June 30, 2016

Today's messages are brought to you by the letter: P
Guest Appearances from: Justin Keister and Caleb Gibson

Today Caleb and Dr. Stonedahl showed Caleb Gibson what we have been working on so far this Summer, and we also took more data from the two Permeameters. In between our first and second run of the peremeameters the Humboldt one stopped running, so we were not able get any more data from it today, and we also noticed that there was air between the sand and the permeable plate in the permeameter, so we want to make sure that doesn't happen again.

We also went to lunch and met with the other groups in the SRI and we all presented our weekly updates to each other.

For the program we have worked on trying to find a better method for the blue detection, and still haven't made much progress on improving it. We think that we will try using separate methods for the dark sand and the lighter sand, to see if that will allow us to get more accurate results from the darker sand.

For tomorrow:
Run both permeameters.
    Hopefully we will be able to get all the measurements.
Work on program.

June 29, 2016

Today's messages are brought to you by the letter: l
Guest Appearances by: Justin Keister

Today Caleb and Dr. Stonedahl took measurements from the Nicole permeameter and the Humboldt permeameter, and the values stayed pretty consistent. Even after we changed the level that the Humboldt permeameter was sitting at, it didn't have an effect on the values after we changed it back.

 

Caleb also began working on a program to test how well the blue detection in the timelapse pictures is working. First he had to go through a set of timelapse pictures and mark where they are blue, so that we could see if the blue detection is detecting the same spots in the original timelapse pictures are blue.

Differences in the initial and current timelapse pictures

For Tomorrow:
Run both permeameters.
Continue drying sand.
Finish blue comparison program.
Caleb can start working on poster and presentation.

June 28, 2016

Today's messages are brought to you by the letter: h
Guest Appearances by: Ellen Witte, Dr. Forrest Stonedahl, Jason Vorwerk, Suzanne Wiese

Again, Nicole collected data on the Nicole permeameter and the new Humboldt permeameter. She taught Caleb the method so that he could gather data while she is gone. Nicole also created powerpoint graphics of the Humboldt permeameter to use for the presentation. Additionally, Dr. Stonedahl and Nicole discussed and planned the format of Nicole's final poster.

Humboldt Permeameter

Campus was having a crisis drill today while we were researching. Don't worry though Caleb, Nicole, and Dr. Stonedahl were not harmed. We did have to go under caution tape to get into Dr. Stonedahl's office. Because of the drill we could not get to our sand drying lab to check on our sand. 

Do not enter the chapel

Caleb worked on the program yet again with Dr. Forrest Stonedahl's help. Caleb also researched other methods of detecting the blue, but could not find any.

Nicole wondering if the wounded made it out alive

Crisis drill

Ellen and Dr. Stonedahl

To do:

Collect more permeameter data

Work on research poster

Figure out different levels on Humboldt

Figure out if we need to wait an hour with the Humboldt

Start other two image set

June 27, 2016

Today's messages are brought to you by the letter: a
Guest Appearances by: Justin Keister, Dr. Opar

Today Caleb has worked more on the program, mainly working on making the code look nicer and not as much of a mess, but also testing methods to see if we can improve the blue detection. He also compared the physical, simulation, and XOR'd bitmaps with images to see how well it is matching up, and there tends to be extra areas in the darker sand that are identified as blue, so we need to try and eliminate that from happening.

A figure of the percent match for each frame.

Nicole has worked on parts of the presentation with Dr. Stonedahl. We also got our replacement tube for the Ordered Permeameter and got it put together and set up in the hydrology lab. We also worked on drying the sand more.

New Permeameter Setup

To Do:
Run the old permeameter and the new permeameter.
Create data sheets for the new permeameter in excel.
Print out more data sheets.
Make sure Caleb knows how to run the permeameter.
Continue working on program.
E-mail Dr. Lillis.
Continue drying more sand.
Avoid the Crisis Drill.

Hopefully we won't get shot.

June 24, 2016

Today's messages are brought to you by the letter: d

Guest Appearances from: Justin Keister

Again Nicole collected data from the falling head permeameter and the Nicole permeameter. The Nicole permeameter cooperated a lot better today, so that was nice. Sadly, our falling head permeameter shattered our hearts today. When Dr. Stonedahl was cleaning it out the glass cylinder decided it was done with our research and broke into a lot of little pieces. Jokes on it though because we were still able to collect today's data. Dr. Stonedahl ended up finding two more glass cylinders to replace the fallen soldier. Nicole also calculated how much the Caleb permeameter cost and created more graphics for the presentation.

Gone but never forgotten

We finally received the Humboldt permeameter today. Funny story though... one of the tubes arrived broken. The permeameter gods were not with us today. Dr. Stonedahl sent a way kinder email than most would at this time to the company and they are shipping us a new tube. Hopefully we can figure out how to replace the tube when it arrives.

Today wasn't completely awful though. We finally started making progress on drying the sand. We are using heat lamps and the sun to dry out the sand. We will continue this process next week.

Drying the sand

Caleb fixed an error in his code. He also did more research on ways to compare the color values to determine if the cells are blue.

To do:

Figure out how to set up the fancy permeameter

Make more progress on the program

June 23, 2016

Today's messages are brought to you by the letter: e
Guest Appearances:

Today Caleb made more progress on the program, writing the code so that it will compare four windows centered on the midpoint between the center of the cell and each corner. He has also continued working on finding an improved method to detect the blue cells in the Physical model timelapse pictures.

Nicole continued to take more data from the falling head permeameter and the Nicole permeameter. We noticed that the Nicole permeameter's sand level was dropping a lot between data collection of heads A and B. Luckily, it was still above the head difference so we could continue collecting data today. Nicole also worked on the SRI official blog as well as the presentation.

At today's official SRI lunch we met the donor that makes all of this research possible. We again discussed the progress of our research.

Caleb refused to smile and HAD to have ice cream

After lunch we worked on ways to dry out the sand. We made a trip to Walmart and Menards to buy heat lamps and aluminum containers to help us dry out the sand. Fingers crossed that it works.

To do:
Pick up permeameter from post office
Continue drying out sand
Take more data points
Work on presentation
See Racing into Engineering race
Defeat the faculty in volleyball
Continue working on the method of determining if the cell is blue

June 22, 2016

Today's messages are brought to you by the letter: n
Guest Appearances from: Justin Keister

Today a lot of progress has been made with the program. It can now loop through specified frames of the physical and simulated models, and compare them to see if cells are matching in whether or not they are blue. The code to determine whether or not the physical cells are needs more work on it, so that we can be sure it is giving us the proper values on all the frames. After this step we want to make it so we are looking at four total points instead of just the center point.

We weren't able to take measurements with the Nicole Permeameter today because it wasn't running properly when we went to start it. We then took our falling head measurements. Then, we got help from Kinesiology (Suzanne Wiese), to let us in the exercise physiology lab to use the scales so we could weigh the permeameters. After we measured them, we calculated the volume each of the permeameters could hold, and then we were able to calculate the mass of the permeameters with sand inside. (The sand still has not dried.) Nicole, Dr. Stonedahl, and Justin Keister played the Hyporheic Game. Then we tried to figure out t-tests. Put stuff in MATLAB.

To do:
Write official blog entry (the rest of them have been fake, we're actually researching birds.)
Dry sand
Get program working
Bake Sand Cookies
Remove Herobrine