Summer Internship at RIT: Visual Perception

Last Day

2008-08-22T14:18:00.003-04:00

So we gave our final presentations today! Done with work! It feels good but I am going to miss it. I was kind of bummed that Erika and I had to share a poster for our school but I guess we didn't really have a choice. So thanks to all the interns for the good times and hope everyone has a great senior year! Also thanks to Joe and Bob and my advisors Jeff and Andy, as well as all the undergrads in the MVRL. See ya! :)

Keep it classy,
Matt

Practice Presentation Day

2008-08-21T18:33:00.002-04:00

Today we practiced our presentations and listened to others from RIT interns as well as those from the U of R. Some of the U of R ones were really complicated and hard to understand so it was kind of boring. I thought the ones from RIT were good though. So yeah that was the only thing we did. We got free lunch though! :)

Keep it classy,
Matt

Guitar Hero Day

2008-08-20T20:19:00.002-04:00

Today was pretty much a relaxation day, but we did conduct a really cool experiment! We played guitar hero and found out how our anticipatory saccades were affected by practice. I'm not sure how the results came out, as I had to leave early for football practice, but I expected that the saccades grew in length between test 1 and test 3. So that was pretty cool... and it was the only thing that we did so yeah. Presentation practice tomorrow... fun, yeah...

Keep it classy,
Matt

Take 2

2008-08-19T13:52:00.002-04:00

So today was another double football practice day... oh joy! In between though we presented our presentation again and it went much better. We got half as many notes! We worked on building up to that the rest of the day so that was pretty much all we did. Hopefully we will be able to get it done by the end of tomorrow.

Keep it classy,
Matt

A Crazy Day

2008-08-18T19:08:00.002-04:00

So today was one crazy day.

I got up for football practice at 7:00 - 10 and then headed straight to work. There I dove straight in to working on the PowerPoint and poster, each which were pretty much done by the time I left. We were suppose to present to the Girl Scouts, but none were there after like a whole hour!? It was really wierd. So yeah that was pretty much it, just working on our final presentations and concluding the data analysis for them. Then I had to go to another football practice in the afternoon... but thats another story.

Keep it classy,
Matt

Hard at Work

2008-08-15T17:06:00.002-04:00

So today was going pretty well until we gave our practice presentation. In the morning we had to get all our notes ready and prepare, while also putting the finishing touches on the rough draft. Then came the big wallop... we were pretty much ripped apart, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. We have to reorganize some slides and put a lot more movies/demonstrations in that will let the audience see what we are actually talking about in action. We have a lot of work ahead of us, seeing as our poster is due on Monday and the data still needs to be coded! We just have go get everything in proper condition in the slide show, as well as analyze data and draw conclusions. The PowerPoint should be fine though and is not due until Wednesday of next week, which is enough time to fix it. I think we have to give more practices though. :/ That should be fun.

Keep it classy,
Matt

Wrap Up Day

2008-08-14T16:44:00.003-04:00

So we wrapped up a lot of stuff today, included the finished product of the eye video, the preliminary presentation, and the draft poster. Everything can be revised but we got the first drafts done today which was very good. Now we can present to the Girl Scouts on Monday and have some idea of what were are saying.

We pretty much worked on those things the whole day, and ran in the rain. That was exciting but it was kind of wet... go figure!? So tomorrow we have to present our PowerPoint to the rest of the lab oh joy! That will be lots of fun, but it will be helpful and aid us in revising our presentation. Hopefully it will go well.

Keep it classy,
Matt

Party Bus!

2008-08-13T16:37:00.002-04:00

Today we took a field trip to Optimax and we had a really sweet ride to get over there. It was like a limo/bus type thing that had features of both and was really sweet. We all oohed and ahhed over it and everyone enjoyed the ride. :) The tour was cool and it looked like a very high tech company.

When we got back we had a nice free lunch of DiBella's. That was good and then we got back to work. We finished up the draft of the poster and the presentation is about done. We will probably use our presentation to entertain the Girl Scouts when they have their thing next Monday. We also calibrated some videos from both the Madagascar and Waldo videos. We are making some good progress, and we finished the eye motion video plus adding sound! It is pretty sweet.

