July 31st 2008
The One with the Last Day in VRAC
Last day blogging and looking at this computer screen. Yay! So I suppose it's about that time to blog about my likes and dislikes regarding the program. Likes: *The Ethics Course *Eliot's Availability and awesomeness *Team Gandalf's obvious awesomeness. *The freedom we were given to solve our own problems and only use grad students/Eliot when we were stuck *Team Gandalf and its awesomeness. *Anything that Stephen Gilbert prepared was fantastic *Did I mention Team Gandalf? *Some of the lunch lectures (the ones at the end were the best) Dislikes: *The busy work in HCI (but Janea was really great) *For the most part, it was too code intensive. (I got lucky that I was in a group that built something) *Waldorf (just kidding- I love you guys) *Our mentors were sometimes really busy since they had a lot of other things to do. *The down time we got in the beginning-we really didn't have anything to do at that point, but later on we had too much on our plate.
ThomasNiedzielski - 01 Aug 2008 - 00:49
We didn't have much down time in the very beginning. After the classes the first few weeks, though, I probably should have been working a bit harder.JennaLanger - 31 Jul 2008 - 16:31
You guys worked really independently and came out with a great project. Go Team Gandalf!July 30th 2008
The One with two Walmarts, one Target, and a lot of blisters
Had to go pick up double sided tape and paint sticks for the team today. It is a decently long walk from Walmart by the mall (which didn't have paintsticks) to the Target (which also didn't have paintsticks) to the Super Walmart (where paintsticks are given out in mass quantity and then a run to the bus in heels (hence the massive blisters on my feet). We had our demo practice today, I think we did pretty well. Marisol wants us to give her a demo tomorrow morning, so I'm going to work early tomorrow morning to get more prepared because I am figuring that it most likely won't be good enough. For the rest of the afternoon, I looked over the CHI stuff and it's definitely something I could do in August, I just don't have the patience to look at that paper anymore this week. I also cut paint sticks down the middle to make handles for the two multimarkers. And I only cut myself twice, so now my hands and feet kinda match, which I guess is cool. I'm hoping that tomorrow morning, I can do some usability testing to see which handles work better, the small "L" handles or the long "I" handles. We have to blog about our likes and dislikes, but I think I will do that tomorrow- I'm just not feeling it today.
TravisChristian - 31 Jul 2008 - 09:59
http://bandwidth.justgotowned.comNizarKhalife - 31 Jul 2008 - 00:50
I believe Photobucket owned you. And just so everybody can enjoy this...
July 29th 2008
The One with the Magic Cart
Assembled easels and foam boards today. Wheeled them on a cart-it was sweet. Printed out the paper (finally) so now the most awesome Team Gandalf is adding extra elements to our project. It should be fun- get excited!
NizarKhalife - 29 Jul 2008 - 21:53
Thanks for the help, Gandalf. Who knew that you guys could do something other than gloat?July 25th 2008
The One with "Grad Students, Assemble"
So Team Gandalf is yet again most awesome. We went to Wal-Mart to get the rest of our pieces and are about to take photos and build mulitmarkers. It's exciting. Technically, we could demo this on Monday, but I'm glad we have a week to have other interns test the game so we can make improvements. Go Team! We have two more hours to work and then the weekend!! Yay!
July 24th 2008
The One with a Finished Magic Table
Guess What? See the title. And check out the team blog for photos later on.
July 23rd 2008
The One with Something Not Quite Right
I got more parts this morning...they are silver. The 80/20 is black. The parts we scraped from VRAC are black. The end caps are black. Hmm- what's wrong here? So I'm in a predicament now. Do I send the parts back, wait another week and hope they come back another color? Or do I just go with it and let the joints be different colors than the metal?? BUT-if that is the worst thing to happen, maybe its ok. I don't know. I'll see what Andrew has to say when he gets here. Talked to Eliot to get his thoughts on my screw-up. He said "just spray paint it." I left a note for Andrew to see me when he gets in, so hopefully I can talk to him to get everything set up. I have some silver pieces that will not be included in the interface, so I'm hoping to test them out either this afternoon or tomorrow morning and then have the structure done before I leave on Thursday. That way, I can put a photo of the completed structure in the research paper. As far as that goes, I want a few more photos: one of the wand, and one of a multimarker. So hopefully the wand comes in so that can be included.
BrianRussell - 23 Jul 2008 - 22:47
I agree with Nizar, the Magic Table looks great.NizarKhalife - 23 Jul 2008 - 19:36
The table mount looks really nice, even with the silver.July 22nd 2008
The One with the Cute Old Man
So if you were in the pod area yesterday afternoon at about 4:30ish, you probably noticed Andrew and I building a magic table. (Get excited!!) I went to the machine shop in Black on Monday afternoon and met the cutest old man ever. He cut the 80/20 (which is most likely 80% aluminum and 20% raptor) for me and told me stories about his family and Iowa and motorcycles and cars. Sooooo cute!! Anyway- I've been spending my morning working on the paper that Stephen Gilbert so graciously went through to revise it. He's a nice guy. JO came to chat with us this afternoon. He pushed grad school on us, which leads me to believe that all of the rest of the talks will be people telling us how great graduate school is. I wish we could have one person talk to us that went straight to the workforce with a bachelor's degree. It would be nice to get the other side of the story, especially since I am still not convinced that grad school is a good option for me. Anyway--Team Gandalf is still awesome: Travis has done some fantastic OSG work, and Matt is getting everything set with advanced components and victory conditions. I'm back to the paper...I wish it was yesterday so I could build again-that was my Christmas pretty much-it was that awesome.
