It's (pretty much) all the same to you

Who knew that my last post about snowballing would be so prophetic, what with last Thursday's 18" of snow and the impending "Blizzard of 2014" predicted for tonight and tomorrow. Nonetheless, I've been working (how nice and quiet it has been!) and have managed to complete the updates I mentioned previously to our USB drives.

Just like last time, this is all kinds of zoomed out to fit here as an image.

The most obvious change is the update to the new color scheme that incorporates varying shades of gray, and then also the updated digital booklet cover. Besides those changes, this probably looks almost identical to before - however, I actually completely rebuilt this whole menu. 

You may ask why I bothered to make significant behind-the-scenes changes, when essentially it appears like only simple updates occurred. There are a few reasons. For one, I built this menu before the class I took last quarter, which you may recall involved building websites. With that increased knowledge under my belt, I could see a lot of ways in which the html and css code could be improved so as to be more robust while also being simpler and more efficient. Secondly, there was room for improvement in terms of functionality: previously, the backgrounds behind the text were clickable, but the text itself was not. While there were several ways to fix this, all of them relatively simple, I did not truly know a good way to do it until now. So, I rebuilt the page from the ground up by hand; and although the changes may not be apparent to anyone else, I know it is overall a much better product. Plus, there will surely be more updates in the future, and this new clean code will be much easier to modify.

With all that, plus a straight forward replacement of the updated digital booklet itself, the USB is now ready to go in its new and improved state. 

'Tis the season to snowball

You may or may not be aware of some changes that have happened in CIS in the past 6 months. The Munsell Color Science Lab, previously housed under the umbrella of CIS, has split off and become their own lab that reports directly to the College of Science dean. In many ways, things have simultaneously changed while staying exactly the same. But anyways, functionally this meant that some of my promotional materials were now inaccurate, most notably the back panels on the brochures that include language about offering degrees in Color Science. I did not make any immediate updates at the time of the change, but now that my supply of 9-month-old undergraduate brochures is running low, it is time to make any edits before ordering more.

What started out as a seemingly simple update has since evolved into a rather significant (at least in terms of effort, if not appearance) revamp. After updating the language about CIS and switching out the HDR image on the cover, I also cleaned up some wording here and there, changed the "Features of a large university" bullet points, and updated/removed/added some logos of companies who hire Imaging Scientists. In addition to the content updates, I changed some formatting, most notably changing the ">" arrows to ▶ , decreasing font sizes, and increasing spacing. Lastly, it was suggested that I update the color scheme to more closely reflect the new website we will have soon, which makes a lot of sense. It was a little complicated to figure out what colors to use, how to make it all fit together while remaining distinguishable, and, most importantly, how to make it look good. Although that was tricky, I am happy to say that the result is most definitely an improvement - Check it out! 

Meanwhile, since the point of the brochure is to whet someone's appetite enough to go check out the full online information booklet/slideshow, it became clear that that would need modification, too (not to mention that the new semester curriculum has already changed since I made the slideshow just one year ago, so the class names needed to be fixed). So, first I had to change the slide backgrounds to reflect the new color scheme (and new image that replaces the HDR one), and then I had to go through and change the text formatting to coordinate/be legible. There was a bit of time-consuming trial-and-error involved, but I think the end result is good. Luckily there wasn't a lot of content to change in this one, besides the course names, so that part was pretty simple. 

But of course, nothing is ever that easy - of course the online implementation of the booklet uses JavaScript and exported images of the slides, which all needed replacing. And since I removed a slide, the actual code needed editing as well. What was probably the most annoying part of this process was the fact that I changed my Windows system settings so that PowerPoint exports images at a very high resolution, so after exporting images of all the sides I had to also resize each and every one of them. Thankfully I set up a batch process in Photoshop to do the monkey work for me. After loading the new images and updated code to the server, the new online booklet is off and running. View it here!

ImSci info booklet cover with the new color scheme. Snazzy, eh?

Now all that's left to do (I think...) is update the version on the USB drive we hand out to prospective students. But, of course with that change, I should also update the formatting of the interface to coordinate, which is another whole ball of wax - or, I guess to be more seasonally appropriate, snow. One thing leads to another, to another, to another, and the snowball grows ever bigger...     

"Okay, so there's the RIT website... Now show us your project."

Remember how I was building an undergraduate recruitment webpage for a class project, and then the next project required building upon that page? Well, that next project is now done - and even besides my desire to use my blog to virtually sing through the mountains about the fact that I am all done for this semester (that still feels weird to say), I figure it is appropriate to post a link to the page here since it is, in fact, incredibly relevant. And, with any luck, it will actually go live as part of the CIS website soon! So without further ado...

Bethany's next class project: An expanded look at Imaging Science at RIT

I put a lot of really hard work into trying to make a website that was clean, professional, and presented a lot of information without overwhelming the user. I used JavaScript to create sub-menus that separate each page's information into chunks that are visible only one at a time (I think this is pretty cool and surprisingly sophisticated for what I thought I was capable of). And, I like the overall look and feel. Obviously I'm no professional design team, but I am pretty darn proud of what I've learned and accomplished over a single semester. I hope you like it. (At least my professor does... the title of this post is actually what he said when I presented my project in class!)

As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions, please feel free to comment!

Hey, you never know

Today was the last of RIT's Fall Open Houses. On the whole, our Open House attendance this year has been abysmal - one or two here or there, or none. Granted, the College of Science as a whole has not gotten large numbers, and ImSci never gets a whole lot, but this is really low. On par for the course, we had two signed up for today, and only one showed. Disappointing as that may sound, we were in for a nice surprise - this kid was great!

As it turns out, this student actually participated in the STEP Saturday NOVA Academy that I was a part of this past January. He actually was not in my group, but one of the others; and he thought the presentation my group did on the last day was SO cool, that he became interested in Imaging Science! Whaaaaa! Carl was giving him a tour of the building when I globbed on, and it was clear that this student was really interested. (It didn't hurt that Carl was giving a particularly interesting tour.) After not too long, we had already piqued his interest and answered all his questions. It just so happens that he has actually already applied to RIT for Imaging Science, he is just waiting to hear from Admissions - woo hoo! So, I made sure I supplied him with a tshirt. Another cool thing is that his brother went to RIT for some type of engineering, and has already graduated and gotten a job - nice family connection. So, I think we have a pretty good chance of getting this kid, which would be fantastic because I could tell that he was really into it. Yeah!

Later in the afternoon was the "college fair" (I'm not sure what it's actually called, but it is basically a college fair) where all of RIT's colleges get tables staffed by representatives for each program. This is a new thing for RIT Open Houses this year, taking the place of a second academic program meeting. I think this is a step in the right direction, because it allows undecided students to browse around and look into multiple other majors besides the one they signed up for. This is an important opportunity for Imaging Science, since so few students know about us to sign up for us in the first place. Unfortunately (in my opinion), the fair is organized according to college - so, there may be a student that is perfect for the Imaging Science program, but they're off at the engineering or applied science & technology or computing or arts tables. If it were up to me, I would organize clusters by similar interests rather than by the somewhat-arbitrary college structure that exists for administrative (and political?) purposes - but, that's just me. No need to step up on my soap box right now.

At any rate, this event would be a good opportunity for us - if anyone came. I couldn't believe how few prospective students came through - probably fewer than 25? It was really quite a small number, and of that number the amount that came over to the College of Science could be counted on one hand. Joe started dragging people out of the general no-man's-land in the center of the room to make them sit down and watch our video about the freshmen class (we had a nice little "viewing gallery" set up with a stool and a desk). Faculty/staff were mostly talking to each other to pass the time.

