July 26
This morning we practiced our presentation, so I’m feeling pretty good about it. We also are waiting on the remaining feedback from our professors on our poster. So…we really only have the paper left to work on, which is a relief after all the work we’ve been doing the past eight weeks. If we finish the paper early we’re thinking of adding more details to the game, and we’re going to practice our poster speech once we’re done with the presentation. Overall, it’s getting easier and easier now that we’re finally able to check off the boxes on projects that seemed like they would never get done in time a couple weeks ago. Until next time 🙂
Continue reading →Monday, July 22 & Tuesday, July 23
Lil weekend recap: Saturday was pretty quiet until 4ish when the guys came downstairs practically begging us to go to the trampoline park 35 minutes away. We all kinda wanted to do something, though, so we settled on mini golf and dinner. Mini golf was fun, and then we stuck around at the same place to play arcade games for about an hour. Afterwards, we had a really good dinner at a local Mexican restaurant that’s been recommended by so many people here. When we got back to Freddy, we just played some mario kart and another game that I don’t remember the name of. Sunday was a work day for me. I made some really exciting progress on the … Continue reading →
July 23
This morning we started laying out our final details for our game and planned out how we are going to balance our time the next few days. I worked on the paper for an hour, and am feeling pretty confident about us finishing all of our deliverables on time. During the lunch lecture today, the speaker told us about her journey to her current position. She originally wanted to be an English as a Second Language teacher, so we spent some of our time with her discussing language and its quirks. She also gave us some tips on what conversations to have with your faculty mentor in grad school prior to starting so that you establish boundaries and have a … Continue reading →
0027
Day 57. Today we have agreed on a long work day. We are working on our blogs for another 10 minutes. Then we will all collectively work on our poster for 30 minutes until the meeting at 2pm begins. From there we will proceed to work on the paper for an hour and unity for an hour after that. Once it is 5pm we will then proceed to create and consume pasta for two hours. After 7pm we will commute back home to continue working on the paper for an hour, publish a draft for revision, split our slide show for presentation, and then read the assigned case studies for our ethics course tomorrow. All in all our work day … Continue reading →
7/23/24- Ruby
Last night, I took a day off from homework and made a dessert from Ohio called buckeyes. It’s a peanut butter truffle dipped in chocolate so that it looks like the nut of the buckeye tree. Since we don’t have a hand or stand mixer, it was a lot of work mixing everything together, but I think they turned out great! The recipe made about 50 of them, so I brought half of them into VRAC today so people could get a taste of Ohio. Lydia has been asking me when I was going to make them since I got the ingredients, so she was excited to see me making them when she got home yesterday. This morning, I did … Continue reading →
Harrison – Day 51 & HCI Assignment
It has unfortunately been a while since I have last blogged so this will have to be a recap of a lot of the work I have been doing during that time. I want to first start out with our assignment for HCI:We were tasked to think about our multidisciplinary backgrounds and find a research question that encompasses three areas of study. I study economics and computer science at school, and I am trilingual, meaning I have to love language. I will therefore add linguistics to my background as I done a bit of linguistics in the past. These disciplines, especially linguistics, seem difficult to combine but I can try. My research question that combines all these disciplines:How do language … Continue reading →
Guess Who’s Back
Hello Sorry for the weeklong break, I have been extremely busy. So, let’s do a breakdown of the past week. Reseach We have been making good progress in the research. VR and Muse Lydia and Harrison have been working on this part more me, and they have been doing a marvelous job. Lydia has figured out the LSL stuff and has gotten event markers sent from the Unity Environment to the Muse Data. I helped then with getting the markers to have specific labels, and we’ll see if that will actually show up on Matlab. Harrison has been working on the timing signal, so we can get the screens to switch and the triggers to happen at a specific time. … Continue reading →
0026
Day 56. This weekend was calm. Not much occurred. Today, Monday, we are working on the presentable for the project, so the power point and poster that are due later this week. We are also working on the research paper. We are on track to be able to get everything done. It should be a calm week and next week will a chill end to the ten weeks here.