Keep it classy,
Matt

Wrapping Stuff Up

2008-08-12T16:41:00.005-04:00

Today was just an all-around good day.

I started off by finishing up the draft of our poster, so that was exciting. We all are going to have a group overhaul session tomorrow to fix anything we want to change in the draft stage. Also, progress was made on the presentation, we have about 40 slides I think which is a great amount but we still need a little more. I also tried to help Nick run his experiment but it was really sunny so we couldn't run anybody today.

A guy from Proctor and Gamble came today to get information on the lab and some of its technology. I believe that we supplied him with some eye tracking programs and a mobile headgear piece. He was pretty cool and we all got free subs on the lab for lunch! Then I calibrated the new Madagascar videos, but there is still one more to be done. I also helped Erika edit our video on eye movements, which is almost near completion. All this means that we are wrapping up our other projects and concentrating on finishing the Waldo experiment, as well as our final presentation items. So yeah... good day, fun times, and hearty laughs along the way.

Keep it classy,
Matt

Spicy Chicken Sub Day

2008-08-11T17:00:00.004-04:00

This morning I worked on out poster a little bit. Then I went with Nick to help him with his experiment. I had to work with accelerometers, which was pretty sweet and not too hard. It was fun and good experience of conducting an official experiment. That pretty much took up the entire morning and then we headed to Crossroads for lunch. I had this really spicy chicken sub and it was really good! :)

Then we came back and went outside to take some more videos for the high speed high video project. They were much more focused and hopefully will combine into a good video for Jeff. Then we ran some more participants through our experiment, three to be exact. That brings our total to 8. We thought that would be a good number and we will have time to fully evaluate these videos. Then we Yarbizised some of our Waldo videos and worked on our final presentations, both PowerPoint and poster. We made pretty good headway today and hopefully will be done by the end of the week with everything that needs to be finished early.

Keep it classy,
Matt

The Waldo Begins

2008-08-07T16:37:00.002-04:00

This morning I worked on the poster a lot and the rough draft of it is almost complete. The presentation is also coming well. We are definitely prepared for the rush to get things done next week. In the morning I also went out with Nick to participate in his experiment. It was pretty cool and I got to look at signs around the campus, as well as watch videos on an iPhone in the car too. That was lots of fun and it took a long time because of problems with calibrating.

So, after lunch we got right down to business and started testing subjects for the Waldo and Lego experiments. We ran 5 people through today and hopefully there will be more people to go tomorrow. We want to have about 6 or 8 participants to fully flush out the data, we thought that would be a nice number to code too. So we ran some interns and some undergrads through and it looked pretty good. Hopefully the rest will be just as successful.

Keep it classy,
Matt

Eating Apples

2008-08-06T16:59:00.005-04:00

So today was just one of those days where you feel really good at the end because you were so productive. We pretty much outlines our entire presentation and poster today, so that gives us a great head start for working on those over the next week. In fact, we might just have to add a few things in and our poster is in a first draft stage! We were all so excited. We also coded a little bit, but most of the day was spent on final project stuff.

There was also a picnic today for all the summer science researchers. It was lots of fun and had free food! We also saw Harry Potter there again! More people saw him this time so we have witnesses to provide evidence. Afterwards, we were chilling by the picnic area with John, Nick, and Tristen, when Jane took a bite out of one of the crab apples from a tree on campus! She said they were really good, so of course we all had to try one. They were really sour and pretty good... worth the risk of eating. Erika didn't have one though, so we will all know tomorrow whether they are poisonous. If not, then I am definitely going back for more!

Keep it classy,
Matt

Another Day of Coding

2008-08-05T16:42:00.003-04:00

Finally I finished a video!!! I was so excited that Jane and I put on some party music and rocked out. It was a good time. We coded for the rest of the morning and Jane and I checked each other's work. It matched up pretty good. Then Jane and I took some eye videos to help redo the original movie. However, they didn't turn out very good. But late Erika figured out a way to take even better videos, so we might just re-shoot the whole movie anyway.

