Telematic music!

As mentioned in my previous post, I was invited by PhD student Ben Smith to participate in a telematic musical session between the NCSA and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. The idea of the session was to utilise a high-speed internet connection to enable musicians to collaborate in real-time using live audio and video.

The telematic musical session

The session was held in a purpose-built room at the NCSA, equipped with a HD camera, HD projector, microphones, lights, and the appropriate software/hardware. The musicians participating at the NCSA were: Drew (saxophone), Liliana (flute), Edgar (violin), Ben (violin), John (keyboard). RPI musicians included bass guitar, keyboard, voice, etc.

The session was divided into two sections. In the first, the musicians were invited up individually to improvise freely with a musician on the other end. The second section was similar, except that the musicians were instructed to gradually introduce a beat / pulse into their collaborative improvistion.

The reason that the session was structured in this way is that there are significant challenges associated with latency, amounting to approximately 1/16th of a second. It was immediately apparent that although this degree of latency is largely unnoticeable and generally considered acceptable when videoconferencing, it is significantly noticeable when collaborating rhythmically. As such, the first section allowed us to familiarise ourselves with collaborating with the other musicians through free improvisation over the remote connection. The second section was aimed at testing the ability for the musicians to improvise and introduce a beat, while dealing with the latency evident in the audio connection.

We found that it was very difficult (impossible) to play in perfect synchronisation because of the latency evident in the connection. The noticeable delay would cause each musician to feel the urge to speed up to compensate, which would in turn result in the other musician speeding up, creating a perpetual accelerando. As such, we had to deal with the latency in other ways; by creating syncopated or abstract rhythms, or for one musician to create the rhythm and the other to focus on melodic passages.

After the session, we discussed how we felt the session progressed. We all agreed that very minimal latency in the audio transmission was vital to enable the performance of music where all instruments maintain the same tempo and rhythm. Low latency was also important for the video, but we felt that this was less critical. The main reason for this is that the musicians (in this session) used the video primarily to 'feel' the presence of the remote musicians - it was not used as much specifically to follow or lead the song itself. I would assert however, that as the audio latency improves to the point where it is unnoticeable, low video latency will become increasingly important to the collaborators.

Ben has held a number of remote concerts to date, and they all consisted of abstract, improvised music. A suggestion I made was that it was important for the bulk of the audience to 'understand' the music that is being played - the music needs to appeal to the audience. Abstract and fully improvised music may not be as easily intelligible to the audience and I recommended that we should experiment with other styles / rhythmic combinations with more defined and familiar chordal progressions, performed at a tempo appropriate for the amount of latency on the connection.

I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the session and it inspired me to conduct a similar session between Monash and NCSA. I raised this with Ben and he shared my enthusiasm about the idea. I called David Abramson from Monash straight away to discuss the idea and he indicated that he would also be keen to help me organise it. I will be putting a proposal together during the course of this week to get the ball rolling.

Taken during telematic testing with Ben

Ben e-mailed me shortly after the session to say that he was very happy with the results and invited me to participate in some 'in house' telematic tests; this time between two rooms at the NCSA. The main aim was to check some more musical ideas in a less 'busy', more controlled setting. We conducted the session on Monday morning using violin/mandolin and violin/violin combinations, testing a variety of ideas including various combinations of chordal and rhythmic patterns in addition to melody and sound-effect type textures.

We started off with some rhythmic testing by clapping, then moved on to some gypsy jazz standards including Minor Swing and Honeysuckle Rose. We spent the remainder of the session improvising and experimenting with various rhythmic and melodic/harmonic combinations. The session was very successful overall and we will be catching up next week to conduct some more tests. Ben kindly offered use of one of his violins until I leave :)

As for my AR project, I have made some good progress over the last week. I arranged a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the progress of the project and Alan and Bob seemed happy with the work that I had done. They were happy with the layout/format of the website and we decided to proceed and move the site to a live server.

I also had a chance to show Alan and Bob some of the 3D models that I had found to consider porting to the AR platform. Bob took a liking to some of the models and has now started to port them across. I will update you later on the progress of this. During the meeting, we also agreed that it would be a good idea to carry out some research on the other AR platforms that are known to the market and provide a summary of each. I have partially completed this and will try to discuss it in more detail in a subsequent post.