There was one bright spot, though - one prospective student had heard of Imaging Science and wanted to know more. I read from his name tag that he was from Honeoye Falls, so I started asking questions about HF-L, but it turns out he actually goes to R-H - ah, my alma mater! Not only that, but his dad, who happens to work at Xerox, is friends with my parents' neighbors across the street (which is particularly noteworthy because very few people live out there, and the people that do don't exactly socialize; it's rural living, not like neighborhoods). Small world! Anyway, this student was interested in Imaging Science AND physics AND mechanical engineering, so he's trying to figure out how he can best create the ultimate trifecta of the three. I was able to have a nice conversation with him, and gave him one of our brochures and USB drives to keep. Hopefully he ends up connected with us to some degree!

The rest of the time at the "fair" was predictably slow. Towards the end it looked like we were going to get a surge of traffic, but it turned out to be a wave of people looking for the financial aid presentation across the hall (I called that one). Well, at least we got one student to watch the video and I was able to give away a couple brochures. You never know what might come out of it - after all, I got the surprise of having attracted the student from STEP!

Finally, a student willing to build a CIS website for their project.

PSYCH - that "student" is me! Right now I am in a class provided by RIT's IT department all about web technologies. For our second assignment, we had to build a multi-page website with certain criteria (menus, etc) from scratch using HTML and CSS. I chose to build a site about the imsci undergraduate program aimed specifically at prospective students and their parents. This is both something I am very familiar with and something I have an actual professional need for, so it seemed like a good choice. Although we have a lot of web content that can be used by prospective students to learn more about Imaging Science, we don't necessarily have anything right now specifically written for that audience with an explicitly clear navigation path; rather, much of our content skirts a line between current and prospective students. I even have print material for prospective students that isn't necessarily available online. So, I thought it would be a good idea to take a stab at creating a very segment-specific website. After all, if it ended up being redundant in CIS's eyes, there's nothing saying we have to use it, but it will fulfill my project either way.

So anyways, without further ado, here is the "finished" page I am submitted for my project. I welcome any input you have (please leave in comments)! Please bear in mind, although this is "complete" in terms of project requirements, this is not a page I would go live with quite yet. I would add more images, some more pages, and probably a secondary menu - but, that's for our next project. We were told that Project 3 actually builds upon Project 2, so I wanted to make sure that I wasn't too exhaustive so that I still have something left to do. With that in mind, suggestions are very welcome!

Bethany's class project: Imaging Science at RIT

Product Knowledge 2013, featuring a sneak peek at new ImSci recruitment materials!

Today was our annual Product Knowledge meeting with Undergraduate Admissions! A meeting takes place each year where representatives from Undergraduate Admissions assemble to hear more about academic programs, what types of students we are looking for, what interesting stories they can highlight to prospective students, et cetera. Typically these meetings are college-wide, but since we have always had to spend so much time explaining just what Imaging Science is, it made sense for us to break off and have our own session. Last year was the first time we tried that and it went very well, so this year we followed a similar agenda.

Everyone got together in the freshmen lab where we started off by discussing what Imaging Science is and how Admissions currently markets it. I then unveiled a new recruitment tool I have been developing this summer: USB drives! In the past, I would send prospective students and inquiries a folder containing multiple documents about Imaging Science: a booklet, a lenticular postcard, FAQ, a comparison chart, etc. These folders and materials were getting increasingly expensive to produce, and they did not even have long shelf lives since information gets updated so quickly. You may recall that this same issue brought about the development of a new online information booklet to replace the printed version. In addition to this, more and more of our recruitment materials are video-based. So, what better way to disseminate digital information than with some kind of computer peripheral?

CDs and DVDs are a thing of the past (some computers and laptops don't even come with drives anymore!) so the obvious answer was to go with USB drives. I had received one from RIT before that was actually integrated into a silicone wristband, so that seemed pretty cool. We got 4GB drives because, even though that's much more storage than our materials require, perhaps the recipient will actually use and appreciate it. We got our logo printed on them, so even if someone decides, "meh, who cares about this stuff that came on this drive, I'm going to delete it so I can use this for whatever I want," at least our logo is still there as a reminder.

Pretty snazzy, huh?

Instead of simply copying and pasting a bunch of files onto the drives, I thought it would be a good idea to create some kind of visually appealing navigation to lead the prospective student through the materials. To achieve this, I created local webpages (they are viewed in a browser, but only use files contained on the USB drive, so no network connection is required) that have pictures, links, and descriptions for each of the files contained on the drive. (Actually, there is a landing page that mimics the new tellmemore page before the page I just described, to act as a mini-intro.) The page is represented as a file with the name "Start Here!", and all other files on the drive are hidden.

So the idea is this: a prospective student plugs in the drive and double clicks "Start Here!" This opens up a page with the tellmemore images that directs them to "Click Here to start your adventure", after which they see the contents page:

Note, this is all kinds of zoomed out to fit here as an image.

They then click through the various materials contained on the drive to get more information about Imaging Science! Ta da!

This whole presentation seemed to go over very well, though I couldn't actually show the Freshmen Innovation at CIS video since it hasn't been completed yet; right now I just have a placeholder there. We did have the rough cut of the faculty version of the video available to show, but it's not really the correct video for prospective students; we just showed it to familiarize everyone with the freshmen class. Regardless, everyone seemed pretty impressed with the USB drives (if I do say so myself).

Anyways, later in the meeting we pulled in a bunch of freshmen who happened to be out in the hall to talk about their experiences so far and what got them into Imaging Science in the first place. This was very useful for the admissions counselors, as it helped provide a profile of the type of student we're looking for and what motivates them to want to get involved in a program such as Imaging Science.

After a few questions and answers, we headed down to the Bat Cave (the undergrad research lab) to take a look around and discuss various student projects taking place. And after that, we called it a day. By the end it really seemed like the Admissions group had a good understanding of what Imaging Science is and what type of student thrives in this program, so hopefully when they go out on recruiting trips they will be able to send some prospective students our way! It is a great feeling to know what we can work together to achieve our common goals.

Go ahead - Make: my day

One new thing I have been working on for a while is actually an advertisement. This is somewhat new territory for me, because although I have done plenty of promotional materials, I have never put together an advertisement intended to go out to the masses via broadcast media. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, I'm not sure that CIS has ever done this before. Nonetheless, I have been tasked with putting together an advertisement for Make: magazine that focuses on the undergraduate program in Imaging Science. (We wanted to do one for Popular Science, too, but the price was SO expensive, like tens of thousands of dollars expensive, it just wasn't justifiable.) After many drafts and revisions, I can now reveal the final product:

Watch for it in the Fall issue of Make:, Volume 36, focusing on 3D - hitting newsstands October 22!

Meanwhile, putting together this ad made me realize that our /tellmemore portal was due for a major overhaul. There aren't many promotional materials out there that point to it at this point, it isn't even linked in the CIS website anymore, and the content was starting to look a little dated. However, it would still be a useful site to use in the ad since it has Google Analytics embedded and tracking tools associated with it that will allow me to analyze the effectiveness of the advertisement. So, I gave the page an overhaul to be more in line with the look and feel of the advertisement. It doesn't function as much as it used to, but it doesn't really have to, especially since I updated the ugrad Prospective Students pages; all we're really using it for is tracking purposes. Nonetheless, I made it eye catching and slightly interactive (just utilizing rollovers). Check it out!

