It's August Already?! [Friday and Monday]

On Friday and Monday, our lab has been finalizing everything, and setting ups, etc for our experiments on the lake this week. We set up a rental truck, and planned out what we were going to bring. We made an inventory of everything, as well as a checklist for the steps to take when doing experiments. We also discussed some modifications that we might make to make the whole process easier for now. I also got a chance to talk to my coworkers about my presentation, and how I can improve what I have so far. I am presenting next Friday, so I should finish up as soon as I can.

On Friday, I went and visited my fellow interns in the Visual Perception Lab. There, I was a test subject for them, and I read digital text, basically pages on a computer screen, and then read an actual text. During both of these readings, my eyes were being tracked, and they were researching the differences for when reading an digital text versus an actual text. It was all very interesting. Afterwards, they showed me a little demonstration of the software, and it showed a plot of where I looked when I was reading the texts. It was very cool to see the computer plot everywhere I was looking, and how long i fixated on those points. It was a tantalizing glimpse of the other imaging sciences out there.

On Monday, I helped shop for some equipment needed to make modifications to the GRIT. For the GRIT, we need a set up to make it so that the calibration plate won't touch the ground and disturb the sand or material below and can still be tested on. After that, we went out with the GRIT, hoping to do a few short experiments so that we could get a better idea of how many samples we will need to take during the actual experiment. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. It started becoming cloudy, and blocked the necessary sunlight, so we had to cancel. After rushing to bring the stuff in, I set up a printer in the lab for easier access to -well- a printer. Also, I helped troubleshoot the setting up of said printer.

After all of that, I read a couple of articles about work that my advisor has done, and I saw different applications and methods for the experiments we are doing with the current GRIT.

Both Friday and Monday were packed full of activities!