Week 8 Post 1

As of today, I found myself stuck in learning classification algorithms. Mostly, it is because I do not have a strong understanding of the math behind those algorithms. Such a realization made me feel frustrated. All day today, I tried to understand the basics of classification methods and apply the algorithm to my interpolation file; however, all my attempts failed. I did not give up and tried to read more research papers and articles about the KNN classification algorithm specifically. But I still have only a vague understanding of the whole concept. In moments like this, I wish I had a mentor who could point at my mistakes and guide me to have a better understanding of the algorithm. However, I only can contact my mentor on this project through email, which does not let us communicate as openly as it was before Mythra went to India. Going through such moments of frustration is not easy, and the only thing that got me through the day was the email from Dr. Voyles about a competition that got me intrigued. Dr. Voyles introduced us, the interns, to the IEEE autonomous UAV competition, which requires writing a conference paper in two weeks. While it seems like a challenge due to the squeezed timing, it is allowed to form teams and write one paper per team. That sounds exciting to me, and I am planning to participate once I form a team with other interns. I already discussed it with three other interns, and it seems like something we all are interested in, so we are starting to work on the paper in a few days. It needs to be approved before it can be entered into the competition, so it will require us to write a draft and edit it many times, which will take us a lot of time. But I am up for a challenge, as it inspires me to achieve more and get more engaged in academia.