42nd annual Science Exploration Days: Day 2

In my previous post I detailed Science Exploration Days (SED) and the public event. Today was the portion of SED designed for middle and high school students. We were told we would be seeing upwards of 1500 students over the 3.5-hour event, so thank goodness I was to have student volunteers helping me again. But could I trust them to show up on time and actually help me set up? Well luckily setup was less of an issue, since we were able to leave almost everything securely in the Fisher gym overnight, so all I took with me was the FLIR. There was, however, going to be food before the event again which I was counting on; and thanks to a MASSIVE traffic jam (what should have taken me 40 minutes took AN HOUR AND A HALF), I had to hope that someone would be there to help me so that I could grab my breakfast and not turn into Cranky Bethy again.

Well, by the time I got there, there was one student helper. Yep, one. And not one of the ones who had been so late helped out the day before. In fact, the two returning volunteers (who carpooled) left their car lights on overnight, so they needed a jump. And they apparently waited a long time for it. And apparently the security person helping put the leads on the wrong way. And then, since that whole debacle took so long that they missed the free breakfast, they decided to take EVEN LONGER by stopping to get Dunkies on the way. Seriously?

Ranting aside... I did make it in time for breakfast, so really I wasn't that cranky (once the traffic jam road rage cooled off). The one student and I set the booth back up just in time for the first wave of students to start trickling in. Thankfully our booth was far away from the entrance, so there wasn't too much traffic before the other volunteers showed up to help.

Day 2. Our collage of example pictures stuck onto the projector screen keeps growing.

And when it rains, it pours... before long we were in super production mode. Mobs of students passed by and wanted their pictures taken. Every one of the 4 of us was occupied trying to keep up with the crowds. While there were some students that got into it and wanted to experiment, most of them felt too rushed, or simply wanted to use our exhibit as a glorified photo booth. Then there were the students who didn't care about anything, they were just there because they wanted a day out of school. The event that seemed like it was going to be the gold mine recruitment-wise ended up not really turning out as such. As I teased in my previous post about Day 1, even though we got exposure to a great number of students today, the quality of that interaction was not nearly on the level it was last night. Because of the volume of traffic and rush of the students, there wasn't enough time to explain much about what it was they were seeing, much less anything about what Imaging Science is. But, at least our CIS stickers were on the back of the pictures they received, so maybe one day they'll see that and decide they want to look into us more.

Meanwhile, at one point early on I glanced over to my left, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but... ANOTHER FLIR?! Someone else totally showed up just today and was stealing our show! One of the students, who is far more curious than she is shy, decided she would go and talk to the exhibitor to find out what the deal was. Apparently he has exhibited a FLIR in past years, and wasn't aware that we would be there with one, especially since he wasn't there last night. At least he admitted that our camera was better than his. Also, we had a printer and he didn't.... BUT, the way the traffic pattern was in the gym, all of the kids who followed the exhibits in order would see his before they rounded the corner to ours. Suddenly we were old hat copycats! But it didn't really matter, because with the crowds as they were there were more than enough students to go around, and it's not a competition anyways. Besides, it wasn't his fault (though maybe the organizers should have said something, so as to reduce redundancy - but maybe all they were concerned about was getting as many exhibitors as possible).

During one slow time, one of the students and I went on a little excursion and visited the creatures at the Ward's Natural Science table...

Tarantulas!

And snakes!

And millipedes - oh my!

And.... hissing cockroaches.... okay.
Just kidding, apparently they make great pets.

How could we possibly compete with living creatures that you can actually PLAY with? Oh, right, it's not a competition... And anyways I got my brief play time with them too so that's cool. (Did I ever mention that my parents' first date was to Wards?) Meanwhile, I wonder how well those animals deal with thousands of kids manhandling them all day. I hope they're okay.

When all is said and done, the official tally for the number of students in attendance was 1554. Wow! So in terms of pure volume, this was probably our largest outreach event of the year (not including Imagine, which is not strictly outreach focused).

At the end of the event, we were treated to a fancy and delicious lunch. With llamas.

Yeah!

All in all, a fun and hopefully-effective event. THANK YOU to the students who helped out, to the event organizers, and to everyone who came!

42nd annual Science Exploration Days: Day 1

Yesterday and today compromised the 42nd annual Science Exploration Days! SED is made up of exhibits and seminars all about science and technology, aimed at middle and high school students. Although Joe has participated in the past (but not recently), this year I was going to be an exhibitor for the first time! This was particularly exciting for me because I visited SED for many years when I was a kid, so I was looking forward to being on the other side of the table and giving back.

My general plan for a CIS exhibit was to set up the FLIR thermal camera and its accompanying printer, similar to what we did at the RMSC last week. Once again I lined up a few student volunteers to come and help me out (if it became busy; or to keep me company if crowds were sparse). This approach is both a blessing and a curse: students are way fun and super helpful, but they are also unreliable sometimes (sorry, students, but I've worked with you enough times to observe a pattern). Luckily I'm used to doing events alone and being self sufficient, but that doesn't help when you have tons of equipment and materials to carry and no one ends up showing up to help you load and unload your car and since you get stuck doing it by yourself it takes twice as long as expected and by the time you've just gotten everything to your table and someone finally shows up to help so you have a chance to go get dinner the food is ALL GONE. (In case you couldn't tell from that irritatingly long run-on sentence, I missed the free dinner I was counting on; and when Choate gets hungry, CHOATE GETS CRANKY.) Not cool.

Anyways, Thursday night of SED features just the exhibits and is open to the public. This is the part I went to when I was a kid. Things started off a little slow so at first it was mostly us playing in front of the camera...

...while some random guy is there. The whole place is empty, but that guy manages to be right there.

Our setup. They gave us two tables, which ended up being really handy, except for the fact that we only had one nice tablecloth.

So, a few days ago I scraped myself in a few places. Can you guess the location of one of my scabs?

Before too long, some families started showing up.

And then the guy from IS&T started taking over our shtick.

Dinosaur RAWRs in visible light...

...and in thermal IR.

Oh shoot, did I lose one of our students?
Oh no wait we found her, hiding crouched in that trash bag over there. NBD.

Then we found out what happens when you put a balloon in front of your face.
Scientific experimentation XP + 1 

Thursday night's exhibitions ran from 7-9PM, and reportedly attracted 214 children and adults. Now, we had a fabulous time (definitely better than last Saturday), but I have to admit I am disappointed by that attendance. The place should have been PACKED! Maybe I'm just remembering things differently, but I could have sworn that when I was a kid, this event was full of people and you had to wait your turn to shoulder your way in to see a table (especially a table as cool as this one was). Where was everybody?! Don't you like science??!? No wonder we have such a difficult time getting kids interested in STEM. It made me sad when I drove home past the huge "FREE SCIENCE SHOW!" signs out in the front of campus. Doesn't anybody care? (I care...)

Anyways, this isn't to say that I am disappointed in how last night went. Actually, I thought it went splendidly. The families were all genuinely interested, and the level of interaction was excellent. There were many parents encouraging their kids to interact and ask questions, and most parents got involved, themselves. We were able to explain the science behind what they were seeing, and kids experimented with the items we had at the table. I think there was a lot of value in the public display, and I'm encouraged by the learning that I witnessed taking place. There may just be hope, yet...

Meanwhile, today was promised to be the busy day, with Jr. and Sr. high schools sending in busloads of kids. But is volume enough to make an event effective? I'll discuss that in my next post, about Day 2. Stay tuned!

