Day 33 (8/19)

Today, I spent the morning in the 3D Labs with Ethan and Sando working on finishing our Star project. I calculated how far in, Maya units, the Earth and Mars will be from the center of the Star/Sun. Ethan began working on a black hole simulation and Sando continued to create a Set Driven Key for the transition of the star. In the afternoon all of the Interns got together and had pizza for lunch then ran through our presentations. I am so nervous for tomorrow.

Day 32 (8/18)

Today, Sando took Ethan and I back over to the 3D Labs to work more on our Star project. While we were there I decided that Ethan and my presentations were too similar and had to completely re-make my presentation. With help from Sando I created a new presentation that will take Ethan's explanation of Maya and apply it to the projects that I did this summer.

Day 31 (8/17)

Today we had to disassemble the SCUBE because they are going to be cleaning the class room we have been working in. We took all of the pieces and put them in boxes and a suitcase and brought them up to the Insight Lab to be stored. Then in the afternoon I continued to work on my presentation for Friday.

Day 30 (8/16)

Today I created a Mars surface based off of an Earth texture Sando had previously created and taught me how to make. These planets will be incorporated into the Life cycle of the Sun project! I also spent a while working on my final presentation.

Day 29 (8/13)

Today was the Undergraduate Symposium. I spent the whole morning watching the Insight Lad's undergraduates give their presentations. Then I went back to the lab to try and work, but I couldn't do anything because I didn't know what Sando wanted me to do, and I couldn't find him anywhere! Finally, I just went back to the Symposium and watched a few more presentations, including a few Interns!

Day 28 (8/12)

Today I worked with Ethan to try and make the color transitions between phases work. We keep running into a problem where the star looks purple instead of blue and yellow. We are working on finding a solution to this problem.

Day 27 (8/11)

Today my morning consisted of fidgeting with the animation portion of the Life cycle project. I can not wait for this project to be finished. In the afternoon all of the interns went to the George Eastman House to see the 'behind the scenes' of looking at pictures. It was really interesting to see the work they are doing to preserve and study pictures that are extremely old.

Day 26 (8/10)

Today, I worked on making the "Red Giant" phase of the life cycle project look better. We had to scale the model up a lot and the size difference messed up the textures that were applied to it. We had to manipulate the size and color of all of the textures to make it look more like a sun. I also worked some more on my final presentation for the Internship!

Day 25 (8/9)

Today I did a lot of work on my PowerPoint for my final presentation. I am trying to figure out how to make it last ten minutes! There is only so much that I can talk about, but hopefully by the end of the week we will be done with the Sun project and I can add that to my presentation.

Day 24 (8/6)

Today I worked quite a bit more on the shaders for the Sun project. Sando found a way to create a more realistic looking surface and we had to apply that to all of the shaders. Also, I started working on my final presentation. I am getting really nervous for next friday!

Day 23 (8/5)

Today I spent most of the day working on creating the Red Giant phase of the Star project. I worked almost all day on making it look realistic. This is really hard because every time I think it looks good, I find a way to make it look better!

Day 22 (8/4)

Today Ethan and I continued to work on our Sun project. We worked on getting the textures of our Sun to move like the gas of the real Sun. We made some progress, but I had to leave at noon so I didn't get to see if it worked or not.

Day 21 (8/3)

Today we went back to work on the Life Cycle of a Sun project. We worked on the different textures for each phase and worked on making the transitions more realistic. We still need to work on the shading because it doesn't look as good as we would like it too. Also we need to fix the sizes, right now they are all the same size sphere, but we want the size to be to scale. Making the different phases the right size and keeping the texture realistic is going to be a tricky task.

Day 20 (8/2)

Today, we spent time away from the Star project. I did some research into all of the moons for the planets in our solar system. I found the radii of and orbital radii to be used later in the project. Then I spent some time helping Ethan with his Mars Rover model.

Day 19 (7/30)

Today, we worked more on our Life Cycle of a Sun project. It is difficult because we keep thinking of different ways to make it better, but that also take us back two steps. We are going to not make it exactly the time scale of a real stars life, but instead we are going to just show each step and leave time for a verbal or written explanation.

