My summer experience at the University of Minnesota ~ Sara Lahr

Journal

Week 1: May 25 - May 30

I arrived on Monday and found my dorm room easily enough. Despite the deafening ac, I think the best way to describe my new home was 'cozy.' While it may be small, I was quickly able to make it my home. All settled in, I immediately began to explore the campus. This was a much larger atmosphere than what I was used to. There are actual restaurants on campus! Not overly surprising but definitely not something I was used to. One could easily explore Morris in an afternoon, not so here. I spent most of the week getting used to my new environment.


On my first day, I met Elizabeth, a PhD student. She showed me around campus, showed me where I would be working, and introduced me to a lot of new people. On Wednesday, I met Maya, the other DREU undergraduate and my new neighbor. I finally met my mentor, Prof. Maria Gini, on Thursday. Fresh from her time in Italy, she was bustling with energy and took us all out to lunch. We talked about ideas for this summer, but we couldn't really do anything until the logistics were all figured out. Ahhh...logistics.


I spent most of the week in the office meeting new people and reading literature on robot algorithms. I came here knowing basically nothing about robotics, so I wanted to be as informed about the field as possible before deciding on where I wanted to focus my energy. I read a few surveys of existing algorithms, as well as some papers on new ideas. I also had the privilege of watching a very interesting thesis defense discussing a framework for distributed mobile robots. I also spent much of the week exploring the campus and creating the website you are currently reading. I had never used css and had limited html experience, but I was up to the challenge and quickly learned.