We all brought our lunch today, finally, so we ate outside which was lots of fun because it was pretty sunny and a beautiful day. After lunch we continued to code, and I also found a clip to use for our second try at showing all the combinations of subject and scene. Madagascar 2! Its a really funny clip and would be good for use in this demonstration cause it involves slow-motion. Then I participated in Nick's experiment, although he ran into some bumps with the software and we will have to collect some of the data tomorrow. That should be fun :)

Keep it classy,
Matt

Party Day

2008-08-04T16:56:00.003-04:00

Today was pretty exciting. We went on a tour of ITT today, which was pretty cool. We got to see the making of mirrors and lenses for satellites, and everything was like super high tech. The mirrors had to be super light so they use this Water Jet that can take out about 94% of the material from the stabilizers between layers of mirrors, and it shoots at a max or 1500 PSI. Thats crazy!! Then we got a free lunch of subs... always a plus!

We ate back at CIS and had an interesting discussion about Kiwi birds. The drawings of them didn't turn out too good but it was still fun to laugh at what they looked like. After that we headed to the labs and worked on coding. Jane finished!! We were all so excited we threw like a little party in our lab! Then we showed Andy the videos we had taken the previous week. Overall they were pretty good but he gave us some tips on how to polish them up. We have lots of stuff to work on for tomorrow.

Keep it classy,
Matt

Just Another Day On The Job

2008-08-01T17:04:00.004-04:00

Today was a pretty normal day. Joe brought the doughnuts this morning... which is always a good way to start off the day! We headed to our labs to begin coding the videos once again. However, today was a little more exciting since Jane is about the finish her video, which we all worked on for awhile at some point within the last two weeks. I got to the 1 second clips which means that I do not have that long until I am done as well! Very exciting. We pretty much spent the whole day working on that since Andy asked us to at least finish up one tape... we got pretty close so it counts.

We also went to the IS&T meeting, at which Dr. Easton gave us a very informative and interesting presentation on the work that he has been involved with, including the Archimedes Palimpsest. It was really cool to hear what he had worked and how profound the discoveries were. Erika and I also participated in a pilot test of John's experiment, which has something to do with walking and footprints on the ground... I guess we will found out more later. And that was about it for the day, fun but productive is always good!

Keep it classy,
Matt

Visiting the U of R

2008-07-31T16:41:00.002-04:00

Today we went to the U of R to see what their interns were up to. Their program is more based on biomedical areas rather than imaging. They deal with the body at the systems, cellular, and molecular levels, meaning that they cover every level of the body. It was a lot of fun to see what they were doing and see some really interesting things, such as seeing a live mouse being dissected for research to be conducted on its brain. Many of their projects include research on a smaller level right now that will hopefully be expanded into full human usage.

Before we went we had a funny discussion about how everybody's prom was worse than anybody else's. However, I think Jane takes the cake with only 20 people showing up!! Wow! After we got from the trip we headed back to the labs to get back to work. We coded for the rest of the time :P It wasn't that bad though because we took a break to calibrate our tapes... finally! But other than that it was straight coding for the rest of the day. Hopefully we will be able to take some more pilot tapes tomorrow for our experiments... which will be much more fun :)

Keep it classy,
Matt

Harry Potting Sighting... And Cool Legos

2008-07-30T16:21:00.007-04:00

So today was just another normal day on the job.

We coded for the first couple hours and met some interns from the U of R intern program. We gave them a tour of our lab and an intro into what it is all about. Then we went back to coding until lunch time, basically a very uneventful morning. Lunch was good because we basically got two free lunches! One with the U of R interns and then one at the Wednesday lunch talks... I ended up very full but happy.

After the lunch talk we headed back to calibrate the tapes from yesterday... but Leanne was using the calibrating station so we had to move on to something else. Instead we finished the Waldo presentation and wrote up the script for running the experiment, as well as the same stuff for the Lego experiment. Then we took some video for the testing of the Lego experiment and we can calibrate all the tapes tomorrow hopefully. We also upgraded my environment beautifier, a Lego plane! ... the picture is up top.

