Week 5
Well, here it is, we are half way through. Well, that could be because I am writing this in September, but even at the time it didnt feel like it. To be honest it does not feel like we have actually done much yet. Still we have a plan, which is good, because this is the week of presentations. As I mentioned last week, we have some plans for moving forward. We plan to go out to bob hall peir to collect our measurments. This is the same place the previous group used. However, last time the group had difficulties collecting the "ground truth data" about the waves. For algorithem you should really know the wave speed and the water depth in a few places for comparison. They however didnt even really know the wave speed. They used an.... interesting method involving waving a hand when a wave passed. Then if 2 people standing on the peir wave their hand at the same time, that distance is the wave length and you can calculate the wave speed from that... For 1 wave... With high error. We decited against doing that. For our ground truth data we proposed a series of 1-2 meter long PVC poles that where to be marked in 10cm bands alternating black and white. Then the poles where to be hammered in to the surfzone to about 1/3rd their length. These poles would be monitored by a camera on the peir. And would give us exact wave depth at any point in the run. Additionaly we proposed using a low framerate but high resolution for our data collection, as well as medium framerate (60fps) high res for comparison. We also planed to use 4 ground controle targets, 2 for image stabilization and 2 for gps refference. All targets where to be surveyed. We also planned to take detaled measurments of the peir to be able to use it as a ruler to measure water speed. We also surveyed in the surf zone poles. With a plan well established we threw together the midterm presentation. And presented it Wendsday. We where expecting to be using the large ampatheater class rooms for it, but instead we got a normal sized boring class room. Never the less we set up... right in time for some speach club to wander in thinking this was their room. Not sure where, but there was a misscommunication somewhere and we where scheduled in the room. So they left, and we started. No more than 3 slides in we hear this terable noise like a generator or fan of some sort in the floor. (probiably the speach club again). We waited for it to stop, but it just kept going. Eventually we just changed class rooms, this time to an Ampatheater! From there we started over and presented our whole bit. It wasnt my best work, the presentation was rushed and had even been changed late the previous night so we where all over the place. Still, we managed to give the best or second best presentation so we where happy. We got some good questions, I think (I cant remember for sure) and actually sparked a debate between our mentor and one of the other mentors talking about things "we could try." With the presentations done they told us to have a good 4th, and that the regular progress presentations friday where cancled since we just given our presentations. No problems here, I got stuff to do friday, mainly varify our ground truth ideas. The next day was the 4th, and we all got together for a little bbq. And for those who dont know, A bbq is a social event where you get together and have hotdogs/hamburgergers cooked on a grill with soda/beer. This is not to be confused with bbq (no a) which is a type of food consisting of bbq sause (not musterd based) covering slow rosted meat. I bring this up because too many people think you have bbq at a bbq, now I can see why that is confusing, but just remember the difference between the event and the food. Any who, we had a bbq, a sad dissorganized bbq, but still a bbq. We had burgers and buns.... and pepper jack cheese... and musterd and mao (no ketchup) no lettuce or Tomatos (they where in the fridge), and thats about it. Still, a bbq is not about the food (unlike bbq) its about the friends, and we all had a good time. That night I watched the firework display. Everyone kept tellin me "its at the harbor bridge, see that thing over there" and "dont worry, you can see it from here" and similar, so I found a nice spot on a rock dike heading out in to the bay and looked back at the bridge accross the bay. When the firework show started nearly 5 miles away it was about the size of a dime, and you could not hear it at all. Still, it was better than trying to get downtown to see it. Goggle maps had the entire downtown deep red and it looked like some of the highway off ramps into down town had actually been closed, probiably to keep the conjestion off of the higway. The next day Jason (my team mate) and I showed up to work... and no one was there... Well correction, the group that was really far behind was there, but no one else. Apparently "presentation's cancled" to everyone else meant "day off", where as to us, it meant "normal day." But hey, we didnt care, not our projects after all. And its not like we spent the day "working" either, our "work" that day consisted of going to the coast to verify our methodology. Jason had some pvc fishing pole stands that enspired this and we headed out into the surf to test them out. Jason showed me where the sand bars should be and gave me a few pointers about walking in the ocean. Apparently you should drag your feet instead of stepping. This disturbs the stingrays and other bottom dwellers so they swim awway. Otherwise if you step on them, they are likely to get you in the ancle with a quite dangerous poison barbed tail spike. After that, I drug my feet. But we got as far out as we where confortable going (only a bit over waist deep for me, but waves would often go over my head). Even out that far the ocational wave would knock me off ballance slightly. I cant imagin how jason was doing being not as tall as me. Still, we headed back to the shallows and planted our pole. cairful observation showed it was quite stable. So we pulled it out from the base and noted how far it was embeded. After that we dropped in at the lab and then headed home, job well done.
