It’s been a long and short 10 weeks at the same time. 10 weeks is really a long time to be spending the summer, and it’s surprising to think that’s it’s almost over.

What did I learn from this program?

I learned that it’s okay to feel like an impostor (thanks, Birdie). In fact, I learned that a lot of other people feel that, even though I thought that they were the people who had everything together. I really wanted to come to this REU in particular because I figured that whatever engineering knowledge I needed to know for the project, I would learn along the way. I belonged here as much as everyone else because I was just learning. That was a brave step, but I’m glad I took it.

That brings me to my next point. I keep learning this over and over, but I learned again that I’m a work in progress. Often, before I have anything to show the group, I want it to be polished and refined. I don’t want to tell them that I haven’t fully thought through a concept. I learned that an important part of research ideation is finding out those “unrefined ideas” and exploring them with others, instead of choosing between to perfectly packaged ideas. I learned that it’s okay to be a work in progress.

I also learned that grad school is a real thing. Before coming here, I often thought of it as some abstract idea, when people in my school referred to going to “grad school”. I didn’t really know what it meant until I learned about it from the grad students at VRAC, by the grad school panel or just chatting with them in the lab. Also, participating in the REU projects was great experience for preparing us for grad school. I finally understand that research takes a long time. We spent 10 weeks here and it doesn’t feel as if we scratched the surface on perspective taking in spatial cognition. There’s much to learn and explore, and that’s why I’m happy about continuing our project.

Networking and having mentors is important. I am grateful for all the support I received from the staff of the REU. They’re really nice people who have lived through grad school and want to see you succeed, so it only makes sense to get support from them. I also met a PhD who’s in ID, and I networked with her and learned so much about what I can do in ID research. It helps to reach out the people and meet as many people who can help you in your professional development.

Grad school, networking, and research is important. But remember to force yourself out of the apartment once in a while. Go out with your mentors and friends and have a nice time hiking or exploring the mall in Ames. I don’t think my summer would have been as rewarding if I didn’t invest my time in friends as well.

That’s probably a small section of what I learned in this program, but it’s knowledge I want to impart with you all, whether you’re a current intern or a future one. I had a great time, and if you make the most out this program, I’m sure you will enjoy it too.

The days seem to get busier and busier…

This morning, Vrinda and I worked on getting video capture of our experiment interfaces. I was terrible at moving around in the discordant interfaces. Eventually, we had to get Roselynn to complete a trial (thank you, Roselynn!). Also, thank you to Vrinda, who converted the video files and organized them on Cybox. I had no problem using the clips in Adobe Premiere and editing the video. I used my video editing skills a lot in high school, but I have only used video editing software intermittently since then. Luckily this video is pretty basic, and I’m not having much problems with it.

While we were doing video capture, Stephen stopped by and announced that we would be doing HCI today. That was great news, because we had missed a class while he was gone. The topic of discussion was decision making. I found a lot of the things he shared with us to be true. For example, often we think “fast” when making easy, immediate decisions. For instance, when I go to the computer lab, I go to the same computer every time without thinking. If I thought “slow” and considered that I should go to another computer, I could use another machine. I tend to favor the first option. Going to the same computer is the easy option, I don’t have to choose. We prefer not to make decisions when we don’t have to. My brother pointed out this phenomenon to me a year ago, and it has been on my mind frequently since then. I have read some parts of Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow, and I think I’ll return to it to explore this idea more.

Our group also made edits to the paper. We had used placeholder text for some of our sections, so we had to fill in those gaps before we submit the paper today. I’m proud of the work we did on the paper, in addition to our other REU deliverables.

We had our last group dinner on Saturday! Thank you to Abby for planning this great event. Texas Roadhouse was fun, there was great food, and it was great reflecting on some of the great memories in the program. We have one more week ahead of us, and then on Saturday, we part ways for now.

Today, our grad mentor gave us some edits for the paper and poster. For the paper, there was some work do to on our discussion. We had listed out the future directions of the project, but Lucia suggested that we had to explain further why those directions would make sense. Our paper also needs a discussion of the limitations of our experiment. I’ve started to make some changes, but I will check with her later to make sure the paper is on the right track. There has also been some updates to the poster with which we have been going back and forth with her. I really like how much the poster has improved since the first draft. I can’t wait to present it on Thursday — and next spring at my university’s undergraduate research day. In the meantime, we have to keep working hard to meet these final deadlines this week.

I’m going to hop on the “this is about to end train” that’s been running past Freddy since halfway through the program. Usually, I keep working towards a deadline (like the end of a semester), don’t think much of it as it creeps forward, but once it flies by, I’m surprisingly lost: “what just happened?”. That’s what happened last semester, and what I suspect, will happen again this summer.

Before I came here, I faced a huge block of time at Iowa State, when I would be spending a majority of the summer. I came in with little to no expectations, so I can’t exactly say that ISU met my expectations or not. It’s been an enjoyable time, however, and I’ve liked my time here in ways I wouldn’t have anticipated. I’m trying to figure out how I can use what I’ve learned from here, but I think it’s best that I leave and find out later.

