Hi, my name is Yuanqi Du, an international student majoring in computer science and joined the 2019 summer impact project. Our topic was American
Sign Language (ASL) Recognition. Actually, this was not my first time to get involved in a
research project, I’ve been working with one professor on a data mining related project prior to it. And I
really enjoyed analyzing data. The most interesting part of this project was that we
would use a novel wireless sensor to recognize ASL including the whole process of data collection and data analysis. There was only limited work had been done using the wireless sensor which meant that
we would explore a new and specific way to collect, process and analyze the
data. Though it was challenging, it was really intriguing. Also, the project would help bridge the gap between ASL
users and non-ASL users.
With regard to my long-term goals, I am planning to pursue a PhD degree
after this project because I found I really enjoyed the process of
research and I learned a lot from my mentors by colloquiums. I learned what different research
community was working on and how they tackled their problems. It was really attractive
for me to continue doing research in my future life. And I start dreaming to be a professor who
can share knowledge, experiences with others and contribute to the human’s development. We always made our weekly plan and stage plan during the
summer. We had meetings with our mentors regularly (about three times a week), and
we also had meeting within group every day. We shared our new findings, discussed about
challenges and made new plans together.
If I am asked that the one thing I discovered during the project, I would say that it is exploring. Even before the project started, I’ve been thinking
that what the data would look like, what challenge we would face and how we were going to
tackle them. However, things looked so different from what I’ve imagined. I’ve been
confused, lost, frustrated at that time. But I felt more motivated because I like to solve problems. When we met a problem, we would make a brainstorming to make proposals. And then, we
tried the proposed solutions, it did not work, we analyzed the reasons of failure and we tried a
new one, keep going and going. And eventually, we found the solution that worked. Personally, I really like the way of exploring things like this. Our mentors were more experienced than us,
but they also did not know the real answer of our research questions. It was
like we were not just an assistant, we were like co-workers who were exploring the world together. So, the one thing that I discovered
in this journey was Exploration.
