Waltham/Boston for IEEE VR2010: Day Five, The Demos

To get in my SV hours, I had been working pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday. Today, I only had to work at lunch, so I could sit in on some sessions as I chose. This is a small enough conference that there's only one thing going on at a time most of the time, which is nice, because that means I can go to everything.

We did get to play with some cool toys in the demo and exhibit rooms:

And this is quite possibly my favorite picture from the whole conference:

We were evaluating some wide field of view HMDs. We also got to play with some haptics devices which were cool, but we don't really have a reason to get them.

We attended a panel called "What is VR?" where the inclusion and exclusion criteria were argued. That was interesting, and people were quite opinionated. Amy got some good ideas for a study from the discussion. I learned that I have a lot to learn, since I wasn't sure what they were talking about some of the time.

That evening, we took a bus over to WPI for a reception with demos. Here's us being the cool kids in the back of the bus:

On the ride over, Dr. Hodges told us his post-high school life story. He's done a lot more than just VR research! 

And here are some photos of us at the demos.

I drove a robot:

We took a picture with the guy who asks scary questions:

Toni found someone else with her name:

And we took a lab family picture :) Some of us are standing on a robot!

We decided when we get back we're making a Dr. Hodges family tree. He's had sooo many students, and now his students have students, and they're all over the place! It'd be cool to see all the relationships.

On the bus ride back, I sat with Seth, who is planning on applying to Clemson's Ph.D. program. It was good getting to know him since I hadn't spent that much time talking to him. Once we got back, it was straight to bed. 

Waltham/Boston for IEEE VR2010: Day Four, Uneventful

No chaos today (very thankfully). My job this morning was to chase down presenters after their sessions to get them to sign release forms and put their powerpoints onto a Flash drive. It's a bit of an intimidating job, but not too bad overall. While in those sessions there was a nifty talk about making a system that tracked a hot wire foam cutter and made a 3D computerized model of whatever the person was cutting out of the foam. I'm not doing a good job describing it, but it was awesome. The presenter was Michael Marner from University of South Australia; I can't find his website.

I sat outside of a session entitled "Building your own projection-based VR display system" from 1:30 to 5:30 this afternoon. It was actually a couple old acquaintances from VRST 2007 running the session, so it was cool seeing them. I don't know that I'll end up working in VR primarily but if I do it'll be kind of nice because it's a small enough community of us that I'm starting to recognize names and faces from year to year.

Finally, I went into the city yet again to meet up with some old friends, Alex and his girlfriend, Emily. I forgot my camera but Alex did take this one picture:

Alex and Emily met me and we went to an Irish restaurant. I had lobster rolls and this delicious chocolate cake with coffee ice cream. Mmm. It was so good catching up with them. Alex was one of my best friends for a lot of undergrad and I hadn't seen him in almost a year and a half.

I got back to the hotel and got to talk to my boyfriend for a while--he had just got back from a week in the Bahamas. Sleepy and content, I headed to bed...and Samantha, Toni, and I proceeded to lay in bed and have girl talk until 1:30 in the morning, which I don't get to do too often. I fell asleep feeling full and satisfied. Life's good :)

Waltham/Boston for IEEE VR2010: Day Three, The Beginning

Well, thankfully(?) today was a lot less eventful than the previous two. We were up bright and early for orientation at 7:30AM. The most exciting thing that happened there was getting these vests:

which further confirm our hypothesis that the conference organizers are colorblind.

Amy and Evan are all fancy. They're speakers/organizers for the conference.

I sat through a session on a new VR toolkit called inVRs (pronounce it "inverse"), which was cool, but also very cold in the room, so I had some problems paying attention. Luckily it was a gorgeous day outside and everyone took their box lunches outside to eat after that. The box lunch was okay, but apparently conference organizers only believe in a few food groups--primarily bread and meat. Lame. Lucky for me I bought some fruit and veggies at the farmer's market on Friday, and I guess I'll just pour a lot of milk in my coffee...

The second session there were three student volunteers assigned to one small room, so the other doorkeeper and I split our four hour shift. That worked out really well because I was planning on going into the city to meet my undergrad roommate, Bethany, for dinner.

(No mishaps with 70 or 70a this time, thankfully. I am awesome at riding the bus now, haha.) We went to a nice little cafe in Harvard Square and then ate delicious frozen yogurt with fruit and granola afterwards. I took the bus back to Waltham and a taxi back to the hotel.

