Today was my first day of research! We went to Stone Academy and conducted sessions of Dr. Daily's research with "Looking Glass", a virtual environment that will be the basis for the virtual environment that Dr. Daily is going to create. I got to witness the type of research that Dr. Daily does first-hand, which was a great experience. I also met her colleagues, which was pretty fun too. Also, I noticed a couple of common characteristics of the students during the sessions. Multiple students in each session would ask for further character customization than was allowed in the program and kids would be more shy to dance by themselves than when they were in a group. I thought these were interesting observations and I hope they can help the research. The sessions went very well and I look forward to doing it again some time!

Today, I helped move some stuff around in the lab, a task which called for a meal at Chick-Fil-A. I got to meet more of the inhabitants of The Laboratory (I like that name), all of whom are very cool people. I look forward to working with them. Dr. Daily also gave me some good advice on how to go about starting this website, which I appreciate, since I was totally lost before. Other than that, Dr. Daily also told me about web space and how I can get my own. Even though I don't fully understand it just yet, when I do, it'll be immensely helpful knowledge because, as of now, I'm still trying to figure out how to get this thing up and running! I am going to set up a schedule for tasks to be completed each week in regards to my job of revamping the current website for virtual environment interactions (VenvI) and ask my labmates questions about how they want it to look very soon. Until then, see you next time, whoever decides to read this.

Today, I finished my second interview! Interview, you ask? Well, basically, my job this summer is to revamp the the virtual environment interactions website, venvi.org, in order to better convey the idea of computational thinking by making it more interactive as opposed to the static blog that is up currently. In order to construct a website that the entire team agrees with, I've decided to ask a series of questions about what direction they'd like for the website to go in. 2 down, 3 (?) to go!

I'm really glad that the REU program hosts lots of lectures so that I can learn about computer science stuff that I totally need to know! Like Ubuntu. Even though I couldn't make the talk today (meeting with Shelby), at least I have the knowledge from previous meetings. I have Ubuntu on my computer now (even though it took forever because Windows hates me) and can program in Linux. I still need to look more into scripting and advanced Linux commands but having this operating system working side-by-side with Windows is really exciting. Now to apply the knowledge that I have...Also, I had my first group meeting today! The team seems really cool and I'm excited to work with them.

Currently working on my paper prototype for the VenvI website. I never knew how hard it is to decide on a design direction! I have so many ideas that I think would be great for the website, but I know all of them won't, which is exactly the reason I'm doing this! Anyways, not much in the way of updates today, so catch ya later!

And we're done with the camp! We got to perform the Looking Glass virtual dancing activity with the kids and it went great! We got a lot of information from our findings and a lot of positive feedback about how the VenvI program can be better than the Looking Glass one by observing what problems the kids were having. Meanwhile, I'm done with my paper prototype, so woo hoo! I got a lot of feedback on how to make it better, such as where to place certain elements and not to have too much text boring the user's eyes out. Now onto the wireframe/online mockup...

I finished the mockup and showed it to the team today. Once again, they didn't disappoint and gave me some pretty good feedback. I misplaced some elements and omitted some key information, such as a news section and certain team members from the contact page. I'm glad these problems were caught. Focus will soon be shifted to preparing for my presentation on July 15th, which I am admittedly nervous about.

Happy 4th of July! Today, I finally hung out with the other DREU students (it took way too long for me to get around to that). We all had a great time at Shelby's house and I'd love to do it again. Now to finish this presentation powerpoint...

I learned a few valuable things today in regards to making powerpoints (thanks, team!). There shouldn't be too much information on the slide (more pictures and talking) and the slide theme doesn't have to be all fancy and whatnot, plus a lot of smaller lessons (what words convey my message better, how big the font should be, etc.). My team helped improve my presentation by telling me what was wrong with it as I showed it to them, something that will undoubtedly help me during this presentation and all future presentations as well.

Did my presentation today (first, mind you) and it went quite alright. I feel that I gave the needed information about my project and explained the user-centered web design process pretty accurately. Other than an odd Q/A session, I feel pretty good about it. Everyone else did very well also! Now that that's out of the way, time to incorporate some of the changes the team discussed into the website for the final draft. Almost finished!

I've shown the changes that I've been working on to the team today. Other than some aspect ratio issues and missing publications, there isn't too much for me to add to the website. I have to implement some social media aspects and write a few simple scripts in PHP, but other than that, I'm done. It's finally coming around! Oh, and I have to finish my final report...Almost to the finish line, friends!

And here we are at the end of the road, my friends! I have finished my final report and completed the changes to the website so I'm good to go. I'm really glad that I had this opportunity to learn more about research and grow as a computer scientist! I feel like I'm much more prepared for classes back at school and I have my mentor, the VENVI team, the other DREU students, and graduate students to thank for that. See ya!