Today we had a luncheon lecture by Dr. Peng Wei. He talked about optimizing flight patterns. It made me really appreciate all the air traffic control and optimization work that is done behind the scenes every day. He also explained to us what drone racing was. The video Peng showed us made it look really cool! I don’t know how the pilots can manipulate those drones at such high speeds. Dr. Peng Wei seems to be really involved both in research and with his club, and he gave us some great life advice during lunch. It was overall a really interesting talk, and I think he’s a great role model for someone who’s interested in becoming a professor.

Teleport team is finally done with our experiment! We’ve tested 10 people. We had some trouble rescheduling people and some problems with data, but I’m happy that we finally met our goal. We are going to start analyzing data next week. Thank you to everyone who participated in our experiment!

We also finished up our presentation for Minnesota today as well. I’m excited to go north. Hopefully it will be colder.

Today was almost entirely dedicated to working on our project. I started this morning by reading over our paper and making some citations, which is unfortunately the least exciting part of our paper. I also read over the abstract that Vrinda wrote, and we submitted it later today after Lucia had the chance to look over it. We went to the Navigation lab today, and we couldn’t get Unity to work there, but once Lucia showed us how to activate the headset, the setup worked! It seemed really obvious what we were missing, but that’s fine. We can use our Unity anywhere now. Nina and I worked with Lucia to go over the experiment protocol. We practiced performing the experiment with each other, from the consent form to trial, and to the experiment task and debriefing. My speech felt pretty bumpy at first, but I think I’ll do better tomorrow when Nina and I teach Vrinda how to conduct the experiment as well. I like to plan things out, so I set up an online poll so that the REU interns can sign up for our experiment. If you are reading this and haven’t signed up yet, please do so!

After lunch yesterday, I finished up my MCA presentation. I’m fairly happy with how it turned out, and I look forward to presenting it on Thursday. I was really trying to stress the design process and how I was designing a splint specifically to accommodate for Abby’s needs. I hope that comes off as clear when I present.

This morning, we had a meeting with our entire project team. As we went over the multiple components of the experiment, we all started to realize how it was coming together. Seeing the avatar in the virtual environment was definitely a huge accomplishment, because that was the main hurdle we had to get over in order to get the experiment started. We are going to start collecting data next week.

We had Craft of Research during our luncheon lecture today. We went over how to make research posters, which is something I’ve wanted to learn for awhile. The best advice I’ve ever gotten as a poster is to think about your elevator pitch. What visuals/bullet points would best describe your idea? Then that’s what you should put on the poster. Stephen also gave great advice to our project team today, which was give a few sentences (30 seconds) to the audience member about what your project is about, and gauge their interest. If they don’t seem interested, move on. If not, tell them more about your project!

It turns out that we’re not presenting our MCA’s today. That’s a disappointment to me because I was ready to present, but I think it’s better that the other faculty members and grad students are here for our presentations.

Let’s start with what happened after I blogged after lunch yesterday.

I worked on the paper some more. I’m having some problems with figuring out what to write based on what we already have. I also have to get started on the procedural instructions. Lucia and Alec came by at 2pm, so we updated them on what we were working on. We’re almost done with the VE, and the avatar is a work in progress. We don’t have content view-able in the HMD yet, but we’re working on it. Afterwards, I continued to work on the Literature Review, but I’m overwhelmed with how much I have to read and write for that. It could definitely use more work.

During craft of research, my team worked on the Discussion section of the paper. We couldn’t answer all of the questions because we don’t have any results yet. We did brainstorm some ideas on what the implications of our experiment is, and we’ve already discussed what we can do to continue improving our experiment.

This morning, I finished the last changes on my MCA presentation that Alex suggested that I make. I’m relieved to be finished already. That never happens when I design things! (It’s probably because my hardcore design professors aren’t here. They make us redo everything.)

I checked the calendar for this morning, and I saw that we had an Ethics class. I was agitated after the class. People gave answers, but I feel that we were digging a couple of inches on the surface. I was hoping we’d get philosophical and dig 10+ feet deeper. We didn’t seem to define ethics in a few words, which bugged me. Saying that the definition is “Open to interpretation” just wasn’t a way to get any questions answered. That being said, I’ve not read Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics yet, so I just identify ethics as what one believes as right or wrong. Then morals was brought into the picture. From what I could tell from the discussion, morals and ethics may have been translated into making sure everyone is a good person and does the right thing.

I don’t think the law should require an individual to be a good person by enforcing ethics or morals. I like to think of the example of a driver passing by someone with car troubles on the side of the road. It takes a good person to stop and help, but should it be required by law? The truth is that some people wouldn’t stop, but they shouldn’t be breaking the law if they choose not to. It could be predicted that less of us would adhere to the law if those “good person” laws existed. How do we revere the law if everyone who didn’t stop broke it?

Governments instituted on the basis of making people good have a history of failure, starting with religious regimes. The United States was founded to protect the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The government protects those rights, but under that legal scope it limits its control over the rest of our lives. Morals and ethics are beyond government. Since they seem to open to human choice, why should they be law?