On the way to the Fab Lab a couple of weeks ago, Bob showed me around the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, a large concert hall affiliated with the university College of Fine and Applied Arts. While I was there, I noticed that a tango group (8 dancers, piano, bass, guitar, bandoneon, violin) was scheduled to perform on Thursday. I bought a couple of tickets and thoroughly enjoyed the show. Although it wasn't the first tango show I had been to, it definitely carried additional meaning after having completed a Tango dance course.

The Chicago skyline from the bus

Friday also turned out to be a very nice evening. Firstly, I attended a musical/dance performance conducted by some people from the telematic musical session. The after-hours performance was held in the UIUC School of Music Library by The COLAB Ensemble, "a cooperative laboratory for collaborations between musicians, dancers and engineers". The performance was fairly abstract and avant-garde and the audience were invited to move throughout the dimly lit library to a number of scenes where the performance took place. The show was very unique and enjoyable overall.

I raced off to my friend's place after the show to help her prepare for a party in the evening. She had spent a great deal of time (two days!) preparing tamales for the party and I prepared some guacamole and and a salad (under her instruction). The night was very enjoyable - plenty of nice company, great food and dancing. I decided to spend the weekend in Chicago and I caught an early bus the following morning. I had been to Chicago a couple of times for salsa, but wanted to spend a couple of days to explore the city. 

"The Bean"

Chicago has an interesting vibe - quite distinctive from the other two cities comprising the US 'big three'. I spent most of the time walking around the city; talking to the locals and soaking up the atmosphere. A giant sculpture called Cloudgate (more commonly known as "The Bean") definitely left an impression on me. It is one of the main attractions of Millennium Park and was constructed using 168 stainless steel plates welded together and polished to give it the appearance of a giant blob of mercury. It is a great spot for amateur photographers to try out their skills and I was by no means an exception. I'll post some photos once I get my hands on a memory card reader. As for gastronomic highlights, you can't go past a Chicago deep dish pizza at Pizzeria Uno. It was a great weekend overall!

As for this week, I'm looking forward to attending TEDxUIUC on Saturday  during the day and then leaving once again for Chicago on Saturday evening to spend my last weekend in Illinois at the Chicago Salsa Congress!

Making progress!

Everything is coming along nicely with my project. I spent most of the last week working on the website for the AR group. Although I have built a couple of sites with the Joomla CMS in the past, I have never worked with Drupal, so I spent quite some time familiarising myself and working my way around the software. I was also given quite a large amount of content to consider for the website, and I have been looking through this information to identify what should be incorporated into the site. I have created a draft website hosted locally on my machine to present to Alan and Bob today to help us to discuss what we will be working towards.

In addition to the website, I have been researching other AR-related projects that are in progress around the globe. I thought that I might highlight some interesting ones here:

3D realtime photorealistic Augmented Reality by Neurosystems
A collection of high resolution non-animated and animated AR demos performed on high-powered machines.



eBay Fashion App
This is an example of AR used in practice. A built-in feature on the eBay mobile app allows you 'try' sunglasses on using AR technology. It is available on iPhone and Android for all devices with a front-facing camera.



New year greeting card
The next video is a new year greeting card created by prominent Japanese AR guru Saqoosha. The animation is unique as it utilizes a sinking ‘hole-in-the-wall’ effect where the marker appears to recede and form a hole below the marker. The animation was created using Flartoolkit.



Colours Magazine - markerless AR
This is an example of an magazine utilizing AR technology. Colors Magazine includes AR in some of their issues. The user is able to hold the two-page spread up to a webcam and the content on the page is replaced with a movie.



Times Square Billboard (Forever 21)

Another prominent example of AR in practice that I saw in action during my trip to New York. The ladies fashion company Forever 21 has created an AR billboard, situated in Times Square. A video of the street is shown (in real-time) and an overlay of a model appears over the image. There are two main functions:

1) the model takes ‘photographs’ of people on the street and shows the photograph on the screen.
2) the model appears to grab people from the street and put them in her handbag/under her hat/throw them away.




Augmented Reality Xray
An AR app providing a ‘window’ to allow the user to stand in front of a webcam and see 'their' bone structure.



WWF AR t-shirt
This is another example of AR in production. It is a rather gruesome app from WWF that uses a printed marker on a t-shirt, simulating the user getting shot and killed.



AR Soccer

A markerless AR mobile app for iPhone that allows you to kick a virtual soccer ball.