JennaLanger - 23 Jul 2008 - 12:58
To clarify, this is what I mean by raptor:
DavidOluwatimi - 23 Jul 2008 - 09:09
Yea, I saw you building it, and I thought it is kind of cool to create the schematics on solid works, then bring it to life. BTW, does 20% raptor means it 20% velociraptor proof? lolNizarKhalife - 22 Jul 2008 - 20:09
I think it would be Sam who is unable to please the old person. Impotence is tough.JennaLanger - 22 Jul 2008 - 17:09
20% raptor, eh? Does that mean the magic table can fly???MatthewScheinerman - 22 Jul 2008 - 16:34
Careful, Sam. Control your old person fetish. He's probably married, or at least unable to please you.July 21st 2008
The One with Mondays Gone Blue
Travis gets the title. Does anyone else get it?? So today we had Thelma come in to chat with us about applying to grad school. She gave us a stack of papers that give timelines and whatnot to assist us. I'm not really looking at grad school right now, but I will keep the papers, just in case for some strange reason I decide to go. Team Gandalf has been massively awesome today...check out our team blog for pictures as to why. Matt has been hard at work with 3dsMax making all of our objects look perfect and working on the animations for some of the parts. Travis is yet again adding another level of awesome to the code. As for me, I'm adding bits and pieces to the paper as code continues, helping out Travis (in small ways since I'm not the greatest coder), and waiting to go build. The parts that I was supposed to cut on Friday-doesn't it seem like Friday was sooo long ago?- ended up not being cut because the man that was supposed to be in the lab wasn't there. I'm hoping that Andrew and I can go today and the man will be there. So Team Gandalf is awesome. And we googled Team Gandalf and Travis had the 5th entry. Oh yeah!!! We are 5th on google!!!! Take that Waldo!
NizarKhalife - 21 Jul 2008 - 22:47
Are you referring to the Heavyweight Title? If not then I have no idea. Don't build the table! It will release black magic!ThomasNiedzielski - 21 Jul 2008 - 17:10
Take random internet use to the next level and type yourselves in as a URL. I found out I was a Japanese investment company! You could even make bets on which websites exist. It's cheating if someone's already been there.DesireeVelazquez - 21 Jul 2008 - 16:32
That google search is so random.TravisChristian - 21 Jul 2008 - 14:53
I don't get it.July 17th 2008
The One withOUT a demolition
so I guess everyone caught the fact that instead of demoNSTRATION, I jotted down demoLITION. Hahahahahahahahahaha. You all crack me up. So I figured to make up for my failure at abbreviations and listening to Brian talk about the demolition derby while blogging... I should probably write a decent blog. So, here we go:
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This one on account of my new obsession with photoshop. Did you know that you can take a flat image and make it Isometric...because you definitely can. And...you can do crazy things with gradients. Most awesome. I'm thinking that I'm probably done with photoshop since I just sent our final poster to Pam for printing. Huge thanks to Eliot and Stephen Gilbert for fixing my errors. Now I am not poster incompetent anymore!!!! |
This one on account of my upcoming task. I'm going to be cutting the aluminum tomorrow, which is pretty exciting. The rest of the parts were ordered. The only thing that I am worried about is if SolidWorks is not entirely accurate in its measurements. I had to give dimensions for the mirror, and if I'm wrong...that's a big bad wolf mistake. but I won't feel better until the mirror is in the casing, so nothing to do but wait. It's funny how some engineering projects can go wrong...but the team's will not because we are awesome and do not design ridiculously long traffic lights.
EvaTao - 22 Jul 2008 - 00:21
The first one sounds familiar...We have some folks here just like him.NizarKhalife - 17 Jul 2008 - 23:36
We'll see about that on Tuesday.July 16th 2008
The One with That Song in my Head
Just finished up with Stephen Gilbert's short chat on giving demolitions. Working on poster-blogging not today.
BrianRussell - 16 Jul 2008 - 23:57
Instead of a research symposium we could have a demolition derby.NizarKhalife - 16 Jul 2008 - 18:54
I love demolition. Especially localized indoor demolition.MatthewScheinerman - 16 Jul 2008 - 17:01
http://sam.justgotowned.comDesireeVelazquez - 16 Jul 2008 - 16:56
LOL. This is too funny.JennaLanger - 16 Jul 2008 - 16:53
Ya, those DEMOLITIONS were pretty awesome. I can't wait to blow stuff up at the symposium!July 15th 2008
The One with the Parts on the Floor
| We have some parts! Which means I can finally be an engineer and cut/measure/build things. I took the quasi-finished poster to Eliot yesterday to get his opinion, and after some changes, I plan on going back to see if this one works better. This morning was spent updating the poster and paper (because Travis and Matt have yet again achieved the impossible). We also had a lunch lecture with the lady that is in charge of MetaBlast . She talked about the struggles with the game and whatnot. And Jenna had an awesome prototype of the website-GO ROOMIE!!! |
WATCH THE ALL-STAR GAME TONIGHT!!!! NATIONAL LEAGUE DOMINATION????
