Speech:Spring 2015 Adam Cheney Log


 * Home
 * Semesters
 * Spring 2015
 * Proposal
 * Report
 * Information - General Project Information
 * Experiments - List of speech experiments

Week Ending February 3, 2015

 * Task:
 * Gather contact and project information from all other groups to begin hashing out the proposal.


 * Results:
 * Established a group leader to represent their respective group.
 * Gather their contact information and establish contact and expectations.
 * I will be responsible for creating the Modeling and Experiments components of the proposal. Trevor will be responsible for the Systems, Tools, and Data groups.
 * Trevor is responsible for communicating with his three groups while I'm responsible for communicating with my two. We expect these two groups to be more intensive, and therefore decided that would be the most fair way to most evenly divide the workload of all five groups.


 * Plan:
 * Continue to build the framework of our 2015 proposal. Study previous proposals and identify their strengths and weaknesses.
 * Establish timelines and expectations with each group to ensure clear communication and understanding.


 * Concerns:
 * Communication with the teams will at times be intermittent and therefore difficult. This always happens in group projects.
 * Getting the teams to submit the information we need to make the most clear, concise, and effective proposal.

Week Ending February 10, 2015

 * Task:
 * Each team should have submitted to me or Trevor a rough draft of their respective proposal before the start of last class. Some did not, some were inadequate, and some were very strong.
 * Begin building my two components of the proposal: Modeling and Experiments.

2/4: Began building Modeling and Experiments proposal with what very limited information I have received from these two groups.
 * Results:

2/7: Continued trying to contact the two groups I am responsible for. Information submitted by Experiments group was inadequate and I communicated to them that I need more, and suggested that they reference previous semesters if they need a guide to get their wheels rolling. I also pointed out what I felt was lacking in what they submitted. I still have not received any information from the Modeling group -- I contacted them again requesting that they submit it to me.

2/8: Spoke with both the Modeling and Experiments group today. I made it clear to the Experiments group that I need the rough draft of their proposal before the 13th because the proposal I'm drafting with Trevor for our entire class is due on the 14th. The Modeling group assured me I would receive their rough draft today. Once I receive it, I will continue running forward. Contact between my two groups and me has been strong. I'm confident we will meet our 2/14 deadline for the rough draft.

2/10: I received some information from the Modeling group and included that in the proposal draft. We need quite a bit more information from each of the groups. Some still haven't responded to us. Tonight I worked on our proposal, read what we received from the groups, and made some good progress. Our draft is due on the 14th, so we're running out of time. I think we're right on schedule though.


 * Plan:
 * Achieve better communication with my two groups. Encourage Experiments group to submit to me the information I need from them, as well as the Modeling group to stay on schedule.


 * Concerns:
 * Contacted the Experiments group on 2/4 about needing more information -- It is 2/7 and I still have not heard anything from them. I expect to receive the information I need soon.
 * Contacted the Modeling group on 2/7 about having not received any information from them.

Week Ending February 17, 2015

 * Task:


 * Finish gathering information from groups.
 * Complete the first draft of our proposal.


 * Results:

2/11: Followed-up with group leaders after class about our expectations of each other to ensure the first draft of our proposal is satisfactory. I sent my request for the finals pieces of information I need to complete our draft by Friday night.

2/13: Received information from the Experiments group and I updated our proposal. All we have left to do is to receive the Systems group's proposal and create an introduction to our whole proposal. First draft of proposal is due tonight.

2/15: Read logs and began laying out the introduction of our project.

2/16: Read logs. We need to begin drafting our abstract of our project...the macro level of what is and what will be taking place. We expect this to be the most demanding of our responsibilities.


 * Plan:


 * Maintain clear communication with group leaders. Ensure that each of our expectations are met.
 * Concerns:


 * Creating the introduction of our proposal is going to be tricky. This early in the semester, our project hasn't quite grown enough yet to be able to declare what it really is and what it will develop into.

Week Ending February 24, 2015

 * Task:


 * Receive updated timelines from groups.
 * Receive rest of information as well as necessary updates from each group. We got with each group last class to cover this.
 * Finish introduction section of our proposal.
 * Have the proposal finished by February 25th.


 * Results:

2/21: Still waiting to receive information from groups...haven't received anything yet because I asked for it to be submitted by Sunday night. In the meantime I have been working on the introduction of our proposal. This will be finished soon and I will request that Professor Jonas review it so that I can make necessary updates before February 25th.

2/22: I was expecting to receive each group's update timeline by tonight and that didn't happen...only one team submitted it on time. Trevor and I also get with each group about particular modifications that needed to be made, and we haven't heard much about that either. Although our proposal isn't due until Wednesday, I would like to be able to bounce it off Professor Jonas a few times before we submit it. This proposal is factored into each of our grades, not just Trevor's and mine. Progress was still made on the proposal today, but not nearly enough.