That day at the museum that it was so quiet, you could hear Steve's lunch chirping.

Next up in the springtime outreach/recruitment frenzy was a Science Saturday at the RMSC (Rochester Museum and Science Center) today! I was first invited to participate in Science Saturdays last fall, and it was actually by mistake. A new coordinator had taken over organizing the series, and for some reason had my contact info on behalf of CIS. I had actually never presented as part of the series before (at least not in my current role; I did help out at one when I was an undergrad about a million years ago...), so once I passed on the e-mail to the Insight Lab (who I assume the e-mail was intended for, as I know they participate regularly) I seized my chance. The dates they were hoping to have me in were either May 4 or May 11, and since the 4th was ImagineRIT, I gladly accepted 5/11. Well... you know what else is 5/11? The first Saturday of the Lilac Festival. Oh.

Now, I didn't realize the significance of this until, oh, 1 o'clock this afternoon. Why? Well, to put it plainly: RMSC was a ghost town. I couldn't believe it. You mean there is a SATURDAY that you can go to a science museum and have the place to yourself?! Under any other circumstances, this would have been a dream come true - but given that I was there for outreach, well, this dream turned out to be a nightmare. Okay, that's being way over dramatic; actually, today was pretty awesome. I just wish we could have shared it with more people.

Anyways, the plan was to set up a table with the FLIR, some objects to interact with in front of the camera, and the printer so that people could take pictures of their IR-selves back home. I asked for a screen to project onto and instead was given a huge plasma TV, which made me nervous because I wasn't sure whether I would have the right connections, but it ended up working just fine and looking superb. (Now I just wish I didn't bother lugging the projector around.)

For a while it was just me and Phil. And by that, I mean, JUST me and Phil. After a half hour or so the rest of the students who had volunteered to help showed up. Thank goodness, because if we didn't have any general public wandering by to entertain, we could at least entertain each other...

...which then at least started attracting some other people who wanted to see what all the cool kids (I'm referring to us, obviously) were doing.

a-HA! She's gonna bite.

More takers!

Then things died down again, so Chris and Phil went off exploring while Jess, Jon, and I held up the fort. Then we got a txt saying that Chris and Phil were stuck in an obstacle course...

..so I took this picture of them, then left them to perish.

I came back and the same group was still there, but this time they put one of their kids in a trash bag.

Classic.

Then there was a squirrel.

Then it was Jess's and my turn to go off on an adventure while the boys (who did safely make it out of the obstacle course eventually) manned the table. First we found a FLIR hidden up in a quiet corner on the top floor.... awwwwwo. Our display wasn't even unique anymore. (Why didn't anyone tell me?) Then we wandered into the Carlson Inquiry Room (obviously we should go there, Carlson being CIS's namesake and all) and inadvertently ran into Lauren from Alumni Relations, who also works at the museum. She gave us a special personal mini-tour and introduced us to the animals that kids who do birthday parties there get to play with. (WAIT - kids can do birthday parties there??!? Is there an age limit?)

This is Steve.

Jess with the corn snake (sorry I can't remember her name), who I caught with her tongue out.

Corny getting fresh.

When we got back to the table, there was only a half an hour or so left before our time was up. I was hoping for a mad last-minute rush, but it never came - especially because the weather was ever-improving, meaning even more people would go to the Lilac Festival instead. All in all, we probably saw around a dozen groups/families throughout the day. Unfortunately, the kids that were there for birthday parties were only interested in presents and cake, so they never even stopped by; and many other people just passed us by without even looking on their way from the mastodon to the rock climbing wall. I was shocked that the attendance was so light (note to self: in future, patronize museum on first Saturday of Lilac Festival), but I am still glad that we participated. At least WE had a lot of fun! And the fact that I had a bunch of students help out and that they didn't feel like they wasted their Saturday sets a really good precedent. Hopefully when they share their experiences it will encourage more students to get involved in outreach, and with any luck we'll foster a culture of giving back to CIS (and actually being a part of the Ambassador Program!).

Greece Career Exploration Day 2013

Today was the 5th annual Greece Apollo Athena Career Exploration Day! See what I did there? Well, things were a little different this year, since Greece has restructured its schools and Apollo no longer exists. Since one of our principal players is now at Athena, this year's event was planned for 8th graders from that school. On my end of things, the shift represented little more than a name change, except for one other significant difference - we were up to 100 students attending! (Meaning: each of my two groups would be around 50, versus last year's ~25.) This is great since we're reaching more students, but would groups so big turn out to be too hard to handle? Well, I wasn't too worried since historically this event has always been one of the smoothest.

This was my fourth year leading the Imaging Science workshop (omg, have I really been here that long?), and each year I wonder how the kids can possibly outdo the class from the year before. This event consistently brings me the most enthusiastic and engaged groups, who always surprise and impress me with one thing or another - one year there were kids asking me for autographs, one year the kids were so excited to interact with the camera that I couldn't even finish my presentation, and last year brought a whole new level of interaction with the integration of Twitter into the presentation. What could possibly happen this year to top all that?!

As usual, the kids did not disappoint. Both of my groups were incredibly interactive, relaxed, and FUN. They intelligently answered questions, and were raucous without being disruptive or disrespectful. I think part of the success of the event is due to the fact that the teachers get into it, too. (Even though one teacher got so into it that he spoiled part of my routine... but that's okay, I gave him a hard time for it and the students liked that.) In fact, when I got to the part where I hypothetically suggest that I dump my entire vessel of ice water all over whichever student is in the hot seat, one of the teachers said, "Go ahead!" I responded with, "I'm not sure what this says about your school, that your teachers are suggesting I drench one of your classmates with ice water..." which was met with boisterous laughter, but then the kid actually goes, "Yeah, I'll do it." Well, alright then.... and he ACTUALLY DID. (Why didn't I get any pictures of this?? I guess I was just too shocked.) I have never had anyone do that before!!! So, way to go, Athena 8th graders 2013 - you have managed to outdo all of the previous classes. (Except maybe the one that asked me for autographs... that was pretty exceptional.)

Just look at the faces on these kids.

Another highlight from this year was this one student in the front row who was obviously the class brain. He would raise his hand for EVERYTHING - to answer every question, to volunteer at every opportunity, literally everything. After the first couple times he proudly answered my questions, I started to say, "Okay, can anyone else answer besides him?" and he would anxiously sit there waving his hand, wanting me to call on him. When it came to the FLIR, I promised him I'd give him a chance, but I told him he had to wait because I had a plan for him. Even so, his hand would shoot up every time I asked for a volunteer - so every time I'd have to say, "Anyone besides him?" and he'd let out a little disappointed, "Awwo." It became a running joke after a while, and he was a really good sport. I wish I could get kids like that all the time... we had a good schtick going.

Anyways, the day overall went better than I can even possibly describe here. Because of their energy, enthusiasm, willingness to interact, and impressive intelligence, the Greece 8th graders hands down are my favorite group to host all year. They represent the ideal audience - they are smart, fun, respectful - and my presentations to them always go smoothly and exactly how I would hope them to. Actually, scratch that - these presentations usually exceed my expectations. My first presentation went so perfectly that one of the teachers told me that I "have a gift", and suggested that if my job ever falls through that I should seriously consider being a teacher. Wow,

Thanks to things going so well this year even with the school change, we have another whole group of teachers and administrators that are now convinced of the value in offering these important opportunities to students. In fact, a school board member was there and made sure to come up to me after the presentation to tell me how much he enjoyed it. What wonderful feedback! I look forward to hosting Greece Athena again next year, and with any luck, having more events such as this one in the future.

