IREE: Automated Vision Tracking of Project Related Entities

The purpose of this supplemental project was to collect invaluable data from the large-scale construction sites of Egnatia Odos motorway needed to validate a novel automated vision-tracking method created under the parent grant. For this purpose, one US graduate and three US undergraduate students traveled to Greece for 4 months and worked together with 2 Greek graduate students of the local faculty collaborator. This team of students monitored project activities and scheduled data collection trips on a daily basis, setup a mobile video data collection lab on the back of a truck, and drove to various sites every day to collect hundreds of hours of video from multiple cameras on a large variety of activities ranging from soil excavation to bridge construction. The US students were underrepresented students from minority groups who had never visited a foreign country. As a result, this trip was a major life experience to them. They learned how to live in a non-English speaking country, communicate with Greek students, workers and engineers. They lead a project in a very unfamiliar environment, troubleshoot myriad problems that hampered their progress daily and, above all, how to collaborate effectively and efficiently with other cultures. They returned to the US more mature, with improved leadership and problem-solving skills and a wider perspective of their profession.