Total Immersion (D'Fusion)
A demo video with a collection of AR applications created by the prominent AR company Total Immersion using its patented D'Fusion AR technology platform.



Augmented Reality Cosmetic Mirror
This is another example of how AR is being used in practice. The cosmetics company Shiseido has created an AR app to allow ladies to try makeup on in AR. It has been installed into Takashimaya department store in Shinjuku.



As you will have gathered, there is currently a considerable amount of activity in the AR space. We will undoubtedly see increased interest over the next 5 years as the technology advances and commodifies. I feel that this is mainly reliant on a number of factors, including:

• Increased computing/processor power (especially on mobile devices)
• Availability of faster internet connection speeds (especially on mobile devices)
• Receptiveness of the technology within the community
• Standardisation of technology
• Standardisation of AR tags
• The ability to embed URLs into tags to allow AR models to be downloaded

I will be watching this space closely in years to come to see where everything is heading. For better or for worse, we will have a more AR-integrated world in the very near future!

Moving on - in my last post, I briefly mentioned the Fab Lab - A community-based project providing a small-scale workshop with an array of flexible computer controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make "almost anything". Bob kindly showed me around the Fab Lab last week. They have a variety of tools including a 3D printer, laser cutter, etcher, etc. These tools are controlled by computers and allow cutting, etching, etc with a very high degree of precision and are made available to members of the community. Alan and Bob are currently looking into how this technology may be used to help support remote communities in Alaska.

The view from the NCSA

On a separate note, I met with Guy Garnett a few weeks ago (when I didn't have a project). Guy is part of the UIUC music school, the IT department and the NCSA. His projects were particularly interesting to me as they involve the intersection of technology and music. I received an email from him yesterday to put me in touch with one of his PhD students, Ben Smith. Ben is also of a mixed IT/Music (Violin) background and will be conducting a telematic musical session on Thursday this week. I will be assisting him to set it up - I'm really looking forward to this and will write about it in a subsequent post.

Snowpocalypse!

On a more personal note, I decided against going to Chicago, but had an enjoyable weekend, despite some pretty crazy weather (people have been referring to it was the "Snowpocalypse"). I ended up digging 3 cars out of the snow, taking up to 45 minutes each time. I have definitely seen the other side of the novelty factor associated with snow!

As you may be aware, the Superbowl was on Sunday and I was invited to watch it with a big group of friends. It was interesting to me that most of them were more interested in the advertisements than the game itself! I have to say that american football does seem to be a sport heavily dominated by stoppages as opposed to actual gameplay. Anyway it was a great experience and we all had a fantastic time.

Afterwards, I met up with some other friends to cook lamb curry and naan (from scratch). It turned out very well (credit to my friend Shad for his effort with the curry) and we spent the rest of the night jamming on the various instruments he has at his place.

As for this week, I have my usual routine of salsa/tango, etc. I have started taking private salsa lessons from a friend, so I'm going to do two per week for the rest of my time here. I booked tickets for a tango show at the Krannert center on Thursday. I have been to a professional tango performance before, but I'm especially looking forward to this one since I have started taking tango lessons and hope to be inspired!

Superbowl Sunday

On Friday, I will be going to a house party with a group of my friends - they both lived in Mexico for about 5 years (one in the north, one in the south) and they are going to have a Tamales cook-off. I'll probably head off to Chicago on Saturday morning and spend the weekend there.

Anyway that's about enough for now. I can't believe I only have 13 more days at the NCSA! The time has gone very quickly indeed. I feel that I am really going to miss all the close friends I have made here.

A new beginning!

Shortly after I published my last post, I received some positive news regarding a new project!

As I mentioned previously, I dropped in to see Alan Craig, the Associate Director for Human-Computer Interaction here at NCSA. Alan had delivered an interesting seminar to Monash via the high-definition video link and I was keen to catch up and have a chat. It took some time, but Alan identified some areas where I can assist with his current projects, especially his augmented reality project.

We had a good conversation regarding the projects that he is currently undertaking and the work that he would like me to do. Working with him is a good fit as he has a huge amount of ongoing projects in a broad range of areas that are of interest to me. He is also very keen to show me some of the great things that are happening here at NCSA.

