June 2009

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Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a good summer because I know I am!

This last week has been crazy busy at Ball. We’ve been working on a lot of new proposals and with my BIRST rocket program, there hasn’t been a lot of free time.

Last week my rocket team started to actually construct our payloads that will be put in the rocket. Before I had said we were launching little paratroopers out of the rocket, but we couldn’t find any that were the right size and could get in the time allotted. So small change in plans, we’re now launching little mini aliens out of the rocket, it seems rather appropriate to me! I’m mainly working on the payload which is going to launch out a Ball Aerospace flag but last week I got to help out on another group’s area, the pyrotechnic initiators. For those of you that don’t know what it is, a pyrotechnic initiator is the part of the rocket that sets off the charge to jettison a payload out of the main body. Also if you’ve seen a rocket with multiple stages, a lot of them use the same devices to separate. Two interns from my payload went to work with ULA to learn about how to construct these devices. It was a little intimidating at first to be playing with gun powder but when we got to try one out, it was sooo awesome! Our team is going to test them out on our payloads next weekend!

This last weekend a few interns decided we wanted to take advantage of being in Colorado. We found a place in the mountains we wanted to go and set off on a hike. Longs Peak is one of the taller mountains in Colorado and we knew we didn’t stand a chance to make it all the way up, but about 2/3 of the way is a lake at the base of the peak called Chasm Lake. We had to start pretty early because the afternoons are usually when the storms creep in and being on a mountain with lightning doesn’t sound like fun to me. One of my favorite parts was the snow! At one point we had to climb across an ice shelf that was on a hill. The snow was melting so it was pretty slippery, especially on the way back when the sun was high. It took almost 5 hours to get there and back! I’m hoping to get to climb a lot more before I leave since there aren’t any opportunities back at school.

I’ll keep you updated on my internship and rocket! We launch the end of July so I’ll have exciting things to report!

June 2009

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“Hello, world!” My name is Geoff Bruder, and I am a senior in Aerospace Engineering with an Astronautics concentration at Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach campus. Since this is my first post, I’ll give you a little of my background and tell you some of the great things I have been able to do thanks to Embry-Riddle.

I have been interested in space and mechanical things as long as I can remember. My earliest memories are of building cars and airplanes with legos and erector sets. I ended up indulging my mechanical curiosity by working on cars in high school. Since I wasn’t able to go straight to a university after high school I worked, and took classes at night. I worked as an auto mechanic and then, thanks to Broward Community College, an AutoCAD technician. While I was working, my aspirations were growing, and I set my sights on the stars, literally.

I did all my research and loved the fact that Embry-Riddle is a dedicated Aerospace university, where you can be immersed in the industry and culture. All of the course training and projects I have worked on here have led me to my current position. I am currently writing from Cleveland, Ohio where I work for NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) as an Aerospace Engineering intern.

Prior to this position, I worked at Kennedy Space Center with the Undergraduate Student Research Program (USRP), then at GRC as a USRP intern. Being accepted into the NASA co-op program means I am now a federal employee, and will hopefully be able to transition to be a full time employee with NASA after graduation.

I work with the Thermal Energy Conversion Branch researching, analyzing, and testing Stirling power and cooling systems for spacecraft. My primary focus here has been on hardware for a robotic surface mission to Venus. In subsequent posts I will fill you in on all the gory details. Thanks for your attention, more to come in a couple weeks.

Geoff

June 2009

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Hello,
My name is Albane Flamant, I’m an international student from Mons, Belgium and will be starting next fall my senior year. In a little more than a week, I’ll be starting my internship back home in a local newspaper. I’m really excited about it: Even though I’m only a communication student without much experience, I’ll get to write small articles that will be published in a recognized newspaper. I’ve always had a passion for writing but I’ve only tried journalism recently. Last Spring, I spent a lot of my time working for the Avion, the university’s newspaper, as a reporter and an editor. Writing has always been a passion, and I love writing for the Avion. Despite the fact that I’m spending my summer back home in Belgium, I’m currently writing an article about campus for next week’s issue. This internship will hopefully better my writing. Here in Europe, the news writing style is a little different in terms of punctuation and paragraph structure. This will give me the opportunity to experience the European newsroom. It has taken me a while to get through the paperwork because of the language barrier and the cultural difference between the ERAU’s career services and the company hiring me for the summer, but I finally made it. Despite the fact I love writing, I will not probably end up being a journalist after I graduate. However, this will be a great work experience for me and it will enrich my resume and my portfolio. All fields I’m interested in require strong writing skills, and the articles I will write during my internship will be good samples to show potential employers.

So that’s it for this week… I’ll keep you posted on what happens on my first day. I should be running around the city with a notepad, a voice recorder and a camera. It should be interesting. Have a great week!