UPDATE 5/7/13: Survey results are IN! I will let them speak for themselves:

# of students who completed survey = 93

Imaging Science Workshop:

• 92 out of 93 rated the workshop as either good or excellent
• Common suggestions: Most said it was great and/or their favorite part, the content was easy to understand for most, and they especially loved the infrared camera experiment, a few said that would have liked even more "hands-on" activities

Information Technologies Workshop:

• 72 out of 93 students rated the workshop as either good or excellent
• Common suggestions: Really liked seeing the drone, would have liked more "hands-on" interactions such as using computers, more specific examples of how this science could be applied

Tour of campus:

• 92 out of 93 students surveyed rated the campus tour as good or excellent
• Comments: Would have liked a drink/snack/bathroom stop before tour, would have liked to see more of the sports facilities, liked seeing the art, statues, and fountains, really enjoyed waling around and seeing the students and campus

Lunch at Gracie's:

• All 93 students surveyed rated the lunch as excellent
• Comments: Many said the lunch was their favorite part and that the food was amazing, they enjoyed the experience and would have liked even more time in the dining hall

Overall rating of the experience:

• 92 out of 93 students rated their experience as either good or excellent
• Other suggestions: Some students said they would have liked a chance to "buy stuff", to make college students more involved in the experience, and to see a college class
• Comments: Students said it was "fun and educational", they were "thoroughly impressed", and they wished they could have stayed longer, 91% of students surveyed said either "yes" or "maybe" when asked if the experience had opened their eyes to potential job opportunities

What wonderful feedback from the students! Except for that one kid - there is always that one kid that wants to rate everything but lunch as bad...

UPDATE 5/21/2013: We just received the following wonderful note from one of the organizers in Greece (please excuse the impending shameless plug - to be fair, it's not a shameless SELF plug, since I did not write it...):

"For the past four years Greece Central School District has been sending a group of eighth grade students to RIT for a Career Exploration Day. The purpose of the program is to expose our accelerated Math/Science students to potential careers in the STEM fields. 

Through the generosity of RIT and the School of Imaging Science we have been able to bring over 300 students to RIT to learn about the field of Imaging Science, as well as a couple other programs. Throughout this time our follow up surveys overwhelmingly show that the Imaging Science presentation is their favorite part of our day at RIT, with the exception of lunch at Gracies of course! I wanted to be sure to let you know how invaluable Bethany Choate has been to the success of this program. Her ability to interact with our kids has been key in getting our kids involved in the presentation. It's not easy to hold the attention of up to 50 eighth graders in one room. Every year our teachers comment on her ability to keep them interested and participating. This year we had a member of our school board attend and he sought her out to thank her for the terrific job she did. I also wanted to let you know that without Joe Pow's help this program up may not have gotten off the ground. He was at our initial meetings and has given us tremendous support. 

I also want to share some very good news with you. The first group to go through the Career Exploration Day at RIT is now graduating high school. There were 72 students that attended the first program and eleven of them have applied to RIT, with seven of those kids applying to either a Math or Science program. 

Thank you for your terrific staff!"

I am particularly excited that we are able to start measuring the impact this program has had on these students, now that they are getting old enough to graduate high school! Perhaps I should make it a goal this coming academic year to reconnect with the students I saw back in 2010 (note to self)...

The day I put up a picture of a Mars Rover and someone excitedly yelled, "It's Wall-E!!!"

Today I participated in a college visit for a group of kids from Pennsylvania, whose day also included an admissions overview, tour of campus, and presentations on engineering, liberal arts, and art options here at RIT. Imaging Science was their last stop for a 45 minute demo with the FLIR. Having just done Workforce Innovations a week ago, I was all warmed up and ready to go today. Unfortunately, today was just not destined to be a slam dunk.

First of all, the group was supposed to consist of 50 tenth graders; however, we got an email notice that only 15 showed up. Everything was still to go on as planned, just with a diminished capacity. This didn't really have much of a negative impact on me (in fact 15 students are much easier to handle than 50, although they are not the best ROI effort-wise) other than that presenting the in huge Carlson Auditorium was going to look pretty silly now. The auditorium is exactly what you want for 50 kids, and exactly what you DON'T want for 15. But, no biggie.

I have no idea how the day went for them before getting here, though I can guess that they were pretty tired and worn out by the time I got them. They slowly and reluctantly filed into the auditorium, and were hesitant to sit near the front without some encouragement from who I can only assume was a chaperon. (In fact I couldn't tell who the chaperons or people in charge actually were, which always makes me very uncomfortable. I am happy to give presentations, but I can not fill the role of being the authoritative figure. I do not have the power to control kids when they are misbehaving, which luckily is not usually a problem... [spoiler alert!])

I started out by trying to make some small talk and ask some questions to better understand my audience. Turns out they were from grades 9-12, not just 10th grade. They were from the same school, however. They had ridden in to Rochester on a bus that morning, and were driving back down after my presentation (sounds like a long day). The chaperon-ish guy thought he was really funny by saying they had "walked" when I asked how they got there. Thanks, man.

And with that encouraging start (though I didn't let it get me down!), I went ahead with my presentation. It wasn't long before some girls in the front thought it would be okay to get chatty. The stare down technique didn't work, nor did cleverly hiding the fact that I knew what they were doing within the context of my presentation work. Finally I had to completely stop what I was doing and ask the girls to please stop talking, it's really not cool. The chaperon-ish guy then kind of took note and reminded everyone there to be respectful.

Clearly this was effective, as after a few minutes one of the girls shifted gears to texting on her phone. So, when I needed a volunteer to get in front of the camera, I called up "my texting girl here in the front," to which she replied, "What? Who's texting?", and tried to cleverly slip her phone into her sweatshirt pocket. Seriously? "You, I watched you texting and see you slipping your phone into your pocket right now. Come on, don't try to pull one over on me like that." And she just giggled as if the whole thing were just silly and she wasn't actually guilty of anything. I wasn't angry, but I did want her to feel a little embarrassed about acting rude and childish. I think it worked... Either way, I was able to at least embarrass her (harmlessly) in front of the thermal camera. So, win.

After this the chaperon-ish guy was more vigilant about observing the kids' behavior. He tried to call out another girl for texting but she said she was taking pictures of the thermal camera on her phone. Well.... okay. Some of the kids were interactive and good players, but for the most part I wasn't feeling much interest from them. Still, I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume their lack of enthusiasm had to do with being tired and it having been a long day. I got through the rest of the presentation cheery as can be, but inside I was struggling. Most of the time my job is an absolute joy, but this time it was more like hard work. I put my heart and soul into every one of these presentations, so it stings a little when I can't get through to a crowd. Am I to blame? Is there something I could have done differently? How much of it is my fault?

The strangest part came at the very end, when it was time for them to leave and I quickly wrapped up. I gave concluding remarks, told them how to get in touch with me, and even announced, "The end!" And they all just sat there... Was I so good that they all wanted to stick around and hear more, or was I so bad that they were all more or less unconscious? Never mind, don't answer that.

Don't get me wrong - I will never give up, and sometimes the toughest audiences are the ones who need this the most, or really appreciate it just without expressing as much. Also, I truly appreciate every opportunity I get to speak with high school students, and I'm still very glad I was invited to participate in this visit. If anything I said today inspires someone, amazes someone, surprises someone, or excites someone about science, then my work was a success. Bring it on.