I will also be working with Robert (Bob) McGrath, who is part of the AR team. Some of the initial tasks that have been assigned to me are the following:

1. Build a website for AR project

Create a new Drupal-based website to replace the current AR project website. 

2. Update the list of current AR related projects around the world, especially those on mobile devices.

I will upload a post later on detailing some of the exciting ways that AR is being utilized.

3. Search for 3D graphical models to convert to AR format.

Possible other areas that I will be involved with are as follows:

4. Work with / learn about the Fab Lab (fabrication laboratory)

A community-based project providing a small-scale workshop with an array of flexible computer controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make "almost anything".

5. Work with / learn about the Documenting Endangered Languages project

A project dedicated to the use of social media to develop new ways to facilitate the documentation of a variety of native american languages that are in danger of becoming extinct.

6. Work with / learn about other data mining / web mining projects

I'll include more detail in subsequent posts, including my trip last night to the Fab Lab.

Other than that, I have been keeping myself busy as usual. On Tuesday evening, I saw the documentary Waiting for Superman with a friend from the global health reading group. The film was highly emotive, and discussed the current (bleak) state of the education system in the US. It was definitely an eye-opener and a fair few people in the audience were sobbing at the end of the movie.

I mentioned in a previous post that I had arrange to go to a friend's house to make crème brûlées on Wednesday night - and they turned out very well! I have included a photo of one of the delicious desserts (my favourite!). It was a great night. On the weekend, I went over to another friend's house on Saturday night for a pot luck party and then raced off to Chicago with some friends to go salsa dancing for the night. It was a fairly long drive, but definitely worth it. I'm toying with the idea of going back to Chicago this weekend to do some sightseeing.

Anyway that's it for now - I'll publish another post shortly with an update!

A change of direction

It has been a while since my last post so this entry has turned out to be a fairly length one!

Firstly, I have some updates about my project. Unfortunately, things have not turned out quite as planned and it looks like I will not be able to work on the child obesity project that I came here for. The main reason for this is that the project was relocated to the National University Community Research Institute (NUCRI) in California last year, and I am not able to access any of the infrastructure in order to conduct the work I had planned.

To make good use of my time, the current idea is that I will commence work on my honours thesis. My project hasn't been scoped as yet, but I will try to do as much background work as possible. After a conversation with my supervisor, it was decided that I start investigating Value Sensitive Design and Design Science as a research method.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been spending a fair amount of time investigating obesity trends, the various ways BMI is measured, and other related issues surrounding obesity. I will present some of my findings here.

I compiled the following graph from data from the World Health Organization (WHO) website. It presents the alarming extent of the 'obesity epidemic' in both the United States and Australia.

The data is sorted according to the following variables:

Age group:	15-100; 30-100
BMI group:	25+ (considered to be overweight); 30+ (considered to be obese)
Sex:	Male; female
Country:	Australia, United States

Diagram 1: A comparison of overweight and obesity in relation to age, BMI group, sex and country.

As can be seen from the data, the proportion of the people who are (at a minimum) considered overweight represent a significant amount (>65%) of the population in both countries. At the upper end of the scale, males aged over 30 in the US and Australia who are considered overweight amount to over 80% of the population. It can also be noted that overweight / obesity is:

• Higher for males than females across all categories
• Higher in the 30-100 age group than the 15-100 age group across all categories.
• Higher in the US compared to Australia across all categories

The largest disparity between countries was seen in the BMI 30+ category (obese). It is evident that the proportion of the population who are obese is significantly higher in the US as compared to Australia (amounting to an extra 15%-19%).

To illustrate that the epidemic is not confined to Australia and the United States, I have included a diagram below to provide a graphical representation of the prevalence of males aged 15+ who have a BMI over 25 (e.g. are considered to be overweight). The data shows that it is clearly a global epidemic affecting over 50% of the population in most parts of North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East and Oceania.

Diagram 2: Estimated overweight and obesity (BMI >25) prevalence, males, aged 15+

The visual online tool used to create the image above can be located at the following address:

https://apps.who.int/infobase/Comparisons.aspx

It should also be noted that the standard interpretation of BMI has been identified to be less suitable for some East Asian ethnic groups. In response, BMI categories/indicators have been redefined in some countries to incorporate lower thresholds. For example, the standard definition of overweight (BMI 25+) has been redefined to BMI 23+ in both Singapore and Japan. This is shown in the following tables:

Diagram 3: A comparison of various BMI interpretation methods

As such, an overweight East Asian (according to the redefined BMI levels) may record a ‘normal’ BMI as per the standard BMI scale. If the global BMI levels relating to the populations in East Asia (represented in diagram 2) are reinterpreted according to the ethnicity considerations noted in the table above, it is likely that a larger proportion of the countries in Asia would show heightened overweight/obesity levels. It is therefore important that other factors including ethnicity are considered when interpreting BMI data.