Day 18 (7/29)

Today, a photographer came in to take pictures of the SCUBE and us working with the SCUBE. She also took each of us aside and interviewed us on what we are doing, why we are doing it and how we like what we are doing. She is going to take all of the info and make it into a video which should be cool. And after she left, Ethan and I started to shade our "Life cycle of a Sun" project. It is coming along, but it is really difficult to figure out.

Day 17 (7/28)

Today I worked more with Ethan on the Life cycle of the sun. I am still doing a lot of math to figure out how to make it scale realistically. We figured out all of the phases; past, present and future, along with the radius and luminosity of each phase. Now we have to finish the calculations for the time scale and then start and work towards making the model look like the sun.

Day 16 (7/27)

Today, Ethan and I were assigned to work on a "Life Cycle of a Star" Model. We started working on it, but ran into some trouble which Sando helped us with. Ethan is doing a lot of the modeling because he is better at it than I am, but I am helping by researching the cycles of a star. I've found some helpful photos and am still researching the proportional radii of the different phases, but I should be able to finish that all up tomorrow.

Day 15 (7/26)

Today was the last day of the Insight Lab challenge. I was eliminated today during the third challenge overall and Kevin won the title of "King". After the challenge I got to work on making the shaders for the asteroids, but there was an issue in that the seams were visible and that is not a good thing. So while Sando tried to come up with a solution for that problem, I worked on creating specular maps. Those will determine the amount of reflection that the asteroird will have.

Day 14 (7/23)

Today, Sando wasn't here and he is the only one who has the program to make the textures into normal maps, so I unable to work on the asteroid project. For the beginning of the day I work on the second part of the Insight Lab Challenge which was to create a budget spread sheet for the SCUBE to find out how much grant money we would need. We were the closest group to the actual number, but we were also the highest amount. The afternoon I spent playing with Maya to become more familliar with the shading aspect of the process.

Day 13 (7/22)

Yesterday I spent the morning finding more textures for the asteroids I'm making. Then Sando started to try and explain how we are going to use and manipulate the textures to make them realistic shaders for the asteroids. At noon the Insight Lab started a 3 day, 5 part challenge, "Apprentice" style. We split up into teams and started on the first task. Our first task was to make a poster of the 'educational technology projects' that the Insight lab is working on and make a pitch about why and what we need funding for. Two people were eliminated at the end of the day, they were the two people who didn't complete the challenge. Today should be interesting.

Day 12 (7/21)

Yesterday we went to the University of Rochester as a field trip through the internship. We saw the Biomedical Engineering program which included; MRI's (mostly of the knee), ultra sounds of Rebecca's arm and the undergraduate's project of a pig liver, and lastly we saw cell reconstruction research. It was really cool to see the medical advantages and aspects of Imaging Science! After the field trip we were supposted to have a team building volleyball game, but that was canceled due to wheather. So, instead we all went back to work. I spent the end of my dad searching for asteroid textures to use on the asteroids I modeled on Monday.

Day 11 (7/20)

Today, Sando and I put the finishing touches on my Voyager II model which is really exciting! Then I started working on building asteroids for an asteroid field Sando needs for his project. Today we also had another free lunch lecture, but there was no designated speaker, so it was mostly just a free lunch. Tomorrow we are going to UofR for a tour with the rest of the interns.
Oh and in the beginning of the day we were given a scramble of letters "IPESNRUTERIRANP" which can be unscrambled to spell "Intrapreneurship". Intrapreneurship is the practice of entrepreneurship in an established firm.

Day 10 (7/19)

Today I finished modeling my first project!! Now, I have to shade and smooth it to make it more realistic. I am so happy that I have accomplished something, I can now say that I have made a 3D model of the voyager 2 satellite! I know that as soon as I finish shading the Voyager 2 I will have to start modeling the Hubble Telescope, but this time I don't think it will take as long or be as hard because I am starting to get used to the tricks and shortcuts of Maya.

Day 9 (7/16)

Today we had a meeting with Dr. Stefi Baum. Mostly Sando, Nick Sawicky and Nick Feddor just summarized their plans for the Scube. The rest of the day I spent working on my Voyager II model which is coming together nicely. It is taking a while, but it is coming to the point where I will be finishing up the modeling and just shading. After that Sando wants us to start modeling the Hubble Teleschope, that will be fun!

