It's November Sweeps time, so here's my own cliffhanger.

Today I will be trying something that I've never done before: an online webinar. Although it's been done by other folks in CIS before, this is my first time moderating and presenting on my own, and it is also a first for my audience on the other end. So I expect a few bumps along the way... But that makes for an exciting story, right? Anyways, in the interest of not having one big long blog post, I'm going to break this up into parts (hence why I'm starting before I've even done the activity yet).

My audience is a group of 4th and 5th grade classrooms (five in total, of 15-20 students each) at the Martin Luther King Elementary School in Utica, NY. I have visited this school for the past two years, but this year it was not feasible to make the trek so instead we decided to do something remotely. This also posed the advantage that it would be a new presentation and activity for the students, as last year we did high speed video and the year before we did thermal imaging. So, this time around I will present all about cameras and then lead the students through a step-by-step camera disassembly activity.

I ordered and sent out the one-time-use cameras ahead of time, and also did a dry run of connecting with the school via the Adobe Connect webinar software a couple days ago. So, everything seemed to be in order - until last night as I was brushing my teeth before bed, I realized I had overlooked something very important - TOOLS! It seems obvious now how important they are, but in the whole scheme of organizing and ordering things, it was very easy to overlook the actual tools needed to do the disassembly. (In my defense, this was my first time organizing this activity remotely, but others who have done it remotely before had it slip their minds too - so, I'm not alone. Really!) And so came the frantic 11PM e-mail to the school principal, which also led into frantic phone calls this morning. As of yet, I'm not sure whether we might have to reschedule.

So for now, CLIFFHANGER: Will the tools get acquired on time??!? Will we be able to go forward as planned?! Find out in our next installment. (I know you're on the edge of your seats.) (Well, I actually am.)

Connections

Today Joe and I gave an overview of Imaging Science and tour of the building and labs to a group of Undergraduate Admissions counselors. It all went very well, and they told us it was very informative. In fact, a couple of them said they wished they had known more about us before they went out on their recruiting trips. So maybe it came a little late, but at least now they know more about us! It is always great to make positive connections with other people, because you never know when they might know someone who would be interested in Imaging Science in some capacity. In fact, one of the counselors has a background in geology - so she connected with MVRL on account of their geological eye tracking research!

Emphasis on the "M"

So yesterday I coordinated the visit of an undergraduate class from the Department of Communications here at RIT who wanted to learn more about eye tracking. Basically I set up a presentation and demo in the Fishbowl (Carlson Learning Center) downstairs, with Karen of MVRL (The Multidisciplinary Vision Research Lab) doing the actual presenting. The class was really interested in how eye tracking works, and the best part was when the students started brainstorming how they could use such technology in their communications research. That's one of the things that's so cool about MVRL: its multidisciplinary aspects. There are so many different people from such different academic backgrounds that all have an interest in being there and advancing the technology and applications of eye tracking and visual perception research. Pretty awesome, huh?

Meanwhile, the whole way this demo came about was kind of interesting. There was one day this quarter for the class I'm taking that my professor wasn't going to be there, so he had another professor lead the class that night. Us students went around the room and introduced ourselves, and I mentioned working in the Center for Imaging Science (and included the usual disclaimer that we are not the same as photography). The substitute professor then mentioned that she had actually been trying to get in touch with someone from the eye tracking lab about getting a tour for her undergraduate class, but she hadn't heard back. Once I got over the shock of having an unrelated person actually understand what Imaging Science is (all my hard work is paying off!!!), I told her I could help, and... well you can guess the rest. Okay so I guess that doesn't sound all that exciting, but I always think it's cool when random connections come up in unexpected environments. (And I feel like I'm getting to be one of those people that knows tons of different people from a wide variety of areas on campus, which is awesome!)

"I won't hit any of those pins." "Not with THAT attitude!"

One of the best things about the Center for Imaging Science at RIT is all the fun and free stuff we provide our students. I took full advantage of this when I was a student here myself - weekly IS&T meetings with pizza, the Winter Games, the Hunt, treats on holidays, copious amounts of t-shirts, etc. Since then the list of benefits has expanded to include outings such as dinner, laser tag, bowling - ask, and ye shall receive. Which is just what our second year students did, so last night CIS hosted a dinner and bowling outing for them!

Since the bowling lanes had leagues until 9PM, we started the evening with dinner at Tully's. Almost all of the second year students made it out, and then there were three adults (Joe, myself, and my fellow CIS-alum husband) to later serve as team captains for bowling. Since this was a pretty large group, we had to wait a bit for tables - but, we found ways to pass the time.

And then we experienced some of Tully's namesake "Good Times".

And stuffed ourselves with noms.

While we waited for the check, Joe, Matt, and I pulled names from a hat to make our initial bowling teams. Since the first letters of the names of the people on my team spelled "S-K-A-B", we decided to be Team SKABz. Matt's team named themselves Team MATTLAB, and I have no idea whether Joe's team even had a name or not. Then with pretty much perfect timing, we headed down the street to Bowl-A-Roll.