The methods employed to measure child BMI should also be scrutinised. The current standard to measure child BMI is as follows:

"Overweight is defined as at or above the 95th percentile of body mass index (BMI; calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters) for age. At risk for overweight is defined as at or above the 85th percentile, but less than the 95th percentile of BMI for age”. (JAMA, October 9, 2002—Vol 288, No. 14; Prevalence and Trends in Overweight Among US Children and Adolescents, 1999-2000; Cynthia L. Ogden, PhD; Katherine M. Flegal, PhD; Margaret D. Carroll, MS; Clifford L. Johnson, MSPH)

There has been some criticism as to the effectiveness of this method of measuring child BMI as it has been claimed that numerous factors including ethnicity, maturation, diet and physical activity, in addition to gender and age need to be considered to produce a meaningful result. For example, it is asserted that "African-American children have more bone and muscle mass and less body fat than their European-American counterparts" and therefore the results according to the current measures of child obesity may not lead to an appropriate indication. There is a risk that these factors could emerge as a criticism for studies and should therefore be taken into careful consideration during the experimental design process.

In addition to investigating various factors related to obesity, I have met a few people in the last couple of weeks, including Guy Garnett. Guy serves at the University of Illinois as Associate Professor of Music, Director of the Cultural Computing Program, and Associate Director for Research of eDream (Illinios Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media Institute). It was interesting to hear about his research as it primarily involves the intersection of music (and other forms of the arts) and IT. One of the many projects he is involve in relates to the use of music as a control mechanism for a computer visualisation. Hopefully I get to see a live example of this before I return to Australia!

Last night, I participated in a global health reading and discussion group. The attendees had diverse backgrounds ranging from  medicine to biomedical engineering to sociology. Most of them are currently undertaking their PhD and had lived abroad in various locations (Ethiopia/Vietnam). As a result, the discussion was well-balanced and we were able to approach the discussion from various angles and viewpoints.

The book we discussed was Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen, a prominent economist and philosopher. The discussion covered many topics including the role of freedoms in society, the influence and impact that some freedoms have on others, how Sen's ideas could be actualised, the necessity for revolution to create social change, management and mismanagement of NGOs, among other themes. Probably the most prominent criticism of the book that emerged was the theoretical nature of the content - some asserted that it was non-practical and idealistic. I agree that the book is theoretical and proposes an ideal, but that the book was specifically intended to be as such. It was not written as a blueprint to enact social change, but more as a framework to work towards.

Ice hockey game in Washington

On an entirely different note, I decided to make good use of a long weekend a couple of weeks ago and travel to Washington D.C. for a few days. I had a great time visiting the various national buildings and monuments, the amazing museums and sampling the local food, not to mention the night life: jazz clubs, salsa clubs, bars, etc.

On the way back, my connecting flight from Philadelphia to Chicago ended up being cancelled due to the snow in Chicago and by the time I arrived at O'Hare airport, I had already missed my train back to Champaign and had to spend the night in Chicago. After arriving at the hotel, I found a salsa event to attend and ended up having a great night, meeting plenty of people.

Baking with Shad (Wolfram Research)
and Judy (Psychology PhD student)

Back in Champaign, I have been spending most of my free time hanging out with friends enjoying a variety of activities including cooking, playing music, watching movies, not to mention plenty of salsa. I am looking forward to doing my first tango lesson tonight!

As for this week, I will be attending my weekly salsa events as per normal. On Wednesday however, I will be joining a friend from the Global Health group to see an acclaimed documentary on the education system in america: Waiting for Superman - and on Thursday, I have planned to meet some friends to make my favourite dessert: Crème brûlées. I will post some photos at a later date.

Mushroom risotto and vanilla chicken

On another note, My application to attend TEDxUIUC was accepted and I will be attending on February 19th! The (partial) speaker list includes the following. It's sure to be a great day!