2/23: I received the rest of the information I needed from the Experiments group today. I added it to the proposal and I continued to work on the introduction. My goal is to have something for Professor Jonas to review by the end of the day today. I would like to have close communication with him during these last few days before the proposal is due. Things are looking good for us.

2/24: I continued working on the introduction today and tightening up some miscellaneous loose-ends throughout the proposal. Unfortunately, because proposals were submitted to us after the deadline that we set, we have hardly any time to bounce questions off of Professor Jonas and receive very much feedback from him about necessary adjustments. Our proposal is looking good, and it will be ready by 2:00pm tomorrow when it is due.


 * Plan:


 * Maintain clear communication with group leaders. Ensure that each of our expectations are met. Request that Professor Jonas review our proposal at least once in order to submit exactly what he wants on Wednesday February 25th.
 * Concerns:


 * The proposal is due on February 25th. That's 4 days from today. The pressure is on...what we are going to submit on Wednesday is going to impact everyone's grade.
 * Maintaining close communication during this final week before our proposal is due.

Week Ending March 3, 2015

 * Task:
 * I became a member of the Systems group this week now that I have finished the proposal. My first task is going to be to integrate with the team and settle into my position.
 * Finish getting up to speed with my group, our tasks and responsibilities, and most importantly the ones in which I am responsible for.


 * Results:

2/25: Our group met after class to work on installing RedHat Linux on the new (Brutus) server. I could not be present for this as I had another class to get to. Unfortunately, this is going to be a persistent problem and I need to figure out a way to overcome this. I got with my teammates briefly at the end of class to begin establishing a stronger sense of our objective. I also registered my group for the URC event.

2/28: I read logs and began gathering my notes from work and previous classes that I believe could aid our team in the migration onto our new server.

3/1: I continued to read historical material to establish a better understanding of my group's responsibility and our role in this project. I look forward to meeting with my group again to decide what they need from me and how I can get my hands to work.

3/2: Today I researched linux system migration. My group is meeting this afternoon but I need to stay late at work to install updates on a couple of our systems. I spoke with Chris Teehan and asked him to make our teammates aware of this. I expect I'll find some periods of time tonight while installing updates to continue researching our task at hand; I look forward to getting Caesar migrated onto Brutus this week. I also contacted my group members about information I need for them to edit our group's registration in the URC event.


 * Plan:
 * Read my teammates historical logs.
 * Read logs from previous semesters.
 * Study notes and material to get me up to speed as quickly as possible.
 * Maintain strong communication with my teammates.


 * Concerns:
 * Migrate Caesar to Brutus this week.
 * Integrating with my new team.

Week Ending March 10, 2015

 * Task:
 * Complete migration from Caesar to Brutus: Finish copying files from Caesar to Brutus, then verify (especially the permissions to make sure they transferred correctly).
 * Test functionality of scripts on Brutus and eventually run trains. Once trains have been run, compare them to what they were when they were run on Caesar.
 * Un-mount drone machines from Caesar and mount them to Brutus - verify NFS is fully functional.

3/4: Verify permissions to files on Brutus were accurately copied from Caesar. I did not verify every single file, instead I perused a batch of files to make sure they all carried over from Caesar. They did, and therefore I am confident the permissions for the rest of the files carried-over as well.
 * Results:

3/5: Did research on NFS mounts and how to connect drone machines to Brutus because this process is totally foreign to me.

3/7: Touched-base with my teamates. We are kind of at a stand-still because we are waiting to get back into the server room since we were unable to yesterday. In the meantime I am going to continue reading about NFS and connecting these drone machines. I would like this to be as seamless as possible when we finally get back together to tackle this, and hopefully finish it.

3/8: It looks like my team won't be 100% together again until Wednesday. There isn't much to do today other than read and prepare for our next meeting...this thing has been really holding us up. I verified more files today from the Caesar --> Brutus migration, things are looking good.


 * Plan:
 * Planned to meet Friday (3/6) to do the Caesar --> Brutus migration -- this never happened because we weren't all available until after the school closed.
 * Stay in contact with Professor Jonas and my teamates.
 * Finish verifying files that were transferred from Caesar to Brutus.


 * Concerns:

Week Ending March 24, 2015

 * Task:
 * Attempt to run my first train.

3/20: Apparently Caesar is down, so I read logs today and spent some time perusing the capstone archives.
 * Results:

3/21: Caesar is still down; my group hasn't identified the issue yet. Perhaps it's something to do with the campus move. Hopefully it will be up soon because it's created quite a disturbance for my classmates.

3/22: Spoke with my System group teammates today as well as my Bruins group. It looks like we will not have Caesar back before break is over so I will continue to read and get prepared for next week.

3/23: Did not get much done during spring break due to Caesar being unavailable. Hopefully I can makeup for the lost time during next week once classes are back in session.


