Peddie EXP 2017

If any of you had met my mother, then you know that her biggest fear is someone (more often than not, me) being hungry. Going home on the weekends is really nice because I get to spend time with my family and do a lot of fun things, and not to mention we have so many fruits and vegetables that we could probably open our own farmer’s market. Monday mornings, however, usually consist of my mother stuffing my bag to the brim with fruits and snacks and water, until the point where I have to tell her to stop because it won’t all fit. I am not complaining one bit, I actually find it quite funny, but I worry that she worries too much about me being hungry. I don’t know how to convince her that I am okay and that she doesn’t need to give me so much food, but if it makes her feel better to give me all this food, then I’ll let her. Original Histogram of the distribution of pixel intensities. My final weeks in EXP were probably the most exciting and stressful of them all. I had to finish...

After weeks and weeks of trying and failing, I finally hit the nail on the head. Yayy! I figured out how to display the number of pixels in the census transform. Overcome with excitement, I tested it out on a few more picture sets, and it worked without a problem. I showed Dr. Taylor and he was very pleased with my work (whew!). He then explained to me the next step in my task. It is very similar to what I have done, but it just applies the information differently. My task is to make a histogram that shows how many times an 8 bit pattern from a census transform occurs. Once the 3x3 pixel square undergoes a census transform, it become a binary, meaning it is solely zeros and ones. However, in a sequence of these zeroes and ones you can add them up to get one number ( i.e. 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 would equal 51. It sounds weird, right? How does that many zeroes and ones add up to 51?? Well binary is read from right to left, with the right most integer being 2 0 , then 2 1 , and so forth. You th...

This will probably be my shortest blogpost, but some interesting/entertaining things happened this week. Fourth of July weekend was great! Unfortunately on the third I had a doctor’s appointment. Just a usual checkup. One of my biggest fears is needles, so naturally when my doctor told me I would need two shots my heart started beating faster than it already was (PS- I feel like they shouldn’t measure my heart rate because it’s always so high since I am literally terrified to go to the doctor). However, my mother and my doctor had a word together and decided I should get a blood test. While we were waiting to get my shots my mom decided to tell me that I am also getting a blood test, at which point I had a complete and total panic attack. I started sobbing and shaking out of control and I’m pretty sure my heart was ready to burst out of my chest. My mom tried to calm me down but when the nurse called us in the office to get my blood drawn I started freaking out more. She had my lay do...

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....

My Lab Starting work was terrifying yet exhilarating. I moved in the Sunday before I started and my dad walked with me to my building where I was going to meet my professor. That evening, after I settled in, my sister took me to Baby Blues, which is an AMAZING barbecue place not too far from my (well, technically my sister’s) house. We sat and caught up on some things, as sisters do after not seeing each other for about a week. She calmed me down about starting work and told me that I shouldn’t be scared because it will be a great experience. Boy, was she right. Dr. Taylor's notes from his explanation of Census Transforms  and where I worked before I had access to the lab space                My meeting with my PI was at 10am in his office, so I woke up at 7:30, left my house at about 8:30, and I got to the building at 8:45. Thankfully, there is a Starbucks across the street so I just sat there for...