June 2009

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TGIF! One week into my internship and I am so ready for a weekend!

Just to recap, I’m working in the new business department of systems engineering at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, CO. It’s not what I expected (but then again I really had no idea what to expect) but it’s pretty sweet.

My department has a lot of engineers, even though it’s a little more business related, because of all the technical portions in potential contracts the company is bidding on. So basically when a company or the government wants something made they send out a bunch of information about what they need, all the requirements it needs to have, and the process to get it. It’s my department’s job to take all that info, ensure that we are able to competitively fulfill all that’s required, properly format it and ultimately send it back and wait to see if Ball gets the contract.

I’m learning this new program that is unlike anything I’ve ever worked with. It’s project management software; you can input information and manipulate it in a million ways to get the style of output you want. I’ve done some programming before so I’ve been able to develop some short cuts to make their process a little simpler since they do it over and over again.

I have to learn a new programming language because DOORS (the program) has its own language. It’s a little bit odd, one of the engineers I asked for help told me it was created in Europe and was designed for use in the European Space Agency. His theory is that the programmers were a little drunk while creating it because there are a lot of weird quirks about it and a lot of people have trouble with it, which made me feel better because it’s a steep learning curve!

Since I’ve been working, the Human Resources people have been awesome about scheduling tours for all the interns at various Ball facilities. We were able to look around the clean room a few days ago; inside I saw the WorldView-2 satellite under construction. I’m sure most of you have played around on Google maps at some point? Well WorldView-1 was created at Ball and it took most of the pictures for Google! Hurray for upgrades, who knows what this one will be capable of? We also had an intern picnic where they gave us free food, hurray! About half the interns are from Colorado schools, some are from Arizona and the rest are scattered. It’s nice to have a variety so no one really knows each other so we are all bonding pretty well.

Ball is teaming up with United Launch Alliance (ULA) in Denver and their interns are going to be building a rocket and the Ball interns are going to be building payloads for it! The rocket is supposed to go up at least 5000ft! The payload I’m working on isn’t going to be ejected from the body of the rocket and has over 5 cubic feet of room to work with, so brainstorming was difficult. Instead of trying to make some technological breakthrough (we only have 5 weeks to create the entire thing!) we decided to have some fun with it. I don’t know if anyone remembers those little green paratroopers that you would drop off staircases or balconies and the parachutes would deploy when you were a kid? Well my team is going to launch a ton of them out of the rocket as it descends after launch. We’re also working on dropping some modified smoke bombs out to help ULA with the wind directions to find the rocket after it lands. I’ll keep you updated on my team’s progress! We launch the end of July! There’s so much to get done before then!

May 2009

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Hello! I hope you all are enjoying the beginning of summer/end of the school year.

Last week I went to Washington, DC as a student traveler for the Citizens for Space Coalition. Every year the organization goes to DC to speak with government members and their staff to educate them on the importance of NASA’s human space flight programs. It was awesome, they paid for about 20 students from across the country to come together to help the 80ish space industry professionals. There were two other students from Embry-Riddle that also attended. I represented Minnesota because that’s my home state and other students represented where they are from. While I was there I met with lots of people, including aides from Congressmen Collin Peterson, Betty McCollum, Michele Bachman’s offices and Senator Amy Klobuchar, all from Minnesota. Here’s a picture of Amy and me. I also had the opportunity to talk with several from Oregon, Indiana, Illinois, Idaho, and South Carolina.

Walking through the capital buildings was so surreal. I’ve been to DC before, but always as a tourist. Members of the government had always seemed so far removed to me, like people you vote for and never really hear from again. It was awesome to be able to sit down with these people and talk about something I am passionate about, space flight.

I went to all these offices in a team of four and we each had our little parts to talk about. I discussed how important of an investment it is in our future to keep the Constellation and Shuttle programs fully funded. We’ve already spent so much money on both projects and to not continue allowing them to grow is a total waste of the money spent thus far. I also said that NASA is a source of national pride. I’m sure you’ve all seen the movie Apollo 11 but you can clearly see on those people’s faces how excited the entire country was! If we go to Mars or back to the Moon, maybe we can unite the nation towards that goal in these tight economic times. But enough rambling about why space rocks, because it does, but that’s beside the point.

After my trip to DC I spent a few days in Daytona saving my apartment from the random heavy rains. My parking lot had fish in it! It was ridiculous, but nothing was damaged so that was good. Now I’m in Colorado, I start my internship in a few days and I am so excited! I think I spoke a little about it before, but just to recap I’m going to be working in systems engineering at Ball Aerospace. It’s a really cool company; they worked on the Hubble and also the Deep Impact program. If you aren’t familiar with it, check out their website BallAerospace.com. Starting a new anything is always a little nerve racking but then again, it’s going to be new to everyone, not just me. I’ll post after my first day! Wish me luck!

