As we reach the last week, it’s time to write the last blog 🙁

Last week was a week of celebrations and hanging out with friends. We did a lot of fun things to counter the hard work we had finishing up the projects.

Starting with Thursday last week, it was Shae’s birthday! So many awesome July birthdays in this group. We decided to go to the park to play some games and hang out while the weather wasn’t too bad out. After collecting everyone and getting food, we arrived at Inis Grove park. We played with a frisbee, a soccer ball, and also satisfied our inner child by playing on the playground there as well. Turns out, as we were there, another kid in Ames was celebrating his birthday as well! It was a fun night.

Friday, was another day of activities for us. After seeing a jackpot over $1 billion I suggested a little office pool to see if maybe we’d be millionaires. We picked up some tickets and just had to wait for the drawing that night at 10. Until then, we had a full day of work to get done, including finishing our poster to be reviewed by Dr. Michael and Yvonne. Friday night, the other REUs we met had set up a fun end of summer party. We got to all see each other one more time as a few of the REUs left that weekend. I almost feel like we’re the last ones and its empty. 🙁 Time for the drawing came, we watched as the little numbered balls roll into the screen and we frantically check our numbers. Unfortunately, we didn’t become millionaires, but it was a good time and congratulations to the single winner. After the drawing, we continued to the party and had one last blast with everyone.

Saturday was yet another busy busy day. It was also my birthday! Starting at the bright and early 10 AM we were to depart for Adventureland. Except I ended up having to run home quickly to get a few things. Once I returned and we were all in the car, we hadn’t even left the parking lot yet when we all agreed that going upside down wasn’t an option. The car ride felt quite short as it usually does every time I go, even though its about 45 minutes away. We found a Toyota Prius along the way with the license plate resembling “gas guzzler” which I found hilarious, and on top of that it had more bumper stickers that were also fun reads.

Upon arriving to the park, a long wait for parking, and finally getting up to the gate, we’d made it in. It had been nearly 7 years since I’d been there last and it felt both so familiar and so different all at once. We toured the park, rode a couple roller coasters, and wandered all the way to the water park. Where we spent quite a few hours in the wave pool, the lazy river, and various waterslides. There was a super fun slide that 2 people rode down in this big tube. “Screams of Joy” was exactly what happened.

After the waterpark, we finished to tour of the park with another roller coaster and then we noticed the time. It was nearly 7:30 and we were all quite hungry. We asked the others back home if they wanted to go out for supper, to which they agreed and then we’d left the park. Leaving the park, I was already feeling a lot of emotions. I had arguably one of the best times of my life, where the last time I was there on my birthday, I had the worst time ever. This group of people is special, it’s hard to really describe.

We returned to the apartments, gathered all our friends and went to Macubana for supper. I had never been there, but it was pretty good. I feel like I might go again but it’s way too expensive to go very often for me. I had a good supper, even if the sunburn on my back was slowly roasting me the whole time. Afterwards, we were heading back to the apartment where I could finally shower and then the possibility of games was on the table.

By some kind of secret plan, pure coincidence, or even divine intervention, my car was waiting for Shae to get something from CVS. I didn’t think much of it, people need things. I got back to Freddy Court and up to my apartment to which I noticed an open door but no lights. “Huh that’s odd” was the thought I had in my head until the person behind me flicks on the lights and people shout “Happy Birthday!” I was speechless, nearly motionless, and then they sang happy birthday to me. That’s when my emotions won. I had plenty of tears that night but I wouldn’t want anyone else to make me cry. If anyone of the group is reading this, just know you are the best people I’ve ever met and thank you so much for making my birthday special. We continued the night eating cake and chatting, I was getting more tired by the second and it was time to rest.

Sunday morning, I was going to go to church as we had a farewell and welcome luncheon for some members who were leaving to Africa and the family that came to fulfill the positions. I got to help my dad grill up the burgers and hot dogs, and then eat a good lunch with some other good people. I shared about my experience here at this REU internship at least 15 times. Then the rest of the day went by like it was nothing, because I just SLEPT. And boy oh boy did I need it. That night my dad took me out for supper at Buffalo Wild Wings so one less meal I had to make myself, even if the fridge has plenty of stuff to make meals.

Sunday night, Emma and Thomas got to play the ending of It Takes Two, a game we’d been annotating for our project. It was fun to see them explore the game world and finally get a little closure on the story of Rose and her parents Mae and Cody. I loved that game when I played it with my friend Sam, we had a lot of fun and it was a good memory.

Monday morning was it, we needed to finish the poster. Our mentors had responded with feedback and we got to work on it, trying to make our poster the best it could be. It was a bit difficult, but through plenty of discussion, we had done our best work. Except it took all day Monday and into Tuesday morning to do so. We turned it in right on time and I’m proud of our work.

