Entry #5 My Main Contribution

Dates: 6/28/11 - 6/30/11
Activities: Facet Demo, Roundabout Inventory, Lit Review, Survey
Technical Information: Microphone Headset, Google Earth, MS Word, MS Excel
Reflection: On Tuesday (6/28), I attended a Go-To Meeting, which is a virtual meeting available over the internet. To communicate with the other attendees, one can use a microphone headset or call in from a phone. The presenters had control of the computer screen and showed their power point presentation over the internet. The meeting was between ITRE and another company called Facet. ITRE was interested on how Facet conducts retroreflectivity readings on highway signs.

These past few days I have also been working with one of my other supervisors, Bastian, on a roundabout inventory. Using Google Earth, my job is to look at all the roundabouts across the country and record their various attributes in an excel spreadsheet. These attributes include number of approaches, number of lanes, and how far away pedestrian crossings are from the roundabout. It's pretty neat to be able to virtually travel the country!

I've also been working hard on both the literature review and survey for the HDS (3D laser scanning) project. I sent out a state-wide survey to transportation departments the past week, and I've started to get responses. To organize this information, I've used an excel spreadsheet to record contact information and how these transportation departments use this new technology. I will later send follow-up questions to those states who do use LiDAR.

I believe my main contribution to ITRE is kicking off new projects. For example, the HDS project's kickoff meeting isn't until August, but my responsibility is to read other state's research reports on how they use LiDAR to give my supervisors a head-start on the project. I also do a lot of work that may be tedious but necessary. For example, there are probably over 500 roundabouts across the country that I have to inventory, which may seem like a lot, but this database may help ITRE get more projects in the long run.