Summary

This week, I applied for an IRB for my user study (which took a lot longer than I thought it would). Also, Yoichi organized a "jam session," where everyone (postdocs, PhD students, and interns alike) shared their creative talents (including cooking, car designing, photography, acrobatics, and poetry).

Things I Learned

tortes exist, and Prantl's Bakery is known for them
how Java actually works
Greek life is an American thing (though I feel like I should've known this already)
Google Docs has a "suggest changes" tool
when group card-signing, sign first (so people don't steal your lines)

Research

Met with a lot of people: Timo, of course; and Sushma, who met with Timo and me to talk about restructuring the phone code; and Florian, who helped me better understand how to plan for user studies; and also Lauren, who helped me apply for an IRB (and very generously reviewed my application and fixed all my messy phrasing).

Meetings

Reading Group

We talked about using research papers we've read to write our own research papers.

Jam Session

Magic tricks and songwriting and beekeeping, oh my! (In other words, everyone in the ArticuLab is overwhelmingly talented at everything, and the jam session was fantastic (props to Yoichi for arranging the event))

Microsoft Mirror Training

Sat in for a tutorial on the ArticuLab's new Mirror surface (and celebrated Yoichi's birthday with cupcakes while waiting for said tutorial to start! It was a busy day).

Daily Logs

These are more or less lifted from Bitbucket, where I keep a README of these things.

Mon 7/17

MUF test client; analysis tool; user study planning.

Tues 7/18

Found/fixed small bugs; user study planning.

Wed 7/19

Mtg with Timo; user study; mtg with Sushma; mtg with Lauren.

Thurs 7/20

Training session; IRB application; rdg group; mtg with Florian, Jingya.

Fri 7/21

IRB application; lab mtg; cleaned up code; phone/middleware.

Not Work

Exploring More

Wednesday was (yet again) movie-in-the-park day! All of us interns finished up work in the lab instead of watching Doctor Strange (2016), but we did go over to Schenley Park earlier for dinner with Florian, Timo, and Yoichi (and their wives). We tried out a (new) New Mexican place, and there was a dance event going on, so the area was pretty lively.

My family also dropped by Pittsburgh this weekend (read: I indulged in food a lot more than usual). We visited Fallingwater, which was lovely, and stopped by some of Pittsburgh's museums and parks.

Miscellaneous

got more puzzles and piano books (a perk of having your family visit)
discovered a new route to campus
checked out the Duquesne Incline
poked a lot of greenhouse plants (at the Frick)