Project Journal - Week 7
7/16/04
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Aristo blew a fuse, they never did get the interface on Lewis to work right, it took me over an hour to get copies of the consent form made, the thing to load and unload Aristo's batteries went AWOL for a while, and the pizza showed up an hour late.
But I did have a pretty good dry run. That's something, at least.
I have five subjects lined up for tomorrow. We'll see how this goes. *crosses fingers*
Goals for tomorrow: Run a successful experiment.
7/15/04
Cindy's talking like she wants me to use Lewis instead of Aristo. We'll see. I have everything else ready for Saturday except people to help me and maybe a few more practice goes with whatever robot I'll be using. Gives me something to do tomorrow. Man I'm nervous.
Got a few subjects today, even. w00t! I'm starting to think that this might not be a complete disaster, but we'll see what happens with dry runs tomorrow before I get too cocky. *deep breaths* Nervous and excited all at once. I can do this!
Goals for tomorrow: Avoid panic. Email the people who have offices downstairs. Stay calm. Practice with either Aristo or Lewis and whoever's gonna be helping me. Take many deep breaths.
7/13/04
I hate the hurry-up-and-wait game.
(later) Though I much prefer that game to the words "complete hard drive failure" as it applies to any computer with which I am working!
*sigh* I'd rather the catastrophes happen now, though, as opposed to when I'm trying to run the experiment. If this happens on Saturday....
Let's not think about that.
Still no luck on either webcam or tripod. Having difficulty convincing people to give up their weekends. However, I did get word that my thing has been approved, so tomorrow I get to paper the campus with flyers. I only need 24 people. Hopefully I'll get that many. *crosses fingers*
Goals for tomorrow: Same as yesterday, plus papering the campus with flyers.
EDIT: NOW the gigantor red trash can moves himself. *shakes head* Meh, too late for him. Unless, heaven help me, Aristo's computer is still down. *cries* I'm not going to think about that.
7/12/04
Saturday I tried to do my practice run-throughs but ran into several snags. One: I need a second tripod for the other hallway camera. Two: I need a webcam, or some other sort of surveillance camera for the start room, that actually works. The one I was futzing around with on Saturday was being weird for some reason. Must fix. Three: I need a wireless network that doesn't suck. I got into Aristo and got him moving around eventually, but it took more than a few tries, including one with me sticking my tongue out at the 'bot and threatening it with a sledgehammer. I don't think I can fix the wireless, though, so I'll just have to make sure that Four: I need to make extra sure I have *lots* of batteries for that 'bot. Five: Gotta fix a few things on the website. Mostly appearance stuff. Though Raquel had a neat idea if I can't find a decent webcam - set each button to send an IM to a certain screenname that I can be logged in as on the other computer. I'm not sure how easy that would be to do, but if it's not too bad, I might go for it and not hassle with the webcam. Six: I need quite a few people to help me out. Whoever's gonna be the actor is going to have to commit for the same amount of time as I will - the entire time. The other jobs - someone to change something on Aristo at the end of the hallway and to record the times, and someone to greet people and help them with the consent forms and questionnaires - can be divided into shifts. So at minimum I need three people to help me out, and at most... six or seven? Geh. Time to bust out the bribes. Seven: I need directional signs so the subjects don't get too confused. Eight: I need to start hanging flyers so I can get people to be in my study! Nine: Before I do that, I need to get approval from the IRB. They've had a week; time for an email to remind them that I need approval. Ten: Raquel also suggested editing the webpages to make it slightly more interesting for the poor subjects.
(later) Okay. The people are emailed. The appearance stuff is done. I have a to-do list of type cool. And long, but eh, it'll keep me busy and not worrying for a week. Tried to get the webcam stuff taken care of but Jim's friend who Jim says can help me out wasn't in when we went down. Better luck tomorrow. It looks like telling the webpage to send an IM would be more trouble than it's worth, so I'll just do what I can for the webcam. Tried to find another tripod, but no dice. I'll talk to Cindy about it tomorrow. Still have to get people to work for me.
Goals for tomorrow: Webcam. Tripod. People. Oh my.