PATHS-UP Young Scholars- Final Week- Ava Abraham

     The final week at the PATHS-UP Young Scholars is wrapping up and it is quite a bittersweet moment! I finished my digital health and safety watch and added three different components. I added a pulse oximeter, pedometer, and a GPS tracker. I believe all these components make a great starter watch as it tracks simple health levels and can also tell a person's location. It was nice to see all of these components come together to actually form a watch. While the process of creating the watch was tedious, it was worth it and I'm glad I was able to go through this experience and gain new skills!

    Throughout this process, we researched different components that could be added to a watch. After thoroughly researching, I came to the conclusion to include a pulse oximeter, pedometer, and GPS tracker. The whole research process was engaging as each individual was able to personalize their own watch by including the components they desired. Additionally, our mentors guided us throughout the process of researching TinyScreens, Arduino Boards, machine learning and more, so it was easy to determine our final solution. One weakness I experienced throughout the research process was trying to compile all the code from the different programs we utilized in previous weeks. However, with the help of my mentors, I was able to overcome this problem and successfully create one, large file of code that contained the pulse oximeter, pedometer, and GPS tracker. Overall, I was able to learn more about Arduino Boards, Micro Bits and TinyScreens. I was able to combine all the knowledge I learned from all of these different devices to create my final project which was the digital health and safety watch. 

    I plan to tell my fellow students about all the interesting projects I worked on including the temperature sensor project on the Arduino Board and the digital health and safety watch I designed. Also, I plan to tell my teachers about the different programming languages I learned, including C++ and Python, in hopes that we can learn more about these programming languages as well. I want to spread the word about the PATHS-UP Young Scholars program because it has definitely influenced me in a positive way. This program has taught me more about computer science and how to think outside of the box. Additionally, I was able to create a health watch that is similar to other famous watches, such as Apple Watch and FitBit, in the sense that it tracks vital health levels. Overall, the PATHS-UP Young Scholars has provided me with endless opportunities and ideas, and I want to spread the influence to those in my community and school.

    Using the concepts I learned in the summer, I plan to enhance my knowledge on programming languages, such as C++ and Python. After attending this internship, I realized how important programming is in the real world, so it would be amazing to know more in-depth knowledge. Additionally, I want to continue to work on my digital health and safety watch in order to make it more aesthetically pleasing. I want to add a background as well as a home screen, in order to make the watch more user friendly. Eventually, I want to be able to combine programming, engineering, and medicine to complete research. Overall, the PATHS-UP Young Scholars has been a great stepping stone for me to start my STEM journey and experience!

    I would like to give a special thanks to my mentors, Mr. Franklin, Dr. Young, and Ms.Kim. These three mentors encouraged us to think creatively and taught us many valuable lessons that I will forever remember. I also want to thank Mr. Antoine for setting this program up and enabling me to spend time at Rice University to discover more about digital health. Thank you PATHS-UP Young Scholars for everything you have provided me with this summer!

                                                                                      

The inside components of my watch which includes a pulse oximeter, GPS tracker, and pedometer

My completed digital health and safety watch

     

PATHS-UP Week #2- Kaitlyn Chen

PATHS-UP Final Week- Kaitlyn Chen

 PATHS-UP Final Conclusion

PATHS-Up End-of-Program Review - HT

 PATHS-UP End-of-Program Review

Reflection

The overall process of learning and researching for the TinyWatch and other engineering-related activities was super fun and engaging. I learned a lot of new things including PCB, I didn't even know how powerful it would be, I thought it would just be a normal component needed to make a computer. I also learned a new programming language, which is C++, even though it's still pretty similar to Java, there were some small differences. Another thing that I was surprised with was the college life of the Rice students as I didn't know that college would be that fun and engaging. The campus tour and the discussion with the two Rice students let me know that Rice is a really engaging and close community. And also the OEDK tour showed me that Rice offers a lot of opportunities to its student by letting them use the machines and materials all they want if they want to explore!! I also learned about machine learning which was pretty eye-opening.

Sharing is Caring

I will definitely use the knowledge I got from this program to share it with my peers at school or even teachers! I've been sharing my experiences throughout the program with my friends but other things that are worth sharing are probably how easy it is to make a PCB digitally and you can order it online from a manufacturer. I also think I can share with my friends who are taking computer science how similar C++ is to Java.

Future Plans

I think I will try to learn C++ more to further my knowledge about it. And try to implement the components that I didn't get to do in my TinyWatch, including the GPS and the Bluetooth.

