Yesterday we started working with SolidWorks, which is a platform that can be used to construct models of objects. I had never done anything like this, so those 4 hours of lecture and work time were rough. Alex and Spencer were both really great at walking us through the tutorials and answering any questions, so that definitely helped. 

This past weekend was busy. On Saturday we went to a ropes course where we did some team building activities and then walked on cables and wood planks in the air. The experience wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but I think we all made the most of it. Right after the ropes course, I made the drive up to Minneapolis to go to a Noah Kahan concert, and it was definitely a peak night of my life. If you don’t listen to Noah Kahan, you should. 

When I got back to Ames on Sunday night, we went to a picnic at a nearby park with the other interns at Iowa State University. Later in the night, a few of us went out to get froyo. I got pineapple flavor. If you’re sensing a theme with the pineapple it’s because there is one. Then we randomly decided to drive out to the middle of nowhere to go stargazing, and the sky was amazing – another perk about quieter midwest cities: you can see the stars. AND all of us (except Rodney) saw a crazy shooting star – definitely the longest and brightest I’ve ever seen in my life. Unfortunately, my one blanket and towel did not keep us warm, so it was a very chilly outing for sure. Now we know to be better prepared for next time though.  

Today was a longer day. We started off in the class we have every Tuesday that covers various topics regarding research. The topic of today’s class was literature reviews. Yvonne set up an outline for us to use to construct our literature reviews and organize the information we’ve collected from past readings. Then, Jonathan Kelly came to speak with us about his research. After lunch, Aron, Harrison, Sophie, and I walked over to the EEG lab on campus. We spent about 2 hours running through the procedure and setup of the experiment with Sophie as the participant for today. The computer was having trouble picking up on the brain signals properly, though. Aron said that it may have been from putting too much gel under the cap. I had fun though, and It was cool to see how the data from experiments is being collected. 

Later in the night, all of us interns went to do light painting, which is basically just creating cool shapes and words out of light using a longer camera exposure.