Continue reading →July 22
This morning we continued working on the presentation and poster. We met with our professors to show them the game and get more feedback, so we have a bit more of an idea of how to design and organize the poster and presentation. Hopefully we will finish both early this week so we have a good amount of time to practice. Until next time 🙂
Continue reading →7/22/24- Ruby
This weekend was pretty fun; on Saturday, we went to mini golf in the evening and then went to El Azteca afterwards for dinner. I had lots of fun at mini golf! We split into 2 groups to save time, so it was Andrea, Rodney, Angy, and I on our team. I think we did pretty good and it was funny watching Rodney and Angy try to beat each other. After, we played a couple of games in the arcade before going to dinner. I played a couple of rounds of Guitar Hero, which I really like, and a game of MarioKart. Harrison and I were bummed because neither of their basketball games were working so we couldn’t compete against … Continue reading →
Saturday, July 20
Thursday morning, we had HCI class with Amanda. Afterwards, Jack Miller came to talk with us for the lunch and lecture, which I found really insightful. He talked a lot about the potential avenues to take post-grad, highlighting the differences between a master’s and a PhD, as well as between industry and research careers. He emphasized the fact that going after a master’s or PhD will open so many more opportunities, not just because it’ll make you look good on paper, but also because the skills you develop are the skills that employers value, and will help you stand out in hands-on, application settings. Jack also talked about his position at Mayo Clinic as an engineer working with XR. It … Continue reading →
7/19/24- Ruby
Last night was lots of fun! We got to learn how to make baklava with Heliya in the food science building. Their kitchen was super nice and I think we did a great job making the baklava! It was really fun to make because I like baklava and I’ve always wondered how it was made. It was really good and tasted even better because we made it ourselves! Later in the night, we finally finished season 1 of Game of Thrones! It only took 8 weeks! Today, I have been working on our research paper. I got lots of comments on the intro that I have been fixing and I have been reading a lot more papers to fill out … Continue reading →
July 19
Today has been a pretty productive day. We finished the basic demo scene for the game, and now we’re working on the more detailed aspects of the circuit and for teaching specifically. I think we’ll finish the popups today and possibly the current demonstration. Last night we made baklava, which was delicious 🙂 Until next time.
Continue reading →7/18/24- Ruby
Last night, I talked to my friends at home for a few hours while we played Minecraft. It was a lot of fun and I got to talk to some of my friends I haven’t talked to all summer. Later in the night, all of the girls got together and hung out and played with some makeup. It was a lot of fun and Harrison and Rodney joined in a little bit when they stopped by. This morning, we had an HCI class about interdisciplinary research. It was really interesting for me because I am always getting asked about how psychology fits into technology. To me, it’s hard to see how psychology doesn’t fit into technology and HCI, but hearing … Continue reading →
0025- HCI homework
Day 52. There are many different things that hold my interest, but the main three are as follows: A research question based around these three topics might be along the lines of: How does spending a significant amount of time in driving-based video games effect driving skills and habits in real life?
Continue reading →Hci homework
Heuristics Normalcy Bias Definition: The normalcy bias describes our tendency to underestimate the possibility of disaster and believe that life will continue as normal, even in the face of significant threats or crises Design: Color Project: In our project we have learned about how a skewed heat perception can affect the response of people during heat events. In our color scheme we included green and red which are associated with bad and good. With the red we can bring attention to high temperatures and indicate through color its danger. Availability Bias: Definition: The availability heuristic describes our tendency to use information that comes to mind quickly and easily when making decisions about the future. Design: Scale/ Proportions Project: Since we … Continue reading →
HCI: Heuristics & Biases
HCI: Homework
HCI Heuristics
Representativeness heuristic: People make assumptions about things based on how they perceive them and how those objects are presented Design principle: Emphasis, creating a focal point of a design and ordering the rest of the elements based on importance Application: The first thing the user will see is the circuit board, and then they will see the elements that go on it Affect: People make choices based on their emotions at that moment. Design principle: Learnability, how easy is it for people to learn how to use the product Application: Make it easy for a user to undo an action, keeping the signs with instructions easily accessible after they pass through a level, (works to prevent frustration, making the user … Continue reading →
HCI Assignment: Decision Making