That about wraps it up. It’s been a long week of working hard and playing hard as well. To end these 10 weeks, it won’t be easy. Everyone here is amazing, the people in the office are all a blessing and would help us with our many questions. The experience I got was amazing, learning new things like programming languages, an idea of grad school, and hearing from everyone else has been awesome. I’ll never forget this whole Summer. 🙂

A lot of the work on our project has been getting wrapped up this week. As of right now, Charles has done as much as he can with the prediction trajectories in the virtual environment, so the three of us has been working on designing our poster for the symposium next Thursday… I hate designing posters… Some people can design amazing posters, but there is a reason I’m a math and comp sci major and not an art major. I suck at designing things and making them look good. Luckily, the combined effort and ideas of the three of us have led to a pretty good looking prototype. No spoilers as to what it looks like will be given in this post, so you’ll just have to wait until the symposium to see the final poster.

Yesterday was Shae’s birthday! To celebrate, we all went to a nearby park, called Inis Grove Park, and played some games. Apparently it was also a little kid’s birthday because there were a lot of little kids there for a birthday party. We played monkey in the middle with a soccer ball for a little bit and eventually went over to the large playground once the kids had left due to it becoming late in the evening. Unlocking our inner child spirits, we explored the playground and started playing freeze tag with a kid who was still at the playground. It was a pretty fun evening.

So yes, my birthday was July 20th, and I celebrated here in Iowa. Initially, I wasn’t too thrilled to be celebrating my 21st away from my close friends and family. I had imagined being surrounded by my loved ones to celebrate such a milestone. And while I didn’t think that that could happen as I am 902 miles away from home, I still managed it unexpectedly. This might get a bit mushy at some point, I apologize sincerely for this as it makes me cringe as well, but I could not give this week justice without the heartfelt emotions.

It started off Sunday when Thomas gave me a surprise in the form of tasty lemonade. This moment genuinely made me tear up. I was not expecting anything in any form from my friends here, I was only expecting the packages my parents were sending honestly. So that caught me so by surprise and really made me consider the connections and relationships I’ve formed in Ames, Iowa. Flash forward to Tuesday afternoon, I’m buzzing with the anticipation for Wednesday (my birthday!) and I’m discussing our project with Alli. Jack then surprises me with a gift of one of my favorite popcorn and granola that doesn’t have coconut in it! At this point, I’m overflowing with gratitude toward these people and I’m honestly confounded.

Wednesday comes and it’s my birthday!!!! That day I had a chat with my mother as I went and had a cute little breakfast at the Hub. For this day, we had all planned a small birthday dinner, including the 9 REUs, Jack, Dante, and Mattan. I genuinely had such a great day, like genuinely cannot expess the happiness I was experiancing becuase of this day.

I really want to make sure I’m not coming across as making these past couple days so great only because I got gifts. I truly appreciate the thought and time I got to spend with everyone. It makes me so happy to have been able to have spent these past several weeks with such an amazing group and it makes me sad to write this as we come to an end.

BTW: here are some photos from other days

Wednesday, 7/13 – Aside from our etiquette luncheon, it was a slow day. I have been thinking about a new keyboard all day. I think I would really like having a membrane keyboard. But back to the luncheon, I really enjoyed myself. I enjoy playing both sides of the coin; sometimes dressing up super fancy, black tie dress code, etc etc, for an elegant function (hence my sport being competitive ballroom dancing). But also, I am always game for mucking out stalls at a horse barn with the smell and the flies (ok well not alllll them time, but you get the idea. Rev War reenacting camping with no modern equipment might be a better example ) I like both. So I was eager to learn some etiquette I didn’t already know. You never know when you will need it.

Later, we met with Yvonne to discuss writing our paper. I walked away from that meeting with a sense of 😳😳😳😳😳 , 🤔 , and also some 😄😅. To take a page out of @Thomas’ book, those emojis best describe how I am feeling.

Grace stopped by to ask if we wanted bubble tea and I said SURE. I needed a break. That bubble tea was delicious and afterwards the caffeine and sugar kicked in, and I continued working with vigor.

To sum up the weekend, there were 2.5 late night fire alarms, a day trip to Des Moines consisting of a farmers market with the most dogs ever (AHHHHHHHHHHH!) and amazing corn and mango, an escape room, a mall comparable in size to those in NY where I tried on a iridescent, sparkling prom dress just for fun as @Grace and I were actually looking for sun dresses, and a stop to Olive Garden where my stomach did not want to eat food.

It is now the next Monday morning, 7/18. @Thomas and I spent a couple hours reviewing our annotations and comparing them. Just now I can see him shaking his head, probably in confusion and annoyance about the current team we are looking at (these players make rude comments).