Day 8 (7/15)

Today I continued to work on my Voyager II Satellite model. I built more of the small pieces and started assembling the high-gain antenna and the 'bus' that houses the electronics for the entire satellite. I also started to build the instrumental booms and metal frames that hold all of the pieces together. Towards the end of the day I wrote my summery of the week that will be put in the Insight Labs weekly newsletter. Tomorrow the Scube Lab has a meeting with Prof Jake Noel-Storr (our advisor) and Dr. Stefi Baum where we need something to present, so my hope is that I will be able to present my Mars surface.

Day 7 (7/14)

Today was our first field trip, we went to JML Optical for a tour. The manufacturing part was really cool to see because a lot of the machines were being used so we could actually see the process. I couldn't really hear what the person giving the tour was saying because the manufacturing floor was really loud, but the visuals help a lot to explain. The power point at the end was really informational on the uses and real life examples of where there products are used. After we returned to RIT we went to our labs and went back to work. We learned how to batch render our projects that we create on Maya and put them together. It is cool to see the animation with color and movement!

Day 6 (7/13)

Today I made a fake surface of Mars. Sando taught us how to create textured surfaces, the effect of the sun, and a sky. At noon we went to building 76 to listen to Mark Henry give a talk about patents and trademarks. We were given lunch and learned about when and how to appropriately obtain a patent. Then after the presentation we went back to the lab to learn how to make an asteroid field. Also, we were asked to visit another lab to see what other interns are doing. Ethan and I went to the Visual Perception lab to see what Octavia, Cicely, and Nate have been working on. They showed us the two eye tracking programs that they use. One is a web cam that tracks your eyes and shows you where on the screen your eyes were looking. The other is a device that you put on your head and has a camera that record what you are looking at and another that records your eyes movement. For the second one they have to take each item that the eye focuses on and record it, this way they can see where the eye tends to look when doing a task. From what I saw they have a fun, but challenging lab to work in!

Day 5 (7/12)

Today we spent the majority of the day learning more aspects of Maya. We learned how to use the dynamic setting to create particles. First we made the particles just emit from a set point, then we made them move in a pattern like a circle. Next we set the particles so they would become attracted to another point on the screen. We took that a step farther and made that point an object that the particles could collide with and bounce off or explode on. Learning how to color and animate the particles and their trails was tricky because there are a lot of steps to remember. It was cool seeing the step by step creation of particle figures.

Day 4 (7/9)

Today was more trial and error with the Maya 3D developer. I am becoming more familiar with all of the tools and trick of the program and have increased the speed at which I work. Progress on the satillite I'm building is being made, but I had a few glitches along the way... At one point my computer turned off and I thought I had lost all of my work, but it was just saved somewhere different then I thought. My computer also locked and wouldn't unlock with my password, but eventually it started working right again (Thankfully). I hope I don't have any other problems like this in the future.

Day 3 (7/8)

Today was like another first day, it was the first day spent in the Scube lab for the whole day. Sando is a student at RIT who has been working with 3D imaging through out his college schooling. He has a project he is working on that he wants help with, so this summer, along with a project of my own, I will be helping him with that. When we first got to the lab he took us on an adventure to find a computer lab we could use to learn the program, but they were all closed or full so we went back to the Scube lab to use the computers there. He started to teach us how to use the 3D software that we will be using this summer, I finally got down the basics by the end of the day. It was hard to understand at first, but once you get the hang of it the confusion starts to fade. The time and effort put into making a 3D object is a lot more than I expected, it brings a new appretiation to watching animated movies!

Day 2 (7/7)

Today was our first day in our labs. We set up all of the accounts we need for the program and figured out where we will be working. I will be working with the Scube and learning how to make 3D images for it. Ethan is also working with the Scube, but the other three interns will be working on more astronomy related projects. We spent a little while researching and writing up a summary.

First Day (7/6)

Today was a team building day, we were split up into three groups and sent on a scavenger hunt where we were given a packet of pictures and had to find objects or images and video record where and what the image was. It was so hot, but my group was great. It was good to see the campus and fun making friends. The second part of the scavenger hunt was to make the video clips into a 'movie', we had to use Mac computers which none of us were familiar with which lead to some conflicts. We never finished our video because the computer kept freezing, so we just watched the un-edited version, which was funny. I didn't get the chance to meet the advisor I will be working with, but I did get the chance to meet the other guys in the same group as me. I can't wait to get the chance to get to meet my advisor.