Week 6
This week we had 1 and only 1 goal, get the drone footage. Durring the first part of the week we constucted 3 short poles and 5 long poles. 2 of the long poles where aluminum, and 1 of the long poles was reaaaly long. We went to the beach with the drone. We are planning on doing 4 flights, 2 flights at 75 meters above the water, and 2 flights at 50 meters. At both altitudes we recorded at 4k30 and 4k60. Each flight was 5 minutes. Thats a total of 20 minutes recorded time. Allow 15 minutes before for framing and pole placments, and 15 minutes between each altitude for adjusting the corner and, then lets say 20 minutes after for clean up including surveying the targets and thats about an hour total right? It took us almost 4 hours. I dont know what happened, it felt like we spent too much time doing nothing. But the problem is, the grad student didnt, he was always doing something. Still not sure what, but nothing happened as fast as it should. In the end we got the footage and the surveying data. Durring that time 1 of the poles in the shallows and the really long pole where washed away by the waves and lost for ever. 1 of the long poles was left on the shore, and 1 of them was washed out but recovered. The aluminum poles stood firm. Turns out we didnt dig them in deep enough, but the theory is good, and so was the data. Here are some images we shot. Here is the peir.
And here is our surveying guy taking a line of gps points into the surf. one of these will be used as the water 0 mark for later measurments.
On the way out, I got this picture of my car thermomiter. Its hot in texas btw.
That night I realized that the top of my feet had actually gotten sunburnt. I didnt expect that and hadent put any sunscreen on my feet, thats why shoes are for. Not that shoes work when you take them off before going in the water. So I went to the store to get some Aloe Vera gel for them. I could not seem to find any. I looked and looked for the distinctive green gel and didnt see any. Finally part of me spotted a green bottle of "Alocane" offering a cool numbing feel on burns, not the Aloe gel I am use to, but im sure its just a different brand right? Right? WRONG! Turns out that Alocane has a wonderfull extra chemical in it listed under "active incredients" called Lidocaine. Now, I didnt know this, but we get streight aloe gel. And there is a reason for this that at the time I did not know. I, and I suspect my entire family, have a rare "condition" called "Lidocaine Toxisity," its not an alergy as such, but Lidocaine is toxic to me rather than helpfull. Now, I did not know this, so I put a generous smear of alocane on my left foot and emediatly noticed the burning get worse. It started the moment it touched my skin, but I figured it was that feeling you get when just 1 part of you is cold and the rest is hot. You know, where it is briefly painfull, but still feels good. However, after smearing it over 1 foot I emediatly noticed a burning sensation and thought to my self "huh, it said numbing cooling on the bottle, this is not numbing or cooling, this is burning, that is not good" and so I rinsed it off withing seconds of aplication. My left foot was already noticably reader, puffier, and burnier than the other. A quick scan of the ingredients turned up the lidocaine and a quick google search for "lidocaine reaction" turned up my simptoms and the term "lidocaine toxisity". And that is all I know about it, it is listed as infrequent, so I dont even know how rare it is. Back to the store for some real aloe. Walking arround the store was now painfull as my left foot was more sensative and even touching the top of my shoe hurt. But I at last, found a clear bottle (WHY IS IT NOT GREEN!!!) made by Fruit of the Earth. A quick scan of the ingredients list turned up no unauthorized "numbing" agents, so I tried that. Instant relief, a generous slathering of that on my sunburned areas and the lidocaine treated area did the trick. Although on my left foot it never did help as much as on the right foot. This will come up again btw. A quick search for how to treat lidocaine toxisity had no helpfull results. A bunch of stuff about it, but no treatments. Maybe one of my medical friends knows one, but its a bit late now. I will never touch lidocaine again, so I dont need a remedy now. This will come up again btw.
