Tag Archives: Internship

August 2009

Posted on by

Hey everyone!
It’s almost it ! I only have a week of internship left! And it’s feeling like it’s the end: last Friday, the Bridgestone strike finally ended. I spent about four weeks covering that issue, and it felt really weird. But it’s for the best, these people were out of work for too long. During the time I covered this conflict, I actually learned a lot on how to write objective articles while making sure I wasn’t making the whole situation worse.

Anyway, that’s over! It’ll feel a little weird this week: for the past four weeks, I had been working on the same topic pretty much every day! I did a ton of other articles (on farmers, other strikes, competitions, schools, construction work, etc) , but I started my day with phone calls to figure out what was going on in the Bridgestone factory that day! Now I’ll have to find new topics every day. At least I can still work on it one more day: our readers will have to know how going back to work feels like after a two months strike!

This week, the newsroom crew changed again. It’s summer, and everybody is taking his vacations in turn. I’m the only one who’s been there every day for the past seven weeks. I have to say, it makes my work a little harder: every week, I have to adapt to new coworkers, and I’ve already changed three times of supervisor! Working hard on my flexibility there… They all want different things from me as far as topics or writing style, but I think it’s somehow a good thing. Overall, I’m learning a lot.

Now that I’m about to leave, people here are starting to know me. Despite the fact they’ve all been on vacation at some point, I’ve been here for seven weeks so they’ve had time to come back. They’re nice people, but I don’t think I’d like to work here for real. It would be too much of the same thing. Eight weeks here was just enough time to have fun writing articles about local things, but I need something else. I guess it helped me narrow my career focus. That’s one of the points of doing internships, right? Plus I got a ton of articles published. It’ll be good for my portfolio. They’ve used me a lot. Before I started I thought I would be mainly scanning documents for them, or something similar. I was hoping they would let me write a few articles. In the end, I had to write an average of two to three articles a day for eight weeks. It was awesome! I also learned a lot about how to behave in the workplace, and how to adapt to what is asked from you.

After this, time for a little bit of vacation: I’m going to Sweden for a few days. And then almost immediately going back to school! This summer went by fast!

Have a good day!

August 2009

Posted on by

Every pilot, it seems, knows from the very beginning that he/she wants to pursue a career in aviation. I knew it the second I stepped foot into the cockpit of a FedEx Express Boeing 727 at Newark Airport. Even though I had no clue what I was looking at or what I was doing for that matter, it seemed just as cool then as it does now.

On almost every flight I’ve boarded since, I have received a tour of the cockpit, and have had the opportunity to sit in the captain’s chair. With each visit, I grew more and more interested in the aviation world. During my high school years, I spent hours researching aircraft, airports, playing MS Flight Simulator, reading the Airliners.net forums and looking up at the sky every time I heard a plane flying overhead.

I was an A- student in high school and I was a member of both the National Honor Society and the Italian Honor Society. Throughout high school I enrolled in as many dual enrollment courses as possible and took AP exams during my senior year. All of which turned into seventeen transfer credits to the University. I’ve basically wiped out a semester for a fraction of the cost. I definitely recommend it, because it’s a good eye-opener to college coursework, and because you can’t beat the prices.

Discovering the perfect college for me, was not a simple task. I had always known about ERAU but wondered what other schools that offered similar degree programs were like. So I went exploring locally in New York, followed by a trip to the mid-west and finally Florida. After discovering what these other schools had to offer I was able to make my final decision; to attend Embry-Riddle.

During the first semester of my senior year, I submitted my applications to ERAU, WMich, FIT, JU, Vaughn, & Dowling. I applied to six schools, which I grouped into three categories, First-Choice, Medium-Choice, and Fall-Back. Fortunately for me I got accepted to each one, which was great because at that point my options were unlimited. The first school to notify me that I gained acceptance was Embry-Riddle, just before the Christmas Break and it was possibly the best feeling ever. Everything was going my way!

The remainder of my senior year of high school, involved a program called “Senior Seminar.” A class where each student enrolls him/herself in an internship; I choose flight training to become a pilot. To receive my flight training I attended a local flight school at Essex County Airport (Caldwell). I enrolled in a Part 141 training program to ultimately receive a private pilots certificate. I started out learning the basics during ground school, which was one-on-one with my flight instructor. I preferred this method over large classes, because it offers the student a better understanding of the material. In addition, my school had a full video library available to its students for training purposes, to reinforce each lesson. I highly recommend these videos from Jeppesen and King Schools to better any pilot during flight training. Throughout the course I learned many operations, maneuvers, and gained a knowledge about the aviation world. Overall I was loving every minute of it!

My final thoughts before leaving to attend ERAU were career related. I wasn’t sure if becoming a pilot would provide me with the job environment I had hoped for. I was constantly reminded by fellow pilots to always have something to fall back on. Whether it be medicine, engineering, or law, the key thing to remember is that your career as a pilot relies on you maintaining the conditions set-forth by an FAA Medical Certificate. Many people in their forties discover health problems which can determine them physically unfit to pilot an aircraft. Another factor to consider would be the trends of the airline industry, with all the furloughs and lay-offs that have occurred. These two facts need to be taken into account when determining a major or minor course of study. The ‘what if’ factor definitely should be asked upon oneself before finalizing majors and minors, so I’ll be exploring those options over the next months here.

Over and Out.

August 4, 2009

Posted on by

Hello! It’s the last week of my internship and I can’t believe how fast the summer has gone.