Okay so I forgot to mention how at lunch we saw Harry Potter. We tried to take a picture with him but he like bolted out of the room as soon as the presentation was over! He hopped on his Firebolt and got away before we even had the chance to ask :( Hopefully he will be back next week though!

Keep it classy,
Matt

A Good Day

2008-07-29T15:58:00.003-04:00

So today was just a really good and productive day! :)

We started off the morning by planning what we would show the U of R interns, who will be visiting us tomorrow. We want to show them eye movements, the mobile eye tracker, and some videos of eye tracking in action. In addition, we might show them some experiments that are going on right now, maybe even the one we are designing! After that we coded for a really long time, until lunch! Wow I don't think I've ever coded for that long without a break, it was intense.

After lunch, we decided to take a break from coding and work on the Kung Fu Panda tape. We set everything up and took some good tapes of each of us. Hopefully we will be able to calibrate them tomorrow and make them into one condensed clip. Then we worked on our Waldo project, including the Lego experiment. We designed a better PowerPoint presentation for each so that the experiments would run more smoothly. These will help us in the proper data analysis too by giving us better data. We took some Waldo videos today, which we will calibrate tomorrow, and hope to get tapes on the Lego set-up tomorrow as well.

Looks like we have a busy next day ahead of us, including the fact that we have other interns touring our labs! I think we should be able to tackle everything though...

Keep it classy,
Matt

A Day Without AJ

2008-07-28T16:36:00.006-04:00

Its very sad today but AJ is off to Philmont for two weeks. But we couldn't slack off in his absense!

Today was one of the most productive days yet! We took videos on the high speed camera of eye movements, yes all possible eye movements. Then Erica created a movie that combined them all in to one clip. It can now be used by Jeff in his classroom instruction and VPL Boot Camp '09 to demonstrate examples of eye movements.

While she was hard at work on that I made some progress on the Kung Fu Panda project. I got all the kinks out about the screen size and it looks like we are ready to start developing the set-up. The video will be used to show the different combinations of subject and surroundings, as discussed previously. I also coded for a long time and then Jane took over and worked on coding some. So basically all the projects were worked on today. Except that we are putting the Waldo on hold for right now, that will have to wait till later while we work on these other projects.

Well thats all for today hopefully tomorrow will be as good a work day.

Keep it classy,
Matt

High Speed Camera Day

2008-07-25T16:46:00.003-04:00

Doughnuts at the morning meeting today! Yeah! Always good to start the day off with a doughnut, and then off to the labs. We started the day off by looking at the Lego project some more. However, we decided that it would be best for all of us to focus on one task, so we mainly worked on the Waldo experiment together. At 9:30 we watched Sue's presentation from California, which was interesting. We gave her some tips on how to fix it in order to make it more informative and time productive.

Then we all meet with Jeff to discuss what we would be doing over the upcoming week. He wants us to play around with the high-speed camera that can take an amazing 1200 frames per second. Also, we are designing a way to show all the various combinations of subject and observer types (static and dynamic). We are planning to develop a method next week.

So Jane and I started to play with the high speed camera and took some pretty sweet videos! They are really funny and you should definitely take a look at them on the internet! The link is below. That took the rest of the afternoon, along with searching for movie trailers for our experiment with the various combinations project. We decided upon using "Kung Fu Panda" as our clip :) Very good clip! We should hopefully get to develop the project further next week.

Keep it classy,
Matt

Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bl6yrp0oys

Playing with Legos

2008-07-24T16:26:00.005-04:00

Today was lots of fun and very productive.

We started out the day by coding for a little bit and really wanted to get to designing our experiment. So we worked fast! :) We began by testing the Lego set-up and discovered that it worked very well. We even designed some boards and took pictures of them. The goal is to pick out a specific Lego block among the others, while the data will be collected and analyzed for search patterns. we created three different designs, but they can all be rotated and flipped to produce many more. The whole thing is similar to a Where's Waldo type of game but not exactly the same. Another option we thought of was combining two blocks and making the subject look for that configuration, which would give us different data. The ideas for the keys and the coins were not tested today but we plan to test these tomorrow. Hopefully they will be as productive as the Legos were today.