I haven’t blogged since last Thursday, and honestly, I’m disappointed in myself for not doing so. I can’t give you a specific reason why, because I’ve been busy with so many things that I have been hardly been keeping track of the time day-to-day. That’s my reason, but I won’t use that as an excuse for not blogging. I’ll catch up now, and I’ll pick up where I left off.

Thursday afternoon (6/27)

On Thursday afternoon, our grad mentor came down for the weekly meeting with the three of our team members. She got updates on the VE and avatar, and she encouraged us to get our projects drafted into Unity as soon as possible. Lucia also gave me very helpful edits about what I should change on the Methods section. In the past, I’ve had issues with documenting every step of the research process, and I think that’ll really come to the test as I work on the Methods section. I’m also looking forward to receiving comments from the rest of my team members. I think it’ll help if they review it, so that we are all on the same page about our procedure before starting trials.

Friday (6/28)

Friday morning, we met again for our MCA. By Friday, I had a pretty good concept for my splint idea, and I had been printing out my 3D models and testing them on Abby’s hand to find the perfect fit. I found that I had a way more difficult time editing my complex models in Solidworks than it took me to create them in the first place. Kate was a great help, however, and she gave me great instructions on how to make the changes that I needed.

We had another Intro to HCI course on Friday afternoon. For this class, we researched workshops that we’d like to go to at ACM CHI and gave our mini pitches on why our fellow interns should go to them. I got an idea of what CHI offered, and honestly, now I want to go even more. I had been planning on going immediately after jury week ended next spring, and I confirmed the dates when my college’s calendar came out. I haven’t made any flight arrangements yet, but the timing works out well, and I’d be flying back to Hawaii since the conference is in Oahu. I’ve also been humoring the idea of creating a project for the student research competition, although I don’t have any ideas for it yet. It would work out better if I worked with students in my department back at my school, but the interns here have a lot of experience in HCI that I think could be put to use here. I’m wonder if it could work remotely…

The interns had a lot of different ideas on how the t-shirts should look. I was partially overwhelmed because I’m used to visualizing the design, but describing it verbally doesn’t really capture how it would really look. We settled on an idea that I like, however, and I’ve been helping Nina create the muli-component design in Illustrator.

After, I went back to DABL to 3D print again. I learned that I can keep the same file type and scale it differently on the the three axes using the Makerbot software. I semi-guessed what would fit Abby, and I printed it. I tried it on myself, and it looked perfect, as long as the sizing was right. Otherwise, I’m was almost done with my project! I’m thinking that I did it so quickly because I knew were were expected to present on Friday originally, so I made sure I had something that I could finish quickly. That’s an important thing to learn about design. I always have to be careful to make sure I can finish my projects with the skills and resources that I have. I’ve seen too many projects that have to scaled back last minute because of those constraints. I’d rather have a great design and have it executed well. I usually accomplish my task, and despite my expectations to finish early, I always finish right on time with what I wanted.

Monday (7/1)

On Monday morning, I make some avatars to import into Unity and add shaders. I used a program called Adobe Fuse, which I was luckily able to have using my Adobe CC software. It’s essentially like designing an avatar in Sims, except you can export it into Mixamo to animate it. I added the final versions to Cybox, and we’re still working on making them work properly in Unity. Alec also helped us with the Unity files that we’re building off of for our new avatar experiment.

I stopped by Abby’s desk during her office hours to test my most recent splint. It fit! She gave it positive reviews as well. I took a lot of pictures that I plan to use in the MCA presentation. I also got a head start on the slides for the MCA, and Alex provided some great comments on how I can improve the presentation. Overall, I’m excited to present because I would love to talk about designing things by asking those affected about their experience, and also by asking what they’d like for the new product.

I did some more work on the paper in the afternoon, but honestly, I’m at a loss on where to begin for the literature review. I think I’ll read what was written in the original paper, and see if I can use that as a framework and style to write our new literature review. I also have to put my paper-reading skills to the test. I’m optimistic, but I also know realistically that it’ll be a struggle.

Tuesday morning (7/2)

This morning, I started writing out the intro paragraph. I’ve been going off of the existing paper, but I’m making changes to fit our experiment. Our grad mentor provided comments on using specific language last time, so I’ve been careful in how I use my words. At the same time, I’ve been detailing the small bits of our experiment. I thought that I’d just be documenting what I’ve determined in the paper, but I’m finding that we have to figure out exactly how our experiment is working as well.

For our luncheon lecture today, some grad students gathered with us in the conference room for a Q&A. I’ve already heard about some of what was described about grad school, but I learned some new things as well. For instance, I didn’t know how graduate school funding worked or how to figure out what grad school advisor to work with. They gave us really good advice. I took notes, and I’ll archive them for when I apply to grad school in a few years.

I didn’t blog yesterday! So I’ll try my best to catch up to what’s happened since Monday afternoon.

We did more lecture for our deeper dive on Monday afternoon. I’d expect most of the content to be over my head, but as I watch videos and look at diagrams, I can understand how the printers work pretty well. Alex did a great job with his slides (also thanks to Kate). I was pretty set on doing the splint idea for Abby.

