Week #4

Officially a month into my summer REU program and I am about ninety percent finished with my Arduino project.

Last week I had a minor problem with my code but after meeting with Katie this week, we were able to modify my code to get it to function the way I want it to. With my new code, if it is light out then the Notre Dame fight song will play but if it gets dark out it will instantly switch to the harry potter theme song and vice versa (With the old code, the tune had to finish before switching). The problem was that the light sensor value was only being checked at the beginning of the songs, but I modified it so that the light sensor value was also being checked throughout the song so it knows to switch songs if the light sensor value gets too high or low. With my final code completely done, my next goal is to sew the lilypad parts onto my stuffed animal, not too tough of a task so I am not too worried about it. My final project should be completed by the end of this week.

This week was also the start of another project or study that Katie is working on and I decided to lend a helping hand. Basically, we are imitating a study conducted in India that has to do with participant response bias in HCI. I will be helping mainly with the data collection by going out in the community and conducting surveys. We will be showing participants two identical videos on two separate identical phones and we will tell the participant one video uses a new video player that I developed. Then the participant has to decide which video they preferred even though they are both identical. The hypothesis is that the participant will be swayed to favor the video that I, the investigator, favor. It will be a very interesting study and I’m excited to go out and start the surveying!

I am staying on track with my weekly goals and I cannot wait to see how my final project comes out! Happy Father’s Day! -John