PATHS-UP Young Scholars- 2nd Week Overview- Ava Abraham

     The 2nd week at the PATHS-UP Young Scholars program has just ended and it has been very fascinating! We completed several activities including creating schematics, adding GPS trackers, working with Arduino Boards, learning about Microbits and taking an amazing tour. 

    One of our mentors helped guide us into finishing our PCB and schematic design online. It was very nice to see the final product because we were able to view the PCB in a 3-D perspective. Another exciting project we worked on this week was the GPS tracking on our watches. GPS gets its information from satellites and we learned more about GPS as we were attaching the tracker to our watch. One difficulty we ran into was trying to find a good signal for the watch as Rice University has tall buildings and big trees. However, our mentors continued to encourage us, so we did not give up. Instead, we walked over to an open soccer field where there were no buildings or trees present. In just a few minutes, the watch was able to detect a signal and the coordinates of my location began to appear on the watch screen. Additionally, the watch could tell me which direction I was heading in which was an amusing bonus feature. Also, I continued to work with Arduino Boards by creating an unique project! I created a temperature sensor which I had a lot of fun with because I was able to utilize an LCD display. By placing an object near the temperature sensor, it is able to detect the object's temperature and the temperature is displayed on the LCD display in Celsius and Fahrenheit. One difficulty I faced was trying to see the text on the screen. However, I overcame the problem by turning the blue knob in the right direction on the Arduino Board which increased the brightness. Through this project, I learned more about programing and how every component must be in the right position in order for the whole project to function correctly. One new topic we learned this week was Microbits. We used block programming to create various games such as "Rock, Paper and Scissors" and "Red Light, Green Light!" It was interesting to see how quickly the code transferred from the computer to the tiny Microbit in a matter of seconds. Finally, we took a tour at the Cleanroom which was an eye-opening experience. In the Cleanroom tour, we learned more about nanofabrication and different machines that individuals use daily. It was also captivating to understand how clean the Cleanroom is compared to other places in the city of Houston. I enjoyed the tour because it opened my eyes to the field of research and the endless opportunities that Rice University provides. 

     Overall, I learned this week that programming a project is not going to be perfect in one try. However, with the help of my mentors and peers, they were able to assist me in finding mistakes and I fixed them accordingly. By working together, it was easy to go back and make necessary revisions in order for the program to work efficiently. 

    In the final week, I am looking forward to learning more about Arduino Boards and Microbits as well as learning new topics such as artificial intelligence. I am also excited to add the final touches to our digital watch and combine all the different components together!

GPS Tracker with the different components.

Microbit with code from computer being displayed

Temperature Sensor Project with Arduino Board

Young Scholars blog by Tatiana R. Week 2

 

What things have I learned this week? there is a such thing as a clean room, the clean room consists of different types of chemicals, and there are certain rooms that are for working with photosensitive objects. We had to dress in protective covering to prevent cross contamination. These clean rooms is an environment where dust, airborne microbes, and aerosol particles are filtered out to maintain a decontaminated space. The next project I've put together is the remote-controlled robot. The troubles I had were the most complications I've had with any experiment, this required my main mentors help with the programming monitor(something used in the app Arduino to control the robot) the port( connection for the computer to provide the power source for the robot. There are many other things that I've learned but these really stayed with me.

PATHS-UP Young Scholars - Second Week Reflections

 1. What exciting things have you been learning?

    Over the three days that me and my fellow classmates attended the PATHS-UP Young Scholar program this week, we further enhanced our circuitry and programming knowledge whilst also exploring different places and professions. Through the help of Mr. Young, we created a whack-a-mole circuit design using the EasyEDA platform. With this introduction to circuits, I hope to embark on projects that I thought that I would never be able to do before, such as that of the solar lamp I previously mentioned.

       Our circuit design

2. How is your research project going? How is it working with your team and mentor?

    So far, my research project has gone fairly well. In addition to the pedometer and pulse oximeter I had added to the device last week, I decided to include GPS location and time to it. Because I did not have enough time to test the GPS as a result of its weak signal, I have not managed to merge the oximeter-pedometer and GPS-time codes yet, although they both seem to function properly.

  The watch I created

3. What are you most looking forward to during the final week of the program?

    I am most looking forward to learning more about machine learning and artificial intelligence during the final week of the program. Despite the fact that I have heard about the two topics before, I have never delved very deep into them, and so learning about them in this program would be great.

PATHS-UP First Week Experience- Kaitlyn C.

