ICEX Malta 2018 - A Recap

Being in Malta through ICEX was an absolutely incredible opportunity and experience on several levels.  Not only did we finish our time there with great data and progress on our research, we were able to witness and learn from the exquisitely wonderful place and culture that is Malta.  Nearly every day, the students in the group would have some sort of discussion along the lines of "Wow, it is still completely unbelievable that this is our actual job."  Taking coding breaks from photogrammetry and motion planning to snorkel at coral beaches and making research decisions while bobbing around in a diving boat on the blue waters of the Mediterranean are undoubtedly experiences that very few other people will ever be lucky enough to have -- and those were just on the working days.  On the vacation days we ferried between islands, hiked through the stunning countryside, and visited Neolithic temples and Medieval castles.  Through it all we built great new friendships with our peers within and across school boundaries and got to spend time with experts in academic fields ranging from our own to others like history and technical diving that make up the actual motivation for our work.  The massive amount of learning we did could have only been done in Malta, and nowhere else could we possibly have enjoyed ourselves as much as we did. 

Even though our time in Malta has come to an end, our work for ICEX is far from over.  Now there are plots to generate, interview blog posts to finally complete, reconstructions to perfect, and papers to write.  There are many posts still to come on this blog, but now that the most incredible part of our ICEX journey is over, we wanted to thank Chris, Zoe, and the NSF for making this whole thing possible.