Beatrice Casey, Week 3: Notebooks, Naps and Drones

As fun as coding is, sometimes it makes me want to hit myself in the face with a hammer repeatedly. Getting errors is a normal process in coding and it is something you get used to, but when you get the same error over and over again that you didn’t think was possible to get, frustrations can get a pretty solid grip in your head. I would like to introduce you all to my true friend, the one who is always by my side, my notebook. I use this notebook to write out my task and write out what I tried and what has worked and failed, and I occasionally include some frustrations in my analyses. Basically, in my alone time (which is technically all the time), this little black notebook is the one thing keeping me sane as I work through these errors.

This week was by far the most exciting week EVER. As some of you may have already seen/heard about, my PI took me to an abandoned military base in Willow Grove to show me the drone testing that him and his grad students are doing. COOLEST. TRIP. EVER. I’ve always wanted to explore an abandoned place (and drones are also AWESOME, of course), so the second my PI told me about the trip and offered to take me, I was in 100%. Thursday came and I went to the lab, arriving at 8:53, since we were meeting at 9 to drive and pick up some other grad students. I arrived, but I realized we never really specified where we were meeting. So, I walked all over the place in my lab trying to find my PI. I called, I panicked, and I worried that he forgot he was going to take me. MAJOR sad face L.  Just when I was about to give up hope and start another day of coding, I saw a note my PI left me. He went to pick up his grad students first and was driving to pick me up. My spirits immediately lifted through the roof! I ran out the door to meet my professor outside the building.

Inside the Hanger

His car pulled up and I met two of his grad students, Shreyas and Anand. We talked about computer vision on our way there, while also looking frequently at the directions. Dr. Taylor explained to the grad students what it is he has me doing. After him and Shreyas talked about it, I further realized how complicated my task is. Eventually our conversation drifted to India, the homeland of Shreyas and Anand. They all had some hilarious stories of their times in India, and our laughter calmed any nerves I had about meeting these new people. We arrived at the base and waited for the other people to arrive, along with the person with the key to unlock the base. Dr. Taylor got out of the car to talk to one of the other grad students, and Shreyas and Anand decided to start conversation with me. “So, are you working on your Master’s degree with CJ?” They asked. When I replied that I was a senior in high school, their shock was evident. “Oh, wow. CJ really threw you in the deep end then.” I laughed and told them that what Dr. Taylor wanted me to do was pretty complicated for me, but I was working through it. At this point, the other guys arrived and they guy with the key (let’s call him Mike for simplicity/ I’m pretty sure his name was something like that) came and unlocked the gate. Before we started testing, Mike was going to show us the hanger. I was more than excited for this. We all drove down to the base and parked and walked into the hanger that Mike unlocked for us. This place was big. And when I say big, I mean BIG. It was very empty, except for the bird feathers and droppings that laid all across the floor (but if you were careful you could miss the bird droppings, it would just look like you were doing some strange form of ballet). We discussed a few things with Mike, and he ended up giving Dr. Taylor a key to the base since he came to the base pretty often.

Anand's drone

We all left the hanger to go outside and fly the drones. I helped Shreyas and Anand for a bit and they asked me some questions about where I go to school and how long I have been in the lab. They also very kindly offered to help me with my work, since they probably figured that my task would be pretty challenging for a high schooler to attempt on her own. Anand was having some issues with the drone, so they told me it might be more interesting to see the other drones, which were being flown by FPV (First Person View). So, I went back to the cars, where everyone else was and I started watching the others work. Dr. Taylor explained what exactly they were testing, while teasing his grad students for their sub-par quality job on one of the drones (PSA- hot glue on metal in the heat WILL NOT last, as the grad students learned the hard way). Some of the other guys (Bernd, James and Yash) were flying their FPV drones. Dr. Taylor let me use one of the goggles so I could experience FPV for myself. This was by FAR one of the coolest experiences ever. Bernd was flying his drone and when I put the goggles on, it was like I was the drone. I could see the entire base and it was amazing. Yash was yelling at Bernd to do a flip so I could experience it, but Bernd isn’t as experienced a flyer as Yash is. Once the drone landed and I took the goggles off, Dr. Taylor laughed at my amazed expression. I had never experienced anything like what I just saw.

As I met more of the people, I grew to like them and be more comfortable around them (might I add- out of the 12 total people there, I was the only girl). James, Bernd, Yash and Sai are probably the funniest out of the group . There was absolutely no power at the base, which also meant no water. Throughout the day, James frequently said “hey, you know what we should do? We should get a cup of water.” When the other drone sort of came apart (thanks to the hot glue), James remarked that we should go to a nearby store and get some more glue… and a cup of water. Bernd was plotting how get the base to have power without needing an electric company to turn the power back on. He roughly estimated how much power it would take to power all the lightbulbs in the hanger and proposed to bring a generator that could generate that much power. Yash, however, thought the idea would never work and that they would need a huge truck to carry the generator of a size that they could use. I must admit that trying to put this conversation into words is not doing it justice- this was by far one of the funniest exchanges I have ever witnessed.

