Everything is so cool :(
There’s so many cool people to meet here, and all of these cool people know other cool people, and all of these cool people combined are doing so much cool stuff, so how can I possibly feel like what I … Continue reading →
Nathan Phillips
Test early, even when you’re not ready
I’m definitely somewhat of a perfectionist, and I don’t really want to show someone what I’m working on until it’s in a state I’m happy with. But throughout the last few weeks, I have been really happy with the feedback … Continue reading →
Remembering the Important of Exploring with Drs. Wilford, Barakat, and Gilbert
Over the last seven days we have had three amazing guest speakers at our luncheon lectures who all reminded me the importance of exploration in my learning. The first was Miko Wilford, a professor in Psychology focused on the behaviors … Continue reading →
Defining Success
I started creating engineering projects about four years ago now, and in that time I have learned a lot about what it takes to actually make a project come to life. Some things I have learned include how to research … Continue reading →
The Middle of a Project is Always the Hardest
Now that we are in week six of the REU, we are finally starting to develop our interface for the experiment for NAVI. This is a really exciting moment, but it’s also super hard and frustrating. With personal projects, I’ve … Continue reading →
How do you deal with not knowing the unknown?
When starting a new project, how can you know what tools to use, how long it will take, what roadblocks you will run into, or if your method is even close to the most effective way of solving the problem? … Continue reading →
Weekly Luncheon Learns
The weekly luncheon learns that the REU organizes are a super incredible opportunity, and I’m so thankful that the team has organized them for us! Besides the free food (!!!) the luncheon learns are a great way to have some … Continue reading →
Staying on Top of Things (or failing to)
What’s the best use case for AI? Maybe it’s figuring out where all my time disappears off to 🙁 For the past about 2 weeks, I’ve felt like it has been really hard to stay on top of our research. … Continue reading →
History, Stories, and Wisdom
For a long period of my life I found history to be completely useless. I didn’t understand why I should care learning about these situations that are outside of my life. I thought that for the most part they were … Continue reading →
How is being an intern?
Being an intern is super great, you get to learn a bunch of cool stuff while getting paid. Especially at the start of the program there seems to be a lot of flexibility on what you are working on at … Continue reading →
How do we prioritize what research to work on?
I think people generally hold the notion helping people is good, and that time is a scarce resource. So when choosing research to work on, how do we choose the most important project. Given the potential for research to impact … Continue reading →
Red Bull Soapbox Fun!
On Saturday after our escape room, we went to see the Red Bull soapbox race that was going on in De Moines and it was super cool! Although it was hard to see the actual races, it was a great … Continue reading →
Initial Thoughts
After a few days here, I’m kind of upset that everything is so nice compared to KU and that it seems like there is so much opportunity for good quality research. Maybe my view is just biased because I’ve very … Continue reading →