I haven’t used GitHub before, so we shall see if if I can figure it out!

Creativity and Cognition

To start my blog I have been asked to write about my experience at the C&C (Creativity and Cogniton) 2024 Conference. First off, it was an awesome first experience at a conference and really helped me understand what I hope my future to look like! I am a co-author on the paper “Different and Boundary Pushing:” How Blind and Low Vision Youth Live Code Together.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3635636.3656200

It was such an amazing opportunity to be able to attend all of the events in person. I feel really lucky and supported to be able to do so through various sources helping to fund my trip. Thank you <3

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GwrcQItv1z-opxHQGvat0-WRwCzGg17_

(here’s the Google Drive that took so much more time an effort than I anticipated)

Attending a Workshop and Applying it to Summer Research

I was able to come to the conference a day early and attend the (W)E-waste: Creative Making with Rescued Computing Devices organized by Jasmine Lu and Ilan Mandel. It was held at UChicago’s Human Computer Integration Lab. That lab is so cool! It helped me understand how I might take apart the teenage engineering Pocket Operator Modular 400 Modular Synthesizer with Sequencer and change out some LEDs for Solenoids. In the workshop I was able to use an old x-box controler to dim and brighten an incandescent bulb that I salvaged from a string of old christmas lights. I used the left trigger (the potentiometer or variable resister) to dim the incandescent bulb. I first tried it with an LED but then realized LED’s can’t dim. I learned more about ground and power and how to use a multimeter. I don’t have much experience at all in electrical engineering, but I find it so cool and fascinating.

Reuse of Electronic Components

After my little x-box controller experiment I took apart an old iPhone 3 and found the little vibrator component. It was cool to see that it still worked eventhough the phone did not. Digression: We had little conversations at the workshop about how lots of components, the hardware, of electronic devices, last so much longer than the device itself as it is often the software that goes out first. That was something I did not know that I found absolutely fascinating. I tried to create a basic analog switch circuit to control the vibrator, but we ran out of time in the workshop.

I learned so much on the first day and made some amazing connections. It really calmed down my anxiety and imposter syndrome to get to meet a smaller group of people attending the conference before the overwhelm of the first official day of the conference.

Architecture Tour of Chiago River Walk

Something else I did on the Sunday before the conference was attend the optional architecture boat tour, and boy am I glad I did. Not only was the tour super intersting and the tourgide super knowledgable, but it was another nice and informal way to meet other authors that were attending the conference in a less scary and more beginner friendly way.

AI

Then I went to the conference which was so much more AI heavy than I anticipated. I sat through some talks and papers that weren’t really up my alley. On the second day, when it was the poster session, I was able to ask more questions and feel more involved because a couple of projects really peaked my interest. First, Cass Scheirer’s Project “touchBase: A Tangible Programming Language for Physical Computing” and Christopher Bannon’s Project “A Toolkit for Crafting Simple Sonic Interfaces in Education”. They both blended kindof simplistic tactile ways to understand complex CS ideas. That area of research is really interesting to me. I didn’t know I was that interested in education, but looking back at things I have been intersted in, accessible education has always been very important to me. I also really liked that both of those posters were also interactive demos. I think it helped me understand their research much much better.

Feynman’s Stylus

Finally, the keynote presentation from Rubaiat Habib Kazi which he titled “Feynman’s Stylus” was also sort of in the same research topic as the afore mentioned projects. The presentation was super intersting and engaging and I think it was my favourite part of the entire conference. The keynote presentation included handdrawn stagnant and animated drawings that explained the Feynman Equations. It was so witty and cool. I didn’t even know you could merge art and CS that way… let alone do a PhD and research in it. I think that is so cool!

Connections

After reflection, I realize that one of the most important parts of the conference was having the ability to connect with researchers in less high stakes contexts and situations. I found that getting informal lunch with people and sitting next to someone new on the bus was the most rewarding parts of the conference. If you are planning on attending your first conference go in with an open mind and just get to know people. It’s a lot less AhHHEHHAHHAHahhahH than I expected.

A running list of conferences I’d be interested in attending are:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YjfKxp40xmCuuUifxarSZJghdijvtQqb_juLl3oMiR8/edit