AL 17/08/11

Continued with wreck research all day today. Again, good experience in researching different types of wreck and what sort of information is available. Bit sad coming across some of the more tragic events such as SS Mendi, this one not just for the loss of life but the reaction of the Captain who was to blame, not making any effort to help with the rescue causing such high loss of life. Searching the web on this one shows just how much interest there can be in such tragedies with numerous researches conducted into the event by South Africans interested in the history.

AL 16/8/11

Started the day by investigating the process involved in becoming a commercial diver. This was for my benefit as well as to produce the wording for a poster on exactly that subject. A useful exercise for both reasons but if the threads in the forums relating to that particular career move are to be believed then the following applies. 1) Make sure you have a relevant skill set out of water before you endulge. 2) Be aware that there is years of 'donkey' work before getting onto the bigger better paid jobs. Given I want to do archaeology masters and PhD part time possibly funded by diving then the full course is not going to benefit me. Lesson learnt.

Had fun trying to recreate stratigraphical archaeological deposits in minature as an exercise for kids to practice archaeological skills and recognise stratigraphic changes. It's safe to say it needs some refinement both in the ingredients of the sand and methods of construction but it wouldn't be summer without playing in the sand. An idea with potential and an interesting educational resource idea.

Finished day off by researching data relating to wrecks of the south coast to aid the database. Important work in terms of understanding which are most likely to provide useful archaeological data, from my limited knowledge this is an area that that is sadly lacking across UK waters. It's interesting to see just how little or how much data is available for different sites and the variation in survival rates of different materials in different stretches of water. Good for exercising the old investigative brain muscles before returning for dissertaion study, if not a little frustrating at times.

AL Blog for 15/8/11

Yesterday was my 1st day on placement.
After being shown around the office and stores I completed forms expressing what I hoped to gain from my time at HWTMA. This was useful as I was able to express my aims for my time here.
I am working on the TS Mercury project and as such I was given a copy of the project proposal to read. This allowed me to gain a good understanding of the site, it's likely formation, areas of focus for this excavation season and the questions looking to be answered.
In addition to this we did some straight forward organisation by gathering what equipment was already available and starting to procure those items which were not to hand.

HWTMA Work Experience July 2011 Day Ten

My final day of work experience, arriving at 8:35am I started what I did yesterday all over again, making colour coded backgrounds fit the Jenga pieces, editing photos and changing all their resolutions. I made sure I saved my work every five minutes and when I got up to the 20^th century (which had taken three and a half hours) I wanted to check to see if Corel was being nice to me again. So I saved again, closed down the programme and opened it again from my documents. I was devastated when all that came up was a blank screen! Fortunately though, Julian and Brandon were able to help me locate the file again by loading Corel X5 (which we’d installed earlier) and opening what I’d been doing through that! So if I ever want to access it again I have to do it by first opening Corel X5, then loading it.

Then all five of us in the office (it was a very quiet day today) went to the park for lunch which was lovely because it was sunny and there was a squirrel running around. When I got back in I finished what I was doing and now am feeling quite proud. For the rest of the afternoon I had to type up instructions for the next person to work on developing this game. Whist doing this I realised there was something I still had to do, which was sort out the edited photos so they were saved in the photo file, this took me ¾ of an hour. I then finished the instructions and just as I did Steve came over with some forms I had to fill out.

Before I leave today I will have a meeting with Steve (because Gareth is not here) about my placement. He needs to fill in a form of mine and I think I may need to fill in more. I’ll get some feedback about how I’ve been. Then I hopefully will have all my work in some way so I can access it at home to see what I’ve done. Then I’ll catch the bus home.

Overall, these last two weeks have been really enjoyable and eye opening to the world of work. I've learned loads, had fun and have something I can put on my CV! I've also completed all my targets, which is great! If you are considering doing work experience here then do because it's way better than anywhere else and if you're going to do work experience here I hope my blog has been helpful in telling you what to expect. To finish I would like to say thank you to everyone at the office (especially Gareth) for having me and helping me! You have all been lovely! Thank you!

JG

HWTMA Work Experience July 2011 Day Nine

Today was a bit like my last day because Gareth wouldn't be in tomorrow so I had to say thank you and goodbye which was sad as Gareth has been very helpful and friendly. I arrived at 8:40am but before completing my blog for Wednesday I spoke to Valentine about what colours to use for each layer. She was very keen on using natural soil like colours but as there are 18 layers I thought I would have to use a few unnatural colours otherwise there would be too many browns for people to tell apart (which would be hard especially if they had bad vision).