Creepy Hallway
(looks like it's from a horror movie, right??)

Dr. Taylor and the rest of the guys wanted to check out the upper level of the hanger because that is where they would be testing some other software in the winter. Of course, I came along because this was my chance to check ‘exploring an abandoned place’ off my bucket list. We entered the hanger and carefully went up a flight of stairs to check out the hallway above. This was INSANELY cool, though I must admit it kind of looked like a hallway in a high school in one of those horror movies (do you know what I mean? Where zombies attack the school or there’s a malicious poltergeist after people or something? No? Well that’s what it looked like anyways). We entered some rooms with better lighting and continued down the hall until we got to the end. There was a crane, which apparently meant there used to be an elevator shaft. There was a set of white doors at the very end of the hallway, and Dr. Taylor opened them to reveal… a drop to the first floor outside of the base. One more step and it would’ve been “hello, concrete” right on our faces. We decided to turn back before one of us accidentally used that door to leave. James, still fantasizing over having a nice cup of water, swore he felt water dropping on his leg. We laughed and continued to make our way back down the corridor as Bernd continued to plot about his generator. What a group of guys.

The base pt 2

The base

We made our way back outside and continued on with some drone testing. Watching Yash fly his drone is really quite entertaining because he flies so fast and does a bunch of flips and tricks in the air. While we were waiting for another group to test their drone, Yash started conversation with me. “So, are you working on your Master’s degree with CJ?” Yep, same question… again. I explained I was in high school and got yet another look of shock. He explained some things to me and continued talking until the other group was ready to fly their drone. They did a few successful runs and then we had to wait for the data that the drone collected to be transferred to the computer. In the meantime, we all talked and joked and laughed. At this point, it was about 2:30, so we decided to figure out what we wanted to do to finish the day. James wanted to try and get his drone flying up to 20 m/s, and we decided to try to do that indoors because it was pretty windy out. Unfortunately, the fastest we could get without the risk of breaking the drone was 10 m/s, but it was still pretty fast. Then we planned to fly until one of the drones crashed (or almost crashed). That was probably the most fun part of the day. We did get the drone to 20 m/s, but it was VERY unstable and looked as if it was going to crash. Sai, who was on the computer watching over the drone, said one of the funniest things I heard that day. As the drone was almost falling out of the sky, he yelled “still okay, don’t panic!” at which point we all fell to the floor with laughter. We deemed that phrase to be the last words of most, if not all experiments. Fortunately, the drone didn’t crash, and we decided to wrap it up for the day.

I got a slight sunburn and also a little dehydrated, but we all drove out to Wawa before going home to get some drinks. Dr. Taylor dropped me off near the lab and I walked home and collapsed on my bed from exhaustion. My sister took me to dinner and we chatted while eating amazing food (PSA- if you are looking for THE BEST gyro and fries, Greek Lady in Philadelphia is the place to go), stopped by the grocery store to get some ice cream for my sister and returned home. We chatted some more while she ate her ice cream and then we went to our rooms at about 7:30. I planned on reading or watching some Netflix, but my eyes were tired so I thought I would close them for just a moment… Well, just a moment was a little longer than I thought because at 9:30 my sister came in my room to tell me she was going to hang out with her friends. At this point I was going to wake up and do what I had previously planned, but I thought I would rest for just a minute longer. Just a minute longer also happened to be longer than I originally planned. My sister came back to my room at 12:30am to ask me if I was okay and advised that I turn off my lights and go to sleep. So my plans to read that evening did not go exactly as planned… Oh well. I got ready for bed and went back to sleep and woke up at 8:30. I know, I slept THAT much. It’s really not that shocking if you know me, though.

The next day, Mr. Sham visited my lab and I showed him where I work, what I do, and we met with my PI. Later, all of the EXPers in Philadelphia met up for a fun lunch at White Dog café, which is a cute little spot on Sansom Street, not too far from my lab. We all ate and talked and had a lot of fun!! After lunch we all returned to our labs, and I worked for a few more hours before walking to the train station to go home for the weekend.

Overall, my experience in the lab thus far has been amazing! I met more people, I got to do some really fun stuff, but I also dealt with frustrations. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard any more fights from outside my room (I know, I know, I'm sorry. I’ll keep an ear out for the next one) BUT there was a hip hop convention of sorts that I got to listen to so that was pretty interesting. Until next time!