There's a nice workout room here. Because I had some spare time I decided to try to run a little. Unfortunately my belly was full and my feet were blistered, so that didn't last long. I did walk a bit and use the elliptical. Hopefully I'll get to run tonight! (I'm running my first 10K this coming Saturday so I have to keep training.)

Then bedtime. Toni and Samantha had gone out into the city with others earlier, so they returned around 11. Tomorrow responsibilities begin at 8:30!

Waltham/Boston for IEEE VR2010: Day Two, The Excursion

It was a rough night. The hotel room was hot and our blankets were too heavy, and I kept waking up being worried about getting lost in Boston and it being my fault, since I had wrote down all the transit information. Toni and I got up and got ready for our day, and Jerome canceled on us since he wasn't feeling well (and didn't get much sleep, seeing as he was sleeping in a chair and all).

We began wandering from our hotel looking for the bus stop. It took us a while to find it, but while we were wandering, we did find Boston Dynamics, the creators of things we have mixed feelings about, such as Big Dog (awesome and creepy, check out the videos), and DI-Guy (evil and terrible to work with, but sadly near-necessary). Also, the employees who used to work for Haptek, another necessary evil for virtual human authoring that we tried to get away from but found ourselves crawling back to. Here is how we feel about Boston Dynamics:

Anyhow, eventually, we found our Totten Road and 3rd stop. By this time we'd missed the bus we planned for so we were just waiting and debating the merits of grabbing on to luggage racks of passing cars to catch a ride to Boston. Finally our bus came.

I looked at the plan I had written down from the MBTA site:

Then began our troubles with 70a. Get off 70a to get on 70a? Why do they have different names? Oh well, I'll trust the MBTA website because I have no better options.

We boarded the bus. Five minutes later our stop came up, so we got off. The bus driver remarked, "That was quick." We stepped off the bus onto a curb in a random neighborhood. The bus driver paused in order to stay on schedule. I thought about it for a minute then decided to ask him about transferring 70a to 70a because I thought that was weird. He asked us where we were going and said, "Oh no, you don't want to do that. Just stay on this bus until the very last stop and then you'll need to get on the T and go one stop and you'll be there." He explained about how to get a Charlie Card (card that gets you on and off in the transit system) and continued conversation throughout our drive--he was awesome! As we left the bus he explained about the Charlie Card again. A woman gave us two spare Charlie Cards she had as we walked off the bus--so friendly!

After we got to the train system, we were fine, since it was easier to figure out and I had done it before. We went to Harvard:

...and to MIT:

(We're hoping to post this picture with our homework due for one of our professors who graduated from MIT. Doubt we'll get quiz points, but maybe we'll get cool points.)

...and to the Charles River:

...and to Boston Common:

...and to a farmer's market, where we bought cheap fruit and vegetables, and to Quincy Market.

We decided to head back then, since we had to be back in Waltham by 4:00 to do our student volunteer stuff. We made it back to the place where the bus picked up by 2:10, to catch the bus at 2:24 (the best we could figure out from the confusing bus schedule). 

Then our troubles with 70a resumed.

We went to the other side of the street where the bus should have picked up, we thought. No 70a sign. After studying the map longer, we couldn't figure it out, so we went down to the information kiosk down in the subway. We asked her where the bus picked up, and she said it should be on the opposite side of the street from where we were dropped off. We explained to her that we had already tried that, but she said she didn't know what to tell us.

We emerge out of the tunnel and see a 70 bus going towards the stop we got out of. I start running towards it, to either get on it or to ask the driver where to go. Toni's running behind me yelling, "That's not our bus!" We encounter a street fight outside of Wendy's between two men and a couple women trying to break it up, along with 20 or so people standing around. We run straight through it. Yeah, it wasn't the right bus, but a bystander realized what we were trying to do and told us, "Oh, the stop for 70 and 70a is around the corner of this block."

We walked to the stop and waited. Soon enough, a bus came around the corner. "70a, Totten Pond Road!" Toni exclaimed. We boarded and made ourselves comfortable.

An hour later, I'm thinking, "Wow, I don't remember any of this from this morning." A half-hour after that, I'm thinking, "I really feel like we just passed that a little bit ago. Oh well, maybe it's a loop." Meanwhile, I'm engaged in a conversation with an athiest psychologist who noticed I was reading a book written by an athiest, and not paying attention too much to where we are. Toni's reading a novel. Soon, the driver says, "Next stop, Central Station, end of the line," and I look up and we're back where we started! "Oh no, this is 70, not 70a," the driver says as we ask her why she didn't get to Totten Pond Road. By this time it's 4:15 and we're late to our meeting. She takes us to where 70a picks up.