I had to move computer today because Lauren (the lady who normally uses the computer I was on) was back. Anyway, I experimented with a whole range of different colours, textures and patterns on Corel before deciding on 18 to use. Whilst I was doing this and my blog I had several problems with the new computer so I had to ask Brandon (the diver and IT guy) to help me. Also I'm not keen on the new mouse on this computer although like the double screens. Then throughout the morning and half the afternoon I assigned the backgrounds on the Jenga pieces to colours, edited the images and completely finished all descriptions so the date was included in the dated artefacts description. I had lunch in the park in between which was lovely because it was really sunny and warm. I was pleased with everything I'd done because I'd finished a big part of the project!

But then disaster struck! I'd somehow lost everything I'd done today (except for the document where I'd written which colour belonged to which layer). It might have been me not saving my work (although I don't remember not saving) or the computer messing up but either way I've lost what I did. I was quite annoyed but there was nothing I could do except start again. At least I'd be faster as I knew what I was going to do. Gareth had to leave early so I gave him a thank you card and some Celebrations which were for everybody in the office.

Then I tried to load Corel and start again but it was not responding so I gave it a break for today and began typing up instructions for whoever continues this project after me, to tell them what I've done and what they need to do. After that I typed up this blog and will be leaving in five minutes. I just hope tomorrow I can redo all the work I lost today so I can feel like I've completed something...

HWTMA Work Experience July 2011 Day Eight

I arrived at 8:45am, wrote blog, then all morning I looked for photos, updated the grid and put new photos on Corel. I’d found all objects apart from 3 from the 18^th century (which I had a bit of a grudge against) and 3 from 1800 to 1849. After lunch in the park, I got straight back to work and in the last hour progress went really well, I found all but two photos which Gareth helped me find and now I have all the photos!! I have 54 clear (hopefully) interesting images from the Palaeolithic ear up to the 20^th century. I now need to colour code each layer. Feeling very pleased!

HWTMA Work Experience July 2011 Day Seven

I arrived early again at 8:35am, as usual I did my blog first thing and that took about 3/4 of an hour yesterday! When Gareth arrived (just as I finished) I reminded him about finding the photos from the Maritime-Line. I should explain, this Maritime-Line is just a rectangular poster produced by HWTMA and it's a timeline of Maritime and local history. There are many pictures on it and some I need for the Jenga game. They must be saved somewhere on the computer, we just have to find them. It was quite a busy morning and I worked really hard. I wrote all the descriptions for every photo I had found, re-arranged my grid so it made more sense and updated the Corel programme I made yesterday to fit in with my grid.

Then I had lunch at about 1:00pm before continuing with finding more photos and checking through all the internet sites I'd bookmarked yesterday because they may have been useful in finding artefacts. This afternoon my teacher was supposed to arrive at 2:00pm to check up on me and how my work experience placement was going. At just after 2:00pm the office got a phone call from a lady at the NOC office (in another part of Southampton) saying my teacher had turned up there! It wasn't my teachers fault; she had been given the wrong address by the company my school books work experience through. I also noticed when I discovered this placement that they'd spelled the Wight from 'Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology' wrong, they spelled it 'white' like the colour not 'Wight' like the Isle of Wight.

Anyway, my teacher did get to this office eventually at about 2:30pm. Firstly Gareth spoke to her, then she came over to me and I showed her everything I'd been doing, such as all the descriptions and photos I'd arranged and I also showed her the animation I made. We talked about the Jenga game and the blog and how I was finding the placement. Then she filled in a section of my Work Experience Journal (it's a booklet the school gave everyone in my year to fill in details about where you did work experience, what you did and then three review pages at the back, one for you, one for your teacher and one for your employer).

After my teacher left I continued finding artefacts and writing descriptions for them as well as making not of what website I found them on. I think today was a very successful day and possibly tomorrow I may finish finding photos!!

HWTMA Work Experience July 2011 Day Six

I got to the office at 8:45am today, wrote my blog post as usual and then got straight to work. I was very keen to get more photos today. I started by deleting all unessential photos, then I opened up a new Corel programme and started to arrange all the photos (once they'd been cropped and possibly edited) in the order they would be in the Jenga game. This made it much clearer to see what photos I had and where the gaps were. Then I searched for another 20th century artefact and I found a tobacco tin, which was a Christmas gift to all soldiers from HRH Princess Mary in 1914. the particular tobacco tin I found had been damaged by a German bullet but had saved it's owners life.

Then at about 11:00am or so Gareth came over and we had a long discussion about how I was doing. We went through all the artefacts I had found and the short notes I'd written to say what they were. Gareth liked most of the images but a few were too blurry or not very interesting so he gave me some ideas of what to get instead. We discussed colour coding each layer and how to split the layers when I had to find two for that era. I then went back to work and worked my way up my grid, deleting inappropriate artefacts, changing all the descriptions and checking on the websites I found the images on to see how they were dated. I had lunch again in the office and then continued with this task.