Heuristic: Familiarity: when people make decisions based on things, people, and places that are more familiar to them Design principle: Design a study involving components that the intended participants can either relate to or feel familiar with. Design in the curiosity EEG project: Formulate trivia questions to be about topics that the participant enjoys and is familiar with. However, this doesn’t mean that each individual question should be about something that the participant is familiar with, because that would affect our data. Instead, some of the general topics that a question falls into should be something that is familiar. For example, if the participant is familiar and interested in animals, we’d give participants some questions about animals. Heuristic: Affect: when … Continue reading →
Wednesday, July 17
This is going to be a really long post…there’s a lot to catch up on On Friday, not much happened. Harrison, Sophie and I worked on our abstract and literature review. I was hoping to accomplish more for our project, but it’s okay. We’re still learning how to collaborate efficiently on this research project. We’ve quickly come to realize that working on a team to do research for the summer is much different than working on a team to make a presentation for a week because there’s no right way to do things and the end can seem so far away at some points. After work, I went for a bike ride around campus and a nearby trail to get … Continue reading →
HCI: Heuristics Assignment
For our most recent HCI assignment, we are to pick 3 heuristics used in decision making and 3 design principles for the heuristics. Then we are to write how we can apply these 3 different pairs into our project. Heuristics Familiarity: Favorable to things that appear to be familiar Design Principle: Having consistent visuals and standards. Implementation: We will keep the format of the screen the same during the experiment. This way we won’t gain any undesired data from a surprise unfamiliar screen. Heuristics Affect: Emotions are affecting how we decide something Design Principle: Not including anything that is offensive or give an adverse emotion. Implementation: We have removed or omitted certain trivia questions because of some current events. We … Continue reading →
July 17
Today started with an ethics class from Elliot, where we spoke about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, and whether or not she was evil…I think she was the perfect example of a lack of objectivity; I don’t think she was evil. She was objective toward everything that didn’t serve her goal. It honestly seems a little socio or psychopathic since she didn’t care how people were affected by her project, but rather only cared about whether her product could be produced and she could become the female Steve Jobs. We also talked about the importance of understanding both the technical and business sides of industry, if we want to go into management positions or just in general. This definitely makes me … Continue reading →
7/17/24- Ruby
Last night, I didn’t do much with the other interns in the evening because I had a long meeting about marching band back at my university. Since I’m president of the band, I have to have a couple meetings over the summer to talk to the directors, exec board, section leader, etc. Later into the night, we finished watching the Elizabeth Holmes documentary for our Ethics class. I wish the one we watched went more into the legal battle, but it gave us a good understanding of everything leading up to them getting charged. This morning, I worked on standardizing the design of our app, while Angy added more screens and Chu Chu looked over the revisions on the Intro … Continue reading →
0024: Heuristics & Indecision with Design Elements
Day 50. When considering my application and how people bring biases into any decision made, I found that the following three heuristics seemed highly likely for the target audience for our VR application. While these are all common for all users, I felt that addressing these three would make our application as strong as possible. Anchoring – overly influenced by initial information we learn Familiarity – favorable opinion of things, people, or places experienced before Availability – opinion based on ease of recalling relevant information, correct or not In several of my degree courses we discussed the 8 golden rules of design as suggested by Ben Shneiderman (https://www.cs.umd.edu/users/ben/goldenrules.html). I picked the following design principles based off both his suggestions as … Continue reading →
Presentations and VR
Hello friends This past weekend was extremely fun. I got to see one of my friends from school and hang out with them. We went to the farmers market and a mall. Also some of the others from Ames joined us at the farmers market in Des Moines. It was extremely hot and draining, but it was a ton of fun. Then on Monday, we worked on VR and figuring out how to sync the data streams from the Unity app and the Muse headband. Lydia and Harrison did an amazing job looking into the possible ways we could do it. We also worked on our presentation for CUNY which is next week. Well that all, Sophie
Continue reading →Dev log: Troubleshooting
Since we talked last a bunch of things have happened! We went to Des Moines again, went to a “beach”, went bowling, grilled hotdogs, and most importantly, started coding! Most of the code is functional in parts but not together- so it’s been a rough week for troubleshooting and creating new scripts for our game…. I want the game to be finished by the end of this week, but the more errors that pop up the more unlikely it looks…and then we also have to have our presentation and posters done by next week. So much work, so little time~ We have CUNY presentations next week-so I gotta get back in the groove of talking in front of ppl and … Continue reading →