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EvaTao - 22 Jul 2008 - 00:27
OK~SamanthaLevine - 16 Jul 2008 - 14:24
Dear Eva-- MC Hammer sings a song where one of the lines is "Stop, Hammertime" and Vanilla Ice sings a songs where one of the lines is "Stop, Collaborate and Listen"NizarKhalife - 16 Jul 2008 - 00:30
I would think that containing all the magic would take a very powerful force field. The iron bars would just melt.EvaTao - 15 Jul 2008 - 23:19
Why both stop no matter yes or no in the figure?TravisChristian - 15 Jul 2008 - 13:18
I think we should put the old Magic Table in a museum. Behind iron bars so it can't hurt anyone else.July 14th 2008
The One with a quasi-finished poster
So I printed out Team Gandalf's poster today in color (thanks Jenna). All that is left is to change out the pictures when the new structure is built. And the structure is done, so any parts we don't have will be ordered today. Which means I get to inventory parts for the afternoon, which is by far one of my favorite things to do (it must be the OCD kicking in). By the way- Travis has yet again proven his awesomeness with code and Matt is rockin' the 3DS, yeah men!!! Home run derby tonight--watching it would be advisable!--
July 11th 2008
The One with The Principle
We went to Principle Financial today for a tour of their usability lab. It was really interesting to see the lack of funding usability received at the company. They couldn't even get a webcam to observe people. It makes me wonder if usability is just a developing field or if businesses just don't get the fact that usability is vital to success. Or it could be that Principle (an insurance-ish company) doesn't see a need for it. But it was pretty neat to see a mock usability test besides our paper prototyping demos in the HCI course. We also went to the natural history museum in Des Moines. That was actually really interesting. Well, the wing devoted to the Iowa Caucus was really interesting. Around the exhibit you could state your position on certain issues like defense spending and global warming and see what everyone else said. It is very apparent that most of the museum goers are liberal in their thoughts as only 10% thought that the US should stay the course in Iraq. And Stephen Gilbert took us all to lunch at this cafe at the top of the museum that overlooked the capital building. It was pretty amazing to see.
NizarKhalife - 11 Jul 2008 - 17:22
Cheesecake was good too.ThomasNiedzielski - 11 Jul 2008 - 17:12
I was interested in the political wing of the museum, too. For some reason, I wasn't expecting it. Going in I thought it was more of a natural history museum instead of all kinds of history.July 10th 2008
The One with Travis' 21st!!!
BrianRussell - 10 Jul 2008 - 23:26Perhaps a new term does need to be coined for these groups of robots.NizarKhalife - 10 Jul 2008 - 20:38My Master's thesis will be about the Zerg and the zerg rush phenomenon. There's actually an interesting video on the subject.PaulClay - 10 Jul 2008 - 16:39awesome picture |
Happy Birthday Travis!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway-today flew by for some strange reason. We had journal club where we talked about swarms of robots (I know- creepy right) so I didn't really say much on account of all I could think about was the equivalent of a Zerg Rush, but with robot swarms. Hence the picture on the left. Stephen Gilbert came by to critique our posters, and I think that we are doing pretty well. Marisol's help has been very beneficial. I can't thank her enough, and now I kinda know another program (InDesign ). But we still have a decently long haul ahead of us. But the team is always up for a challenge. |
July 9th 2008
The One with a poster and a paper
This morning I sent off my poster to Marisol. She showed me this awesome program called InDesign yesterday afternoon. It is by far the coolest thing I have ever used. You can be pretty OCD about the margins and spacing and even put in some filler text to see how your poster will look with a lot of text in it. I have a second draft of the paper done so we are just about to go outside and have a reading/editing session. Why outside? Because it's not a FREEZER like VRAC is. Brrr... Anyway- it's Wednesday, so check out Matt's blog for the Star Trek pic of the week. It is most good. And the day would not be complete without mentioning how awesome Travis is: seriously---y'all should be jealous that he is part of Team Gandalf.
July 8th 2008
The One with Eric's Defense
This morning, Team Gandalf went to hear Eric's PhD defense. We still haven't heard if he passed or not, but I'm thinking that he probably did. Also, the luncheon lecture was a visual design professor. It was very refreshing to hear from someone who isn't a huge computer master. She performed a bunch of studies on different products and their design, rather than the usual marketing approach. For the rest of the day, I'm meeting with Marisol to go over our poster and have just finished the first draft of the research paper. It is becoming increasingly obvious that time is running short, which is why I'm trying to get the not-so-engineer stuff out of the way so when the materials come in, I can focus entirely on the structure and spend my late nights doing that rather than reading journal articles.
PamShill - 08 Jul 2008 - 20:16
You are correct, Eric passed!DesireeVelazquez - 08 Jul 2008 - 14:49
Ouch, when you phrase it that way, it sends chills down my spine... Ugh... It's like an ugly reminder of something you've forgotten... Good luck anyways.July 7th 2008
The One with John Deere
This morning we went to the John Deere cotton plant. It was by far the best part of this trip. The entire plant was focused on improving efficiency, which is my area of expertise (rather than coding). I was blown away at the amount of labor performed by machines. The only thing that humans did was some of the welding. (and of course the final inspections) It makes me wonder if eventually every aspect of that plant will be run by robots and computers with the human monitoring the computer. I'm hoping that that will never be the case, as this would put a lot of people out of a job. By the way, those cotton balers (or what ever they are called) are gigantic! I didn't think that any type of farm equipment could be that big, but I guess that the California girl wouldn't know that anyway. Actually, everything in the factory was big...almost overwhelming. Oh but it was way awesome that we got to ride in this cart-type thingy. It was kind of like the Peter Pan pirate ships at Disneyland, only without the sails and commercialism. And we got these glasses that reminded me of shooting ranges (not a good reminder, but they were pretty stylish). I only wish they would have given us John Deere trucker hats-that would have been awesome.