On Tuesday, I read some articles in preparation for our weekly Teleport meeting. I’m very interested in finding articles about perception-taking, but the field seems to be all over the place in the realm of psychology. I have to fine tune my skills about finding exactly what I need from the research articles I browse over. I also printed out some illustrations of avatars that I liked, and I made a quick mock up using Maya on what the avatar might look like with its arrows. Alec also helped us set up our Unity accounts so that we can access the study’s unity files, so finally what we’ve been learning from the crash courses is going to be useful in our project.

Stephen led the luncheon lecture on Tuesday, which was a surprise for me, because I hadn’t checked the schedule for that day. When he presented the projects he and others had been working on in VRAC, all the pieces started coming together as I started to understand what type of projects VRAC takes on. That also tells me a lot about VRAC in general. Stephen also talked about his life story, and how specific people in his network gave him advice along the way that changed his trajectory. I think he’s absolutely right, as I’ve found that life doesn’t go linearly like it might be expected to, and we have to be able to take opportunities and make changes along the way. He also gave some great tips on applying to grad school and recommendation letters. Overall, the lecture was informative and a much needed professional guidance session.

We had the Teleport meeting on Thursday afternoon. We talked about the avatar, environment, and the interface. We made decisions on each, which is good because now we can start moving forward by building components in Unity and testing them out. I think that the faculty were impressed with our ideas because we as interns thought of a lot of unique ideas that they wouldn’t have considered coming from their backgrounds.

This [Wednesday] morning, I switched gears to work on my deeper dive. Alex talked about some fancy expensive 3D printing devices and how they worked in different industries. Reading the presentation from the surface, one would think, “wow, companies can make these really realistic prototypes? Cool!” But as an industrial designer, I’m what Alex called a “skeptic”. I ask questions like, how long does it take for that prototype to be made? Is getting a fancy version even helpful, if the design keeps changing and there’s a strict time deadline on when the final has to be submitted? Honestly, I’m relieved that I feel like I can use something I learned in my field. During the beginning of this internship, I felt like I had strayed into the CompSci sphere and couldn’t use my industrial design skills to navigate. I’m learning now that I’m truly in an interdisciplinary place, and there’s much I can use from what I’ve learned in school.

My team met with Lucia yesterday for our first weekly check-in. We clarified some of the basis of our experiment, and we asked helpful questions, like “how would our environment look?” We assigned roles, but this morning, Steven also suggested that each of us take a role in sequential phases of our project. I agree with Vrinda with her saying that Steven’s approach would be very helpful for writing our paper. I’m brainstorming the ways that we can use that method of teamwork in the other components of our project as well.

We started our deeper dive this morning. Alex seemed very happy to be teaching us about 3D printing, but he likes to say that he’s not an expert (and for us not to trust people who say they are). 3D printing is a whole new area for me, and I’m learning a lot about how it works. I was very straightforward about 3D printing as addressing my industrial design skills, when Alex asked us what we wanted to get out of our deeper dive. I’m sure that I’ll gain some technical knowledge, but I’m sure I’ll also learn a lot of how engineers like to design. That’ll be helpful when I work with engineers some day.

The second deeper dive session happened this afternoon. I understood most of the concepts, but a couple of them were over my head. In general, I understand how a 3D printer works now. I’m excited about all of the other paths that each of the people on 3D printing are choosing. We really get to choose what would best demonstrate our new skills in our specialty, and I think that is really cool. I’m interested in making a medical 3D print, with perhaps help from the 3D scanning group.

The biggest surprise that I got from 3D printing was the idea of 3D printing as “rapid prototyping.” That’s a wild concept for me. In Industrial Design, we make cardboard models, or foam models for rapid prototyping. The second we go into Solidworks, it’s no longer rapid (because it takes forever), according to the design timeline. I’m anxious to start sketching ideas for a medical product this weekend. I also want to get started on those t-shirt designs! I want to make a lot for the interns to choose from. 🙂

After writing yesterday, we had a project meeting. Everyone involved on the project was there. The REU interns prepared some research articles to summarize and discuss that were about the World in Miniature (WiM) idea. The group discussed it, and Jon told us that we had to determine the main questions that the study would intend to answer, if we were to go with that idea. After more discussion, we went with the navigation based on an avatar idea. I feel relieved to have finally decided on a direction for our project. I think that our group encountered some difficulty with choosing an idea because we didn’t have any experience working together, and we gravitated towards different ideas and, in the end, we had to choose one or another. I wonder if this is how research topics are usually determined, or if this situation was unique to our project. I think this would be an interesting question to ask the faculty or grad students.

Lucia, our grad mentor for our project, scheduled a one-on-one with me after the project meeting. We went to the atrium to talk. She asked me how I thought the project was going, and how I can be best supported according to my academic/career interests. I asked to clarify more about what would have to be done for the research, and I listened to her as she suggested ways that I can frame this research experience as being helpful to me in the future. I feel so fortunate as to receive this kind of support and guidance from her.

Later on, Abby led a Craft of Research session. We got together in our project teams and worked on our Materials and Methods sections. I found this activity helpful because now I have some content questions for Lucia and Jon, which should help us better write our Materials and Methods later on.