 * Plan:
 * Try to maintain some level of communication with my teammates while we're all on spring break. Hopefully I can run a train this week.
 * Concerns:
 * Caesar being down has caused a burden for the whole class -- a lot of time has been lost this week due to this.

Week Ending March 31, 2015

 * Task:
 * Teach myself how to run a train.
 * Communicate with my group to produce what they need from me.

3/27: Began doing research today to learn how to successfully run a train.
 * Results:

3/28: Continued to read about how to run a train. Having written the proposal for the first part of the class, I feel quite overwhelmed by how far behind I am from the rest of the class. I'm just trying to keep making steady progress.

3/29: Attempted to run a train today without success. Spent a significant time on this and I'm beating myself up pretty bad over it. I'm going to try again tomorrow.

3/30: Continued to read more throughout the capstone archives. Reached out to my partner for assistance.


 * Plan:
 * Get with my partner or another teammate sometime soon to get me up to speed with the class.


 * Concerns:
 * Learning how to run a train.

Week Ending April 7, 2015

 * Task:
 * Run a 5 hour train
 * Run a 125 hour train

4/1: Started my first 5 hour train today with the help of my teammates.
 * Results:

4/2: Checked the results of my 5 hour train today. It ran successfully.

4/3: Intended to run 125 hour train today but it looks like something is broken and noone is able to. Will read logs tonight and continue to communicate with teammates.

4/4: 125 hour train is still unavailable. Will continue to communicate with teammates and provides whatever Systems assistance I can offer.


 * Plan:
 * Get with my partner or another teammate to help me run my first train. I expect I'll be able to teach myself how to do the rest after this.


 * Concerns:
 * Learning how to run a train and doing so successfully.

Week Ending April 14, 2015

 * Task:
 * Run a 125 hour train
 * Create URC poster for Systems group.

4/8: Began drafting our poster.
 * Results:

4/9: Attempted to start 125 hour train now that it is fixed. I was unable to do so. I will get with my teammates during our next class (4/15).

4/10: Read logs and made another attempt at running a 125 hour train. Continued working on our poster.

4/14: Finished URC poster due tomorrow (4/15). I will get with my teammates tomorrow about running a 125 hour train. Being in the proposal group is not a justification for my lack of understanding, I just wish I had known since week one that I was going to have to know all of this stuff...I certainly would have taken it much more seriously from the beginning as my classmates had, because I'm really treading water now.


 * Plan:
 * Reference my notes and my group's proposal to create the poster for the URC. I expect I will need to communicate with teammates to do this.
 * Access whatever documents and classmates I may need to answer the questions I still have about running a 125 hour train.


 * Concerns:
 * Getting all of the information I need to create a good and accurate presentation of what the Systems group did this semester.
 * Running a 125 hour train on my own...I still feel very naive.

Week Ending April 21, 2015

 * Task:
 * Run multiple 125 hour trains with different parameters.

4/18: Read logs and made another attempt at running a 125 hour train.
 * Results:

4/19:

4/20: Discussed with my partner what settings I should adjust on my 125 hour train. I expect to start it tomorrow.

4/21: Started my first 125 hour train today.


 * Plan:
 * Access whatever documents and classmates I may need to answer the questions I still have about running a 125 hour train.
 * Communicate with team leaders as to what settings they would like me to run.


 * Concerns:
 * Successfully running the historically problematic 125 hour train.

Week Ending April 28, 2015

 * Task:
 * Same as last week, my task is to run multiple 125 hour trains with different parameters. We are running out of time so I need to run as many as possible.

4/23: Started my 125 hour train.
 * Results:

4/24: Train is still running, so I read logs. I should probably start another experiment.

4/27: Train is finished. Need to decode now. Decode originally failed but after contacting Sam and Zach I was able to straight it out.

4/28: Decoded my first train today. Results are on our private page.


 * Plan:
 * Run trains this week.
 * Communicate with team leaders as to what settings they would like me to run.


 * Concerns:
 * Getting an awesome score on my trains.

Week Ending May 5, 2015

 * Task:
 * Same as the last two weeks, my task is to run multiple 125 hour trains with different parameters. This is our last week of class so I need to run and decode as many as possible.

4/29: Started a new decode of my last 125hr train. For obvious reasons I cannot include any further details about this.
 * Results:

4/30: Checked on my decode and it is still running. Will check again tomorrow.

5/1: My decode finished today, so I scored it...and I wish I could discuss what that score is but I don't want to make the other team cry...yet, so I will wait. I think I have time to run one more before next class, so I'm going to discuss with my teammates a plan of action.

5/2:


 * Plan:
 * Run trains this week.
 * Communicate with team leaders as to what settings they would like me to run.
 * Communicate with teammates about what information they need from me to build their reports.


 * Concerns:
 * Beating our prior scores!