That night I regularaly applied more gel to both feet, but evenetually found my self applying it mainly to my left foot. It only felt cool with about a quarter inch of aloe covering it.
By the next morning it was better in that I could walk without pain. Which is good, since we had already planned to go to 6 flags over texas. Now, I have always wanted to go to 6 flags, I had a roler coaster documentary as a kid that kept talking about it, and more reacently it has had like 6 entries on the top 10 water slides in the world on some tv channel I cant remember now. Seeing as 2 of the others where at the West Edmonton Mall and I have been there (even in the winter when it was -30c). I figured I might as well go to 6 flags. Now 6 flags has always sounded like "disney land" to me, being a far away place that is unobtainable. To find out that it was no further away than Silverwood usually is was a bit of a shock to me. And so I had to go. Not for the theme park you understand, but for the water rides. The water side didnt open until close to noon as opposed to the rest of the park which opens at 10 ish or some such. However, the park is on the far side of San Antonio, so it was a 3 hour drive there. That turns a 10am morning into a 7am morning, and you still have to have breakfast so make that 6am, and there is no way in Texas I am getting up at 6am on a Saturday to go to a theme park. So I slept in and headed out solo at a much more reasonable time. An interesting thing about Texas that I didnt think of. There is an extra lane on the highway, what we would usually call the shoulder. This lane has the rumble strip running down the center. And a sign saying "Huricane Evacuation Lane Closed, emergency Parking only." I guess this is huricane country. Still, I never really thought about the ramifications. We suspect that in case of hurricanes that extra lane will open, and the other side of the higway will reverse direction except for its hurricane lane which would probiably be reserved for emergency services traveling in to the huricane zone. Not really related, but interesting. Once I arived I quickly learned that the $50 I figured this would cost (i.e. the price of my ticket) was less than half the actuall cost. When you dont count the tank of gas it took (sweet $32 down here!). The park its self had many hidden fees. There was parking for 1, something like $25 to park a mile away. But wait there's more. After getting through security. And yes, I do mean Security, full on bag checks and metal detectors. Although, its hard to say what they are checking for exactly. I walked right in with my glasses on and tripped the sensor. The security guy just impatiently waved me through. Whats more, I had handed him my new stainless steel thermos full of water and my swim trunks with a can of suntan lotion in the pocket to him already. And no, he didnt check any of it. So, lets sum up everything I could have just smuggled into the park.
- I could have had any liquid in that thermos, that would be alchohol or chemicical agents.
- I could have had an actual knife my water bottle.
- I could have had a bottle of pepper spray or a chemical spray instead of suntan lotion.
- I could have had an actual consealed handgun or knife on my person (remember, the scaner did go off and he ignored it)
It was actually a preaty lame compared to even our local wave pool and definitly compared to West Edmonton, but that could just be the number of people. If you think about it though, Texas is a good shape for a wave pool, the waves should be most powerfull at the pan handle, and then dissapate as it widdens. Still, I have had enough waves for this week, so lets move on.
The first real ride I went on was was Thunder Rapids, its an interesting 4 man water slide that goes up hill several times. Now that sounds impressive, and it is, but the most notable thing is how your butt slams into the bottom of the U as you pass over. All in all a fun ride though. Here is a POV of it, not mine, but its the same ride, not much changes really.
After Thunder Rapids I made my way down to the next ride I wanted to go on, but it seemed very.... closed, it had its water off and everything... Still not sure what was up, but I moved on to the next one. Bear in mind each one of these rides had about a 30-60 minute wait as well. All the while you hear the saftey messages about "please dont lick the side" (or what ever they where, I dont remember, not important) playing on loop. I dont know how they expected anyone to make it through the line without hearing it 20 times.