~~The PATHS-UP Rice First-Week Experience~~ 

~ Preparation ~ 

    To prepare for this program first I overlooked all the things I would need to be familiar with as well as did a small course on C++ after emailing the teacher asking what language this program would be coded in. Directly on the website/ application, it showed an overview on what topics would be covered and objects (oximeters, accelerometers, GPS devices, speakers), so I also tried to get myself familiar with them.

 ~ First Experiences ~ 

paths-up experience ~ HT

Preparation Before the Program

I got accepted into this program pretty late as I didn't know about it before, so I didn't have a lot of time to prepare much for the program. But I knew that it’s digital health so l figured that it would be a combination of codes and medicine. I reviewed the coding languages that I have learned prior (Java, Javascript, Python, HTML) through a program called Codecademy. This process helped me understand some of the codes that are used in the Arduino IDE and let me modify the codes to my liking.

Thoughts so far...

The research projects I have been working on were really fun to do. I discovered many things that I didn’t know before coming here, for example creating a PCB board digitally. The program used to create the PCB, EasyEDA, was easy for navigation around and has lots of functions to create various projects. The SparkFun Inventor’s Kit was really fun with putting together the parts and the wires, and I have created a couple of interesting projects. For the watch, it has had some problems but putting it together was educational! For my mentors, I think they are very dedicated to their work and taught us many things that we didn’t know before.

Looking forward...

For week two, I’m most looking forward to continuing creating the digital watch. It has been pretty simple but I want to see more complex things that can be inputted into the watch. I’m also excited with learning new things that are related to digital health!

PATHS-UP Scholars First Week Overview- Ava A.

     I completed my first week in the PATHS-UP Young Scholars program and it has been riveting. I have very little computer science knowledge, so it is nice to go through this program and understand more about programming and computer science as a whole. Before the PATHS-UP Program started, I prepared myself by refreshing my memory on programming rules and languages. I have previous knowledge on Java and Python, but I did not keep up with the content so reviewing allowed me to go to the program with some knowledge. While we are not using Java or Python throughout this program, it was still nice to refresh my memory because it allowed me to better understand the code we were working on throughout the week. When our mentors introduced the research projects to us, I was a little intimidated because I had such little computer knowledge. However, our mentors engaged with us directly and encouraged us constantly, so it became easier to work on the projects. I found these projects to be captivating because they were applicable to other fields in the workforce such as healthcare. For example, we learned about neuroengineering and how we can use engineering and programming techniques to solve issues such as tremors and epilepsy. Additionally, we started building our digital health watch which includes a pulse oximeter, pedometer, and an accelerometer, enabling us to track certain health levels. While I am still learning more about computer science and programming, these research projects have allowed me to explore and think outside of the box. Also, these projects have allowed me to see specific details of computer science such as Arduino boards and the various components involved. By learning more about Arduino Boards, I was able to create different projects such as the game "Simon Says" and a Buzzer Trumpet instrument. My mentors have encouraged me to explore different components of the Arduino Boards and it has allowed to grasp a better understanding of computer science overall. I know with more time I will be able to understand how computer science connects to the world we live in today. In week two, I am excited to build upon the foundation of our digital health watch and include more components. Also, I am looking forward to building more projects with the Arduino Boards and going outside of my comfort zone by trying to create new projects. With the help of my mentors, I have gained more knowledge this week!

The digital health watch tracking the number of steps taken after a tour of Rice University.

The "Simon Says" game using the Arduino Board and breadboard.

Young Scholars Experience

 

At first I was pretty lost and thought it was a little boring but as we started to do Hands-on stuff, I started to really enjoy the program. I’ve never done a course covering coding or computer science but I was able to catch on sooner or later with the help of my mentors, Dr. Kelly Kim, Mr. Joe, Mr. Antoine, and Mr. Franklin. We did a tour of Rice University on the third day. The temperature outside was vigorously hot but it was worth the view and wonderful experience! Photos below.

Young Scholars Summer Program

 It's hard to believe that the first week is almost over. The students engaged in all activities throughout the week, from learning how powerful Ardunios are to working with Tiny Circuits to the campus tours. However, the most intriguing part was how easily they adapted to learning to create virtual Printed Circuit Boards without prior knowledge. Joe and Kelly were instrumental in helping me throughout the week facilitate instruction. It will get even better for the Young Scholars over the next two weeks. 

                                                                                                                Chris Franklin

PATHS-UP First Week Reflection

1) What were some of the things you did to prepare for the Young Scholars Program?

        To prepare for the Digital Health Young Scholars Program, I decided to refresh myself on the usage of conditional statements and loops. To do this, I created a console-based program that took inputs from the user in order to determine the area of any given regular polygon. It works well, and can be repeated many times without restarting the code.