Boston Strong

So despite a little uncertainty leading up to our Boston Alumni Reception thanks to current events, "The show must go on," and that it did. Thankfully everyone who had planned to get to Boston arrived safely, including Matt and I who planned to drive in on Saturday (thank goodness we didn't try to have a long weekend and include Friday...).

Our strategy was to actually come in from the north through Essex to enjoy a lunch of fresh lobstah at the famous Woodmans, before heading into Ipswich for a very quick Choate heritage tour (island, bridge, etc - ask me about it sometime) and of course a visit to the Choate Bridge Pub (who NEVER ID's me and doesn't accept credit cards!!! How else do I discreetly get them to notice I'm local royalty?). Our pleasant little day went uneventfully and as planned, and we arrived in our hotel just in time for their nightly wine reception they apparently do (score). We spent the evening wandering and exploring Cambridge, again rather uneventfully (which is a good thing).

On the day of the reception, we strolled across the Charles to the Museum of Science (yes, our hotel was seriously RIGHT THERE, and totally by chance since we Pricelined it) and arrived shortly after opening, which after our recent trip to Dallas we have learned is the absolute BEST time to go anywhere because we beat the crowds. There was supposed to be a portion of the alumni event at the Museum, but it got canceled due to lack of interest (seriously?)... but we wanted to go anyways so we just went on our own. One of my favorite things there is actually in the lobby before you even have to pay, and it is a huge mural that you view through rotating polarizers. It is so beautiful and fascinating and simple and complex all at once... I can't even describe it, so here is some random person's picture of it and a delightfully retro video about the making of it. (At this point you ought to be noticing the background of my blog and noting the similarities...) Of course we saw one of the electricity shows, and one of my favorite exhibits was all about the history of the museum - because anyone who knows me knows that I like old, boring, dusty museums that require reading and quiet thought (instead of these new-fangled interactive entertainment museums that are practically just glorified playgrounds with kids running around and screaming). There was a display in there about polarized light that I thought was very interesting, informative, and effective at explaining a complex subject; so I was sad to think that it's one of the "old fashioned" exhibits now relegated to being a relic meant to illustrate past times (but at least it's on display at all). Sigh, museums can make me so emotional.

Anyways, although I can spend my whole life in a museum, we eventually had to cross back across the Charles to Restaurant dante, which was literally directly across the street from our hotel (I did a lot of planning for this trip, but that was one thing I did not plan out... how lucky. Maybe I should put less effort into planning and just hope for more things to serendipitously turn out perfectly?). We had our own little dedicated lounge area, with huge windows overlooking the river, which was beautiful. All in all, we had three imsci alumni attend, as well as one accepted student (who was also one of last year's interns; and, attended our accepted student open house!) and his parents. I spent most of my time with the accepted student and his parents, who are such a great family. I then introduced the recruit to our current imsci student that was in attendance, as well as the alumnus who arranged for the generous sponsorship of the recruit's internship here at CIS last year. I was very excited to have been able to make those connections, and it appeared from afar that the conversations went very well. I really really hope we get this student, because he is a very well-rounded, outgoing, and intelligent young man that would be a fantastic addition to CIS. We would all benefit from his presence here. And, I think the feeling is mutual; one of his parents told me that,

"The internship last summer was such a positive influence. This school year, he seems more mature, has (almost drastically) improved his academics and became more accountable for his actions and decisions. As a parent,  I am very grateful for this opportunity that was given to him."

What wonderful feedback!! We often hear positive reactions from teachers and from interns themselves, but we rarely hear from the parents. I am so glad we were able to provide this opportunity and that this student was able to benefit so much from it. But I digress!

During the reception I did have a chance to slip in some conversations with our alumni. Most of the chats were casual, but one action item that came out of our conversations was to promote alumni involvement in the RIT Alumni Admissions Volunteer program..... Duh! Why did I only just think of this now?! RIT already has a fantastic program set up that involves alumni in college fairs, hometown receptions, and other various recruitment events organized by RIT. Since it is coordinated by the Admissions office, they can leverage all of their nationwide contacts, regional staff, and extensive resources. I've worked with them on this before and have represented CIS at these events on multiple occasions, but for some reason it only just dawned on me to have our alumni from all around get in on the action, too. Plus then I won't have to travel, nor will I have to plan and coordinate events of our own. It seems so painfully obvious now that we should tap into our talented alumni across the US for these admissions programs, rather than me doing everything or reinventing the wheel for events of our own. SMH! So, moving forward, I will include upcoming dates of Alumni Admissions events in the Imaging Connection newsletter, and I will make an addition to the CIS Ambassadors website about how to get involved.

All in all, the reception turned out great! I know we have many more than 3 Boston-area alumni, though - so hopefully the next time we make it out that way, we will have more people join us ;-) Thanks, Boston!

Workforce Innovations 2013

Today was the 7th annual Workforce Innovations conference here at RIT (and my 4th - wait, really?! - time participating). The format was like any other year: upwards of 100 high school students descend upon RIT for a keynote, two workshops, and lunch at Gracie's. This year's Imaging Science workshop had a pretty good number of students signed up, with 16 in my first group and 19 in my second (second greatest numbers of any workshop, only behind Hospitality). I'll take it.

This year I went back to my usual presentation with the FLIR minus the twitter component I introduced last year. Even though it kind of worked, to be honest, I didn't have the energy for it this year; nor did I have a helper to monitor the tweets like I've had in the past. While it is unfortunate that our Twitter account didn't get as much attention this year, I don't think the lack of Twitter negatively influenced the experience had by the audience. Not only that, but I don't think that last year's inclusion of it had any lasting impact beyond the day-of. The students never interacted again, save for the one bright spot we had by way of a student saying he was going to apply for the summer internship - which in the end never panned out.

So, back to the normal routine. And that's pretty much how the whole thing went - entirely normal. Just like in past years, I had a mixed experience. My first group was meh, alright; my second group was fantastic. It is strange how two completely different experiences can be had in the span of one morning. But like I've said before, the makeup of the audience presents a challenge (if you're not sure what I mean, check out some past posts). Although, I did enjoy seeing the niece of a good friend of mine, who had no idea what I do and it was total coincidence that we crossed paths today.

The good news is I didn't have anyone blatantly talking, texting, or sleeping (except for one of the chaperons... way to set an example) during my presentations. And the even better news is I did have one student who said he is already coming to RIT in the fall for Engineering Exploration, and he really liked what he heard today. I strongly encouraged him to ask about the freshmen class and he seemed excited about that, so hopefully we'll see him in the fall!

Looking forward, I think I will make the suggestion that we shorten the length of the workshops. One hour just seems to be too long for these kids... No matter how enthusiastic they start out, they seem to fizzle around 40-45 minutes. This makes sense, considering that most schools have class periods of about that length. I don't blame the kids at all. I wish I could stretch out the interactive portion of my workshop to fill more of the hour, but it too would get boring after a while. So I'm not sure what the ideal solution is, but I think shortening up the workshops would be great (for us at least). If you have any ideas, please, leave them in the comments!

All in all, I think the conference went well. (Oh, except for the one student volunteer who didn't show up to guide my first group to me from the keynote...)

Planning and Preparation FTW

Wow, today was one of those crazy hectic days that really call for a huge sigh of relief when they are over. But thanks to some careful planning, I am happy to blog that everything went smoothly.