We had another Unity class this morning. I followed my advice from yesterday and tried to better understand how the code connected to Unity. I asked many questions and got help when I was stuck, which happened often. However, I’m hoping to learn enough Unity to contribute to the Teleport project. Soon, we can start getting an idea of what we have to learn in Unity to finish the experiment tasks.

After I worked on my blog on Friday, we had another Maya course. I was unhappy with my virtual farm, and I think that’s because I thought that everyone else had put a lot more detail and better shaders into their farms. I consider myself to be artistically inclined, so I had exceedingly high expectations to produce better work than I did. I spent some time this morning changing up the shaders and some of the shapes on the house. It started to look a lot better, and finally it became something that I wouldn’t be extremely disappointed in if I was walking through it in VR. Unity seems to work very much like Maya with the lighting, shapes, and camera angles. I’m still a bit confused with the program, so I’m hoping that, with some practice, I can use my Unity skills to build something for my project.

Now I’m going to backtrack to the weekend —

We didn’t have any structured events for this weekend. I thought this was good, because then I would be free to use my time however I wanted. I’m learning now that I don’t use my time as wisely now as I did during the semester. I had to leave Freddy for the library or coffee shops to get any work done. I suppose that’s typical, however, because I usually can’t ever get work done at my dorm. Over the weekend, I worked on some personal/school projects, which I’ve been putting on the back burner for some time during this internship. I will articulate some of those goals here, and maybe you all can help keep me accountable.

• I really need to finish a risk management class for my student org, Painting Club, to be registered. I need to complete it as soon as possible. I’ve been putting it off because it’s a boring, university-mandated requirement. I’m not even an officer for the club anymore, but I was assigned to do the class for whatever reason or another. I’m not trying to write off the club by any means. I founded this club and I intend to make it sustainable, with the help of its future officers. I haven’t done this training yet because I would rather spend an hour of my time doing something else (a sad excuse, I know).
• I’m not very happy with my website, karinabhattacharya.com. It’s my professional portfolio. I’m partially unhappy with it because (a) I don’t have super complex projects or things to show and (b) I’m not sure if I like how its structured. A part of me wants to redo the website completely, but I know that will take a lot of time, and I’d just be bulldozing all the progress I’ve made. Right now, I’ll try to fix what I’ve got. I have also got to open the Adobe Suite often and make some graphics and image adjustments.
• I have got to read! Last semester, my professor told the class:

I’m assigning Ajax because I never do anything unless I have to do it, and I’ve wanted to read and teach this book for some time.

Dr. Terry Hallmark, 2019

• I thought long and hard about the “never doing anything unless I have to do it,” and honestly I find it true to myself. But there’s a catch. I impose requirements on myself, so that I actually have to do things (other than work/school). I started Painting Club because I really wanted to teach art to college students, but it wasn’t a voluntary thing in my mind. I made myself do it. I never tell myself that I can or cannot go to office hours. I decide that I will, then I read the book, prepare questions, make an appointment, and go. Last summer, I read Taming the Prince by Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., and I couldn’t stop thinking about some of the arguments for the ambivalence of the executive. This summer, I’ve decided to reread it, and then I’m going to talk to one of my favorite professors, Dr. Jeremy D. Bailey, who’s also an expert on executive power. I’ve decided that I am going to do it, and I’ve been getting a lot out of it. I’ve made some progress, but I have to keep working.
• I also told myself that I should do undergraduate research, so I’ve got to begin reading for that. When I brought it up that possibility of research to Dr. Bailey, he told me that I have to be practical, and not just study political theory. That wouldn’t help me get into grad school. He asked, “What if I could write on a design movement that was motivated by political theory?” My mind went immediately to Soviet Russia, and I went to the UH Honors College’s resident expert on Russia, Dr. David Rainbow. He helped me explore research options, and I went to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s library to discuss possible topics with its director. I decided to go back to the Russia idea, but I’m a bit nervous about it. I haven’t studied Russia since AP Euro in high school, so I feel that I have a lot to learn to catch me up to speed before I get back to school.
• I need to keep practicing ID sketching, so that I can improve my skills before school starts.

Those are some school/personal goals of mine. On a side side note, look what I found in the trash can outside VRAC!

It’s blue insulation foam! I’m supposing that engineers throw that stuff in the trash, but industrial designers are the people who fish it out of the trash and make cool models out of it. You can even add on joint compound later and make it look like practically anything.

Anyways, I thought that was funny, and it made me miss studio, just a bit. Thanks for getting all the way through this post. If you do, please keep me accountable for all of these different goals!

I was considering grad school even before I started taking classes in my major, industrial design (ID). I guess I felt inclined to, because everyone around me was going to apply for graduate or professional school. I only had two friends who got a job straight out of college. That should be normal, but perhaps in a educational setting where an undergraduate degree is now the new high school diploma, it doesn’t mean so much anymore — or it’s just an expectation that people with certain jobs should graduate college.

I had a graduate school list ready to go before I started my major. I had to scour the internet for programs, because there wasn’t many that I was very interested in. I thought of these programs:

• MIT’s Integrated Design Management degree, for which you can apply to this interdisciplinary program from business, design, or engineering backgrounds.