Any who, next I moved on to the Texas Tumble, a wonderfull large tube water slide, that was a bit dissapointing really. I got to the top, but its a multi person ride and I was by my self. At Thunder Rapids they had a solo waiting line, here they did not. There was also a weight limit of 500 lb per tube. I am more than half of that btw, more like 2/3rds really. The lady took 1 look at me and called for a group of 3.... a group of 3? WHY! CALL FOR A GROUP OF 2! Or a group of 5. There was a 4 person max btw. So the group of 3 gets there, they step on the scale, too heavy (Ooooo, I wonder why). They go, group of 3, too heavy (really?). For some reason the lady at the top could not understand that I am HUGE! Finially a gracious family of 5 with a mother much smarter than said slide attendant split in to a group of 4 and someone to go with me. We still probiably pegged the scale. Heading down I found that concerning, the ride only has walls on the side you are suppose to hit, and not the other side so you constantly feel like you should fall off any second. I was a bit worried the un expected weight distribution would cause just that to happen. But it did not fortunatly. Here is a POV for that one too.
They where not nearly that laissez faire when I was there btw. No loose items, or shoes for a start. From there I when looking for the coctail bar. It was closed.... CLOSED!!! WHAT EVEN! Oh, and it also over looked the kiddy pools, more on that later. So I whent exploring and found the "Texas Treehouse", I had high hopes for it, but no such luck, again, more on that later. 
From there it was almost closing time, but there was still 1 ride I wanted to hit. Back to the closed ride. Fortunatly this time the "Tornado" was open. The Tornado is a GIANT vortex slide with a 4 man (read 2 man) tube that slides into it. I headed over there, and fortunatly ran into a solo rider at the bottom that I grouped up with for the ride. No more standing arround waiting for a group of 5 again! We get up there prety much at closing time. I was calculation out time per rider as we where on our way, and my calculations where prety close in the end. But this ride. Ooohhh, this ride was FUN! 5/5. Its a giant funnel at an angle (watch the video). This is bad enough, but the inside is painted in lines that run down the funnel. When you are in it, your mind things they are parrallell and converging to the horizon point. So that first big launch you get as you go up the wall sets a mental data point. Your brain keeps track of how fast it felt like you where going and how fast it saw you going (on the walls) and applies that same metric for the rest of the ride. This means that at the bottom, you hardly go up the wal, but your brain says you FLEW up that wall. And your brain will notice the bad acceleration data from your ear and correct if for you! so you really FEEL like that first swosh repeates. Oh so much fun! Again, here is the POV
With that done, I picked up my clothes and went looking for dinner. No way was I going to eat in the park again, so I headed for my car just as fast as I could. I then looked arround for a good spot to eat, and drove there. Or, tried to drive there atleast. The problem is that the even though the google maps pin was in a shoping mall, the actual resturant was.... in the park. No way am I heading back there to explain that no, I didnt get stamped because I wasnt comming back, oh and btw, here is my ticket from earlier, yes I know it was used, that was me, and yada yada yada. Plus, I didnt really get enough to eat at lunch, and I had been more active than usual all day so I was ravanous. I grabbed my phone and threw "Burger and a shake" in to it. I found one and just headed there. 1 burger and a shake later I was on the road for home. Half way there I was getting quite tired and had to stop at a gas station for a coffee and a nap. That did the trick, after the nap I was ready for the next half. Thanks to that I made it home safely.
And now to the other notes I mentioned. Over all, I had a good time, but not as much as I would have had at Silverwood. Additionaly, even with out hidden costs 6 flages is more expensive than Silverwood. But you might say its worth it for the rides. I would dissagree. Of the rides, only 1 would was better than silverwood. The Tornado. The Thunder Rapid ride was more painfull than fun, and Silverwood has an actual wild rapids ride over in the regular park that is considerably more fun. Then the Texas Tumble is not as much fun as the equivalent at Silverwood, Avalanche Mountain. then the water castle Texas Treetop, also has a superior anolog at silverwood. Finnally the coctail bar and lazy river. At Silverwood they are the same, you go from the in water coctail bar to the lazy river and back just by taking a turn in the lazy river. Not to mention the river its self is longer and has better water falls.
Appart from all of that, the park cost more that $100 for an after noon standing in lines for mild thrills. Or I could spend that money on 2 different video games each good for 30-40 hours each. Still, It was fun, I will admit that. Just it felt soooo, over priced.
And thats just about all I can remember doing in these 2 weeks.