We spent the rest of the time designing the power point which would be used for testing. It works very well on the big screen but we still have to fix some color issues. We still have to work on incorporating the key experiment into this test though, but we have to do some pre-testing however that will help us to conduct or experiment properly. Other than that we are well on our way to experimentation, we just have to test some other things and fix a few things along the way. I love playing with Legos!!

Keep it classy,
Matt

Waldo Begins

2008-07-23T19:08:00.003-04:00

So today was exciting.

First, when we went to our labs we started right in with some more coding. After awhile with that, we were all sick of it so we decided to develop an idea for our intern experiment in the VP lab. Erica came up with a great idea of investigating visual search techniques by using a Where's Waldo puzzle. It was a great idea and we all flew with it. We wanted to include some other puzzles, such as I Spy and a word search, but Jeff suggested that we concentrate on the Waldo experiment.

So, while Erica and AJ worked on an original Waldo style experiment, Jane and I began to brainstorm some ideas on how to develop a Waldo situation in real life. We came up with a few ideas involving a search for specific key, coin, or Lego, that surrounded by other objects similar to it, or for a specific object in a cluttered room. We still have to do some testing to figure out which one would be best but that's in store for tomorrow. We worked on that for the rest of the day, with some intermittent coding here and there.

I guess now we have something to do for awhile that is a lot more interesting than coding... and its really cool too! Can't wait till we can get farther on developing the experiment.

Keep it classy,
Matt

TV Day

2008-07-22T16:36:00.006-04:00

Okay so today was lots of fun.

In the morning, we took an intern field trip to Bausch and Lomb, which was really cool. We got to see the automated process of the production of contact lenses, including the working assembly line. Also, we learned the complex process behind their design and all the aspects the go into vision correction. Then we saw some instruments that measured the accuracy of lenses and others that mapped the topography of a person's eye. That was really sweet! Then we got a free lunch from Joe at Amiels, and of course that was good.

Then we got back to the labs and got to work coding. After awhile of that Jane and I went out with Nick to preform a pilot test. we drove around and around and around the RIT loop, all the while collecting data on eye tracking of seeing and reading signs. It was too sunny to collect good data on Jane, but hopefully I will get a chance to be a participant later this week.

After we got back Jeff and Andy were putting up the new, gigantic TV which was like a SONY HD. It was freaking sweet!! After we got it working, we watched "The Dark Night" trailer on it, which was really cool. It looks like an awesome movie!

Then all of us finished out our day by coding some more. So pretty much the highlight of the day was the sweet TV, of course. Hopefully we will have more fun with it tomorrow. :)

Keep it classy,
Matt

Right Back at It

2008-07-21T17:00:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone,

So I have been away at football camp for the last week. It was tiring, with three practices a day, but lots of fun. So now its time to get right back to work.

So to start off, the morning meeting was nothing special, but we did discuss some important things about upcoming events like the U of R kids visiting our labs and vise versa. Also we discussed the Bausch and Lomb trip. So then I headed to the labs to figure out what I had missed and what I would be doing today.

It was nothing big that I had missed, just some basic intro stuff. The group had begun checking the transcriptions of the many tapes under the Descriptions Experiment. However, all those had been checked so we moved on the the coding of the tapes. As I have said before, coding is a long, arduous process that is really boring... but it needs to be done. The nice thing is that you can work alone, so while your working you just pop on some head phones and rock out. It's really not that bad. So pretty much all of today was taken up by coding a video, and I got through a good chunk of mine. I was pretty impressed with myself that I remembered how to do it, after briefly learning it the first week and then having a week in which to forget it. So all in all it was a pretty good day and its good to be back. I'm sure that we will all miss AJ next week when he leaves for his Philmont trip.

I hope that tomorrow is lots of fun and we should get to see some pretty cool stuff at the Bausch and Lomb field trip. I can't wait!!