• Christoph Adami
• Timothy Bretl
• William Gropp
• Art Kramer
• Sherban Lupu
• Deana McDonagh
• Jeffrey Moore
• Antonino Musumeci
• Barry Pittendrigh
• Gabriel Popescu
• Alexander Scheeline
• Mark SubbaRao
• Deke Weaver
• Don Wuebbles

One final note - I found a decent cafe to go to in downtown Champaign - with free internet! I do miss my coffee of choice (Long Black) but have found a way to order coffee so that I achieve a similar result: triple espresso with a small amount of water. I tried the American version (called an Americano) although it wasn't exactly what I was after.

Fighting Illini

One thing that has really jumped out at me since I arrived in Champaign is the scale of the infrastructure that the university is able to operate and maintain. The campus occupies almost 6 square kilometers and has a football stadium, ice skating rink, gymnasium complex, etc - the list goes on.

 

On Thursday evening, I attended a basketball match between the University of Illinois and Northwestern University at Assembly Hall, a stadium located in the southern part of the campus. The stadium is really impressive - it was built 50 years ago at a cost of $8.35 million (comparitively $80 million today) and seats between 16-17000, depending on the event.

Another thing that was evident was the level of 'patriotism' shown towards the team. 'Fighting Illini' is the common nickname that is used to refer to the university, in particular the sporting teams (I found out the Illini is pronounced Ill-eye-nai, not Illini!) and you can find signage all around town, spurring the teams on. The turnout was very impressive for a mid-week game - the stadium was at close to full capacity, with most people donning the conspicuous orange Illini colours for the game.

The night also had a full marching band playing 'pomp and circumstance' style music, a cheerleading squad, an aerobatics squad, not to mention that it was also broadcast on TV. Everyone was happy that Fighting Illini won 88-63.

Well, for now anyway!

As the stadium is more or less within walking distance from my place (about 1.5 kilometers), I walked home after the game. It started snowing shortly after I arrived back home, and I woke up the next morning to a 1cm cover. It was chilly when I left the apartment in the morning, but I felt better prepared after picking up some thermal gear from Walmart.

I ended up deciding against spending the weekend in Chicago and had a really great weekend in Champaign. I was invited to a house party on Friday evening with some friends I had met through Salsa on Wednesday. We had a great evening, and ended up spending most of the following day together, ice skating during the day and going to salsa in the evening. I spent most of Sunday resting from the previous two nights, and a friend picked me up in the evening to collect some groceries.

The Illini student union

It is now Monday morning, and Jacky is arriving tonight. He won't be arriving until 1:30am, so I am planning to spend the evening cooking with some friends, before heading off to downtown Champaign to collect him from Illinois terminal. I'm looking forward to him arriving and having some company around the apartment.

As far as my project goes, I haven't seen my supervisor since Tuesday last week so things haven't really progressed. Hopefully we can get everything started this week. Things are still fairly quiet at the NCSA, although everyone should be back by Monday the 17th.

As for the rest of the week, I was asked by one of my friends to participate in an experiment she is conducting at the famous Beckman Institute. She is currently doing a PhD in Psychology and the experiment is MRI Investigations of Perception, Memory, and Language. I have never used an MRI before, so it should be an experience. I have to say that I'm not particularly looking forward to being confined in a small space for two hours. I'll post an update with the details later this week!

Meeting plenty of interesting people!

Now that I've been here for a few days, I now feel fairly settled in Champaign - I'm getting to know my way around and quite a few of the locals as well. There is quite an interesting mix of people in the town. I have found everyone to be very friendly, intelligent and generally interesting to talk to - not necessarily what you may expect from 'small town America' but I guess Champaign is fundamentally different because the university  more or less is the town.

The town will be quiet for approx
another week

As mentioned in my previous post, I spent Monday and Tuesday getting oriented into Champaign and NCSA. As my supervisor (Radha) has been away sick for the last couple of days, the 'wheels' on my project haven't started moving as yet. I am a little confused as to what I will be doing as it has been indicated that I may be working on a project based in India relating to a mobile health clinic for the underprivileged, but this should (hopefully) be sorted soon.

