The Cathedral of Learning is located in Oakland a Pittsburgh neighborhood, in the center of University of Pittsburgh's main campus. It's the second tallest educational building in the world.

"Begun by Chancellor John Bowman in 1926 and dedicated in 1937, the building was realized with the help of contributions from men, women, and children throughout the region and the world. During the peak of the Depression, when funding for the project became especially challenging, school children were encouraged to contribute a dime to 'buy a brick.'

In addition to the magnificent three-story 'Commons Room' at ground level, the Cathedral of Learning also contains classrooms (including the internationally renowned Nationality Classrooms), the University's administrative offices, libraries, a computer center, a restaurant, and offices and classrooms for many liberal arts departments."

in http://www.umc.pitt.edu/tour/tour-080.html

Here are some pictures i took when the MHCI 2008 class went to the Duquesne Incline.


"Providing safe, reliable, rapid public transportation, via funicular railway, since 1877 May 20, for the residents and businesses of the Duquesne Heights and Mount Washington sections of the City of Pittsburgh. Utilizing two original, 1877 cable cars, the Duquesne Incline is a working museum. The Upper Station, on Grandview Avenue, includes a new platform for the public to view the Incline's historic hoisting equipment, as well as displays regarding the history of the Incline and the City of Pittsburgh, and pictures of other cable and rail cars from around the world."

in http://incline.pghfree.net/

Squirrel = "A Rat in a fancy suit"

When we were looking for house in Squirrel Hill (Me, Filipa and Emanuel), we soon realized why the neighborhood was named "Squirrel Hill".... yes there are a lot of squirrels running around the neighborhood.
It was hard to take a picture, but the one on the photo was hungry, so he didn't really care about us and Filipa camera pointing at him. (don't really know if it's a male or female squirrel, but sounds better to me if it's a male one.)



Although they look very sweet and we were so happy to see squirrels on the street, people here don't feel very happy about what squirrels usually do to their gardens.
One lady told us that they were "Rats in fancy suits".

Designing For Service

At Designing for Service course me and my group, we are working on a project for the UPMC Hospital. Our main focus is COMFORT. We want to help improve patient experience at the UPMC hospital.

To start gather ideas we did an affinity diagramm, last weekend.. which helped us build the territory map, that shows what our work is going to be about.









Catarina and Steve Selzer





The group members are Alankrita(ID) , Jason(ID) , Steve(HCI), Zhen (ID) and me :D
We are a pretty good group, we have also worked together a project in which we had to foster flow at the airport security checking. It was hardworking but a lot of fun.

Jason, Catarina and Steve

Affinity Diagramms

Affinity Diagramms are used to present large amounts of data, like ideas, questions, problems and possible solutions and to organize these data into categories.

Sticky notes are normally used to do the brainstorming exercises, but if you don't have any sticky notes you can always pretend you have them, ehehehe...



After grouping the notes into categories, they are ranked and combined if possible to make a simpler overview.

This is a pratical way to narrow down your focus on a particular issue and work on the real and main problem, BUT of course standing in focus depends on you.

MHCI weekends...

The weekend is over... i've been working the whole weekend, it started Friday with HW2 of HCI Methods, the main core course of MHCI for this fall semester, and ended trying to built an 'ambiance device' for interaction class.

The ambiance device work is due Tuesday (morning, 8:30, ...)! I already have several ideas, i just need to decide really quick which i want to choose and tomorrow after HCI Methods, start prototyping my idea, and luckily i'll be able to go to bed early to be ready and fresh to present my 'ambiance device'...

We've assigned HW2 (HCI Methods class) about a week ago, in which we have to built 4 different work models, flow model, cultural model, artifact model and sequence model. We are lucky because we don't have to do the physical model, at least for this assignment...
We started to work on the models Friday evening and ended Saturday late evening. What we had to do, was basically watch a video interview and from scratch built the diagrams (models).... obviously we got sick of the video.. at least Madhuu, the interviewee was 'funny' (he kept saying 'awesomeeeee!!', 'sketchy', 'pretty cool', 'weird').
We did a really good work until now, and we also had a lot of fun. Sometimes during the work we took some breaks...

Adam, Diana, Catarina, Ceren (HCI Methods Homework group)

The previous photo shows the "stupidity funny" break... ehehehe... we went to the masters' commons room and got all the toys we could to work with us.... this started because i bought a Starbucks Bear (with the blue coat) over my mac. The Bear that day become a team member and suddenly we thought that maybe he was feeling so alone among humans... (it was just an excuse to have a short break... eheehehehe).

Later on, we had several 2 minute breaks.. in which me and Ceren did some exercise, playing volleyball with a soccer ball.. (it hurts today...).. BUT we make a great team playing volley and we will try to play volley in a CMU team. Filipa and Diana are also invited :D to join us.

Me and Ceren playing volley during our 2 min break..

As everyone can see, HCI Institute, has a really nice common room, where all the masters can get together to talk, relax for a while, work, eat, and obviously sleep in our lovely sofas. We have a lot of amusing stuff to play with and forget work for a while. It really helps getting back to work more inspired :)

Carnegie Mellon University

The first thing I've noticed when i first got to CMU campus was this great "structure", were students travel along towards the sky.


Below it, on the ground, there are these "little" figures, human proportional, that in fact look like real persons at first glance. They are all looking to the sky, as if they are waiting for their time to climb.

CMU is definitely a university full of opportunities, tons of work and very demanding but i strongly believe that will take me further and higher. I'm still trying to adapt but nothing is impossible so...less sleep, less parties, more work!