JennaLanger - 08 Jul 2008 - 09:07
Or will the computer monitor the human??? Chomp on that thought for a while...NizarKhalife - 07 Jul 2008 - 21:40
In between naps I think I heard that people did 80% of the welding in the factory. That may have been a dream though.AllisonWhite - 07 Jul 2008 - 16:29
Ha, I love the irony that a place of business is less commercial than a vacation spot. Also, IRB hasn't made a decision yet, they just made us submit 24 pages of paperworkPaulClay - 07 Jul 2008 - 14:07
While you are hat-less I am fully hat-ed, ready to go blend in with the midwestern country boys. Below is the link for the Ethics Homework. Ethics_Course.docJuly 3rd 2008
The One with Two Saturdays
It's quasi-Friday since we have tomorrow off which means that we have Saturday I and Saturday II this weekend. (Yes I know that it was lame-but I still find it most funny.) Today I have been finishing up the future research and background research sections of the paper. Travis is busy destroying (the good kind) our code and making everything awesome. <3 Matt is still slaving away with the evil Maya and also making everything look awesome. <3 By the way--I won my first Team Challenge today with Monopoly Properties. The men are dominating, but I'm thinking that Monday's will be something along the lines of naming make-up brands, shoe designers, etc. Or I could go techie and have a "name that SolidWorks symbol" challenge.
JohnMorales - 03 Jul 2008 - 18:01
Good for you, but for me is no holy day, I just finish implementing the animation library and that mean that I have to make a stick guy and animate it lol and also clean the code because it looks messy. FREE PANCAKES FTW!DesireeVelazquez - 03 Jul 2008 - 16:20
I've no idea what your team challenge thing is but good luck! I hope you win more! Ah, the weekend...It'll do me some goodPaulClay - 03 Jul 2008 - 15:23
Oh, man, I love double saturdays.July 2nd 2008
The One with Postering, Graph/Charting, and Ninjaing
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The comic kinda related to what I have been doing all morning...finding charts/graph styles that could display data for our poster. So far however, I'm coming up short on something to graphically represent (excluding the number of times my SolidWorks drawings didn't quite work out the way I wanted, or the number of times Travis has somehow managed to make our code do impossibly awesome things, or the amount of hours Matt slaves away on Maya designing our components perfectly.) I'm hoping that the photos I want to incorporate will display the info I want on there. Outside of that task, I have been busy writing the background research section of our paper, which isn't the most exciting, but it puts all the time from the article searching to good use. And we went to the PWSE thing today about life and work balance. I have to say--I'm not a fan. It seemed to me that the women on the panel were only happy because they had a family, which is something that I'm 100% sure I don't want, so it wasn't a waste of time...just not something that I would ever go to again. |
EvaTao - 07 Jul 2008 - 00:05
Depends on the Journal you are sending or conference you are attending. Check the posters on the hall way you might get some ideas. I use APA style most of the time because my area in Hospitality Management usually use the same style as Psychology. For example: Parasuraman, A. (2000). Technology readiness index (TRI): A multiple-item scale tomeasure readiness to embrace new technology. Journal of Service Research,
2 (4), 307-320. Another style example is what my team poster used in the Chi Conference. [2] Byrne, Christina and Ileana Arias. Predicting Women's Intentions to Leave Abusive Relationships: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 34, 12 (2004), 2586-2601. Please check with Stephen to see what style we are using for sure.
July 1st 2008
The one with Sudo don't crash
Even though Team Gandalf has not been playing around with the Magic Table today, we are about to get started and I really don't want the system to crash again when we incorporate the wand function. We had the Ethics course today which has been my favorite class up to this point. It got a little heated at the end, but what is life without a little bit of debate? Alex came to chat with us about teaching robots in the same way you teach children. I enjoyed his parallels between monkeys and robots. It gave me a new perspective on robotics.
JennaLanger - 01 Jul 2008 - 23:24
I love when the debates get heated!!! Let's hope journal club is just as exciting!NizarKhalife - 01 Jul 2008 - 21:02
I saw the wand in action. It's pretty chutzpah (ask Matt)!June 30th 2008
Bring it on July
I HAVE SOLIDWORKS ON MY COMPUTER!! This is totally awesome! Anyway- It's been another laid back morning where we were free to independently work on our projects. I have been working on the background research for the paper, which has consisted of a multitude of articles, but I found a few that work pretty well so far. I'm hoping that by the time I finish, I will have found about 10-15 articles that support our research. I have also been looking online to find some examples and suggestions about research papers/presentations which are making the entire paper seem much easier to handle. By the end of the week, I am hoping to get a first draft of the background research section and possibly a base outline of the methodology.
TravisChristian - 30 Jun 2008 - 21:47
YAY SOLIDWORKS now we can work as a team again, none of this remote collaboration stuffThomasNiedzielski - 30 Jun 2008 - 13:56
Now you can try to figure out how your designs' reactions to gravity are physically possible in the comfort of your own pod! That might help us out in the long run, though. Cole can use his computer again!June 27th, 2008
Techie Movies and Eagle Teeth
For our final day of HCI, each of us posted a movie about emerging technology. Surprisingly, all of the movies displayed a different type of technology. But yeah- the HCI course was pretty awesome-and I learned a ton-which is always a good thing. I spent the rest of the day recovering from what I think was vertigo and reading AR articles-one of which was about an AR version of Breakout-which is pretty much described by the following comic.
TravisChristian - 29 Jun 2008 - 19:37
wait... it's a stupid what?June 26th, 2008
Rainy Thursdays Make Me Sad
Today's Journal Club was pretty fun. We talked about the possibility of using video games to teach school-aged children various concepts. I was glad to see that everyone had a slightly different opinion. Some were very keen on the idea of this incorporation, but I still think that there are better ways to make learning fun. For example, the San Diego GET-SETT program uses different sports to teach 7th and 8th graders about math and science (like using soccer penalty kicks to teach reaction rate and trajectories). It seems so sad that society as a whole has become addicted to the TV screen rather than experiencing life off of the couch. (And no-I am not so naive as to think that anyone who plays video games doesn't interact with the outside world.) Well- there's my rant on being active-I suggest a relaxing day at the beach, hence the addition of the fish, which is quite awesome!!!
