Author: Nathan Kassai, Email: kassan2@unlv.nevada.edu
Date Last Modified: 07/05/2024

This week, we got a chance to host a small event for interns called Wish Con! Basically, this is an annual event where we have all employees of the lab come in, and give a run down of what each member of our local team does, as well as their notable contributions. During this event, I was able to meet some of the remote interns; one of them was Ameit. Ameit has been working on android development alongside other employees, and has been doing a great job of it too! I am impressed with his work, especially with what he has done only in his first month!

I really wish our lab at RSL was always packed! Most people prefer to work from home since there are less restrictions on downloads and other devices that they work on can easily be connected to their network. While this does make sense, I feel like it is easier to get work done together when we are all in a single building rather than performing tasks remotely. At DASL, if I am working on a project with Baekseok for instance, I can just walk to his cubicle/other workstation and have a conversation with him while also showing him physically my progress. Makes me grateful that every at DASL prefers to work at the lab rather than remotely.

Sometimes, I get so caught up in the work that I do, that I forget to get to know the people that I work with. Every day, our lab grabs lunch together at a cafeteria on base, and it's a great moment to stop talking about work, and to actually get to know everyone. I am thankful that we have that time together, otherwise I'd get so caught up on getting work done, that the only thing I remember about the people I work with is their first name.

Now that Francis and I are pretty competent in ROS 2 and our respective areas, we are now starting to work together on our assigned main project. Right now, the goal is to have multiple point clouds get mapped together into a single large map cloud based on LiDAR sensors mounted on different moving platforms. Our task this week was to make sure that these clouds were properly aligned relative to our main coordinate frame; if they weren't, Francis' code would allow us to manually align the map relative to the main coordinate frame. Furthermore, I spent some time with a new sensor provided to me to work on as a side project.