May 2009

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Hey everyone! I’m glad you’re all interested in Embry-Riddle! It’s an awesome school and I love it here! I became interested in the space program when I was really young. I went to space camp when I was in elementary school and since then have wanted to become an astronaut. In high school I took an aviation class; my teacher mentioned the name Embry-Riddle and after that I knew that’s where I wanted to go to college. When I came to visit, I saw how everyone here loved aviation and aerospace and knew it was the place for me.

This summer I actually won’t be spending much time on campus. I will be very busy with a lot of other things. A few days ago I competed in the NASA Means Business competition (more on that later), I’ll be going to Washington D.C., to meet with government members and tell them why space exploration is important and to ask their support in funding the space program, and last but certainly not least, a systems engineering internship at Ball Aerospace in Colorado!

My NASA Means Business team and I have been working since last fall on a branding strategy, which is basically a marketing campaign, for NASA’s new manned space flight program, Constellation. For those of you who haven’t checked it out yet you definitely should! It’s going to be taking us back to the moon and onward to Mars! We were named finalists back in December and all the finalist teams were invited to Kennedy Space Center for the final presentations and some behind the scenes tours. It was really cool to see what all the teams had came up with and how different everyone’s ideas were. Sadly the competition overlapped with Riddle’s commencement ceremony and I wanted to see my friends graduate so I wasn’t able to go on the tours but my teammates said that went said it was awesome. They were able to go inside the vertical assembly building and also walk underneath the shuttle. We didn’t win but the winning team had a few similar ideas to ours so it was encouraging to know that the judges liked them.

I’ve been communicating with the HR representative at my internship via e-mail and I am so excited to start. There won’t be anyone else from Embry-Riddle with me; I think the majority of the other interns are from schools in Colorado, and a few from Cornell and Purdue. In the beginning of college all the general courses, like all the math and physics, got really boring but this year I’ve actually been able to start putting things I know into an aerospace prospective. Finally being able to apply it to engineering and see why all these classes were important will be sweet! I’ll write more after my trip and if you guys have any questions about school feel free to e-mail me at fossu15a@erau.edu!

May 6, 2009

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Hey guys. The spring semester has officially ended and I can’t wait for Summer A to start! Check-in for dorms started yesterday and continues thru today and classes begin tomorrow. I can’t wait for this summer. I already started having fun. The past two days I flew with friends to Tampa and visited Busch Gardens, walked around St. Petersburg and went to the mall in Brandon. It was a fun 2 days away from campus.

Classes last semester were awesome, especially grades. Finals went really well and were as smooth as possible. I will enjoy my all-female professor schedule for the summer and fall, haha. I am excited to take AT 200 (Air Traffic Management I) and BA 314 (Human Resource Management) for the first summer session. For BA 314, my professor already assigned us homework on Monday!

So far everything is going great. I move out of my room in McKay to my summer room in Adams. I am not looking forward to moving because I have so much stuff! It’s going to be a challenge and it has to get done. I will be a busy traveler this summer and also a studious student. I am going to enjoy the next few months as much as possible.

If you guys have any questions at all about anything at all, please feel free to email me. I appreciate the guys that have emailed me and I am glad to answer your questions. I am here to be a good resource for you guys so if can assist in any way please let me know. Tuition deposit was due May 1st, you can still make the deposit ASAP, and the housing deposit is due June 1st. Remember to file your FAFSA and contact admissions if you have any questions about the application or financial aid in general. I wish you guys luck in your admission process and hope to see you on campus in the fall.

Best wishes and safe skies,
Andre

May 1, 2009

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Hello Everyone! Well, this is it. I am officially done with classes. WHEW! It feels so great!

The past two weeks were spent finishing up my classes and the CRJ simulator course. I only had one final and it was in my History class. It was over a lot of material, but it wasn’t too hard after all. Other than that, the past two weeks were primarily spent in the CRJ simulator. What an experience! The course really does prepare you to fly a true jet aircraft in the real world environment. When I was done, my partner and I were able to fly the CRJ completely by ourselves from one airport to another! What a rewarding experience.

Well, this is it. I walk across the stage on May 5th and I will officially be in the real world. I will be returning home on the 7th of May to see the family for the summer. After that, we’ll see where the world takes me. It was a pleasure sharing my experiences with all of you guys for the past year. Thanks for listening and good luck to you all!

April 30

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Just like that, my freshman year is over! It sure has been a fun year, and it couldn’t have ended any better. On Monday April 20, I was elected as the new President for Delta Upsilon at Embry-Riddle. I was honored to be nominated and elected to this position. I know it will be a ton of hard work, but I am prepared to do anything necessary to make this colony succeed. I believe whole-heartedly in Delta Upsilon’s founding principles and their overall goal to “Build Better Men”. I take great pride in knowing my fraternity brothers have faith in me, and I am looking forward to doing a great job while creating a lot of amazing memories with them.