• Stanford’s Impact Engineering degree, which is technically in the engineering department but has more of an innovation/product design focus. There’s also teaching assistantships available in the d.school, and I would love to teach design to undergrads.

I am also considering Harvard’s Doctor of Design and Carnegie Mellon University’s Master of Integrated Innovation of Products and Services. I think Harvard might have more of an architecture focus, and I might not be interested in that. Luckily, these programs only last three years each (which is the shorter program, because I’m majoring in ID during undergrad).

One of my professors told me that traditional industrial design masters (like the one at the University of Houston) are for engineering/other undergrad majors who didn’t major in ID. Some of the classes I take in undergrad are combined with masters students, so I doubt I’ll be getting an extremely different education. To be an ID professor, someone would need a masters, doctorate, or PhD. Most of my professors had masters degrees because they went the traditional masters route and didn’t major in ID as an undergrad, so they now have a masters in ID. A professor said, “it just worked out, and he got lucky that way.” For grad school, I chose those non-traditional ID programs because I want to learn something that I didn’t learn in undergrad.

The main reason I want to go to graduate school is because I want to teach. ID also includes research that I’m interested in, but it’s very different from the research that I’m learning here at VRAC (as far as I know). I have had experience teaching students the SAT by a service-learning program that I am a part of, and I also teach art classes to the Painting Club at UH that I started. Right now, I imagine teaching ID as my dream job. I would love to teach first-semester undergraduate freshmen in ID. Going through my education, I’ve put a lot of thought about how to teach design, and I’ve been talking to my professors about it, which is even making them rethink beginner ID education.

However, I don’t think I’ll start my career in design education, because ID is a very professional field. A non-ID professor gave me some practical advice: “You are majoring in something for which you can actually get a job, so seriously consider that first,” and after some hesitation, I agreed with him. Even to get into these competitive grad programs, I need to have some experiences working in companies, or starting my own company. I don’t see that as an unfortunate step, as something I need to do to achieve my eventual goal. I’m really excited about working at a company too. I think it would be amazing to work for a major company or consultancy and see the products I design go on the shelves. I imagine myself drawing, prototyping, and refining products, and I get really excited.

I’ve met people that are eager to graduate early, and I think that’s totally understandable, given their reasons. I used to be one of those people too, until I found something I really liked, and I added on another year because I had to. And when that didn’t work out for health reasons, I could’ve changed my major to something shorter, but I eventually I decided that ID was worth it. I also decided that I was going to do my best to take care of my health so that I could be healthy and happy with what I wanted to do. I’m so excited for my future in ID, not just long-term, but even for next semester. For instance, we’ll probably have to make a chair, and it will be a lot of work, but I will be glad to put in the effort. My professor told me once during office hours, “I’m guessing you have a lot of passion for what you do, and that’s why you’re here. I’ve only talked to two students like this, over what? 7 years?”

I’m really happy to be doing my major, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m a pro. When I was about to start the studio sequence, I had high expectations for doing well in my major. I thought that my skills fit perfectly with what I had to do in industrial design, so I’d be naturally talented and successful. My skills did fit will, but I was a lot worse than I imagined. I had to try a lot of modeling techniques that I had no experience in, and I was really bad. I had to redo a lot of projects from scratch because I messed them up. Even drawing has always been something I thought I was really good at, but going through a drawing class last semester, I felt like I was starting from scratch. I did make a lot of improvement though, and I need to keep practicing this summer.

Also, I’m probably a lot better designer, not judging by the grades I receive (I’m in the B, B- range). A lot of upperclassmen told me about serious grade deflation in the program. Professors don’t really care, because they assume that everyone is going to get a job after they graduate, and employers only look at portfolios. This puts me in a difficult position for grad school. On top of the health issues bringing down my grades, I have to work extra *extra* hard, just to get my GPA above a 3.5 by the time I graduate. Right now, it’s been pretty static at a 3.3, and that’s been something that I’ve worked extremely hard on.

I was once in an ID class, and a new professor asked if anyone was interested in going to grad school, and not a single other person out of 30 raised their hand. I feel alone in this goal of grad school at UH. In this program, I feel comfortable — and even encouraged — to talk to people about my plans for graduate school. I’m happy to be in this environment where I’m learning so much about myself and how I can do research. I will very likely use what Iearned this summer to help me achieve my grad school plans some day.

Yesterday, we did another Solidworks practice. I could read the technical drawings of the parts really well, and I felt capable of making them all (although I didn’t know all of the features I would need on Solidworks). Solidworks is a breath of fresh air for me, compared to coding. In the class, we were modeling really boring parts, but it was good practice to get the basics down. I’d rather design cool products in Solidworks, but I’m glad to have this opportunity over the summer. This way, I’ll be well prepared for Solidworks next spring in my industrial design classes.

