Month: November 2020

This week has been a bit rough on me with the holiday and all the due dates that are coming up, but at least I did get to spend a little bit of time with my Mom this holiday which I appreciate. I made sure to stay at home though, since the pandemic is spiking up again. Regardless, I got through it and the end appears to be in sight. I’m in the process of moving as well which has made everything feel a lot more overbearing, but I’m sure it will be nothing compared to my Winter Term workload.

After getting to finally meet Dr. Higgin’s we are cleaning up the last bits of our writing assignments for this class, and I look forward to being able to start coding on the assignment next term (I assume). Here’s hoping that it goes smoothly and we are able to deliver a satisfactory system to our client. I’m interested to see how we’ll actually be able to get the data to the HoloLens now, as that seems to be the most pressing issue we are facing, but we already have a few ways we are thinking about tackling it such as using Bluetooth or some kind portable computer like a laptop or even a raspberry pi.

Regardless, I don’t have too much to write after the long holiday weekend, so here’s hoping that finals go well and we get to wrap up the term easily.

This week has been a bit odd, the review assignment has been helpful, but it seems like there was a lot of confusion regarding it, unfortunately. Thankfully with the extension we got and gave some (hopefully) valuable feedback to team MOTUS. I suppose sometimes things like that just happen especially right now during the pandemic. Regardless, it’s interesting to see what other issues different teams are running into and what struggles they have to overcome compared to our project, and how they tackle these various issues.

We also managed to meet directly with Dr. Higgins to discuss the finer details of our project. It seems like we were slightly off base in regards to what he wanted in the end product, but I believe we can easily pivot to accommodate the changes as we already had a good framework in mind. It seems like being able to calculate the displacement and slip strain and being able to see that visually is far more useful than just being able to see the strain gauge output, so now we need to refine our prototypes a bit to account for the new variables we’ll be keeping track of and displaying. We also finally got a chance to see the kind of network we’ll be working with so we can begin planning around how we’ll get the information to the HoloLens as well. It’s a rather old system to interface with, but I’m confident we can find a way to get it working, probably using a laptop or some kind of portable computer to send the data.

Regardless, we have some fun challenges to overcome next term as we begin our development in earnest.

This week has been a simple one, seems like a calm before the end of the term storm so to speak. Next week our team will finally get to meet with our benefactor and take a tour of the concrete strain facility on Tuesday. I am both very excited and also a little worried with the virus spiking lately, but at least according to Professor Bailey they take virus safety very seriously. Regardless, it will be good to talk to the client directly and be able to work out some of the smaller issues as well as see the equipment we will be working with. During some of our earlier submissions we’ve had some issues saying exactly what we’ll be using since we haven’t been able to see it. Plus, going to Corvallis is always a good excuse to get some good food at least (to take home of course).

In the Computer Graphics course, we dealt with Shaders this week and I ended up making something that looked like chewing gum, which wasn’t exactly super appealing but was an interesting effect I suppose. I had a lot of issues with the project but much to my annoyance, it didn’t have to do with my code (well for the most part) but they were due to visual studio this time! I was absolutely lived at how much time I wasted trying to fix the issue when it was simply visual studio not properly finding the shader files. Regardless, I got the project turned in right on time which I’m happy about, and I’m glad that the term seems to be starting to wind down. I’m hoping that its going to be a cold winter this year, if everyone is going to be trapped at home, I would love some snow to play in at least!

This week has been a bizarre one, as it’s kind of seems like everything just slowed down. The election seems to be winding down and it made the week feel agonizingly long, especially with homework at the same time, it just felt difficult to focus this week. But at least it seems like this week’s homework hasn’t been too rough, so I’m taking time to rest up a little bit and get ready for the end of the term. My Capstone group seems to be doing the same, our chats have been mostly quiet while we work on refining the technology research. Meeting with Mike Bailey definitely helped us a lot this week, we were able to clear up a lot about the project and what we need to account for. If anything, our technology review might be a little overkill, since it seems like outside of synchronization with the strain gauges, actually reading and displaying the data should be a relatively simple task code-wise, though I’m sure there will be growing pains with using the actual HoloLens tools once we begin coding. Regardless, I look forward to eventually getting to meet Dr. Higgins and discuss the project with him in person hopefully soon.

In my Computer Graphics class, I’m getting started on the Shaders project after finishing up Lighting. Lighting was quite the pain for me at first, so hopefully, Shaders don’t give me as much trouble. I look forward to getting to the animations part of class soon though, and I look forward to getting to try my hands at more complex movements rather than just making a CG Teapot spin in place. We are also starting thinking about Final Projects and making proposals. For mine I was thinking about making a reference to some kind of game, maybe the Chaos Emerald Shrine from Sonic, or perhaps a Mario Power Star, though I’m not quite sure what my final plan will be yet! Better decide fast!

Week 5 has come and gone, and it feels like it’s been a blur this week. Midterms are in full swing for most of my classes and I can feel the middle of the term fatigue begin to set in as the cold also starts to creep its way in as well. But regardless, I feel like I am doing alright in my classes thus far at least. The coming election weighs heavily on my mind too, and I’m a bit worried about how things are going to turn out.

In my Intro to Computer Graphics course, I managed to pull out a 92% on my midterm which I’m quite happy with, thankfully I have been doing well in that course, especially since it will be integral to my capstone project. My team for the capstone project has been rather quiet this week, though that too is probably due to the extra pressure of classes with major tests this week. Next week we’ll reconvene with Professor Bailey to discuss our project again. I look forward to seeing what happens in the coming weeks, though I hope my workload doesn’t spike too much, as I have a lot to deal with in my personal life right now as well. 2020 is the year that never stops giving apparently, though nobody wants what it has to give.

As a technology aside, I was recently thinking about additive and subtractive color recently due to my CS450 class and thinking about how primary school only focuses on one aspect of color mixing. I wonder why (at least for me) the differences between the two weren’t brought up earlier in my schooling career, as it seems like a pretty interesting topic of how colors mix with light versus with dyes. I actually managed to have an interesting conversation with a friend about that (which might say something about me and my friend and what we quantify as interesting) but it was neat to be able to have a discussion about something I’m dealing within one of my CS courses at least.