Day 18: Lots of Work is to be Had

After talking to some of the undergrads, I have now found even more tasks to do.

Now I'm going to render the SET projects in alternative setups and locations such as a classroom or museum. On top of this I'm still working on my user manuals and such. Once they hit the final draft, I'll look them over with another undergrad who works with graphic design. I'll also likely have the other interns review my guides and models to see if they're accurate and understandable. For now, here's some examples:

Day 17: New Work

After nearly two weeks of no direct work to do, I'm happy to say I have a new project to tide me over.

I'm writing a guide/manual for three SET projects geared towards high school aged readers. This is the main project, although there is also room for making a tour/show off description for events like Imagine RIT, as well as showing the other interns the projects and having them test certain functions.

Initial look of the manual:

Day 16: Finishing Up

I spent most of the day helping the guys finish the clean room. Some ceiling parts and doors remain (along with all the electrical elements, etc.), but I probably won't be involved with that.

I also made some more renders of my SET models for the Insight webpage. My adviser got back today and I'll have a meeting with him tomorrow morning, where I can hopefully find myself a new project.

Day 15: Relaxed Friday

I had nothing immediate to do today, so I mostly continued with my drafting practice. This time I was actually successful in creating electrical wires. Unfortunately, attempts at flexible items and chain drives have been unsuccessful. The typical Friday intern BBQ however was enjoyable as always.

I'm looking forward to next week where I can hopefully get a new project. For now, here's more renders:

Day 14: Miscellaneous

After reviewing our abstracts in the morning, I did some drafting practice and tried to learn some of the more complicated features such as electrical wiring, chain drives, etc. Unfortunately I have nothing to show as they were, let's say, unsuccessful.

In the afternoon I visited Robert's Lab (http://rit-internship-blog.webnode.com/) where he does fine-scale 3D printing. I then took a look around some other buildings with Bob before heading back to find a bunch of computers being thrown away. My lab scooped up all of the seemingly worthless old equipment.

At the end of the day, I went to a seminar given about 3D modeling of supernovae. It takes supercomputers months to run the simulations but the results are as beautiful as they are informative.

Still waiting on my adviser, but it seems I'm able to fill time.

Day 13: Standard Issue

Very average day. Don't feel like being creative, so here's a list:
- Did some drafting practice / explored the program for my own purposes/activities
- Helped out Jacob (http://bigenwald.blogspot.com/) with some spectroscopy work
- Went to the summer series. Rather dry "video" about the changes in the American patent system that I was already aware of. Free pizza makes up for it.
- Did some testing for the Planetterrainium
- I found out my t-shirt design(s) was not voted the winner

Regardless, my adviser returns Monday, but until then I'm still looking for more stuff to do.


Oh, and for anyone who's interested in knowing what I do for fun, here's a picture of one such thing:

I'd be surprised if anyone reading this blog would know what this is if I haven't already told you in person, but if you do, congratulations for knowing/figuring it out. 

Day 12: Disappointing Discovery

Well, this is an odd find.
The CAD work I was given to do (the bulk of which is completed) appears to have already done by someone else. Looking around the Insight Lab's webpage, I found these from 2011:

A rendered model of the SCUBE:

Designs in blueprint format for the SET projects:

This probably means these previous models were either lost or forgotten. Either way, not exactly a good thing. It also surprises me that it's been 2+ years and they aren't all completed yet. Perhaps they're a little more complicated than I thought. 

On a lighter note, I finished my abstract/milestone that talks about my project, and I got a response from my adviser with some hope for new ideas/projects to work on. I'm also attempting to make some nicer renders of my CAD designs.

Day 11: Clean Room Assembly

Since I was more or less done with my drafting work and t-shirt design, I decided to help out all day by assembling a clean room for the center. Remember all the materials I helped move on Day 3? That's the stuff that is being used for the clean room. I forgot to take a picture of our progress, but it was mostly putting metal pipes together and installing plexiglas guards and paneling. Work on the ceiling began but not very much.

My main goal for now is to start I mean uhh...finish my abstract. The problem is that I've completed the work I was expected to and now I'm going to have to hunt down other things to work on, because after this abstract I have no direction. I'm hoping that once I ask around, someone in my lab will come forward and say they need some help with their work. 

Day 10: Highly Enjoyable

A variety of things were done today:

- Designed a new logo with many variations (pics below)
- Enhanced my projector model a bit
- Had a BBQ, much like every Friday
- Saw Veritasium (YouTube celebrity)
- Showed off some music/projects to other interns during break
- Had an enjoyable talk with Bob about my work here and education/schooling
- Did an interesting eye test for Mia and Simran
-"Helped" an undergrad install their new hard drive, and another about computer building
- Also had a lot of hilarious conversations with the undergrads

Day 9: Much of the Same

Just like yesterday, I kept improving my models of the four SET projects. However, I spent most of the day making a variety of attempts at t-shirt designs with varying degrees of success. Later in the day I attended a seminar about remote sensing in relation to forestry, which was interesting.

I'm also going to begin work on my first checkpoint (abstract) in the following days. While I can think of stuff to write for this one it could be a struggle to figure out what I'm going to be working on these next 5 weeks, as I've more or less finished the primary task I've been presented with.