I've got about half way through the grid and hope to finish tomorrow, I've also got to ask Gareth to find the photos I'm using off the Maritime-Line somewhere on the computer. In the afternoon Gareth told me at about 2:00pm tomorrow my teacher would be visiting to see how I was doing. Also before he left I asked whether the date should be mentioned in the description for the undated artefact. So far he said he thought no but I must mention it for the dated artefact. I finished and left at 4:30pm to catch the bus back home, I really want to see this project through and make it a really enjoyable game.

HWTMA Work Experience July 2011 Day Five

I arrived later at 9:00am today as Amanda had told me to. Even so when I arrived there was only one person at the office. After being logged on to my computer I typed up Thursday's blog and loaded up everything I needed for the Jenga game. To start of I edited some more photos as well as sorted through all of those I'd taken until I only had one or two images left for each artefact. This was surprisingly hard as it was difficult to decide which pictures would be recognisable as their object when printed about the size of a postage stamp.

Then I searched the internet again for 18th century and medieval artefacts but had no luck in finding any appropriate. Mid-morning I went over to Gareth to ask for help and he told me not to worry about finding photos for now as I had another task to get on with. I sat down at his desk and he explained to me about a sunken U-boat in the Solent that divers from HWTMA had recently gone down to and taken photos of. In the Maritime Bus there is TV screen and I think Gareth wanted a sort of video showing what it would be like to dive down to the submarine.

Using Google Sketch Up I was to make an animation using the 'scenes' tool to show what a diver would see if he went down there. The model of the U-boat was already made by someone else so Gareth turned it on its side as it is in the water. The idea was that I would match up scenes from the animation to an actual photo taken of the wreck to merge onto the animation and show people what the sub looks like now. At first I thought this task looked quite difficult but once I got going I really enjoyed it. I ate lunch in the office today as it was really cold and windy outside and then continued with my task after lunch. The hardest part was making out from the photos what part of the submarine they were. This was hard because most of the outer shell of the U-boat had eroded away so the photos looked different to the model on Sketch Up and the water was quite murky.

Mid-afternoon I asked Gareth to check what I'd done and he said it was good but suggested a few more photos I could include in it. I did this and then right before I had to go I did a bit more of sorting photos out for the Jenga game then left. I feel like I've only been here a couple of days, not like I'm half way through work experience!

HWTMA Work Experience July 2011 Day Four

As the bus arrived early and it was raining so I walked fast I arrived at the office very early at 8:35am, Amanda was the only one in and she told me to arrive a bit later tomorrow as nobody would be in that early. I got to work on Wednesday's blog post then I organized the grid and brought it up to date. When Gareth arrived he'd brought in some more artefacts for me to photograph and use for the Jenga game. After he'd explained what they all were he told me to photograph them later when the light was better (it was cloudy because it was raining).

So, Gareth had something else for me to be getting on with, he showed me how to use some editing software called Corel DRAW X3 and Corel PHOTO-PAINT. My task was to make sure I could use it and edit some of the photos I took yesterday so they were clearer/brighter/more focused etc. I found the programme very easy to use and it was fun editing the pictures. I edited quite a few photographs and on the screen made them the size they would be on the Jenga blocks so I could see if they were recognizable as the objects that they were.

I had another coffee today and there were several phone calls. By lunch time it had stopped raining so I decided to go to the park again. Then when I got back I set up the camera, tripod and backing cloth before taking the new photographs. The artefacts were: an onion jar, late Iron Age/early Roman black burnish ware pottery, two Bronze Age flint tools and another piece of pottery. I also re photographed the Tudor brick again to see if I could get an image where it looked more like a brick.

After taking the photos I uploaded them onto the computer, edited a few of them, packed the equipment away then left. I'll be back tomorrow!

HWTMA Work Experience July 2011 Day Three

My third day at work, again I caught the bus in and arrived at the office at 8:45am. Firstly I wrote my blog post for Tuesday then I continued with my task of finding photos of artefacts. It might sound easy but I've got 54 images to find and so far I've found 40. Also I've got to find interesting artefacts and try not to repeat myself too often! My internet browsing skills have definitely improved over the last three days.

Gareth arrived at the office between half nine and ten. He made sure I knew what I was doing then left me to it. At first my progress went ok but towards mid-day I slowed down as I was finding it hard to think of images to look for, I was having particular trouble with the medieval period, but luckily Gareth suggested I gave finding photos a break until tomorrow and that this afternoon I photographed the artefacts HWTMA owned. It was a good idea to have as many images as possible that we owned that way we wouldn't need to ask for permission from so many people.