I’m feeling much better today than yesterday. I knew I was off to a good start when I woke up at 5:55am, and felt ready to start my day. I spent the morning with some tea and the assigned readings. I continued reading when I got to work around 8:30am. I wrote down notes for each Teleport reading. I thought through my idea for the teleport experiments, and I prepared some drawings to illustrate my ideas. I feel nervous about presenting it at the meeting later today. I like my idea, but I do not feel qualified enough to introduce an idea, when I am only a beginner with this experiment. I hope that I will have something to offer, even if they choose not to go with my idea.

Dr. Benard Canniffe presented at the Luncheon Lecture today. He was a graphic design professor in HCI, but he did not talk much on the technical aspects of his field. He talked at length on design education, and how the design process is simplified in colleges and universities. In practice, there’s many contributors and stakeholders in a creative project — he created a huge web to illustrate them all. His “Design-Service” class focused on teaching his students how to be intermediaries between scientific researchers and the community. He shared several projects that his students initiated. After the presentation, he answered questions on the immense difficulty of being allowed to help a community, and he described that through sustained efforts, 70% of his students’ projects were still being run.

I was interested in this talk because I am very involved the University of Houston Bonner Leaders, an Honors community service program at my university. I work to combat income equality in education by providing no-cost test preparation and college guidance to under-represented high school students who wish to go to college. I know that behind the formal presentations, there’s a lot of work that has to be done to make sure these projects run smoothly. It’s especially hard to work with community partners that don’t give us the assistance we need to run our projects in a time-efficient manner. I was glad to hear Dr. Benard’s presentation, and I was able to sympathize with many of his students on the difficulties of developing and sustaining a community project.

One of my favorite hobbies is finding ways to give back to the community through design. I have participated in Via Colori, a nonprofit chalk painting festival, for the last two years. I volunteer a weekend each November to create a large street mural. Hundreds of artists come from around the world to do the same, and the end result is an outdoor art gallery. The proceeds benefit the Center for Hearing and Speech, a community organization dedicated to helping children with hearing loss. Besides Via Colori, I have used my graphic design skills for many promotion and branding projects for the Bonner Leaders program. I like to give back as much as I can, and I hope to someday do the same with my skills in industrial design, or perhaps what I’ve learned at this internship.

Today was been okay, just about the same as yesterday. I’ve continued to do some thinking on the question, “what am I doing here?”

I always tell myself that I don’t know anything. I won’t believe that statement every time I say it, because the learning I do isn’t recalling facts or functions. I know how to create, organize, and present. Still, it doesn’t feel like I know anything, because I can barely teach a novice a formal lesson about what I study. The type of learning we do in Design is so atypical that sometimes I think that I’m not attending lessons; I’m just working on a portfolio.

I know the majors of the other interns in this program, but when we list them off, all in a row, I can’t really tell how much each person has learned their field. “An industrial design student entering her fourth year” isn’t really an accurate way to describe my current situation. I haven’t been doing industrial design for the past three years. I’ve only done industrial design for one year–or actually if you count it by studios—for one semester. It’s about as far as I got when I studied civil engineering for a year, which didn’t feel very far at all, either. These past two years, I’ve personally struggled with not feeling like I’m making any progress. I have a feeling that I will continue to struggle with this until a year from now, at the latest.

I have a few problems. (1) I feel completely behind the rest of the class in coding, and I feel as if I can’t confide in anyone who knows it on my level. (2) I’m starting to doubt my coming into this program as an ‘expert’ in my field. I’m not a expert. For instance, drawing is so basic to industrial designers, and I feel behind the rest of my class at UH at that basic skill. Re-entering design school last year, I was so confident that I would do extremely well in Industrial Design because (a) if fit my natural abilities perfectly and (b) I would work really hard to get better. I did work really hard, but still came out as average, without much support from my instructors. (3) Since I don’t feel like I am bringing any extra skills to my project, I feel like a layman. At our project meeting yesterday, I felt very inexperienced because I didn’t know if any of the ideas I suggested were actually possible. It’s as if a person, with little to no experience in interaction design, computing, and psychology, was brought onto the project. When I applied to this REU, I thought, “wow it’s really amazing that they’re offering us this experience,” but now I feel really useless. I’m perfectly willing and able to complete what is assigned of us for our projects, but I don’t think that I can use any of my skills to help the group.

Well, I think one skill that might be useful is writing. The University of Houston Honors College has challenged my writing so much, and I think my writing has improved tenfold with every Honors class that I take. From what I’ve gathered from research writing, it seems to be a lot easier than the other types of writing I’ve learned. My goal is that I want to contribute substantially to writing the paper, and not to be completely overwritten (I might not have much control over that, though).

I feel that there’s a whole lot more for me to learn. Maybe I’ll enjoy the HCI class? Solidworks (and 3D printing, if that’s chosen as my Deeper Dive) would be extremely helpful in my major. Again, I have to be patient, and I would have to stay optimistic to give me the best chance of learning the material.

After lunch on Monday, another C++ lesson was scheduled. All of the language is unfamiliar, but am confident that I can master it in time. I’m interested to see how I can use coding skills in industrial design. I only heard of coding mentioned with industrial design once. My friend created a medical device and her team partner had coded it. I don’t know any practical applications of coding in ID, but I would like to learn, hopefully using the resources available in VRAC.