Harrison – Day 44
July 16
Today we did our first run through of our project presentation. As always there were a lot of changes that we needed to implement, but I feel like I learned a lot not only from the critiques on our presentation but also from the other presentations everyone else gave. So it was a productive session. Afterward we had the lunch and lecture with Alex, and he told us about his journey to where he is now, and gave us advice on how to think about grad school and careers. I feel like a lot of this has to do with finding what you value in life and making your job align with that. I am definitely going to be more … Continue reading →
7/16/24- Ruby
Last night, some of us went bowling at the Memorial Union, which was a lot of fun. I bowled 111 for both games and raced Rodney on a MarioKart game. He won but by a hair. At night, we watched some of the Elizabeth Holmes documentary which we will finish tonight. This morning, we presented the first drafts of our CUNY presentations. Our team did well but we have some notes to work on for the actual presentation. After, we had our luncheon lecture with Alex, so it was really cool to hear more about him! Later this afternoon, we have meetings for our project and work time. Here is a picture from last night:
Continue reading →July 15
Today we started working on the presentation. We’re organizing our lit review and working on continuing with the code. So far I’m feeling pretty calm about the project, since we made some decent progress this weekend. I’m more concerned about the presentation aspects, since we have a lot of writing and work to do presentation-wise and I’d rather just focus on the actual game. However, I know it’s necessary to get the written work done early so that we aren’t suffering next week. Until next time 🙂
Continue reading →Harrison – Day 43
7/15/24- Ruby
This weekend was lots of fun. On Saturday, we started the day early by getting to the Des Moines farmers market at 10 am. I didn’t buy much, but there was a really cool brass band there that me and Andrea listened to for a while. Afterwards, we all got food and went to Gray’s Lake to sit on the beach and go in the water a little bit. I mostly sat on the beach but went in the water up to my knees a couple of times. I definitely got burnt up, so I am dealing with that now, but I enjoyed it. Overall, it was super hot and sunny all day, but we still had fun. That night, … Continue reading →
HCI – Heuristics Assignment
Our homework for the HCI session was to pick heuristics people use in decision making, then pick design principles to accommodate those heuristics, and lastly reflect on how these can be applied to my project.
Continue reading →Heel Click for Celebration
Hello friends, I am extremely happy!!! Yesterday during our test run of the trigger again, dots appeared in Biosemi. These dots were where the trigger was accessed and created markers on the EEG data. This will allow us to create markers based off of PsychoPy progress and will help sync the data between the two. I was excited enough that I did a heel click and then Aron followed in suit and did one. Best, Sophie
Continue reading →Harrison – Day 40
7/12/24- Ruby
Last night, the only thing I really did with other people was work on our app design with Angy. We made a lot of progress during the day, it apparently our design was t what Tian was looking for so we are currently working on the redesign. This morning, I have been working on our paper. While I am doing that, Angy is working on the design in Figma and Chu Chu is working on the structure of the app in Unity. I think we are working together well since we have things to do in areas we like. There is not much to talk about since we are all hanging out less to work on our projects after work. … Continue reading →
July 12
Today had a lot more visual progress than the past few days this week. We finally got a repository working, so we were all three working side by side on the project. We now have functional hands, teleportation, and continuous motion!!! Alee was able to import the scene, Rodney’s progressing the code…it’s been a good morning. This afternoon we’re continuing our progress, and hopefully Alee and I will move onto the coding portion. Until next time 🙂
Continue reading →0023
Day 46. Last night we worked on the paper for our project. Today we are working on our project some more. We were able to overcome some of the errors we were receiving yesterday during work. We are making decent headway towards finishing our project.
Continue reading →Thursday, July 11
This morning, we started with an HCI class with Yvonne. The focus of today’s class was decision making, and how things like heuristics and biases can influence our decisions. After class, Dr. Adarsh Krishnamurthy talked about his research and interests during the lunch and lecture. His background is architecture and engineering, so while some of what he was talking about was unfamiliar, I could pick up on things and found his work with neural networks and 3D printing really interesting. After the lunch and lecture, Aron came to the VRAC for a bit. The first thing on the to-do list for today was to get back to figuring out how to analyze the EEG data that we collected from the … Continue reading →
Papers are fun?
