WEEK 2

“Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

This quote by Mark Twain is a wonderful description for week 2.

Explore:

Week 2 was full of exploration for me.  It started with a group discussion about one of the readings my mentor, Andrew had given me when I first met him last week.  It was neat to see how many different views and ideas can come from a reading.  This exercise was a wonderful reminder of how important it is to teach collaboration and discussion skills in the classroom.

I was also able to explore the equipment I will be using in the experiments.

This is the car simulation. As you car see there are screens in front of the car. This is where the streets would be displayed if I were doing a driving experiment.

The eye trackers are the main piece of equipment I will be using;

This is a close up of the eye tracker, the device that will be measuring the diameter of the pupils.

however there is an intricate series of steps to accurate data collection.  Oskar, the research engineer, was very helpful in explaining each step in the process to me.  We were able to collect some data from the eye tracker,

load it into Excel (as I am not familiar with MATLAB, the program commonly used for this), and plot the data.

Can’t see?? Click on picture for a closer view

Can’t see…Click on picture for a closer view!

Dream:

No I am not going to tell you I had a wonderful nap at work.  However, I did, with guidance from my mentor as well as some of the papers I have read plan (dream) the experiment I will hopefully be performing next week.  I decided to label it draft as I am sure there will be much to add and/or change, but it was important for me to get it down on paper.  Now I have a starting point and can start concentrating on the details.

Draft 1 – My plan (Dream)

Discover:

Through this project I am discovering new things every day.  Some have to do with how I perform as a student/learner, some have to do with the research, and some have to do with curriculum.  Many times I feel like the discoveries I make as a student/learner are the most eye opening.  It has been a long time since I have been in the shoes of the student.  I am very excited to see what discoveries I will be making next week!