Regardless, here's more pictures:

Projectors: 

T-shirt logos/designs:

 Design 1 without full text:

Design 2 without text:

 And some actual text:

                                                              

EDIT:

New Logo! I think we have a winner here!

Day 8: Improvements

Today I finished the SCUBE model and began to improve the look of the projectors and other objects. This is more or less my plan for the rest of the week, alongside some smaller projects such as the t-shirt design.

SCUBE:

Previous design with a different background (minus platypus):

Previous design with added shadows/texture:

I also had a few other designs that I scrapped because I didn't like them.

Day 7: Work Continues

I spent the day enhancing the designs from yesterday by adding cables, rope, screen holders, etc. I also started a model of the fourth SET project mentioned previously. Pics:

Digital Solar Explorer:

Planeterrainium:

Space Adventure:

That was about it for today. I found out that I might also be able help another intern make nicer looking models for his program (Autodesk Maya). Tomorrow I'll finish the fourth one and make the projectors and computers a little more realistic 

Day 6: Getting Stuff Done

Given the right equipment, I can usually work quite efficiently.
I drafted preliminary models of the 3 active SET projects (that needed a draft). Only one remains, but since it's decommissioned right now I may not have to model it. Quick renders:

For comparison's sake, here's the drafting I did for my Robotics team:

And as a bonus, here's a logo I've been working on for an intern t-shirt:

Day 5: Work Begins

Writing this post the morning of the 15th, it's proving difficult to remember what exactly happened last Friday.
After much trial and tribulation, I managed to get Autodesk Inventor 2012 to run sufficiently on my laptop by more or less reducing graphics to Windows 95. I began work on the Planeterrainium model during the afternoon after out cookout for lunch. Not much else to say for today.

Day 4: Download, Install, Uninstall

Despite obtaining a functional laptop, I have quickly found some problems to overcome.
The first is that whoever partitioned Bootcamp made the windows partition a tad too small, as I quickly ran out of space.
The second is that the hardware might not be up to the specifications required to do CAD work. Over the course of the day I downloaded over 6 pieces of software, often >3 GBs in size. None of them ended up being functional enough. Here's the list:
PTC Creo 2.0 - Wouldn't install correctly
Solidworks - Screen resolution not large enough
Autodesk Inventor 2014 - Wouldn't run correctly
Autodesk Inventor 2011 - Wouldn't install correctly
Autodesk Inventor 2012 - Ran, but very slow
Autodesk Inventor Fusion 2012 - Apparently needs support programs

Yeah. And since the HDD is so limited I was left to doing this one by one, having to completed uninstall and re-download any time I wanted to install a program. This went on all day...the saving grace was I could occasionally do work on our intern t-shirt design. I also got to see a talk by a professor about electron microscopes which to me was very interesting (and understandable).

Today (morning Day 5) I will investigate freeware alternatives and other recommendations to possibly get something to work. Everyone else seems to be measuring solar flares, writing code, etc. and I'm left to deal with mediocre hardware and software issues...
I actually ran a windows a windows index experience test, and I'm calling shenanigans, because these numbers do not line up at all with the performance.

Fortunately, there might be a desktop available that would be superior to this laptop (2010 MacBook Pro) if I can't get anything else to work.
For now, I'm off to install more stuff.

Day 3: Rewarded for Manual Labor

During the morning I was a tad bored, but I managed to fill time by aiding other interns with some computer issues. For lunch, free pizza was obtained while getting to watch three TED talks, all of which were very interesting and relevant to imaging science.
During the afternoon, I was drafted to help move metal structures, lights, doors, Plexiglas, etc. out of a truck, down a floor, and into a room. They'll be used in a week or so to assemble a clean room of sorts. The pieces themselves however were more or less covered in dust. Oops. And I thought I was being payed as an intellectual worker...
Fortunately there was a light at the end of the tunnel, that light being a working laptop and a cold soda. After spending of the rest of the afternoon installing programs, I'm hoping I can actually begin working on projects soon.

Day 2: Playing the Waiting Game

The struggle to obtain available computers has been quite the hassle, but I managed to find some way to twiddle my thumbs all day. Infact, I set up this blog for example. I also set up new passwords for accounts and got my email situation mostly figured out. By then it was lunchtime which was enjoyed outdoors with the other interns. Later on I read up on an alternative drafting program (PTC Creo) that was reccomended to me by one of the undergrads. I also found out the insight lab has design specifications on their webpage, which makes my job a little easier. Hopefully next morning we will finally obtain the tools needed to begin work...

A Retroactive Day 1

Put simply, what I expected it to be. 

The first half of the day we broke into three groups to do a competitive scavenger hunt of sorts. This was a fun look around campus and served as a chance to talk/interact with the other interns. Everything was filmed and hastily edited into a short video during lunch time. Our group may not have won, but it was a good match.

The second half of the day (after complementary pizza of course) was getting to meet our advisors and undergrads we'd be working with, as well as a view into what projects they work on. As for me, I was relieved to finally figure out what I'd be doing during these 8 weeks. I'll be drafting their SET (Science Education Technology) projects and aiding them with future development, which seems engaging enough. They seem like a typical bunch of good college kids and should be fun to work with. Now just to find a working computer...

I'm looking forwards to what's ahead, but if there's one thing I learned today, it's that there is always free food somewhere.