Summer 2024 Internship Highlights
Weekly STEM and Technology Highlights
Welcome to Our Summer 2024 Weekly Highlights!
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Here you'll find news, events, and highlights from our Summer 2024 Internship. Stay informed and connected with everything happening at PVNet. Included in this page is our Summer 2024 weekly newsletter archives where you can see all our published newsletters in one place!
**This internship has ended**​​​​
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Week 4 - STEM and Technology Newsletter​
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Intern Projects Continued...
Cyborg Esports Project Week 4 Progress
To make further progress, interns have been conducting trials to obtain accurate data by experimenting with electrode placement within the EEG headset. Electrode placement is essential to make better connections to the brain and gather accurate data from the brainwaves.
On the EEG headset, electrodes are small metal disks which lightly touch the scalp of a test subject to detect electrical charges resulting from the activity of a user’s brain cells. The interns continue to work towards their goal of collecting consistent and accurate data to enable them to write software to convert it to keyboard commands to control the game interface. they can begin to connect their collected data to their game.
Other Intern Interests
Cybersecurity is one of the most controversial and important industries and the stakes are getting higher. One idea by interns was to attempt to find a way to utilize EEG brainwave data in application towards 2-factor authentication.
Potentially, Python would be the language of choice because 2-factor authentication would definitely be complex and require algorithms and possibly AI.
In one scenario, some sort of biometric data - such as an ear clip - might be used for collecting a response to some sort of visual or oral stimulus and compared to an existing recorded biometric password.
AI Facial Recognition Project
Patrick McGrath and Luna Nomura, PVNet summer interns, have continued to work towards an AI Facial Recognition application.
Having recently tested the existing code and hardware in the location where it is intended to be installed, additional necessary changes came to light such as auto-detecting while individuals are walking past the camera and background processing to find matches. Neither of these are simple processes to develop, and the students continue to work towards refinement.
Broadening Career Opportunities through Exploration
The interns have been working with complex and advanced technology these past few weeks and have found many successes in their EEG Esports Game Project. Interns were asked the question: “Prior to starting your internship were you aware or familiar with any of the technology you have been using?” Below you will find some surprising answers.
PVNet intern Joshua Nwabuzor answered: “No. I was introduced byTed, and this technology is completely new to me.”
Intern William Wetzel’s response was: “No idea. This technology is impressive stuff. I have personally never heard of an EEG headset.”
Lastly, intern Patrick McGrath explained: “I had heard of the OpenBCI headset before, but I have never worked with it.”
Summer interns Joe Huber and Luna Nomura were asked the same question, to which both replied: “No.”
Without any prior knowledge about the technologies they are currently working with, the PVNet interns were able to quickly learn how to use the equipment. Impressive work, interns!
Past Events
Annual Dog Portrait Day was a Huge Success
We are pleased to announce that our Annual Dog Portrait Day was a huge success! With a full sign up, we got to meet and photograph over 20 dogs and pups! Check out our gallery below to see some of the amazon dog portraits that were taken!
Thank you to the interns who helped set up our lighting, backdrop, and photography event, and thank you to everyone who signed up, showed up, and made our event this year such a huge success! We can’t wait to continue this again next year!
Week 3 - STEM and Technology Newsletter​
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We're Back with the Latest Edition of PVNet!
Welcome to the latest edition of PVNet this Summer 2024 season! Thanks for sticking around while we share the inspiring work done here. We’re almost at the middle of our summer season, and the interns have some more exciting news to share about their EEG video game project. We have exciting updates on the AI Facial Recognition project while PVNet is getting ready to set up for some major events, so keep reading to hear more about those!​
Intern Projects Spotlight Continued...
Cyborg Esports Project Week 3 Progress
In Week 3, the Summer 2024 interns have continued to encounter challenges while also reaching new milestones. No obstacles can stop them from creating their project! The interns have expressed difficulty in tracking certain pieces of data, yet they have found a unique and certainly creative solution: 3d printing their own headset! This will allow users to have more movement and analyze different parts of the brain. Even more exciting news, they have been able to get consistent success in obtaining data! We can’t wait to see what the future holds for this project.
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The Coding Behind their Esports Project
Python is crucial in today’s society and incredibly valuable to learn because it’s one of the most widely used programming languages today. Our Summer 2024 interns have used Python to code their algorithms for the Cyborg Esports Project. Because Python is an easy language to learn, many can pick it up quickly without coding experience. With a large coding community, using Python for the interns’ project made perfect sense due to the support and help from these communities.
AI Facial Recognition Project
PVNet summer intern Patrick McGrath began working on an AI Facial Recognition project with the goal of identifying a person walking by the PVNet front desk and delivering a pre-recorded message. Within only two weeks, he was able to create the code necessary for facial recognition, and he found quick success with it! By just placing your face within the frame, his code can recognize the individual and match it to their face! For the following weeks to come, he will be busy at work with building the code to take in multiple pictures at a time and recognize multiple individuals. We are excited to see the continued growth in this project!
What Goes on Behind the Scenes at PVNet?
