Laber Labs

Laber Labs | Day 6

Today we spent half of our time working on the video game, Zombies on Treadmills for Laber Labs! We collaborated with some of the game designers previously and today we tested out their levels. It felt especially special because us three were the first people to get to test the game!

The rest of the day we spent finalizing the quiz questions for our Alternative Stats quiz. We came up with some fitting responses to questions like Which is known for having a body of steel, a slim physique, and a charming personality? After determining whether the answer to this is David Blackwell, or a flirtatious spatula, you will get responses such as, David Blackwell was known for his modest and enthusiastic personality and his infectious smile, but was not made out of metal, and the flirtatious spatula is firm and unyielding in their body AND their attraction to you. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Laber Labs | Day 5

We were over zoom today as well, and met with Dr. Laber to discuss statistical models and do some R code. Specifically, we learned how to make a regression model using R. We brainstormed ideas on how to model this data, and then put it into R.

In the afternoon, we met with Jesse Clifton a statistics student at NC State and he discussed AI and the moral and ethics of using such technology. Firstly, he explained some of the big breakthroughs in AI tech lately, then venturing on to potential risks in using AI, such as the AI prioritizing different things and putting us (humans) at risk.

Laber Labs | Day 3

Alex Cloud, from Riot Games, came in to talk and teach us about some new statistical concepts. Including, luck/skill in games, estimands, estimators, and more. I got a lot of new takes on statistics and how it works its way into lots of things from this talk. We also got to play around with the neural network called DALL-E. Its function is to take captions produced by people and create AI-generated photos from the caption given. He let us play around with the AI and make different captions for the AI to try and recreate, some turned out really great, some didn’t fit the concept we were looking for, and some looked like it was pulled off of DeviantArt (an art sharing platform) haha

Here are some examples taken from the DALL-E website of what the AI can recreate with those given captions.

Laber Labs | Day 2

We spent our time today learning about statistics and seeing some real-world problems involving data analysis. Some of these included deciding where to place armor on a WWII plane, determining which advertisements involve sex trafficking, how amazon decides what to show you in recommended pages for shopping, and more. We also spent time solving statistical problems. Such as where to place a hypothetical restaurant that serves inverse burritos (meat on the outside, the rest on the inside) using data from people in the area and data from restaurants.

For my visual image I took a picture of the chapel next to where we’re doing our work experience! 😀

Laber Labs | Day 1

Today was my first day! We were designing video game levels for a future Laber Labs video game. The point of the game is to use treadmills to move zombies to volcanoes and kill them. I made a lot of levels and one of the levels I made had lots of houses and was meant to make it so you had to make lots of moves to get the zombies to the volcano. I also had the same idea as Brooke at one point and we both made heart levels at the same time haha

Laber Labs | Day 0

Starting tomorrow (Wednesday), I’ll be beginning my work experience period at Laber Labs, led by Dr. Eric Laber. According to their website, Laber Labs is a “statistics lab dedicated to the development of practical and mathematically rigorous methodology for data-driven decision making.” I believe being able to analyze data is a skill that can prove helpful in multiple career choices, so I’m particularly excited for this work experience and to see where it takes me!

– Maddie L

p.s: Since we’ve yet to start and haven’t taken any photos yet, please take this stick figure of me waving

I think this is supposed to be a test blog but idk

Break

Bittersweet chocolate has one use, cooking. Likewise, this bittersweet end to my exploration of Laber Labs can be helpful if, and only if, I apply it to create, to innovate, to learn. It was a day of mastery. I aimed to demonstrate my knowledge of forecasting, finalize my “proficiency” in Python, and provide further, substantial contribution to the image-labeling project. Why must everything good come in three? That is, except for imaging labels, which I can honestly say came in the laborious magnitude of 155, give or take two.

Will I miss the wit and intellect? Well, will Beauty miss the Beast? Will the pig miss the blanket? I suppose this is how I will leave, trapped in bad metaphors yet loaded with memories that shall carry me through a summer and a lifetime. In the words of another, “So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.”