Author: Ethan Nowery, Email: nowery@unlv.nevada.edu
Date Last Modified: 062024
===== Week 3 ===== ==== Photo of the Week ==== ==== New Person ==== This week, I did not meet anyone new. Instead, I hung out with the same interns I have been. We went to D.C. and the Smithsonian and also a BBQ Food Festival. ==== Cultural Insight ==== Much like DASL, there are many different projects going on at the same time. Some are brought to the foreground while some have to be sidelined for the sake of deadlines or what is more important. What that means to me is that there is always something to be working on, and the same goes for DASL. There is always a project to do, research to study, or the lab itself to improve. So, in that regard I don't get a lot of down time when I'm back home. Here at NIST, I am physically restricted to work during business hours due to my access card being shut off outside of those hours. Working virtually is also literally impossible unless I take a work computer to my hotel (which is not a good idea and probably involves some form of thievery). This loss of “24/7 access” has definitely been a change. I can't say one or the other is better, they both work for their respective environments. ==== Self Lesson ==== This week I have learned, or actually relearned, to enjoy life again. Not that this has anything to do with DASL, but more so Vegas in general I get stuck in the comfortability of just plugging away at life (work, school, lab, etc.) and forget to enjoy the little things. ==== Technical Projects ==== My project for the summer will be to evaluate the SPOT quadruped ground robot's traversal throughout difficult and rigorous terrain. We have set up and adapted courses here at the Robot Test Facility in order to accommodate a ground robot and to give it difficult tasks to do. I am told that some applications of these courses will include the Capital Police Bomb Squad and some other organizations in D.C.