It is now 7/28 and I have delayed posting this because life has gotten BU-SY! Will post another update later.

Bye for now!

— Emma

It’s about that time, isn’t it?

As we begin to wrap up our time here, more deadlines seem to appear. Lots of planning ahead what we wanted done has helped ease the nerves a little, but the hill still needs to be climbed.

Speaking of climbing hills. Sunday evening Meriem, Farhan, Emma, and I went out to Ledges State Park to “walk the creek” at least, that’s what I said we’d be doing. Upon arrival, Meriem wasted no time running up the nearest trail and urging us to follow her. What she said was “a short trial, I can see the end” turned out to be the longest and hardest trail in the park. Climbing up about 250 feet we reached “The Crow’s Nest” and then descended the other side of the hill. All the while I was in my shoes for walking through water, not climbing rocks.

Once we made it down, we finally got to the creek and began the journey I had in mind. The peaceful flowing waters with the trees and cliffs around us, I felt relaxed and happy. We walked the creek out to the Des Moines River where we threw some rocks, climbed a dead tree, and tried not to fall in mud.

Then after our fun in the sun, we moved back up the creek, found a random chair, looked at some big rocks, played with some little rocks, and fulfilled my childhood self by getting splashed by cars driving along the road.

Below is a huge photo dump from The Ledges and the High Trestle Bridge, Enjoy!.

We also stopped at Dominos on the way back for late-night pizza.

Our research project really felt like it was taking form recently. We finally finished our series of annotations and data collection for our teams. 6 hours of data finally put together on a spreadsheet with heat maps, graphs, and other visualizations felt like the first big leap was complete. Getting to play with the data has been really fun, and I’m really excited to see what more we can present through it.

With the crunch time of trying to finish our work in a reasonable manner, we need to spend some extra time at the office. Last night, we’d been in the conference room for 3 hours straight and while everyone else was gone, we were working away at getting our data moved into Excel. Jack even saw us and offered to bring us stuff later, how nice of him.

Following the long day of work, I was tired. I needed an activity with minimal brain power and a little more physical activity. Unfortunately the gym was closed… I returned to the apartment, to put my stuff down and noticed I still needed to move my car. Meriem needed let in so I asked her if she wanted to ride around the block because just moving the car 30 feet was too boring for me. We drove around “the block” and eventually met up with Mattan to see him and his cat. I’m usually not super fond of them, but this one seemed to like me and I was happy with it.

After returning to the apartment. I decided it was time to sleep. I had been yawning all day and the workload was not going to stop. I awoke this morning still a bit sluggish, but refreshed and ready to go.

Today is the day to finish up as much of the data input and analysis as possible and revise the writings for our paper and poster to get them ready to be submitted early next week.

Until then, I’ll be busy but I’ll try to keep updates coming.
Adios Y’all,
– Eli

On Saturday the 16th, 8/9 of us and Lale all went to spend the day in Des Moines. The first thing we did was go to the Des Moines farmer’s market which was so much bigger than the one in Ames. There were a lot of cute dogs there. Anyways, we weren’t able to spend very long at the market because we had also planned to go do an escape room around noon.

Once we were at the escape room, we split into two groups for two different rooms because all nine of us couldn’t do the same room. My group, consisting of Lale, Meriem, Farhan, and I, did an escape room called Do Not Disturb. The premise of the room was that the four of us had tracked a killer to this run down motel, but he knew we were coming and locked us in this motel room. Our goal was to escape within an hour in order to stop the killer and save his next victim. The escape room was pretty fun and we all had a good time even though we didn’t escape in time. We asked the escape room employee how tough our room was in comparison to the different room that the other group did and she told us that ours was the second hardest while others did a room they would typically recommend for beginners. They also had one more person than us, so we were able to taunt them a little bit since they gave us a hard time about being able to escape while we didn’t.

After the escape room, we all went to the Des Moines mall and walked around for a little bit. Then, on our way back to Ames, we stopped to eat at Olive Garden. I had some delicious chicken and dumpling soup, pasta, and breadsticks. The breadsticks were so good that I shoved 6 of them in my to go box with the other half of my pasta and ate the breadsticks with my dinners throughout the week.

The rest of the weekend was pretty normal and relaxing. Not much happened during the week either. Wednesday was Meriem’s 21st birthday, so to celebrate we went out to dinner at El Azteca with two other students from a different REU, and 3 of the undergrad and grad students who work in VRAC with us. It was pretty fun and the food was good too. I’m happy Meriem had a good birthday. Wednesday was also the first time we got generative SCAN to start training on data successfully, so it was a good day for Meriem and I. I’m glad she had a good birthday.