Hello all These past few days we have been working on writing our paper. More specifically, our literature review. This process has been a great learning experience. When it comes to writing collaboratively it can be a challenge. Most times people have differing styles of writing and have different ways of voicing information, which can make it hard to create a cohesive paper. One statement could sound good to one person, and sound bad to another. These past days have really highlighted how this could happen. Though even with the conflict we were able to get a good draft of our literature review. Yesterday we went to the lab and were trying to test the trigger again. I swear this … Continue reading →
0020 – 0022
Day 43, 44, & 45. Here are my notes from today’s lecture on technical ethics and from our guest speaker during our luncheon lecture. There is never a 100% correct answer to ethical dilemmas Capital System works if Gross Revenue > Expenses otherwise your out of business Recognize when there is an ethical dilemma & create a standard for going about answering it Loss of reputation: Back room conversations about work & employees do happen and can be detrimental to careers TECHNICAL ETHICAL GUIDELINES Ethics are achieved by following a mixture of moral, legal & personal Values Important Quotes: On Wednesday we… Data structures And many many pages of changing notes on the project. Today: Running out of time to … Continue reading →
July 11
Today started with continuing working in Unity on the teleportation and continuous motion aspects of our game. I’m hesitant to use the code from the deeper dive here since we switched the hand visuals and the tracking is a bit different, but a different tutorial I tried is not working, so I’m going to ask for help this afternoon to continue moving forward. At 10 we had our HCI meeting, where we learned about the decision making process, and how it does not always involve differentiating between pros and cons. After HCI, we had our lunch and lecture, where we learned about digital twins, neural networks, and the possibility of creating an AI software for manufacturing. Overall, it’s been a … Continue reading →
Wednesday, July 10
Last night, Sophie, Harrison, and I started our literature review draft. Writing this paper is starting to feel like one of the harder things we’ve had to do this summer as a team because we all have different writing styles. At first we tried to just talk all together, and I would write the ideas down, but we quickly realized that wasn’t going to work when we spent about half an hour on 2 sentences. Instead, we decided to divide and conquer, so each of us took responsibility for writing 2 sections from the outline, and then we’d come back together later and make adjustments as needed. Today we spent our morning working on our literature review, going over what … Continue reading →
Harrison – Day 38
7/10/24- Ruby
Now that we are all busy working on our projects, we are having less time to hang after work. So, last night we didn’t do much but hang out and chat for a little bit before going to bed. This morning, we started working on a Figma prototype for our CommHEAT app. We decided on some features and sketches yesterday so we are recreating those in Figma. Chu Chu and Angy are working on learning app development in Unity while I am refining the design and researching our branding palette for the app. We have also started writing our paper, which I am taking the lead on since I have written the most in college. Later today we will keep … Continue reading →
July 10
Sorry for not posting yesterday; there were a lot of changes and updates to our game plan that we had to figure out. Today has been a little bit better, so *yay* Yesterday we had an ethics class with Elliot where we learned about the importance of being as objective as possible when working with ethical dilemmas. Ethics is definitely a strange concept. I enjoy discussing it but it sometimes feels like the discussion issues can’t be resolved since there is no true right answer. I am excited to talk about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes at the next meeting though; I learned about Theranos in high school and thought the scandal was fascinating, so I’m happy to have an excuse … Continue reading →
Tuesday, July 9
We’re back in the lab. Quick little recap of the long weekend: On Friday, we didn’t do much until night time. Harrison taught Rodney, Ruby, and I had to play a card game called spades. I enjoyed it. You had to play in teams, but it’s not really playing in teams because you sit across from them and you’re not allowed to talk. You just need really suggestive facial expressions? On Saturday, Angelic had to deal with something at a bank near Des Moines, so we decided to just make a trip out of it and go to the Des Moines farmers market. Unfortunately, by the time we got downtown, the market was about to close. On the bright side, … Continue reading →
7/9/24- Ruby
Last night, we went out as the CommHEAT group for dinner for the first time! Chu Chu had plans, but Angy, Tian, Michael and I went to Macubana and finally got to talk about stuff outside of our project. I had a really good chicken bacon ranch grilled cheese, so I thought it was a nice evening out. Later in the night, I helped Angy dye her hair. I think it looks pretty good and it was definitely fun to do. This morning, we had our first Ethics class with Eliot. There was a lot of debating and arguing points in this class. Afterwards, we had our luncheon lecture with Dr. Merate Bakarat. She is in the architecture department and … Continue reading →
July 8th
CRAFTS OF RESEARCH Today was a day filled with discovery and learning, kicking off with an enriching session on the “Crafts of Research.” The morning was dedicated to honing our skills in presenting research posters, a crucial aspect of sharing and communicating scientific findings effectively. Presenting a Research Poster: Reducing Heat Morbidity in Lower-Income Societies During the session, we focused on a compelling and urgent topic: “How to Reduce Heat Morbidity Rates in Lower-Income Societies.” As global temperatures continue to rise, heat morbidity has become a significant public health concern, particularly in lower-income areas where access to cooling technologies and healthcare may be limited. We learned various strategies for creating an impactful research poster, including: Questions and Curiosities I left … Continue reading →