EvaTao - 06 Jul 2008 - 23:53
I love your fish
PaulClay - 27 Jun 2008 - 15:51
Since I started playing video games I've lost contact with the worldTravisChristian - 26 Jun 2008 - 14:26
Make sure you get notes on the rest of those articles. We wouldn't want to be uninformed.
MatthewScheinerman - 26 Jun 2008 - 13:41
That fish is extremely impressive.June 25th 2008
Defying the laws of Gravity (kinda)
After a "fun" night with SolidWorks , I still had one problem where one of my components was moving up during the gravity simulation-but thanks to Cole's eye for the not-so-obvious, I found out what happened. So I really didn't defy gravity, I simply have trouble mating components in SolidWorks . Speaking of SolidWorks , it's going to be on my computer within the next two days!! YAY! Besides that, I've been finding out a little more about desktop AR displays. That has proven to be a challenge in itself because most articles that I found discuss the advantages of Head Mounted Displays and why they will be the future of AR. But I did find a few that may work in explaining the reasoning behind the desktop display, so that's good.
NizarKhalife - 26 Jun 2008 - 01:02
That's nonsense! Brain Mounted Displays are the way of the future!MatthewScheinerman - 25 Jun 2008 - 16:38
June 24th, 2008
Sooo Early
It's 12:15 in the morning and I just got back from finishing up my SolidWorks design with the new material (but it's really only about 80% done on account of the mating not going too well.) But yeah- Andrew went over OSG and ARToolkit with us, so now we can get started with the coding and whatnot.
NizarKhalife - 25 Jun 2008 - 09:17
Almost done! Nice!JohnMorales - 25 Jun 2008 - 01:27
OSG is killing me right now, today was the first time that I manage to understand something after explaining it to me for 2 days now or three (its not that hard, the sad part are all the pointer that I didn't define and that keep appearing lol). BTW, thx Sam for listening all the stuff I said. Hehe the silent dude is not a Tin Man lol.June 23rd, 2008
The Real Day One (kinda)
We had our first day of straight-up, unguided research today. It was pretty nice to have the freedom to use down time to do things for the big project rather than all the small "class" projects. I'm shooting to get the material chosen for my design today/tonight so I can have a parts list by tomorrow. So that pretty much means that I'm almost done with the hard part of SolidWorks -Yay!!! By the way---check out our team blog-it once again proves our awesomeness!!!!!!
DavidOluwatimi - 24 Jun 2008 - 17:05
You've been working hard for a couple weeks. I commend you for doing so.NizarKhalife - 23 Jun 2008 - 23:40
Bah! I want a logo now.CodyGlover - 23 Jun 2008 - 14:19
The freedom to work on our own is great.PaulClay - 23 Jun 2008 - 13:33
oh, you love solidworks and you know it.June 20th, 2008
Presentation Preparation
The Cole Haan's are on my feet which can only mean one thing: Presentation Day. We present in about an hour, and I'm hoping that everything runs as smoothly as we rehearsed it. Outside of that- we had Journal Club today. The article was for the most part interesting, but neurology isn't an area of interest to me, so I didn't really have much to contribute in opinions. Did I mention it's Friday and the sun is out? That's right- I can finally do some work outside on the grass and tan at the same time!! Yay! Good luck to everyone in their presentations!
NizarKhalife - 22 Jun 2008 - 23:30
My parts went smooth as BABY BOTTOM PIZZA.MatthewScheinerman - 20 Jun 2008 - 13:16
My part is as smooth as HIGH CLASS JAZZCodyGlover - 20 Jun 2008 - 13:15
I think these are more of a practice for the final presentations so they shouldn't be as hard on us; so everything should be ok.TravisChristian - 20 Jun 2008 - 13:09
Oh, it will be smooth. My part is smooth as an OIL SPILLJune 19th, 2008
DONE!!! (kinda)
So I finished my first decent drawing with SolidWorks , and it will ROCK YOUR SOCKS!!! Outside of that- we had our OpenGL presentations today, which meant a late night for all of us (especially the iPhone team). So it was a nice work/relaxing day to prepare for tomorrow's project presentation. I'm glad that we don't have to worry about the class projects now, and we can just focus on the research paper and the project coding.
NizarKhalife - 21 Jun 2008 - 22:27
I need to see the solid works drawing!JohnMorales - 20 Jun 2008 - 00:41
yeah, I saw you drawing that table today and looks awesome.JennaLanger - 19 Jun 2008 - 16:18
You have been solidly working for so long! I'm glad you're happy with one of your final drawings!June 18th, 2008
Meetings, Revalations, and (that's right) SolidWorks
We had a meeting with our faculty adviser today in preparation for the presentation on Friday. We got an idea all set: that's right- it's quite awesome. This means that tonight, I just need to finish up the designs for SolidWorks . I'm having trouble with the lighting because I can't find a fixture that is thin enough. The ones that I am looking at right now are for under cabinet installation, but they are the thinnest and should work (I hope). It also gets old to redesign parts from the Unistrut and other websites. (Not to mention the problems with mating objects.) I think that I have a pretty good idea as to how to finish up. I'm planning on making sure that my designs look good (not counting the COSMOS testing and the camera hooky-hingy- thingy-that's for another day.) On another note- Just wait until tomorrow's OpenGL presentations-they are going to be good. Cole, Tom, and Desiree- Who tries to pixelate an image? And shooting ducks will be a nice warm up for this Sunday.
Jenna, David, and John-Plant atoms=brilliant tie in! And spinning objects are most good. 
Paul, Nizar, and Jasmine-"Auntie Em, Auntie Em! It's a twister! It's a twister!" 