Keep it classy,
Matt

Today... All About The Doughnuts

2008-07-11T16:21:00.005-04:00

So today was a little more exciting.

At the morning intern meeting Bob gave us doughnuts! They were really good, especially since they were free. He also wanted us to write about a job opportunity posted in the Imaging Science building. I choose the R&D engineer because it was out of Canada, which is pretty cool, and it included some many of the same qualities/experience that I have already had. It seemed pretty interesting, so I think that I might like it if I was actually applying.

After the meeting we headed off the finish some coding from yesterday. That took awhile as we all switched on and off with each other so that none of us had to code for too long. Then AJ and I went with some other interns and staff to move an optical bench. I have no idea what it does, except that it is for optics, but I do know that it is REALLY heavy. It took like 6 of us to lift the whole thing. So then we headed back to find the girls still hard to work at coding... haha not really. The VP staff then had a staff meeting at 10:30 at which we talked some business and about stuff that needs to get done. Then we headed out for the King and I, a Thai food restaurant. It was really good and very tasty.

Afterwards, we headed back to the labs only to find that all the keyboards were flipped over!? Then John and Tristen came in and gave us some bogus tapes to calibrate and we couldn't find the cameras. So after searching for the cameras, they finally revealed to us that they were playing a trick on us. They said it was because we had left the lab door open during lunch. Haha, very funny! Anyways, then Jane and I really did calibrate the tape for Leanne's masters study. We also continued working on the coding from yesterday... and played a few more games. That was about all, pretty packed but not too bad.

Keep it classy,
Matt

Paid Relaxation... Well At Least A Little Bit

2008-07-10T16:10:00.009-04:00

Awhhh... mmm... so as you can probably guess from the title, today was pretty slow.

In the morning the intern meeting was pretty interesting. We walked around like pirates covering our eyes so that they would adjust to the darkness while the other eye was exposed to light. When returning to a darkened room we found that we were able to see out of the covered eye very well and almost not at all through the other one. This was due to the fact that the covered eye retains a certain chemical which allows the eye to adjust for vision in the dark. Only one eye retained this chemical however, by remaining in darkness, and therefore was the eye that was able to see in the darkened room.

After that we headed off to the labs where we finished reading the documents John had given us yesterday and we typed up the data that we collected. Nick gave us a tape to calibrate that was from the Infotracking experiment we participated in yesterday. Erica and I completed that and also digitized the tape. Some other tapes were digitized by AJ. Everything took awhile so we soon found that it was time for lunch.

A quick lunch and we were back in the labs... but no one else was. So we waited for a long time, and played some games. Later, Tristen gave us back the tape which we had calibrated this morning. He introduced us to our first job on RITCode and helped us to learn how to prepare the tape so that information could be gathered from it. It was pretty tedious work, going frame by frame and analyzing the tape for points of fixation, it takes a freaking long time!!!

That was pretty much it... not a lot of stuff to do, but it fills the time.

Keep it classy,
Matt

Finally Some Work

2008-07-09T20:37:00.005-04:00

So today we actually started to do work!

The morning meeting was pretty uneventful and we scurried off to unite with our fellow VPers in the labs. There we finished up the reading, which is great because now I don't have to read it outside of work, and then began to get to work. Leanne gave us some tapes to calibrate so that we could track the places where the subject was looking. She helped us with it but we got through it without any problems. Then we took a whole bunch of tapes and started to digitize them so that they could be utilized in RITCode. The digitization process takes about 30 min. for each tape, so while waiting we watched youtube videos and all shared a good laugh.

So in searching for something to do while the tapes were digitizing, we found that John had something for us. He wanted us to read an article and pick out specific information regarding the aspects of an experiment concerning infants/toddlers and vision tracking. This information was being drawn from a variety of other articles as well and will be used to help design and experiment in the future. So that was a really long article but AJ and I got out of it because we had to go hang up posters advertising Leanne's testing for her research study. 10 bucks for one hour to anybody who participates is a pretty good deal, I wish we could get some extra cash through this! Oh well....