The day began with an accepted student coming in. This student has actually visited before at about this same time last year, but wanted to visit again so that he could sit in on some upper-level classes. I planned out a whole day for him that included meeting with students, sitting in on two upper level courses (DIP and radiometry), meeting with someone to discuss military and intelligence applications of imaging science (his particular interest), lunch on campus with a group of students, participating in the Freshmen Imaging Project, and a tour of the dorms with one of our students who happens to be an RA. Phew! It took a bit of coordination but I am happy to report that we showed him a fantastic day. He is a great student with a lot of potential, and his interests and personality are a perfect fit for Imaging Science. I really hope he decides to come here, as he would be a great addition!

Concurrent to this visit, we also had our first intern interview. I had mentioned in a previous post that one of our out-of-state applicants expressed interest in interviewing in person, so I wanted to make sure I planned a day's worth of interesting activities to help make the long drive worth it. After meeting with me for a bit first, this intern applicant met with the first of his two preferred labs. Afterward he too sat in on the freshmen class, and I hear the students put him to work. What better way to get involved than to actually get hands on? Following class he had his second interview, after which I gave him a personal tour of the whole building. After the tour his dad came to pick him up, and as it turns out he is an imaging science alumnus! Roger Easton (with the office across from mine) happened to walk by and was was excited to run into him, so he then took the applicant and his dad down to his lab to talk about what he does. I hear this ended up being a great impromptu meeting and resulted in heightened interest from the applicant in yet a third lab! This is a little extra treatment and attention than most intern applicants get, but then again he put in some extra effort to come here, and we wanted to make sure his day was fulfilling - plus this helped us to reconnect with an alumnus. Although there's no telling yet how this whole thing will fare for the applicant regarding the internship (since he is the very first interview), I hope that overall he enjoyed his visit regardless. And now I will refrain from commenting any further, since I don't want to introduce any possible bias into the intern selection process that I try my absolute best to remain independent from. (Although I will go ahead and independently point out that this potential intern had a totally rockin NASA jacket that was covered in Apollo mission patches. Yeah, I'm way jealous.)

In the end, a great day! I hope to see more of both of these visitors in the future (hopefully as students)!

Good times with the freshmen class.

I thought I was the Big Shot around here.

I have just returned from the first official CIS participation in the RIT Big Shot! For those who are unfamiliar, each year the RIT School of Photographic Arts and Sciences coordinates and produces a long-exposure photograph whose only source of illumination is handheld light (flashlights, camera flashes, etc.) provided by volunteers. The process is called "painting with light", since volunteers move their lights around like paintbrushes to illuminate the whole object evenly over the length of the exposure. The resulting photo is striking and rather eerie, and achieves and effect otherwise not possible at night or with a typical long exposure. You can view a few past examples and read more of the history here.

Although the Center for Imaging Science (now housed in the College of Science) grew out of the school of Graphic Arts and Photography (now Photographic Arts and Sciences) way back when, there has never been an "official" CIS component to the annual Big Shot tradition. Various CIS'ers have participated as volunteers, sure; but the show really belongs to CIAS. This year, it was decided to get more involved - and so CIS was going to add a 3-D reconstruction to the Big Shot repertoire, something that (to our knowledge) had never been attempted before. And what a year to do it, as Big Shot #28 was to be of the biggest subject yet attempted by RIT: Cowboys Stadium!!

I first heard about this a few months ago when I was asked whether I thought there would be value in going for outreach purposes. There was the potential for interaction with high schools, presenting to a photo society filled with high school-age photographers, and other various avenues to reach out to prospective students in an area not very familiar with RIT. Besides, there is always a huge media machine surrounding the Big Shot, especially for #28 since it was to be in an unfamiliar area yet would require the greatest number of volunteers so far. With all this press for photography at RIT, we could hope to attract those science and math-minded photogs through the Imaging Science 3-D component. That sounded good to me, and hey it was worth a try (it was about time, in fact), so I was on board.

So, how did it turn out? Well, I have to say I have mixed feelings about my personal participation. I flew down last Thursday morning, in preparation for a seminar to be given to high school students. The presentation was to consist of history and information about the Big Shot, with a brief introduction to the 3-D reconstruction theory and an even briefer introduction to CIS. I must admit, I was hoping for a little more stage time than that, but it didn't matter anyways. Why? Because nobody. showed. up. Nobody. Letters were sent out to 150 schools. Arlington Camera (a store that apparently has a lot of pull in the area schools) also had an announcement to help promote the talk. Plus whatever other media whirlwind the organizers had going on.... Nobody showed. Wow. This was a major blow to me, as this seminar seemed like the most relevant event for me to be there for. This was the only educational component that ended up materializing, out of all the outreach I was hoping for, and even it didn't actually materialize. (Maybe because it was buried in an auditorium that was difficult to find on a college campus within what seemed to be their athletic center? But that's besides the point.) At this point I started to feel an overwhelming sense of guilt - why was I there? What useful function would I be serving? I couldn't help feeling like I was going to result in a disappointing return on investment, and I started blaming myself. Maybe I should have looked up some schools to try to visit on my own (though getting into schools is hard enough to do around here with schools I actually have a relationship with). Maybe I should have tried to help with the organization and promotion of the talk (though I have no idea how I could have done that - but maybe if I pushed the organizers harder?).

At this low point, I decided it would be my role to promote the heck out of CIS's participation in the Big Shot. The remainder of my week/end was to be spent following the 360 Team (as the 3D CIS folks dubbed themselves) around and documenting their every relevant move. The CIS Twitter and Facebook were going to see a rate of updates unlike any they had ever experienced. Anybody who cared to follow would get a detailed play-by-play as if they were there and part of the action. And that is what I, Senior Associate of Outreach and Communications, was going to bring to the table. That's enough to make the expense of sending me to Texas all worth it.... Right....? :-\

You never would have known no one was at our talk. Unlike my brutally honest blog, I make sure to only highlight the positive when I'm posing as CIS online.

And the Tweeting frenzy begins.

Friday was basically a free day (thus intensifying my guilt even more), though I had been told we were invited to tour Cowboys Stadium in the afternoon along with the RIT CIAS crew that was arriving that morning. Matt and I (oh yeah, did I mention Matt was there too? He tagged along- on our own dime, for the record) went off and did our own thing, but around 4:30 I cleverly posted a status about being a part of the tour, since I assumed the rest of the 360 team did go....

The infamous update... You'll see why.

6:30PM rolls around and there is a "planning dinner" scheduled that we were definitely supposed to be a part of, so we rendezvous there but no one had shown up yet. A bus-load of who was obviously RIT art students (no, I'm not reinforcing stereotypes... they were all wearing matching shirts) started spilling in, but I still didn't see my fellow CIS'ers. Eventually they showed, and the first thing I hear is, "Well, we hope you enjoyed the stadium!" To which I scoffed because I didn't want to go, anyways. Turns out they saw the status update and thought that Matt and I were there (a-ha! My plan worked!) - and they were jealous because they were told that they were not actually allowed to go due to space constraints, and they were wondering how I weaseled my way in. Now, this story is different depending on who tells it, and I have no idea what the real story is since I was not a part of it nor was I very privy to any of the organization - I am only repeating what I heard. But that was pretty awkward. Are we welcomed to be a part of this, or not? I already felt like enough of an outsider, since my role had been reduced to following the 360 team around; but now they were feeling like outsiders, too. Were we even supposed to be at this dinner? Jury's still out on that one, since it did turn out there weren't enough seats for everyone...