Allison, Brian, and Cody-Do y'all "snow" what's going on? (Get it? Just Kidding!) But yeah- Phase One: downhill skiers+trees+[insert snow beast name here]. Phase Two:..... Phase Three: PROFIT!
Matt-Na na na na na na na na, na na na na na na na na, BATWING! 
Travis-Random gen of trees=impossible for anyone else. Making my snow code work=impossible, making a better snow code=Travis is the coolest. 
ColeAnagnost - 19 Jun 2008 - 15:41
Nostalgia is everything... every college student knows that.BrianRussell - 18 Jun 2008 - 21:23
[insert snow beast name here] = abominable snowmanDavidOluwatimi - 18 Jun 2008 - 19:10
u amaze, lol, travis is so coolNizarKhalife - 18 Jun 2008 - 18:52
You talkin' to me?TravisChristian - 18 Jun 2008 - 18:43
Yeah, that's right.MatthewScheinerman - 18 Jun 2008 - 17:29
Snow camo Batwing > any other projectThomasNiedzielski - 18 Jun 2008 - 17:11
Okay, so now we're represented by a creepy child tormenting old guy? Oh well.June 17th, 2008
Oh Solidworks
I worked on round three of SolidWorks today. Andrew was a huge help and I think we have a base design pretty much done. We still need to pick out lights and work out the logistics of the camera position. Since we have a generally light day tomorrow- I'm hoping to get there early and continue to work on the design. Our OpenGL project is coming along nicely. Travis helped me out a ton tonight! Thanks!!!!
CodyGlover - 18 Jun 2008 - 13:53
Glad you are having a better time with solidworks.June 16th, 2008
Monday, Monday, so good to me
Today was one of the most productive days I have had. We got a chance to chat with Andrew and get our project down. By this Friday, we should be good to go on everything. We also are getting really far on our open gl program. We got the best tree in the world!! SNOW-SCAPE 2008 is going to dominate!!! Vijay got OpenGL to run on my laptop which means that I won't have to go to the lab every time I want to test something out-Thanks Vijay!!!! Shout Out to Matt and Travis- these men are the core of Team Gandalf! PS-Hi Mom!
NizarKhalife - 16 Jun 2008 - 22:10
Our tornado is going to blow your little powder away! Hazzah!JennaLanger - 16 Jun 2008 - 15:17
Hah, now that you have OpenGL on your computer, I'm going to be bugging you!June 13th, 2008
No Matt-Snakes are not Funny
So after a traumatic experience with a certain snake photo-I am all set to blog about my day. We had journal Club today which was probably my favorite part of the day. The article Paul and I chose was about biometric identification. Comments and concerns brought about during the discussion were really different from where I thought the discussion would go. I really liked Brian's comment along the lines of the personal fear that go along with implementing the new technologies because they directly affect the user. We also had another day of awesome OpenGL -Team Gandalf presented out awesome Snow-Scape 2008 program...just wait-it will be quite awesome, but with awesome team members-how could anything not be perfect??? Since it is Friday-I figure that I will put something awesome on my blog-and since the topic does have to do with snakes:
DavidOluwatimi - 17 Jun 2008 - 21:26
Really funny.ThomasNiedzielski - 13 Jun 2008 - 17:01
The OpenGL projects should be pretty cool. I think your idea to create a blizzard is pretty neat. To make it more interesting, you should hide things in the blizzard, and maybe have a map-and-compass game the user can play to find them.BrianRussell - 13 Jun 2008 - 15:30
I got mentioned in a blog.June 12th 2008
AHHHHHHH!!!!
So I finally finished my first two designs on SolidWorks ...and they look absolutely terrible, but I guess that's what happens when you only have a week to learn the program. We had our weekly team meeting, but Andrew was gone so I couldn't get all of my SolidWorks questions answered. I also found out today that we need to finish our Maya project by tomorrow morning, so it looks like I will yet again be in the lab late, but at least it's almost Friday. And Eva--below is the clip with and without the textures added: It turned out to not sparkle as much as I wanted it to, but I'm not an artist, so it still is pretty good.
- ClipBefore .jpg:
- ClipAfter .jpg:
EvaTao - 17 Jun 2008 - 04:53
Nice!AllisonWhite - 13 Jun 2008 - 13:37
ha, i should read before I look at pictures. all I saw at first was the first picture and I was very disappointed at the lack of sparklesTravisChristian - 13 Jun 2008 - 13:35
Now THAT is a nice hair clip. I might even wear that.CodyGlover - 13 Jun 2008 - 13:23
Not having a person around to help sucks. Hopefully they'll be in some time soon and you can continue your work.MatthewScheinerman - 12 Jun 2008 - 22:15
I think we have to finish our Maya projects by Monday, not Friday, so you don't have to stress about that.NizarKhalife - 12 Jun 2008 - 21:12
Twinkle twinkle, Sam.June 11th 2008
OpenGL is quite fun
Today we had the first day of OpenGL . It is quite awesome. I was able to make my initials rotate in awesome colors (a close second to Cole's). So I'm working on my Maya project right now with the hopes of getting it done so I can go back to SolidWorks . By the way- I did learn that we can use Maya and Open Scene Graph to generate images-which may prove useful for the team project. As far as SolidWorks goes, I have the basic structure done and now have to add in the UniStrut . I'm hoping that I will soon have SolidWorks on my computer so I can do these designs at any time, but what can you do?