Are you curious about what happens behind the scenes at PVNet? What are the interns’ lives like at PVNet? Every Tuesday at noon, the summer interns meet with PVNet founder Ted Vegvari and discuss their milestones, achievements, and future goals. This helps the interns organize their thoughts and focus, which is essential to managing their 13-member Cyborg Esports project team. For the rest of the time, the interns are moving to-and-fro, continuing to work on all the projects.
Words from the Interns
Summer 2024 Intern Patrick McGrath has been involved in numerous projects including the Cyborg Esports Project and AI Facial Recognition.
Let’s first hear from him about the progress made in the Cyborg Esports Project: “We finally got a better headset with completely accurate data. With our new headset, we are able to make better connections between the electrodes in the EEG headset with the brain cells.”
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Now let’s hear about the progress Patrick has made in the AI Facial Recognition project: “In the last two weeks, I started the code, created it, and got it to work using one picture.” Patrick stated that he hoped to build up the code so that it can recognize multiple people and filter pictures with names. Incredible work, Patrick!
Intern Workshops
This week, interns Patrick McGrath and Luna Nomura led a workshop to teach their fellow interns an introduction to Python. They began by defining specific functions such as the print function and variables. Then, they identified multiple data types that are central to the Python programming language like strings, bools, and lists. Lastly, interns learned about functions and control flows. Python is a fundamental tool that the interns use for creating the code in their Cyborg Esports project. Thank you Patrick and Luna!
Upcoming & Past Events
Race-Day Event Success!
We are proud to announce that our July 13th Race-Day Event was a success! PVNet interns Keegan Grohman, Daniel Belonio, and Joshua Nwabuzor helped host our event during the Sun & Sea Pop-Up Market summer event! Visitors got to race drones through an obstacle course, race cars, and launch catapults! Additionally, our interns learned valuable life skills while operating our event. Scroll to the bottom to see more images under our Gallery section!
Annual Free Dog Portrait Day on July 20th
Our annual Free Dog Portrait Day is happening on Saturday during Week 3! With one week to go, PVNet interns are preparing for the numerous dogs and pups who will be getting their awesome portraits taken! This year, registration was completely filled and full, and we can’t wait to see everyone’s furry friends!
Slot Car Racing on July 19th & July 26th
Do you love racing? Then we’ve got the perfect event for you! From 3pm-4pm, come visit us here at PVNet for some awesome slot-car racing sessions! Click Here for Details!
Week 2 - STEM and Technology Newsletter​
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PVNet Week 2 Newsletter
Welcome to Week 2 at PVNet in the Summer 2024 season! As always, PVNet has been full of activity and preparation for the remainder of the summer season. This week, PVNet has been preparing for some special upcoming events while the interns continue their progress with their thought-controlled video game, robotics, and AI facial recognition software development and management program design on Amazon. Keep reading for more about the interns’ progress and what we’ve been doing here at PVNet.
Intern Projects Spotlight
Cyborg Esports Project
What progress last happened since Week 1, you might ask? Well, the interns have continued to dedicate long hours everyday to work on the Cyborg Esports project. After familiarizing themselves with the various pieces of technology required to create their brain-controlled game, they divided their roles and tasks based on their skills and interests with some interns working on game development and research and other interns studying the EEG technology.
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Intern Roles and Tasks
Working with the EEG component of the project, Patrick McGrath leads interns Mark Segal, Joshua Nwabuzor, Luna Nomura, and Keegan Grohman in learning about each part of the brain and deciphering the brain waves emitted. Focused more on the game design aspect of the project, Armaan Kohli, Mathias Gutierraz, Matthew Iwamoto, and Joe Huber make steady progress in creating the visuals and controllers for their game. Together, this batch of bright interns have made great progress in their projects with their organizational skills and dedication.
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Week 2 Progress
The interns who are more focused on the game design and research aspect are making progress creating code that is compatible with the EEG code to enable the code from the player to control the computer (keyboard commands) and to see the screen, which displays test visuals such as moving the cursor in a number of directions.
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The interns working with the EEG equipment and interface for the Cyborg Olympics project are working to refine a machine learning algorithm to enable it to detect clusters of data and group them together. Their goal is to use the 8 channel ganglion board to accurately detect when a person is thinking “right” or “left” as a command in the game.
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Robotics Progress
Interns interested in learning about robotics and motor controls continue to work with robotics instructor Don. Understanding how microcontrollers work is required for mechanical and software engineer majors. More news to follow soon!
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AI Facial Recognition Project
With the goal of recognizing faces, starting with known persons currently in the summer internship program and using their photos, test code using algorithms is being developed to identify existing photos. Testing recognition of individuals is soon to follow. The first goal is to identify a person walking by the front desk at PVNet and greeting them with a pre-recorded message.
Words from the Interns
Let’s see what Joe says about his hopes for their Week 3 progress: “I hope to see more progress on the EEG side of things – hopefully we will continue to finetune the results of the EEG data that is collected.”
Some of Luna’s hopes for Week 3 are to get a “more accurate understanding and consistent data from the headset”. Luna expressed her hopes for making small improvements in their project and explained how they would dedicate Week 3 to trial-and-error experiments.
