The first week of my DREU experience consisted of completing my onboarding task at both Northeastern and MIT since Dr. Hofmanns temporary lab space is at MIT while her permanent one finishing being built at Northeastern and also beginning to work on my project for the summer. On Monday, I had a great one-on-one meeting with Dr. Megan Hofmann where we discussed the expectations for the summer, my research project, and other general questions I had about PhD programs. We then went on a campus tour where I got to meet another fellow DREU participant that will be working with Dr. Hofmann this summer. We then concluded the day by having a ACT Lab meeting where I got to meet the other PhD students in Dr. Hofmanns lab.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I had the option of working from home instead of commuting into the city which I ended up doing. I spent these two days watching and taking notes on Dr. Hofmanns lecture videos for a class she taught about how advanced automated machine knitting works and how they the machines are coded so I could familiarize myself with it.

On Thursday I worked on campus and had another one-on-one meeting with Dr. Hofmann where we discussed further the project I would be working on now that I have some background and understanding in machine knitting. I also learned more about the scripting language I would using to program these machines called KnitScript.

Fridays are the days we go to MIT to have access to the knitting machine so this Friday I got a tour of the lab space there and also got to create my first piece of fabric using the knitting machine. I then spent the rest of the day working on the first step of my project: scowering the internet for every different type of stimming device/toy that I could find and then “coding” them by choosing 1-5 words that represent the product.