Anyways, at this dinner they had something like 50 or 100 or what seemed like an endless stack of posters, which we were supposed to each sign and pass along assembly line-style so that at the end of the Big Shot we'd all receive a souvenir poster with everyone's signature on it. This made me feel like even more of an outsider - nobody knows who I am, or why I'm there, and why would they care about my signature? I'm not a part of their crew... I can only imagine how Matt felt. We started out each only signing every other one and using the name "Mathany" to encompass us both - who would know the difference, anyways - and that way we each only had to do half as much work. The exercise was tedious, and the insignificance of our participation did not escape us, so our signatures dwindled down to instead saying "That Guy", and then eventually to nothing as we stopped signing altogether. So if you happen to see one of these posters and wonder who "Mathany" or "That Guy" was, the secret's out. I can tell you, though, one place you will not be seeing one of those posters is in my office. I never ended up receiving one. Guess that serves me right.

At any rate, the dinner was delicious, and the venue was interesting and seemingly authentic. There was a cowboy band that would play at regular intervals, and people would go out on the dance floor. The Big Shot crew of course took advantage of this many times, and also made sure to publicly embarrass various CIAS heavy-hitters as often as possible. They also snagged the microphone at one point to promote the Big Shot and encourage everyone to come out the next day. (I don't think the wedding reception also present was very happy about having to share the spotlight.) Meanwhile, Carl went down a slide.

On top of feeling like a loser outsider, I was disconnected from pretty much everything as I was trying to keep the tweets coming and also to get the video of Carl on the slide posted to the Facebook page (which you would think would be easy, but it's not. How many Imaging Scientists does it take....). I found a respite from my discomfort in that the 360 team was peacing out to go do a final nighttime test shot, so obviously I had to go with them to document this on social media. However, I was presented with a new discomfort in that, despite being in Texas, it was only like 45º and none of us had brought appropriate clothing for the surprisingly chilly weather. Not only that, but I didn't have a whole lot to contribute besides the status updates, which was killing me inside because I wanted to be a more useful part of the team. I am an imaging scientist too, of course.... Sigh. Is this what it feels like to be a Roadie?

Saturday was to be the big day. There was some promo event in the morning at Arlington Camera, but although I was told about it I wasn't really invited... so I guess it was just a Big Shot show, and I didn't want to step on anyone's toes. In the afternoon I was slated to man a booth at the Art on the Greene festival, who had donated table space to us. The weather this day was particularly unattractive... Misty rain in the morning, chilly temperatures, and incessant wind to boot. Oh, and did I mention that Art on the Greene is an outdoor festival? Great...

At least our booth had a wind screen.

Throughout my 3 hour shift, I was only visited by a handful of people, and they weren't really that interested in hearing what I had to say about the Big Shot, much less RIT and even less so Imaging Science. Whenever I asked, "So, will we see you tonight?" every single person said no. Every. One. Excuses ranged from blaming the weather to saying they already had plans. We did at least get some attention from a well-intended, seemingly homeless guy who kept bringing various vendors from the food trucks over to the booth to tell them about how cool the Big Shot was; but they were all working the festival until 9PM so they couldn't come out to participate anyways (but they did keep offering us discounts on their food....). Adding to my frustration was the fact that a plea for help had been sent out to many people to volunteer for this event, and only three people (and that's including me) stepped up. So not only did we not have multiple people at the booth at once, we had to each take longer shifts. And the most miserable part of all was that it was SO COLD. Thank goodness there was a U2 cover band that seemed to play endlessly so that I could dance around in place to keep myself warm without looking totally insane. Meanwhile, could you really blame people for not wanting to come out for the festival (or the Big Shot that night, for that matter)?

At the conclusion of my shift, I went to rendezvous with the 360 team in case they needed anything. They didn't, so I took what spare time was left to go to a store and pick up some leggings to wear under my jeans and a blanket to snuggle in for later. After sitting out in the cold wind at the festival for three hours, I was chilled to the bone and didn't want to take any chances later when we were going to have to be outside again. I tried to also buy gloves (which seems so silly, coming from the cold white north... I should have brought some with me to begin with) but apparently no one in the entire state of Texas sells any (why would they need them?). We returned to Cowboys stadium with a bag stocked full of flashlights, blankets, cameras, and various gear (including a solar-charged battery that did indeed end up coming in handy when my phone started dying - Can't let the tweeting stop!!!!) and headed in for the Alumni Reception.

Welcome to the STAR CLUB

The Reception was pretty cool - we had the whole stadium to ourselves, and the main event was in the swanky "AT&T Star Club". I realize this is probably the only opportunity I will ever have to be in such a place, especially with no one else around, but... meh. I don't care about football in the least, so, this wasn't really my bag. (Apologies to all the football fans out there who are no doubt infuriated about my lack of appreciation.) The food was very, very excellent, though. To my knowledge there were no ImSci alumni there; in fact, the reception seemed to be mostly the groups who came down from RIT, with just a few TX alumni sprinkled here and there... So the 360 team sat at a table by ourselves in the back like the high school outcasts at lunch, and just like the night before I made my escape by joining them for early setup. However I again felt awkward as I did not have much to do, so I spent my time posting pictures and wandering around looking for something interesting to take pictures of. I spotted this guy walking in with a ridiculously over-the-top setup, so I followed him in to take his picture. Well, turns out he wasn't all set up yet, and since I was polite enough to ask if I could take his picture he roped me in to helping him get all his rigging together and equipment hooked up and on and on, which took upwards of 20 minutes or more. You're welcome... Finally, I snapped a picture -

What can I possibly even say about this.

- and although it was blurry, someone else started asking him about his setup so I had to seize my chance to skeedaddle out of there. At this point it wasn't long before the first shot was supposed to go off, so I headed over to, well somewhere; really I wandered around among the select 12 photographers helping out the 360 team like a lost puppy, in case someone wanted me. I settled near one who used to be an imsci student (hooray! someone I know!) and readied for the first shot. I already gave a pretty detailed play-by-play on Facebook/Twitter, so I won't bother repeating myself...

For complete coverage, visit https://www.facebook.com/RITimagingsci

During the first shot, I hid behind a transformer in the parking lot and took pictures backwards of the crowd painting the stadium with light. These pictures didn't come out that well, though, so for the remainder of the shots I joined the crowd and did my part to illuminate. This was a pretty funny experience - we had to wave our flashlights around while shuffling to the left throughout the duration of the exposure. It was a little disorganized, and not everyone was successful at waving their lights around randomly enough while avoiding the 360 team photographers in front of us and while shuffling, but whatever. There would be more chances to get it right, and in the digital age, there isn't really any possibility of failure...

During one of the shots, we left a camera standing to capture video of the stadium being painted with light - you can watch it here. (By the way, those 2-3 bright lights you see going perfectly vertically straight up and down the side of the stadium? Yeah, they're doing it wrong. Not to mention they kept going well after the "Lights off!" command was yelled several times...)

After 5 attempts, we were done! Or, at least, I was. The Big Shot team and 360 team all went to the Cowboys press room to scramble to get the images processed, while I went back to my hotel room to relax before catching my early morning flight home and to catch my breath after orchestrating the CIS social media frenzy. You wouldn't think it would be that hard, but it was exhausting. And, a little annoying - I was so distracted by constantly having to take and post pictures and updates, and felt so frazzled having to constantly predict and think of what to post next, that I hardly felt like I got to experience and enjoy the whole event. Anybody reading my updates was experiencing it just as much as I was, regardless of their geographical location.

Anyways, let's cut to the chase: without further ado, here they are, Big Shot 2013 and its 3-D reconstruction!

Addendum (May 8, 2013): Check out this article by RIT News all about CIS's involvement in the Big Shot!