Mike Oren.com

I've had my first classes at Iowa State, so I thought I'd give a quick update those. My Electronic Music Synthesis course looks like it will be both useful for my research that will require real-time sound synthesis to represent data points as well as being an enjoyable course. The work load for it seems fairly light--especially when compared to the courses I've had at DePauw--the only requirements are some weekly lab assignments, a written test at one point, and then a final project (where I can either create an original electronic music composition or create my own Reaktor synthesizer--basically choosing the sound generators, additional features, and organizing the UI). Both of those final project options also include a paper explaining the project and the reasoning behind the decisions. Nothing too difficult, but then it is only at the undergrad level.

My other class is the Cognitive Psychology of Human Computer Interaction and I was given three choices on how to complete it--either watching video lectures, reading the associated book, and then taking a final exam worth the entire grade (an option I would never touch because even though it's an essay exam, and I tend to do fairly well on those, it just seemed like an option where I wouldn't get as much out of); another option was watching the video lectures, reading the associated texts (different than the associated texts for the first option), reading research papers of my choice with an annotated bibliography due at the end of each week, and then culminating in a final paper that serves as a literature review; finally I had the option of going to class, participating in class and by submitting at least weekly entries on to the wiki regarding the topic of the week, preparing a lecture, and then giving a lecture. I was torn between those last two options, but ultimately chose the option of actually attending class since it appears that it will be fairly interesting and since I'm considering a career in academia, I should probably get some experience giving lectures.

I technically still have one more class, a seminar that meets on Friday mornings, but as that just requires weekly readings and participation in the discussion (for a whopping 1 credit) I'm not counting that as the workload is nothing (being a former English Writing major--who almost decided to go the literature route instead--reading is nothing and from what I've heard the readings are all 50 pages or less, which is less than a quarter of the amount of reading I've had in some DePauw classes... plus, I enjoy discussions as they give you a chance to be exposed to new ways of thinking).

Outside of the classroom, I've been hitting a brick wall with my research at the moment, as I've been trying to extract meaningful data from the H3D modules in order to determine the color of the pixel I am touching. I will then use that data to change the haptic feel accordingly and possibly even use it to generate the tonal feedback. The H3D developers have been EXTREMELY helpful in leading me toward the right direction, but the H3D API is quite large and I've only been playing with it for a little over a week... It also doesn't help that this is the first time I've programmed in C++ for about 8-9 months (when I finished over at DePauw in December)--and even my alst semester of DePauw didn't have that much C++ programming as Operating Systems didn't have very many programming assignments and my senior project was all done in Python (H3D also uses Python, but I need to mess with the lower level source since Haptics is a time critical event). I'm sure I'll get it soon, and research wouldn't be research without a couple of hurdles. Still, it's frustrating putting over twenty hours into something and not getting many results (although I HAVE learned a lot about the H3D API in the process, which will be useful in the future).

On a final note, the HCI Student Seminar group had a social event over at a local restaurant bar last night. I'm not much of a drinker (just an occasional wine, mixed drink, or shot), but it was still a lot of fun--probably partially because I've felt slightly isolated out here (only 1-2 other people work in the Haptics lab and I'm seperated from them by over 10 feet and a cubicle wall... plus there weren't that many other new HCI students here during the summer). It was also very informative, as I learned more about the culture of the HCI group and about the nuances of the various professors within the group (no faculty members were there, so people felt fairly free to speak openly about their advisors...) And from that I have to say that it seems like I have one of the nicer advisors in the group, so that's always a good thing.

I think I may try to go to Reiman Gardens this weekend since the weather forecast looks nice, but we'll see if that happens as I have a few side projects I want to get done before the work load picks up, plus I hate doing things alone... it's just not as much fun... Although is looking at a bunch of flowers ever really fun? It just seemed like it might be nice (plus it's free) and it would get me outside. Also, I don't think I've pointed it out in a previous post, but both my schedule and my tech blog can be accessed on the right-hand side navigation panel. I keep my schedule fairly up to date, but there will probably be times when I'm in the lab working that aren't scheduled (the scheduled hours only reflect my 20 hours minimum I have to put in--and it also helps my advisor know when he can DEFINITELY find me in the lab).