EvaTao - 11 Jun 2008 - 05:59
Sam I want to see your super sparkle hair clip, can you put a picture here?June 10th 2008
Late Night Fun in the Lab (and shiny things)
I've discovered over the past week that it is quite hard to find time to work on my SolidWorks designs, especially since we are working with Maya right now, which is a completely different interface, and is pretty much the artsy version of what I should be working on. (But I did make a super sparkle awesome hair clip. And it only took me about two hours...LOL) We had a brief team meeting to discuss the software, and hopefully by Thursday's meeting, we will have it narrowed down to what we want, and maybe a running table to try things out on and work with the other program we need to learn. Tonight, I plan on running through a little bit more SolidWorks , which means that I will be in the lab for a few hours-come visit me.
PaulClay - 12 Jun 2008 - 13:02
Solid works looks soo pretty.... I hope you get it all working and nice.DavidOluwatimi - 11 Jun 2008 - 23:23
WOW!! You made a "super sparkle awesome hair clip", and it only took you 2hours to do it. CONGRATULATIONS.EvaTao - 11 Jun 2008 - 05:59
Show me what the super sparkle awesome hair clip looks like.NizarKhalife - 11 Jun 2008 - 00:29
The hair clip was so shiny and awesome that I could see the bling from my seat. It was niiiice!June 9th 2008
Oh "Maya" Goodness
MAYA IS REALLY REALLY DIFFICULT!!!!!! But I did have an enjoyable morning working on SolidWorks , which is much much better than Maya (no offense.) I'm hoping that tomorrow's class will be much better. We also had the programming presentations today. Everyone had really innovative projects, I'm looking forward to trying them out. As the rain, lightning, and thunder still loom overhead-I can't help but wish for the sunny California weather. Look what I made! It's a screwdriver!! * driver.jpg:
JohnMorales - 11 Jun 2008 - 01:37
Looks cool, but looks like a lollipop lolCodyGlover - 10 Jun 2008 - 13:16
I have to agree about Maya. I understand that its a powerful program but the interface is just to much of a pain.MatthewScheinerman - 09 Jun 2008 - 22:29
Hang in there, Sam. The future will be better tomorrow.June 6th 2008
Working for the Weekend
Well- things were relatively slow today. It was the last day of programming, which was good because that means that we can now go to the 3D programming which will be pretty helpful with our project. Journal Club was fun today, but none of us were very talkative- probably because everyone is burned out due to the class projects due and the fact that we worked a lot this week. I am hoping that I can get a copy of SolidWorks on this computer, and possibly my laptop so I can start to work on the design of the table. This weekend I am going to be going through tutorials to try and figure out everything, which means I will most likely be in the VRAC lab this weekend (come visit me!).
EvaTao - 07 Jun 2008 - 00:58
Could you post your HCI video on the team blog?ThomasNiedzielski - 06 Jun 2008 - 14:53
I don't know if I could say today is slow. I've been pretty busy, with the classes and extra credit and our project code. At least you're taking it easy.June 5th 2008
Meetings, Epiphanies, and an awesome team
Today we had our second team meeting. Andrew and Marisol were really helpful, especially when talking about different angles and design ideas that I had. And...I got Specs today! It was quite awesome. We talked about different places that the lights could go and different ways to create the system without ugly parts showing through. Andrew suggested that I use Solid Works to generate some 3D models, which means that I am going to be going through tutorials and whatnot, but it should be pretty interesting to learn something besides AutoCAD . As far as software is concerned, we have a few ideas that would be feasible, and as long as the iPhone team takes the educational route, we should have a relatively decent deliverable. Before the next meeting, I should be able to have some drawings done (assuming I can figure out the whole 3D modeling thing) and we should be good to go on rough materials. PS-I believe that we were the only group to get a new TV today-once again proving our awesomeness
DavidOluwatimi - 06 Jun 2008 - 14:29
excuse me, i just sneezed i think I'm allergic to....(enter the word yourself lol). But yea, the tv is awesome.NizarKhalife - 05 Jun 2008 - 21:09
That TV needs to be closer to me. Good luck learning Solid Works!June 4th 2008
Another Cloudy Day in Ames
Today was another day of programming-not too shabby on that. We also had the teambuilding HCI course after lunch. That was pretty interesting because I found out the differences between the three of us. We have a lot of similarities but still a lot of differences, which makes for the perfect team! On the research front- I've been reading through a bunch of journal articles about eye angles, glare, and webcam specs. I think that I am finally getting somewhere with the design, which is always a good thing. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's meeting so I can narrow down some of the designs I have drafted. PS-Congratulations to Obama for clinching the Democratic nomination! BY THE WAY: Travis and Matt just made the coolest program ever! Check it out when you have a chance. These men are aMAZEing!
TravisChristian - 04 Jun 2008 - 22:26
It will be the coolest program ever when it does both parts on the same machine. Silly compilers. Yeah, congrats to Obama for managing to be marginally more popular than Hillary Clinton. "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." -Douglas AdamsNizarKhalife - 04 Jun 2008 - 20:28
Keep on trucking! That design is going to be so good! I'm looking forward to it. Oh, and beware of Matt. The other day he forced me to get rid of my lemon meringue pie! Be sure to stay on his good side. P.S. For the record, if Jenna is willing to pursue her crush on Obama, I can help by seducing his wife.MatthewScheinerman - 04 Jun 2008 - 17:15
OK, that's better. I get jealous of Travis very easily, and all compliments need to be balanced in order for me to hold back my fury.JennaLanger - 04 Jun 2008 - 17:09
I got a crush on OBAMA...But on the serious front, I'm glad you're getting somewhere with the table design. I know you've been working really hard on it. Can't wait to see the final product! (And what's Travis' cool program???)June 3rd 2008
Extreme Calcs
This morning we had programming and a lunch lecture from a representative in the MBA/MIS program. He used second life to teach a class. I am still not too keen on that idea, but it was nice hearing his perspective. He actually went to lunch with us which gave all of us time to ask questions and chat in an informal setting. This afternoon, we have nothing planned, so we are going to work on the Programming Project and some more material calculations for the table. I'm hoping that I can figure out about five possible materials with a pro/con list for each. The problem that I am running into is that I am working off a lot of assumptions about the TV dimensions and the materials I'm considering, but I think that after Thursday's meeting, I should be better informed about the problems I am running into.