Until I get a clearer understanding of what I will be doing, I have taken some time to investigate some of the projects that are in progress at NCSA and meet some of the people here. I met Thom Dunning, the director of the NCSA yesterday, who was very friendly and welcoming. Today, I dropped in to see Alan Craig, the Associate Director of HCI at NCSA, who I knew from a Monash MeSsAGE Lab seminar he delivered remotely from NCSA on the topic of Augmented Reality. I was really excited to attend this seminar as I can see great potential in the technology and feel that it will play a significant part in our lives in the not-too-distant future (not to mention that it's also really cool!).

The view from the building

In addition to the projects he is involved with, Alan told me about some of the projects that others are working on at NCSA and promised to put me in touch with a few more people. Some interesting projects include the use of stimulus from the brain to control and design product packaging, and other projects relate to information retrieval from music.

In the seminar he delivered, Alan mentioned the CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) that he was working on. This project is now under the umbrella of the Beckman Institute and is housed in south Champaign. Unfortunately, the infrastructure has been modified since Alan was in charge of the program and his software no longer works. Nevertheless, he is going to try to twist the arm of the new people who are responsible for the CAVE to give me a demo of what they are working on.

On a completely separate note, I went salsa dancing last night and met heaps of interesting people. I had a really great time and didn't end up leaving until fairly late. The last bus to my place departs before 11pm and one of my newfound friends gave me a lift home. I met Francisco, who is doing a PhD in Biophysics (Drug Discovery for Infectious Diseases) and he invited me to participate in a reading group with a some people from the Global Health Group, part of the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. The book we will be discussing is Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen. Should be interesting!

The Assembly Hall - where the
basketball game will be held tonight

I will also be going to my first basketball game tonight, held at the assembly hall (see photo). The game is between UIUC and Northwestern, and I'm told that it should be a good one. I'm looking forward to it! I also had a chat to a couple of people who run the UIUC Ice Skating center and will be doing some ice skating lessons for a bit of fun. As for this weekend, I'm deciding whether to visit Chicago before everything livens up around campus and will keep you posted with my endevours!

Arrival in Illinois - getting settled in

Welcome to my NCSA blog! I will be using this space primarily to write about my project in Illinois over the next couple of months, but also my experiences while living in Champaign-Urbana.

My home for the next two months

I arrived in Champaign, Illinois a couple of days ago after an incredible week in New York and have now somewhat settled into my home for the next couple of months. My local supervisor, Radha met me at the bus terminal when I arrived and has been very hospitable indeed. We went for a quick drive around the town before dropping my luggage off at the apartment and then went to Walmart to collect some necessary essentials. Walmart certainly epitomises the 'grand scale' of life in the states.

Champaign-Urbana is certainly distinctly contrasting to chaotic New York - the town is (currently) fairly quiet and somewhat spaced out. The roads are wide, most restaurants are situated on a single block, and it certainly has a 'small town US' feel to it. I definitely consider myself to be a 'city slicker' but think that a couple of months in a quieter place will probably do me some good.

The surrounding area

The town itself seems to be well organised and orderly -  I am told that public transport always runs on time, which is great to hear as waiting extended periods for a bus in sub-zero temperatures doesn't really appeal to me! The locals are also very friendly and helpful.

My apartment is situated south of Urbana, about 4 1/2 kilometers south of the town centre. There isn't really anything within walking distance, but there is a bus stop fairly close by that goes to town. My neighbour is a medical student who coincidentally arrived on the same day and will be staying for 2 months doing medical rounds.

I spent most of my first day at NCSA organising the necessities for my stay, before the project kicks into full swing later on this week. The majority of the NCSA staff are still on leave, and should be returning over the next week or so. Radha took me out to a Mexican restaurant for lunch and I decided to have a quick walk around town afterwards. As the school year has yet to start, the town is also still fairly quiet - I am told that everything will start buzzing by the 19th of January when the students return from their break.

Yummy burger

I decided to take a walk to downtown Champaign on Monday evening, ended up at one of the local bars and met some interesting people. Afterwards, I went to a burger restaurant for dinner (recommended by the locals) and had a pretty good burger (although I don't think I could make a habit of eating this kind of food every day!). There are some salsa dancing events on Wednesday and Saturday evening and I am looking forward to meeting some more people!

I decided to decline Radha's kind offer to pick me up on Tuesday morning, as I thought that I should start getting used to the public transport system. I have to say that the icy temperature really hit me; minus 5 degrees and windy, brrrrrr. In future I will make sure that I leave the house with just enough time to catch the bus to avoid waiting around in the cold!