Last week, Meriem and I made a bunch of progress getting SCAN to work and train on the datasets, but training SCAN on each data set took FOREVER! So after spending a while troubleshooting error messages and zooming with the lady who wrote the code (she is one of our professor’s old students), we were able to get it working. The downside to that was the fact that it literally took about 10 hours for each dataset to train even when we switched from training it on the cpu to the gpu… We were told that training it on the gpu would make it run a lot faster so it would no longer take 10 hours to train. This was so not true though. After getting Jack’s help on Friday fixing the code to get it to run on the gpu instead, it still took 10 hours to train… We also had to train it on 5 datasets, so last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were pretty much spent by us starting to train a dataset when we got into the lab in the morning and letting it finish training over night. Anyways, we have it working now which is awesome!

I didn’t really do much this past weekend either. I spent a lot of time walking around campus and just being outside in general which was very relaxing. (Hi Paul C, I know you are reading this). Meriem and I also trained SCAN on more of the datasets this weekend. Also, on Sunday, I was sitting outside in the courtyard on the second floor of the Innovation Center. Meriem texted me asking if I was still at VRAC and I told her no, but I was across the street in the Innovation Center. A little while later, I heard nocking on a window near me and looked up to see Meriem, Thomas, and Shae had stopped by to visit me on their way to the gym which was so nice of them. We talked for a little bit then went over to VRAC so Meriem and I could check on SCAN and see the training progress.

Overall, the weekend was pretty relaxing, but we definitely have a busy week ahead of us with only 2 weeks left here in Iowa. We also need to start making our poster for the research symposium since it is due in about a week. Wish us luck finishing everything in time!

I love Sundays. They are my reset day. I get to catch up or get ahead, clean everything, and relax. This was the first Sunday here that I truly felt this satisfaction. I spent about 3 hours on Sunday cleaning. The floors, kitchen, and dishes are clean, and my laundry is done. I feel so refreshed. Sundays are the perfect day to set you up for a happy and successful week.

My favorite part of the cooperative gaming group is that they give the rest of us an excuse to play fun cooperative games together! A few nights ago, we played the game Overcooked 2 together. The premise is to work as a team to fulfill restaurant orders. It was so much fun to play! Thomas, Emma, and I played the game together for a while and we did very well. There were many levels where it started as chaos and yelling, but by the end, we were a well oiled team-machine😊

Last week, we had our Ethics class with Robert and it was soooo much fun! We had some amazing conversations as a group about social media and Elizabeth Holmes. Elizabeth Holmes just disappointed me so much. An advancement in the way that we do blood tests is something that is necessary. However, she completely screwed it up. The intense amount of secrecy and fear within her company allowed so many mistakes and ethical screw ups to occur. Plus, when people told her that the device could not be created and asked for more space or fewer operations, she said no and fired them! Now, the next person to come up with ideas that might actually work will be afraid to do something about it. It is not good at all.  

Last week, we had this event called “Etiquette Lunch” on the calendar. Going into it, we were all like “What is this? What will this entail?” Turns out, it was exactly what it sounded like. It was a super fancy lunch where we learned the manners and etiquette of eating in the United States. This lunch was very stressful because I had to concentrate super hard on eating. Use this fork, not this one. Don’t saw at the food. Sit up straight. For me the hardest part was cutting my food. I got the vegetarian dish where they stacked grilled vegetables on top of one another. So, while others with meat could neatly cut their food, my vegetables made a run for it whenever I brought a knife near them. I would have to collect them back into the neat stack and eat a piece of the top, then the middle, then the bottom. It was rather stressful. Now when we go to Friley’s for lunch, all I can think about is proper eating etiquette.

On Saturday, the group went to Des Moines for a day adventure. We started our adventure at the Farmer’s market. I got some authentic Iowan corn from the market to cook for the group (they all enjoyed it!). Then, we headed to do an escape room. We split the group in two. My group was Eli, Thomas, Charles, Emma, and I. We went into the Casino room. Naturally, the room was themed as a casino with a lot of the puzzles being related to different gambling games. Our group worked really well together and were able to break out in 52:20! Go team!! After that, we went to the mall in Des Moines to explore. I was able to achieve my goal of getting a dress for my cousin’s wedding in October. After that, we drove to Ankeny for dinner at Olive Garden. We then headed home. When I got home, I crashed at 6:30pm and slept for a total of 12 hours (with some breaks in between).

This week was Meriem’s birthday. Birthdays are so much fun because everyone is happy and having fun on someone’s birthday. Everyone makes time to spend time with one another and have fun. To celebrate, we all went out to dinner (including Mattan, Jack, and Dante!) and then came home and played sand volleyball. Meriem said that she had an awesome day, which makes me so happy. I love birthdays!