EvaTao - 04 Jun 2008 - 04:00
I would get into the 2nd life and take a look by myself if I were you. So you might get a sense why Dr. Mennecke emphasize that.ColeAnagnost - 03 Jun 2008 - 22:13
You looked like you were having such a great time with all that math. I bet you can't wait to get the real numbers and do it all again.June 2nd 2008
Eric's Programming Party
This morning we had our first of five crash courses in programming. The assignment was relatively easy. We had to create the "Hello World" program and then do a basic Cout/Cin/Cout program. I chose to have the computer ask the month, the user input said information, and then have the computer display that month. As a team, we have a group project due next Monday for C++. We are going to make a maze program that the user has to solve. It is going to be pretty tough since coding is not my area of expertise, but the nice thing is that once we have a version that runs on a small array, we can change it minutely to accommodate a much larger one. This morning we had our first of five crash courses in programming. The assignment was relatively easy. We had to create the "Hello World" program and then do a basic Cout/Cin/Cout program. I chose to have the computer ask the month, the user input said information, and then have the computer display that month. As a team, we have a group project due next Monday for C++. We are going to make a maze program that the user has to solve. It is going to be pretty tough since coding is not my area of expertise, but the nice thing is that once we have a version that runs on a small array, we can change it minutely to accommodate a much larger one. AND...I figured out how to upload the attachment file (with the team's help) and it was a glorious moment!!!! In regards to the Magic Table, we are planning a trip to Lowe's to look at various materials that have the strength to hold up a flat screen television. There is also this interlocking metal that is in the Haptics Lab and on the Multitouch table that we are thinking about. However, I am not sure of the name of such metal, so any insight would be quite helpful. Later this afternoon we had the HCI course. It was really interesting once we dived into the ethics of advancements into human "disabilites." Everyone had a lot to say and it was interesting to hear everyone's opinion.
ColeAnagnost - 03 Jun 2008 - 00:02
Flat screen TV's aren't that heavy, what is the problem? You should try to build a setup to hold a CRT monitor...MatthewScheinerman - 02 Jun 2008 - 14:14
Both of you guys better watch it. I'm not going to let this team fail, even if I have to carry you on my shoulders (metaphorically speaking).TravisChristian - 02 Jun 2008 - 14:07
team awesomeness restored. day saved. carry on.TravisChristian - 02 Jun 2008 - 13:56
You're going all black hat on the attachment page....May 30th 2008
Day Two: TGI(c)F!!!
It's comic Friday!! http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:nOBCFB-lmJ1YzM:http://www.roystonrobertson.plus.com/royston_streets.jpg I just found this amusing because Eliot Winer was chatting with us about computer chips in the mind and the fear of computers taking over. For the rest of the day- we met with our research teams. Travis, Matt, and I are on the Magic table which is an Augmented Reality device. (So AR is a little bit like Star Trek where the Jem'Hadar can see the outside world along with displays about each thing.) Eliot chatted with us about his expectations for the project. It sounds like we are given a lot of freedom and expected to solve problems independently when able. Our project is dual-parted:building the new device and coding the software to run on it. I feel that due to my lack of C++ ability at this point, I would be better suited to devote more of my time to the external construction. I drew a rough (very very rough) drawing of the current system and am going to check Internet for some ideas on materials we can use. Before we can even begin-we have to figure out what population we are building the software for. Two options that were thrown out at the meeting were educational vs. entertainment and each of those have different subsets regarding age. Since Ames is flooded to the max- I plan to work on some preliminary calculations this weekend.
EvaTao - 02 Jun 2008 - 01:39
Funny comic ~ I like the way you made your name shining ~MatthewScheinerman - 01 Jun 2008 - 22:46
Indeed, but the Jem'Hadar had yellow eye-piece things that they needed in order to use augmented reality. That would be amazing if we had those, I would wear one all the time.MarisolMartinez - 31 May 2008 - 00:58
Don't worry about the coding, you'll catch up. And after you tried something you can always ask us.AllisonWhite - 30 May 2008 - 16:54
Good job finding something to do that doesn't require you to code. I'm in the same boat.May 29th 2008
Day One: Pretests, Tours, Journals, and Blogs
Today we took a pretest on C++ and had a quick tutorial on blogging. As this is my first time blogging/doing anything technical with Internet, it may take me some time to get everything down. I'm hoping to eventually add some comical pics/vids (and yes-they will correspond to the project) and colors. The programming exam was a little rough, with a lot of questions that I didn't understand at all. For the duration of the day, we are going to tour the C6 and hear about all the research projects.We also had our first Journal Club meeting today. The article discussed the ongoing debate of adding emotions to computers and having them read the user's. It was interesting to hear all the points brought up on both sides of this issue. One point that especially stuck with me is the fear that it can be used for nefarious purposes. I feel that anything these days can be used to cause mayhem. For example, talking on cell phones used to be perfectly harmless, until the US government started wiretapping phones and listening in on personal calls. To escape from a possible tangent, time is running out and I'm about to go on the tours. To close--Quick shoutout to the rest of my team-we rocked that spaghetti builder yesterday!
EvaTao - 29 May 2008 - 23:35
You guys did a great job...this is so called TEAM WORKS!!MatthewScheinerman - 29 May 2008 - 16:25
Heck yeah we did! All other towers fell before ours, because ours was one of the Black Towers.TravisChristian - 29 May 2008 - 13:31
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