New ideas
Being here has brought up some new ideas, maybe even a research topic for may masters. I have started framing out the idea and I know as of now it is based on decreasing recidivism. Cant wait to brainstorm and come up with more ideas.
Major problems
At this point I am a bit confused. We had a meeting with our team last week and we were informed that we are stopping our research project and starting something completely different. Not sure what is upcoming and how this is as going to turn out. I guess we will have to see.
making progress
I have made some progress on the environment for the VR project. Things seem to be coming together!
6/26
We have made some solid plans on our VR project. We have make the outline and started dividing up and working on tasks. Im excited to see what all we can accomplish and what the end result looks like.
Check in
I guess the program has been going good. The vr immersion class has been interesting and I have learned a lot. It is a great way to learn about vr and see ways I can incorporate it in my future career.
Receipts 😶
So I guess that it is true that context is everything! There have been a few words come up that we all think means something completely different. Its nice to see all the perspectives and getting to know meanings from different areas. Also I have finished scanning for real this time! On to the code!
Good vibes😊
The overall experience here has taught me a lot about myself and how I interact with others. I am able to perfect my professional skills and build great friendships. For instance, my room where I learn a lot about my self. My roommates and I seem to mesh well and enjoy being around one another. They have taught me about myself by simply noticing some of my habits and allowing me to see them. I never knew how much you could learn about yourself when you pay attention to all of the little things that you do. We also have a great time together and can turn just about any situation into a laughable moment. These are memories that I will be able to hold on to well after this camp is over.
I have also picked up some helpful tips on professionalism, starting with going to sleep at night. I am one that can and will stay up into the night, hitting 2 and 3 am, multiple nights a week. I have learned that, in order to be successful during the day I NEED to sleep at night. I have also found a great relationship between me and coffee🤞. Another thing I learned would be communication especially in groups. Group dynamics are important and one thing that can balance out your group is effectively communicating, and here I and able to practice and perfect this skill.
In these four weeks I have learned a good amount and I plan on continuing this trend throughout the program!
A weekEND👍
This weekend was great, I got to do a little bit of everything that I wanted. It was refreshing having two whole days to myself. I was also able to get out and see the campus with some people. I wonder what the rest of this week has in store. It has been going good and my team is making progress so that is a good start.
HCI Disasters


Week 2 🥽
Technology is the future is what a lot of people say. Being in this environment around all of these amazing people and technology, I can actually see the strides that technology is taking and some of the problems that the tech is solving or optimizing.

Monday: Today is a great start to the week. We started with our C++ class, although I have experience in this language, it was great to see the language broken down and discussed at its roots. Hearing all of the things that you can do with C++ has me looking forward to my future in using code to solve problems. Today I learned just how powerful the language of C++ is and I was able to receive a few exact examples on how I can utilize my knowledge of C++ in the future.I have come to understand that technology is huge and can assist just about anything I can think of.
Tuesday: Today has been a little different, it seems to be moving at a different pace. Today was our first lunch and lecture, at time spent munching on some food and much needed knowledge. Our speaker for today Eliot Winer. He presentation was great and he provided a large amount of relatable information. Many questions were asked and some great dialogue was stirred up, helping us make inferences and analysis about our own education and professional paths and futures.



Wednesday: Hump day! Back at it again with the C++ crash course. We learned much more today and you can start to see why C++ is such a challenging language. We haven’t had much experience with our research this week but my group has planned to meet in the lab later today… exiting😊. Hopefully a great experience in the lab will be a nice way to get over the “hump” or Wednesday as this day is referred to by many.
“Wednesday: Halfway to the weekend! Enjoy your day!” – Unknown
Thursday: longgg😶 Today has been different, the schedule was adjusted a bit but our times did not change. Instead of a packed day, we were pretty much here on the computers and in the lunch and lecture. It was mainly idle, time to catch upon things if you are behind, so I guess it was helpful. I wonder what tomorrow has in store.
“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.” — Charles Richards

Friday: C++! Today was good, I was able to improve some of my C++ skill. I now have a better understanding of classes and Inheritance, and in what real-world problems they would be used.We have a group meeting later so thats good. We dont really get to meet with our research projects much durning the day so it will be nice to get in the lab and get some data!
Week One 🎈
M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
I arrived at Iowa State on Tuesday May 28, 2019. Today is June 1st and I have experience more in these past days than in any other educational experience. Many people say that each day brings a new adventure, well that saying can be expanded on at SPIRE-EIT. Here, I would say that each moment can bring a new adventure, maybe even two. We haven’t been able to blog everyday so I and going to have to catch up on all of the amazing opportunities that the past few days have brought me.
May 28~ This was a day of travel, 12 students from all over moving around the country headed to Iowa St. This day was full of first impressions, repetition of names, and the dreaded unpacking of my 3 suitcases. This is when we met our roommates, our teammates, and some of the faculty that will be helping us throughout the program. We all had a welcome dinner at Stephen’s home, got a few more details on the program and got to know either other a bit more. After travel, introductions, the welcome dinner, and the Walmart visit we ready to get back and prepare for day 2.
May 28~ This was a day of travel, 12 students from all over moving around the country headed to Iowa St. This day was full of first impressions, repetition of names, and the dreaded unpacking of my 3 suitcases. This is when we met our roommates, our teammates, and some of the faculty that will be helping us throughout the program. We all had a welcome dinner at Stephen’s home, got a few more details on the program and got to know either other a bit more. After travel, introductions, the welcome dinner, and the Walmart visit we ready to get back and prepare for day 2.
May 29~ This is probably more like our “First Day”. Here we formally met faculty, we toured the campus and our new workplaces, and also got our badges. We had somewhat of first day of school feels, in a new place with unfamiliar people, my mind ran rampant with multiple what-ifs and worries. Today we were also able to formally meet our team for the 10-weeks that we are here. I am exited to work with such a great group and our program is extremely diverse. The diversity has already lead to some great conversations.
May 30~ Project Kickoff!! We finally got introduced into the project that we will be working on this summer. The things that I have seen on my project are amazing and I already know that I am going truly enjoy this summer. I have already learned so much and I can only imagine what else I will learn throughout the summer. The mentors and grad students and amazing and have been great with introducing our team to Iowa St., research, and multiple types of tech. Ready for tomorrow!
May 31~ Our first Friday and a memorable one. Today we did a lot of things that, until today, I did not know existed. I was able to do three separate things in three different virtual reality environments. The environments were amazing, the graphics are so real and the experiences feel so natural. This is definitely something that I am interested in and want to work on in the future.
June 1~ Saturday!! Bike day Helping the bike shop today was a great experience. Getting out and seeing Ames was a revolutionary experience just in comparison to my hometown. I have never seen so many trees and flowers at one time.




First Post
I am getting use to word press and and will be blogging this summer. Hope to have fun!