There were 12 of us and they gave us 3 lanes, which was perfect! 4 on a lane made for really well paced games, and since we had three adjacent lanes there was always something entertaining going on.

Each game we re-pulled names from a hat to get different teams and mix things up. (But we still kept the ridiculous nick names chosen for the players, such as "Cheezekurt", "Hamburger", and "A1 Steak Sauce", "Gonads", etc...)

Epic 10th frame.

Best bowl of the night - I scored a spare on a split, YEAH!

So many funny highlights happened that we decided to get plates from the snack bar and do paper plate awards, including: Best Muppet Freakout award; "Wha' Happen?" (so many 0's) award; Straight Shooter award; Best Curves award; Hottest Granny (for granny-style bowling) award; and the coveted, "It's 11 o'clock and I'm out of time" award; among others. I won the Future "So You Think You Can Dance" Winner award, for the spontaneous loosey goosey dance that made an appearance several times...

There may or may not be a video of this somewhere...

The event overall ended up being so much fun, and it really gave us all an opportunity to get to know each other better outside the stress of classes and work. It also gave CIS a chance to show our students how much we appreciate them and want them to succeed not only professionally but personally, as well. I definitely look forward to having more of these outings in the future - our students are the best! (Speaking of which, have I ever mentioned that I have the best job ever?)

You can view all of the pictures from the night here.

If you don't get it, google "nyan cat"

This has happened.

By the way, ripped up jeans look really cool in LWIR

Today I visited Port Byron High School, which is about an hour and a half east of Rochester. I presented to a chemistry class, an open period mixture of chemistry and physics students, a physics class, and then a careers in science class - around 50 students overall. The school was very nice and some of the students were really great. I particularly had fun with the physics class, who were very interactive and intelligent. Often times students will play guessing games when I ask questions, but those students really knew what they were talking about and applied good critical thinking skills. It was no surprise to learn both the class valedictorian and salutatorian were there. The careers in science class was fun too, because there were a number of kids in there who were really engaged and you could tell were interested in pursing science after high school (fingers crossed for Imaging Science!). I had a great time in Port Byron and am really appreciative of their invitation to visit! Thank you!

Talkin' it up, on the ImagSci talk sho-ow
Talkin' 'bout Mars Rovers... Talkin' 'bout, shiny gold medallions (well not those so much, really)

Surprise! YOU'RE ON THERMAL CAMERA

Uh-oh, we have a new contender for best ice fu manchu - Watch out, Utica

Well you knew this was coming - the classic kid-in-a-garbage-bag trick

Ah, but we don't normally get pictures of the glass pane trick! Where'd he go...

Ooooo, foil - shiny shiny, even in thermal IR. Oddly enough, this is the first time anyone has ever suggested trying aluminum foil.

AS-TRO! PHY-SICS! AS-TRO! PHY-SICS!

On Wednesday CIS hosted our second alumni reception in King of Prussia, PA. Whereas last time we did a sit-down dinner, this time we decided to go a little less formal and do more of a happy hour-type event. Joe & I flew down and met up with 6 alumni and 1 current distance learning student in a small party area at the Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery, which was a fantastic venue for this sort of gathering (I would definitely go back!). We ordered platters of fruit, cheese, tortilla chips, soft pretzel bits, and swedish meatballs - MMMMmmm! The event was free and CIS generously foot the bill for the food - oh which there was of course too much of, but Rock Bottom was nice enough to let us take some with us in take out containers. (I took a large container full of soft pretzel bits, which would make up about 75% of what I ate the next day. Not kidding.) I'll let some pictures tell the rest of the story...

The spread, SWAG-wise. I told everyone I wasn't taking any of it home with me. A pair of sunglasses got left behind, so we left them in the glove box of the rental car (since I found hidden treasure in there in the form of a champagne glass from a wedding with chocolate in it; I figured I should pay it forward.) We also may or may not have covered the restaurant windows and bathroom stalls with window clings and magnets and left a koozie behind on one of the pint glasses.

The spread, food-wise. EACH platter served 25, so each one would feed about 3x as many people as we had there. But, you've got to have variety! I was very grateful because even though the banquet guide said they don't allow you to take leftovers with you, they gave us all take out boxes. You're awesome, Rock Bottom!

From left: Kris, Chris, Joe, and Greg (conveniently showcasing one of our koozies, totally not on purpose or anything.)

From left: Joe, Rachael, Chris's arm, Justin, Kris, Samantha

I don't think any caption could do this picture justice, considering how amazingly awesome it is.

Check out the rest of the pictures on the CIS Picasa site.

The event was a lot of fun, and it was especially enjoyable for me since a lot of the alumni there were classmates of mine that I haven't seen in a while. It was fun to reminisce and also update everyone on what's going on back here at the ranch. And, we even drummed up interest in our CIS Ambassadors Program! Yeah!