So after lunch in the park (where it was very windy) I returned to the office and Gareth showed me how to use the tripod and fancy camera. I've had no experience with 'proper' photography so Gareth had to go through the basics with me. For the rest of the afternoon I took photos of a plate from 1944, a bullet shell firing case from the Second World War, a Tudor brick, a piece of medieval pottery and a Palaeolithic stone tool. It was very fun and I took lots of pictures.

When I loaded them onto the computer however I thought I could have got the focus better but it was only my first try and on the Jenga blocks the image would be so small that I don't think it would matter. By then it was 4:30 so I left, it's my best friend's birthday today so I'm going round her house (Happy Birthday!) I can't wait for tomorrow and I'm really keen to finish finding those last few photos!

HWTMA Work Experience July 2011 Day Two

Today I arrived by bus, I arrived early at the office at 8:30am and tried the door but it was locked, I then waited in the park until 8:50am when I tried again and was let in. I completed my blog post for Monday then continued working on my task, finding photos of artefacts from relevant ages using the internet. This task was very enjoyable and I felt I progressed steadily throughout the morning. I was kindly offered a coffee mid-morning which was nice.

At 1:00pm I took my lunch break and sat in the park by myself, it was very peaceful. Luckily it only started to rain just as I finished eating so I quickly dashed back into the office for shelter. That was at 1:30pm when I returned to work. Progress was slower but after a chat with Gareth I had a better idea of what photos to look for. Gareth helped me by suggesting different artefacts to look for, for example for the Palaeolithic era he suggested looking for antler or bone tools not just stone ones. I started doing this and made notes on the grid of what to look for so I didn't forget.

At 4:30pm I left in order to catch the bus. Again I had a good day and am looking forward to tomorrow although I am a bit tired.

HWTMA Work Experience July 2011 Day One

Today was my first day of work experience, I arrived at 10:00 am at the office, I'd been there before for an interview but it was still good to be given the guided tour because I'd forgotten some things. Then I was given a quick health and safety talk as well as being introduced to most of the team. Gareth (my supervisor) then gave me a pre-placement questionnaire which I had to fill out. My aims for this placement are to work as part of team and complete all tasks to the best of my ability, to experience a different working environment than school, to learn more about archaeology and to improve my skills in many areas such as: photography, audio recording, web design...

I was then set a research task. Gareth explained using a diagram what stratigraphy was and how archaeologists can roughly tell how old something is depending on how far down in the ground it is. Stratigraphy is the study of stratification - the laying down or depositing of strata/layers/deposits one above the other. I then had to find out a bit more about stratigraphy using a book called: Archaeology, Theories Methods and Practice as well as the internet. About half way through the morning everybody stopped what they were doing and went into the meeting room to sing Gareth happy birthday and give him a cake because it had been his birthday recently. After that I went back to researching and I typed my findings up onto a Word document

This task took me up to lunch at 12:30 pm where I met my mum in Queen's Park literally across the road from the office. At about 1:00 pm I returned, for quarter of an hour I just checked through my research before asking Gareth to explain my task to me. My task: I've got to help develop a Jenga style game that will hopefully explain stratigraphy to the public. So for the rest of the afternoon I made a grid to help me make sure each Jenga piece is assigned a picture of an artefact, and I began to search for possible pictures as well as what time period it is from.

Also, in the afternoon I was given a task by Christin to burn some DVD's. I did this but it was taking too long as I had to keep copying information off the original DVD so after some help from various members of the team we found a quicker method but unfortunately there was not enough time to complete burning all 20 DVD's as Christin had to leave for the Isle of Wight with them early. However she took a laptop with her and I think managed to complete the burning process on the ferry. I then went back to my work.

Gareth had to leave slightly early and I left at 4:30 pm because that was when I had to be picked up. I had a great first day today and am looking forward to tomorrow!

work placement june 2011

My first day of work began by a guided tour of the premises which included a quick view of some of the archaeological finds on site. I then discussed with the work experience manager the areas of maritime archaeology that fascinated me the most so that we could communally find an area of interest for me to base my weeks project on. This concluded to be the preservation of materials under the sea and the natural or man made methods of preservation. Once we had settled on an idea I set to work on selecting four specific topics under the title; 'preservation's: how do we save whats under the sea,' that i could limit my research to. I then used a combination of the Internet, the office library and the staff to collate relevant information to go under each sub title. With all this information collected tomorrow I plan to use the gathered information to begin my A1 'preservation methods' poster design.