I promise you, I'm not crazy. Toni and I both saw it on the sign when we got on: 70a. She must have changed the sign after we boarded the bus.

Grr.

Well, what to do next? Taking a taxi from there would have cost a LOT. We know nothing about the commuter rail. So, the only thing left to do is to wait on the 70A bus and get on.

This time, we asked twice, "Will this take us to Totten Pond Road?!" It did.

Toni and I were frustrated but also laughing a lot. There were quite a few characters on the bus. Two guys discussed how they couldn't explain to their friends the difference between PCI 8 and PCI 16, and how "I'm not a programmer or anything but I can do stuff..." There was also a brooding, scary man who kept glaring at us. Haha.

At 5:30PM, we were never more happy to see this sight: the Westin as we approached it from the bottom of the hill.

By this time we were two hours late to our student volunteer commitments. There was still more to do though. We met up with Luv and Jerome and started stuffing bags.

and after the bags were done, we had 600 t-shirts to fold. We're not sure what the color committee was thinking. Oh wait, there's no color committee listed in the conference program.

And finally, we labeled power strips, which apparently speak and say "No burning!"

Finally we were done. We were famished and exhausted. We all (along with Amy and Branko) took a taxi to the bustling metropolis (ha) of downtown Waltham and had excellent Thai food there. By this time I'm so tired that everything is funny. Amy said something about a "bee farm" and I thought she said "beef arm" which is really funny if you visualize it.

Considering we had to be up early at 7:30 the next morning we headed to bed. New day tomorrow!

Other photos from today, requiring no explanation:

Waltham/Boston for IEEE VR2010: Day One, The Arrival

After a few of your standard travel annoyances (changed gate, delayed departure, couldn't find shuttle to hotel), we arrived at the Westin in Waltham around 9:00PM. Having not eaten since lunchtime, we were famished, so we decided to open up our computer to see what kind of food Google Maps could point us towards within walking distance.

We encountered a login screen, entered our name and our room number, and pressed "Submit." It then informed us that Internet would cost us $4.95 for 30 minutes. We decided that must just be for wireless and plugged a laptop into the wall jack, shutting down and restarting carefully as its instructed us to do. Same screen came up. I pulled out my GPS and put it in the window. After 15 minutes of "Poor satellite reception. Continue searching for satellites?" we decided that wouldn't work out, and started considering room service. The burger was $17.50. No thanks. This hotel is really fancy, but you still have to pay for absolutely everything. It's silly.

We trekked down to the lobby in search of Internet connection. Yes! A free connection. Searching nearby locations on the iPod didn't work, since the iPod screen is tiny and clicking on those little location markers is difficult. So, we ran upstairs to get on our laptops and continued the search. Apparently the two restaurants within walking distance were a sandwich shop and a seafood restaurant--both that would be closed by the time we got there. So, we opted for Dominos, and found one of the best inventions ever:

THE PIZZA TRACKER!!

That's right. Minute by minute, it shows where your pizza is: from the oven, to the delivery car, to your belly. And let me tell you, that was the most delicious pizza I've had in a long time. Spinach + mushroom was an excellent idea, and I ate a LOT of it. Jerome came over to help eat the pizza and watch some basketball.

Jerome then informed us of the violation of the man laws that he encountered: requiring two men to sleep in one bed. There were three guys assigned to his room and only two beds. He had fallen asleep in one of the beds and woken up to two strangers standing over him. (Luckily, they were, in fact, his roommates, and they're pretty cool.) Later on, when they were getting ready for bed, they started building a pillow wall between them as to not touch while sleeping. Apparently, it is a violation of man law to sleep in bed with another man as well as to observe two men sleeping in the same bed, so Jerome volunteered to sleep in the desk chair so they wouldn't have to share a bed. (We've observed in the lab previously that he's good at sleeping in desk chairs anyhow.)

We planned our trip into Boston for the next day using the MBTA Trip Planner, which was surprisingly helpful. There were lots of transfers and I was nervous, but oh well, we had to get into Boston somehow, right? Toni and I set our alarm for 7 and went to bed.