On Tuesday morning, I came in early to practice C++, but I felt that I didn’t get very far. At 9am, the Craft of Research session focused on problem statements, as well as some information on IRBs. My fellow interns and I working on the teleport project gathered to collectively work on our problem statement. Interestingly enough, we all had slightly different perceptions of the objects of our project. We talked it over, but later confirmed our ideas with Lucia, when she gave us a tour of Jon Kelly’s lab. Later that evening, I reread the most recent draft of the teleport research paper. I reinforced my understanding of the project, and now I feel ready to ask my project mentors questions and suggest ideas on future directions. I also read our project’s IRB application, and now I have a concrete understanding of how the IRB evaluates projects, and I also learned of some smaller details of the project that I had not read about in the paper.

Eliot lead the Luncheon Lecture on Tuesday. I entered the room first and asked him how his day was, and he responded frustratingly, but I couldn’t quite understand what he was talking about. I was suddenly intimidated, but while he presented, I understood his claims that he could be a person who can be confided in. Eliot told us at the beginning that some of us would ignore his advice, although we really shouldn’t. I took this skeptically and curiously, wanting to hear what he had to say about his professional experience. He explained that he took a really roundabout way of education, professional experience, and academia. I was reminded of a presentation given to me by a product designer in high school. She showed a linear graph. That’s how some students expect their life to be when they leave high school, but the true result is a lot more complicated. It’s a web of finding something you like, realizing you didn’t like it, falling behind, getting back up, and repeating any of those steps again. Eliot’s message was the same as that product designer’s. In the end, they both found paths that were right for them, while taking positions that they loved. By the end of the presentation, I realized that I don’t ignore Eliot’s advice, because I knew it was truly helpful. In my short college career, I’ve experienced so many setbacks and turning points in realizing what I wanted to do. I feel like my current story is a piece of a much larger one. If I ever present like Eliot did, I’ve probably gotten enough life content for 7 minutes of an hour long presentation.

Photos with Paul — it was fun, although it was very warm outside. I really liked the photos that were sent out afterwards.

I came in early again to practice C++ this morning. I made much more progress than on Tuesday, and I think I’m getting the hang of some basic concepts. I’m still a little discouraged, because everyone else looks like they’re attending a Kindergarten lesson, and I’m struggling to keep up. But I bet they don’t know how to use Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign like I do in ID, so I guess some people have different skills than others. I want more, so I’ll keep practicing coding.

Yesterday, I had a brief moment of doubt. I started thinking things like, ‘who in their right mind would accept a designer to this program?,’ or, ‘if engineers can do interaction design, then what do designers do?’ Honestly, I’ve got to stop doubting and start asking people these questions.

Following my last post yesterday, the REU interns took a pre-assessment for the REU program. I think this assessment could have been improved by the REU program coordinators creating a focus group of previous REU interns to evaluate proper questions for the assessment. I also think the survey project could use a larger staff.

The Craft of Research class on Thursday was beneficial to me because I learned about good and bad research. This was particularly helpful because I learned that bad research exists in the academic community. If I become immersed in any type of writing, I tend to agree with everything a persuasive author is saying. Two years ago, I read Hobbes and briefly started to agree with absolutism, until I returned to my US government mindset. I tend to respect most academics, as they are experts in topics I know very little about, but some professors do conduct bad research. This Craft of Research class taught me some indicators that would help me identify bad research and to form analysis of particular issues that are presented accurately.

Today has been an informative day thus far. I began the day by reading on the Meyers-Briggs assessment. The reading argued that the Meyers-Briggs test was popular yet not founded by evidence in the psychology academic community. We took the test, and to be honest, I’m not sure why we did. The test was not proven by researchers, but our program’s purpose is promoting research. For the team work assessment following, we were encouraged to look past the results of the test, so I am confused on why we sought the test’s results. As for the test itself, I received the same result as I did a few years ago. At the time, I personally had fallen into the trap of believing the test results to be true, because they captured some aspect of how I act. I know now that the test itself does not show the whole picture of a person’s personality.

The ISU library research class was highly informative. I conducted a literary review before, and now I greatly appreciate knowing all of the resources that are available to students. I think that I can thoroughly research this summer by supplementing the ISU databases with the University of Houston databases. I appreciate being a university student and having these resources available to me.

The VR technology tour expanded my appreciation to be researching at the VRAC this summer. I grew up in Maui, Hawaii, which had few computer science educational resources. My father, an Applied Business in Technology professor, has some of the most advanced devices at the only University/Community College on the island. VRAC has resources far beyond those offered on Maui. I was able to interactively experience VR/AR, 3D printing, and the C6. The resources at VRAC reaches far above any expectations I could have had of this facility. I feel fortunate to be researching here this summer.

My first two days at Iowa State were overwhelming yet exciting. There was a lot of information presented, but I am trying to take care to listen to all the instructions and guidance. I’ve already gotten to know some of my fellow research interns, and I’m excited to spend the summer with them. I came to Iowa State for a educational learning experience, but I have the idea that I will also learn outside the classroom and research lab.

What I hope to Learn

• a
• b
• c
• d