An example of what occurs in the console when my code is run.

2) What are your first thoughts on the research projects that you have been assigned and your mentors?

    All in all, the Digital Health program has gone very well. Thanks to the great mentoring of Mr. Franklin, Ms. Kim, and Mr. Young, I was able to learn of a multitude of different beginner-level circuit designs, which I hope to learn more of next week. Furthermore, I also learned more of the basics of the Arduino software, which uses C++.

3) What are you most looking forward to for week two?

   For week two, I am most looking forward to learning more about circuitry. I have wanted to learn a lot about the topic for quite some time, and so I was very happy after learning that we could do so in this program.

Published by: Duran M. 

June 16th 2022

 Blog Post 

1. Some of the classes that I have taken throughout the year to prepare for this program were taking AP Comp Sci, Civil Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and Robotics this year. AP Comp sci introduced me to some of the syntax of Java and programming in general. Aerospace engineering introduced me to engineering programs like Inventor which have similar functions to EasyEDA so I felt familiarized with EasyEDA's certain options even though I had never used it before. Civil Engineering gave me the most designing knowledge as well because we used the program Revit to design multiple structures. Robotics allowed me to use Onshape which taught us a lot about the design process.

2. I believe that the research projects we have been assigned have allowed us to get a broader understanding of coding and circuitry. I had never been exposed to an Arduino board before, and I felt like it was a blessing to get some experience using it due to previous knowledge that I had. Because I have always been interested in pursuing engineering, a few years back I looked into things that could help me become a better engineer on the internet, and one of the things that were suggested by an engineer online was getting an Arduino board and messing around with it to experiment with several of its functions. I never got my hands on one, and finally being able to use it allowed me to experience circuitry and the complexities behind building your own board.

3. For week 2, I am mostly looking forward to seeing what the results on the pulse oximeter are going to indicate. Since this course is the application of technology to Health, I want to know what experiments we can conduct in relation to the numbers that the pulse oximeter can demonstrate. I am very curious to see what we can do to take the numbers that have been given to us by the pulse oximeter and do with them. Overall my experience here at this course has been very informative and great for introducing to circuitry, as well as providing great insight to what it's like to be at the Rice University campus.

PATHS-UP Digital Scholars Young Scholars 2022 Experience

I was really new to the topic in general, so I didn’t have any prior knowledge on what I would expect. Because of this I asked a few friends and classmates what computer science is and how coding works in order to know what I would be working with. At first, I thought it would be hard to understand, but by using the method of trial and error I was able to get the hang of it. I was able to understand how coding works, and also how the technology can be used in healthcare work places. Although it has been challenging it has also been very intriguing. I am looking forward to learning more about coding and being able to do more stuff that has to do with programming items. We have also been building and playing around with circuits so I also hope to learn more off of that. 

Young Scholars Program - June 16th, 2022

 1. I have taken a robotics class in middle school, and I participated in VEX IQ, where I programmed and built robots. This gave me some background knowledge to create a solid foundation for this course, but I still definitely consider myself a beginner. I have also taken a Principles of Applied Engineering course in high school, and I've worked with programs such as TinkerCAD. I've also used Python before, but I don't remember much of the basics.

2. I think these projects are amazing opportunities to challenge myself and learn more about engineering and programming. From the start, I love how much of a challenge these projects have been for me, because they've allowed me to grow and learn as a student. It's only been three days, and I already feel like I've learned so much about programming and coding. From Arduino, to bread boards, to Tiny Watches, I've had the great opportunity to enrich my coding experience through hands-on, interactive projects.

3. For week two I'm looking forward to learning about programming more in-depth, and gaining a better understanding of how bread boards really work. This week I've gotten to familiarize myself with coding, and next week I hope to gain more knowledge about the specific components of circuits, and their functions. I want to learn about the "why" and the "how" behind programming.

WELCOME TO TH PATHS-UP YOUNG SCHOLARS!

On behalf of the PATHS-UP Team and R-STEM, welcome to your three-week summer internship!!!! We are thrilled to have such wonderful students working with us this summer.  And are even more excited to read about the interesting experiences you will be participating in while you complete your internships. Please use this blog page to share your experience with the world.  You may include pictures and videos in each post, and you are encouraged to be as expressive as you wish!

Social Media Tags (TWITTER) are encouraged:

@mathematic_AL    @RiceU_STEM    @PathsUp    #PATHSUPDigitalScholars

Have fun!!

Allen