Along with taking finals this past week, I was also packing up and getting ready to head home. I had to do some major cleaning but I got it all done and was officially checked out of my dorm. It was a little sad to leave my room that I considered home since August. I left Daytona Beach early Tuesday and stopped in Nashville to spend the evening with my friend Brent and my cousin Susanna (in the picture in front of her dorm at Vanderbilt) who go to school there. Wednesday I made it back to Missouri where my family was excited to see me. The drive was long, but I truly love living in Florida and going to school at ERAU which makes the long travels worth it.

This past weekend my friends and I (and my car) made it to the beach one last time before we headed home for the summer. The weather in Daytona has been absolutely perfect (80’s and sunny). We spent all day under the warm sun and boogie boarding (because we aren’t skilled enough for real surfboards). I never get tired of the beach, and I already miss it being back in the land-locked state of Missouri. It has been in the 60’s and rainy since I have been home and I already miss Florida’s weather.

Yesterday I got more good news about the end of the semester: I received a 4.0 GPA for the spring of 2009. It’s so great to see all of your hard work paying off, and it was the perfect ending to the best semester ever. My classes and professors were a lot of fun this year, and it really showed. I truly believe if you are having fun in class you perform better, and my professors certainly made these last four months a lot of fun. From goofy stories about Malaysian tree shrews to dogs visiting class, it undoubtedly has been a wild spring.

I am looking forward to having a great summer. I have a lot planned including the Europe Study Abroad, my sister’s wedding, and a national Delta Upsilon conference in Albany, NY. I will also be working while at home to get some money for all of these activities. At the beginning of July I will begin writing a journal about my experience with Embry-Riddle abroad this summer, so check back in and see what I am up to on the other side of the pond. I hope you have an amazing May and June, and I will be back in July. Until then, please email me (meansm@erau.edu) with any questions about ERAU or college life in general and I would be more than happy to talk with you.

Until Next Time,
Mack

April 30, 2009

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Classes are over and grades have been posted; now summer can start…Yippee! My finals went alright and, even though I didn’t do as well as I had hoped, I’m glad to be done. My mom and sister arrived on Monday to help me pack my stuff and to do some sightseeing. We went to the beach, the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse, and miniature golf. I think they have enjoyed being in Daytona, but I’m so ready to hit the road towards Illinois. As my last journal entry, I figured I would answer a few common questions from a student’s perspective and give a few pointers to incoming college freshmen.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s a typical college day like?

This was a little different for me because I’m in AFROTC and have to wake up early for training. Also, it all depends on what your schedule is like. You will receive your schedule sometime in August and if you have any problems you can talk to your advisor when you arrive at school. Some people I knew went to class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9 to 5 and then on Tuesday and Thursday would only have one class. Another thing your schedule depends upon is your major, business students will most likely have two or three classes per day. Most clubs get started in September and club meetings are usually held once a week sometime during the evening. The other time you can spend in the library working on homework, eating in the UC (Student Center), or hanging out with friends.

Do I ever get to leave campus?

My freshman year I didn’t have a car in Daytona and I still made it a point to go do fun things every now and then. The mall is within walking distance along with a few restaurants. Many people do have cars and are willing to take other students places like the beach or Walt Disney World. This year I had a scooter and enjoyed being able to leave campus whenever I had some extra time. If you are thinking about bringing a car down, it’s about $35 a year for a parking decal and there is limited parking space.

Do you ever get homesick?

I was nervous about leaving my family behind and coming some place where I didn’t know anyone; so, I made sure to bring lots of pictures and things that would remind me of home. I brought a couple of my favorite movies and music to watch and listen to when I needed to have a reminder of home. The best thing for me was being able to call home and talk to my mom and sister. However, once you get immersed in school the feeling goes away and the semester flies by. Do make sure you decorate your dorm room to look like an actual room and not just a dorm room.

Pointers

  • Be positive—remain positive when things don’t seem to be going exactly the way you had hoped.
  • Get involved—many people will tell you this, but it is true. Join a few clubs and you will be able to meet so many more people.
  • Don’t hibernate in your dorm room—meeting people is a good way to keep from getting homesick. Go to the buffet or student center and eat with a new group of people, you just might meet your next best friend.
  • Don’t slack off on your homework—waiting a day or two to do your homework will just mean you have to play catch up later in the week or on the weekend. This can cause you to be overwhelmed and stressed and result in you not enjoying your time in college.

I hope that you all have enjoyed my journal entries this year and I hope that they were helpful. Good luck to everyone that has chosen to attend ERAU!
Kaleigh Sides