Day 11: Why did the chicken cross the road?

If you want to know the answer to this question, I guess you’re just gonna have to read on!

Today was our first “lab” day in Kauai (it was the first day that no one jumped in the shower when we got home!).  All groups traveled to the research center for a cool and relaxed day inside.  Team Ag (Sam, Lawrence, John, and I) spent the morning creating an orthophoto of the heiau pictures from yesterday’s kite imagery.  The imagery ended up working really well, although we weren’t able to export our work because we were only using the demo version of PhotoScan.  In the screenshots below, you can see a small sample of photos from the kite.  The labeled blue polygons above the image show where the photos were taken with regard to the angle and elevation of the kite.  Once we can export the orthophoto, we can import it into ArcGIS in order to create a digital elevation model and perform other data analyses.

Paul also taught us how to use the GPS Pathfinder Office program for importing data from our handheld GPS units.  This will definitely come in handy when we need to import the perimeters and points of interest of different archaeological features in the land.  After a quick lunch, my team joined Drs. Lee and Wechsler, Burney, and Ted to survey some areas that may suit the Gatewing X100 launch.  This plane is completely self-controlled and completes launches, flight paths, and landings by itself.  If the weather permits, I think we will be able to launch the Gatewing tomorrow!  We also drove to another heiau that is an an official Hawaiian archaeological preserve.  Sam and I took some data points at it since we will probably not be able to fly any of our equipment over it.

Alright, here’s a trivia question for you.  Where was this photo taken?  CSULB or Kauai?

If you guessed CSULB, think again!  Although this deli uses the exact same font, colors, and words as the CSULB logo, it’s actually a little deli that we stopped by at Poipu Beach.  The professors bought Team Ag some shaved ice and ice cream (shout-out to Dr. Wechsler!), and we had a great time at this little CSULB corner of Kauai.  While eating our cold treats, a few chickens started to linger in the street.  We were overly concerned that they would get run over, but Burney saved the day.

And thus, I have finally solved the mystery of why chickens cross the road: Burney chases them!