A new home for the SCoRe group

My new station

After staying in the same place for around 8 years, sustainable computing research (SCoRe) group, which is previously known as Wireless Ad-hoc Sensor Network (WASN) research group is moving. For all these years, we've been staying in a small room located in a hidden corner of the UCSC building. That place was home for many successful researchers and many successful research projects conducted by the group. With the refurbishments of UCSC building, various new parts were added including an extra floor which is the 4th floor. New lab room for the SCoRe group is allocated from this all new 4th floor.

A nice view from our window

I got to know about WASN research group around early 2010, after having a short chat with Dr. Chamath and Dr. Kasun at their office. Initially, I started contributing to their projects by doing small supportive work, little by little, learning their subject domains. In my 3rd year, I did my internship at the WASN lab with the research group and learned how to live in a research environment. Even during my 4th year of the undergraduate education, I spent most of my time at the WASN lab working in research project works. Finally after my 4th year, I got the chance to work as a research assistant (RA) for few years before I go abroad. When I return to the lab after more than a year of new life experiences, WASN lab was facing various significant changes such as people and the role of the lab.

Currently the situation in our WASN lab location is a bit complicated. Instead of being a place dedicated for research and development works, some other roles are emerging in that place. Some undergraduate course works which are operated by a lecturer is based on the lab and therefore always, many undergraduates are vising the place. Sometimes, undergraduate students stay in the lab with their laptops to do their own works without any specific relation to the lab research or course work. I've faced many situations, where the lab was too noisy and hard to focus on my work due to the behavior of undergraduate students. Additionally, there are some requirements such as the lecturer who is handling the undergraduate courses is in need of transforming it into an undergraduate lab.

Under all these conditions, I think, receiving a new place for the SCoRe research group is a positive movement. Our new place is very peaceful and has less distractions compared to the old place. I personally like this new room since it has a nice view from the window. I can see the UCSC ground and far away places inside the university premises from this place. Our neighborhood is some other research labs with other researchers. I hope that having a green view will help me to recover from hard times in lab work.