After that AJ and I participated in a pilot testing of a developing research study called Infotracking. It was pretty neat and we will probably be able to calibrate our own tape, that will be sweet. After that I had to leave early but hopefully more fun awaits tomorrow.

Keep it classy,
Matt

The Saga Continues

2008-07-08T16:09:00.008-04:00

Not too bad today, just a few crazy moments...

First off, football weight lifting in the morning at 6:30! After that, I was straight off to RIT for the morning intern meeting. After slipping in with about 10 seconds to spare, Bob told us about all the exciting field trips he was planning for the summer. Then off to the VP labs. There we learned about the ASL system that tracked a stationary subject's vision direction. We also learned how to use the analog ISCAN program, which was much more complicated. This system utilized a multiplexer and a demultiplexer in order to capture/view both the eye and area films. (I included the names of those fancy gysmos just because I think they are sweet names!) Then AJ and I fiddled around with the ASL system and tracked each others eye movements... while playing Minesweeper! Then we got an intro to the TWiki account and were given a reading assignment about the history of eye tracking. Yeah, fun...

So after lunch the VP interns were split into two group and Erika and I were suppose to be test subjects for an experiment, but stuff went wrong with the programs and that never came to fruition. So we sat back and read. Oh boy lots of fun! Actually the reading wasn't really that bad and even interesting at times. I still got more to go though. We also learned how to assemble the Mobile Eye Tracking Device so that we could set it up in the future. After that the whole group, all four of us, were reunited and we finally met the mystery man of the day, our adviser Jeff Pelz. After meeting him and trying to figure out a problem with power source of the Mobile Eye Tracking Device, AJ and I had to go correct a problem with our RIT cards. Something about the university ID number was messed up and it was just really confusing, but now hopefully everything is squared away... hopefully. Now I can finally be officially logging my hours so I can get paid!!! That's always a good thing!

Keep it classy,
Matt

First Day: And So It Begins

2008-07-07T16:21:00.008-04:00

So big day today, our first day! It started with our traditional 8:45 intern staff meeting. SO EARLY! I'm sure we all could have fallen asleep right away if not for all the important information Bob and Joe bombarded us with. After all the basic stuff was covered the group headed over to the RIT "Red Bard", which is actually red. There we partook in team building exercises, such as introducing another person to the group and creating the tallest free standing tower. After we were all nice and hot (there was no air conditioning in the barn) we headed over the lunch, which was paid for, sweet! So then some students gave us a tour of the campus and showed us some of the important places. Then we returned to the Imaging Science buildings, only to go on another tour to see the facilities we would be working in. After that we broke up into our different groups, mine being Visual Perception.

There I met the other interns I would be working with, Erika, AJ, and Jane. They were all great and it looks like we are going to have fun working together. So at the VP (Visual Perception) labs we met all the students and faculty involved with the field. We were also introduced to the 007 goggles that are specifically designed for the purpose of VP studies. Then we learned about the software that we would be using throughout the summer. Man was it complicated! There was a digital program called Yarvis (I have no idea how to spell it!) that allows the user to calibrate and determine where the subject's eye is looking. This program seemed a lot easier than ISCAN that we were briefly shown. This is the analog program that preforms the same functions as its digital counterpart Yarvis. We were then shown RITCode, which is a program that allows researchers to denote specific points at which prolonged vision concentration took place. Basically we were introduced to the basics of capturing eye movements and using the software to determine the exact location of vision focus. Oh boy, we're in for a lot more learning tomorrow!

Keep it classy,
Matt

Intro

2008-07-07T16:09:00.005-04:00

Hello fellow bloggers. I am a summer intern at the Rochester Institute of Technology. This summer I will be venturing into unknown territory as I conduct research in the Imaging Science field of Visual Perception. This area of research involves developing, conducting, and analyzing experiments with the tracking of eye movements and vision - basically where people are looking and what they are specifically looking at. I hope to gain knowledge about the imaging science field, as well as to enjoy the intern experience and to explore the RIT campus. Hopefully you will also be able to share in my experience as I dive head long into this adventure.

Keep it classy,
Matt