These past couple weeks at NASA Glenn have been very eventful. As I mentioned in my previous post, I worked on a battery charger and battery last semester. This past week, we finally secured the safety permit and ran the Stirling engines to charge the battery. I am pleased to say that the charger worked as planned. Getting to see a projected through to fruition is one of the great things about working at a place like NASA.

Another great thing is the training courses offered here, and the mindset that employees can and should continue to grow and learn throughout their careers. I was able to attend a three day Labview training course, and will hopefully get to implement what I learned in the coming weeks.

This training will help me finalize my current project, which I have yet to mention. Currently I am building up a test stand and instrumentation rack for a Thermoacoustic Stirling Heat Engine. This engine has been built to study Thermoacoustic Stirling engines for use on Venus. The rack and test stand are in their final stages, and I hope to have the engine ready to run by the time I leave here this summer.

In order to complete this, I have many things to do in the coming weeks. I will have a busy schedule trying to get everything done here, but the experience is unbeatable. More to come in a couple weeks.

Geoff