal for the week in addition to continuing to read papers on decision making is to start working with the software we will be using to implement our AR decision matrix.

-- JohnNewman - 01 Jun 2009

Friday, May 29, 2009

So we just finished a five hour workshop conducted by the Affinity Research Group. I thought that the length of it without breaks made in a little intense, however we did get a lot of great information, so I really enjoyed it. My group was also able to talk with our Faculty adviser, Nir, about exactly what our project is. We have something of a research question to work with that will guide us. Our research questions will basically be "What are the effects of a reality domain on a decision making experience?" I realize that this is not necessarily what our actual final research question will end up being, but having an idea of what exactly we will be doing will help. We also came up with a task list and tentative timeline for complete these tasks with deliverables. So, I really got a lot out of the workshop this morning and now have a much better idea of where we will be going with the project in the coming weeks. It seems a lot less overwhelming than it did previously.

-- JohnNewman - 29 May 2009

Thursday, May 28, 2009

This morning we learned how to use the wiki, had a journal club session, and took a programming pretest. There isn't a lot to say about what we have done today as we haven't started our research project yet. I did feel confident taking the programming pretest. I definitely think that taking two semesters of C++ programming this past year will be useful as I work this summer. Hopefully, there will be more to write tomorrow and in the coming weeks.

I thought that I would add to today's entry after learning more about the research project we will be working on this summer. Right now the project seems a little overwhelming and I'm not sure were to begin. Ross, our group's grad student mentor, suggested that we look for information on Gary Klein. However, the problem that we ran into was that the research done by Klein is not freely available. Although, I think tomorrow we will learn about how to access databases at ISU to gain access to information that is not free hopefully then we will find more information.

-- JohnNewman - 28 May 2009

MichaelCurtis - 29 May 2009 - 15:11

I think you might want to add a comment box under each blog post.