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Upcoming Events
Special Event on July 13th
Interns are ready for the special community event to be held on July 13th, which includes drone racing, catapulting, and Tamiya car racing.
The special event is held on the same day as the Sun & Sea Summer Market Pop-Up Event!
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Free Dog Portrait Day on July 20th
PVNet has been preparing for the annual dog portrait day hosted here at PVNet in the Promenade PV Mall. Using green screen backdrops, professional lighting, and cameras, we’ll capture amazing pictures of over twenty dogs and pups! This event has gained incredible popularity and all slots have been filled up! We are excited to see everyone’s furry friends.
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Slot Car Racing
Don’t miss our slot car racing day scheduled for July 7th from 3pm-4pm. Can’t make it on that day? If you miss that one, you can participate on July 19th or July 26th at 3pm-4pm! In this event, you can race against your friends, on our new and enormous race car track! Don’t miss out on this fun opportunity! Click Here for Details!
Week 1 - STEM and Technology Newsletter​
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Keeping Up with PVNet
As the summer season begins, PVNet has been full of activity, special events, and a new cohort of enthusiastic summer interns. These talented individuals have started their internship off strong in week one and have made incredible progress in innovative projects. Keep reading to hear more about what they have already accomplished, read about their experiences through exclusive interviews, and get a sneak peek into the upcoming events and announcements at PVNet. Happy reading!
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Intern Projects Spotlight
Cyborg Esports Project
Off to a strong start in Week 1, our interns, spanning from middle schoolers to college students, have taken on the challenge of creating a brain-controlled game for a cyborg esports competition. They use advanced technology tools such as EEG headsets, OpenBCI, and ganglion boards to make this happen. Their goal is to create a playable paraplegic video game over the course of 10 weeks over the summer.
This Cyborg Esports project involves harnessing brain-computer interface technology to interpret the brainwaves of any user, allowing them to interact with and control digital environments using just their thoughts. Impressive, right? Prior to the internship, many were unfamiliar with these advanced technologies but were introduced through their initial exposure. This project shows the potential of technology to empower individuals with physical limitations. Combining both their passion for gaming with cutting-edge neuroscience, they are inspired to create future advancements in accessible technology.
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Week 1 Progress
In the first week of Summer 2024 alone, the interns have already made significant strides in the development of their brain-controlled game for the Cyborg Esports Olympics. They started this endeavor by first learning about the headset and understanding the technology involved like EEG headsets, electrode kits, biosensing boards, and ganglions.
Once getting familiar with each device and technology, several members worked to create the outline of their game designs. They created the soundtrack for the background music, the main page graphics, and the preliminary drafts of the actual game controls.
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Interns Involved
It’s no surprise that such an amazing and advanced project as their paraplegic-friendly brain controlled game has attracted many interns’ interests. During their first week, they organized their group based on the skills each intern possessed. Joe Huber, Joshua Nwabuzor, Armaan Kohli, Mark Segal, Luna Nomura, and Keegan Grohman all share knowledge in the Java coding language, while members Patrick McGrath, Mathias Gutierrez, and Matt Iwamoto provide the knowledge for python coding. Assisting with the research and game development side of this project, Armaan, Mathias, Matt, William Wetzel, Tommy Nguyen and Daniel Belonio collaborate to create the visuals.
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The Technology Behind their Esports Project
Spoiler: They learned how to use the same technology used by companies like Microsoft and Neuralink in just one week
To make this project a reality, interns have employed a range of various technologies. When asking the interns if they had prior knowledge about the technologies they now work with, all have answered: “No”. These interns’ fascination and curiosity have continued their interest to use advanced technology without any prior knowledge and create an impressive project as a result of it. Let’s break down all the pieces that these interns have been learning and using.
The EEG headset measures the electrical activity in the brain and allows users to control digital interfaces with only their thoughts. OpenBCI is the open-source platform that connects and interprets data from the EEG to computers. When the ganglion boards collect the data, the data is then transmitted to OpenBCI. The intricate connections between all technologies is confusing, yet the interns here at PVNet work with them every day.
What do the Interns have to Say?
When asked how this project will benefit others, Joshua Nwabuzor noted:
“This project has shown us that the unthinkable can happen. As long as you put the resources towards it, we can make it so that people who may seem like they can’t do much are able to do a lot more than they realize.”
We then asked William Wetzel how he sees this project moving forward:
“It’s a week-to-week basis, so we are always learning something new about this headset or figuring out something new we can add to the game and how we can improve it.”
Until Week 2…
Upcoming Events and Activities
In addition to the exciting work of the intern’s Cyborg Esports project, PVNet has been preparing for some fun upcoming events for all to attend! During the Sun & Sea Pop-Up Market Summer Event, PVNet is getting ready to host a fun race-day event with drone racing, Tamiya car racing, and catapult launching! This event will be hosted at the downstairs PVNet location and will let kids ages 6+ have some fun activities to participate in during this summer event!
After the weekend of our race-day event, PVNet will be hosting the annual Dog Portrait Day with free photoshoots for furry companions. People were able to select and sign up at different times for their dogs, and in less than a week, every slot was filled up! Here’s to celebrating the wonderful dogs of Palos Verdes!
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