Journal
October 1, 2004
I finally remembered that I needed to put my personal thoughts on the web as well as my research, so here you are: my journal. Here you will find my thoughts on my research and the project in general.
We are still mainly concentrating on the gathering information stage of the project. I was so happy-I went to the library today and finally started to understand the shelving system. I worked in the public library back home, so the Dewey Decimal System is second nature to me. I went into a library here and went into culture shock. But I'm figuring it out.
The library coughed up a few interesting titles for me today, and I plan to delve into them this weekend. My goal is to learn what marine species live in the waters and to look for environmental sensors that might potentially work in our solution.
Until the next update!
October 14, 2004
We are still working on finding information about our islands. I have a lot more knowledge than what I started with, but now the trick is to turn this knowledge into a solution. I realized that I needed to think outside of the box. Instead of focusing solely on the Galapagos, I want to look at fragile ecosystems around the world and see how they are being monitored and preserved. That's the direction I want to go now.
Until the next update!
October 23, 2004
In team meetings we have shifted focus from researching to looking at solving the problem. Our team decided to split into three smaller teams, each sub-team focusing on one of the three goals. I think this will work well. Harrison, Sean, and I are working on the biological sensors, and duriong brainstorming, we came up with a few ideas and many questions. That's why I am in Lindgren Library right now-I want to find some of the answers to our questions. Particularly, I want to know if there are any particular species that are easily monitored that will show by their behavior that an entire system is out of whack. If we can answer that question, we are on our way to designing a sensor system.
Until the next update!
October 29, 2004
Team websites due in 3 days! But I think our group is actually in good shape. I just E-mailed my bit to the team in a nice paragraph form.
I was really excited to receive Marie Levine's E-mail. She's one of our special advisors and from her message I got some good info about animal tagging. I want to look into that more this weekend, as well as continuing my hunt for indicator species.
It seems like our section will start looking more into working together as well, so things are looking up.
Until the next update!
November 8, 2004
Today was our first meeting after we decided as a section to reorganize the class. I was in the biosensor group. It's going to be a bit of an uphill battle to finish before presentation time. We have some good ideas for the technology, but we need to figure out what precisely we wish to monitor. It looks like I will be working in the marine sub-group, so that is definately a priority for us. So, for now I intend to keep looking for indicator species (I've already come up with a few) that will hopefully be a key to the "what to monitor" issue.
Until the next update!
November 13, 2004
Today a few of the people working on the sensor system met in the library. It was a good session- we determined our baseline and are working on mapping out what we want to sense. With some prompting from Mariela (a UTF), we also started to think less about picky details and more about general framework. The "what to monitor" issue is definately on its way to being resolved-we're thinking that more abiotic sensors will benefit us more and that we really only need to directly monitor endangered and keystone species. I'm currently working on researching keystone species-coral in particular. I'd better get back to that now.
Until the next update!
November 21, 2004
I have been in the Terrascope room for 29 hours. I have been working on Mission for 24 of those hours. Our plan is set. I need to go back to my dorm now and get a shower. I can't look at this stuff any more.
But our plan is finalized.
Until the next update!
MIT