Last week, four astronauts from STS-125 came to Ball to thank everyone for their work on the Hubble. In May they came out to Colorado to learn how about the hardware to be installed during the May final Hubble servicing mission. There was a lunch for the employees and then the crew talked about their experiences and showed up some cool video footage from the EVA (space walks) and their time in space. Then they presented the Ball Corporation and Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation’s presidents with a plaque of gratitude for everyone’s help. Another intern and I were talking about how awesome the job of an astronaut would be. You get to go into space, experience zero gravity, and perform all sorts of cool experiments. Sign me up!

Today was the final banquet for all the interns and co-ops. They showed up a really cool video about the launch day of the BIRST Project I talked about last time. I’m hoping they publish it on YouTube so I can share it with you guys. Sometimes pictures are proprietary information so anything that you want to distribute outside of the company has to go through an approval process. At the banquet my payload team presented our mentor with a trophy we made. One of the interns had a trophy from when he was younger and we wrapped the little topper man in duct tape (symbolic of the duct tape on the payload) attached an alien paratrooper to one outstretched hand and a mini Ball flag to the other hand. Then to represent all the epoxy we used on our project we dripped some over the trophy which had a final appearance a little like gloopy icicles. Overall the present was quite ugly but it wasn’t our goal to make something attractive, just something to signify the summer fun.

Last weekend I drove to a town in the south east/central part of Colorado to visit a friend doing an internship in New Mexico (we met halfway). One of my favorite things about doing an internship is getting to explore a different area then I’m used to. The town we went to was pretty small, and my GPS got us really lost while looking for some fun hiking, but eventually we ended up at a lake and some of the views were breathtaking. Colorado is definitely one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. We found a restaurant which had singing waiters! They would randomly break out into opera-like songs! Crazy, that’s all I have to say about it. Next week I’m going back to my hometown in Minnesota for a quick visit before driving back across the country for the fall semester. I can’t believe how quickly the summer has gone. But I can certainly say that I didn’t just sit around and do nothing!

July 2009

Posted on by

I can’t believe my time in Colorado is over half way gone. I’ve been at Ball for six weeks now and only have four weeks left.

Lately I’ve been working on a solar array sizing program. I never really liked programming before, but actually applying it to things that I’m interested in is actually pretty cool. In the program, you input the power loads (how much power the instruments need) and some other information which is specific to the satellite such as orbit altitude, and what you want to make your solar array and batteries out of. Then it spits out answers like how big your solar array needs to be, how many batteries are required and the eclipse and sunlight exposure times. I’m still working out a few final input error checks and the form the user fills out, but I’m excited to see my final product!

There are several other aerospace companies in the area and the intern coordinators organized a bowling night for all of us. So interns from Lockheed Martin, ULA and Ball, had a fun night together. I have no idea who ultimately won, but I scored higher than 100 and that was awesome for me.

My team’s payloads for the rocket are right on schedule, which makes our lives so much less stressful. I was talking to our mentor for the project and we was telling us that although it was a much simplified process, that the steps we went through with the designing, and communicating with the ULA interns was exactly what we would have to do after we graduate. This week we made mass simulating payloads for ULA to use to test their rocket, and next week we go back to their facilities to integrate our units into theirs. I’ll let you know how it goes!

July 2009

Posted on by

This one is for the geeks in the room…

Hi, again. Since I have been at Glenn Research Center (GRC) now since January, I want to mention some of the things that I have worked on here already before talking about my current projects. Initially, I was hired to work on a design for a test chamber able to simulate the environment on the surface of Venus. That was one of two main projects I worked on last semester.

On that project, I met with test engineers, materials engineers, mechanical, and electrical engineers to consult on my design. The work I did involved doing stress calculations, researching materials, researching existing test chambers and industry as well as doing Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis. I ended up producing a preliminary design for the test chamber, able to test an entire Venus lander at surface conditions, and co-authoring a paper in the works for publication. I also wrote a program in Matlab to calculate the deceleration loads seen during ballistic entry into the atmosphere of Venus at varying velocities and entry angles.

The second project I worked on last semester was great, because I actually ended up doing hands on work with electronics and was able to see hardware built from my design. The project was to design a battery and enclosure along with charging circuitry. The battery was to be charged using the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) simulator, a spacecraft power system my branch developed, as a power source. This battery and charging circuitry, combined with the ASRG simulator, will be part of a demonstration unit showing that ASRG technology can be used to charge batteries on lunar vehicles or rovers.

The picture shown of me was taken next to the battery and enclosure I designed, and the little black box containing my circuitry. This project was absolutely awesome to work on, stretching my electrical and mechanical education and skills to the max. Between these two projects I used nearly every bit of knowledge I have gained at Embry-Riddle.

Thanks again for reading, more to come in a week or two.
Geoff

June 2009

Posted on by

“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

Posted on by

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!

Life is like a box of chocolates…

Posted on by

Over the past two weeks things have begun to pick up again. Last week we traveled up to Tulsa, Oklahoma to get a tour of one of our biggest maintenance facilities. After flying up to Tulsa we waited in the baggage area for several minutes for our contact. After no sign and a failed attempt to reach him by phone we call our intern coordinator back in Dallas. Apparently 20 minutes before we landed, our guide got called into mechanic contact negotiations. (That’s another thing I didn’t realize until this summer, that every work group in this industry is almost constantly negotiating for a better contract.) But stuck in Tulsa we were, and not wanting to sit and wait for our afternoon flight home we began to scheme. From Tulsa there is a limited number of American destinations to fly to, the two biggest being Dallas and Chicago. Knowing that we didn’t want to go back to Dallas (and the daily work) we decided that Chicago style deep dish would be an excellent dinner option.

With a quick call back to Dallas to receive permission to proceed with our “base visit” in Chicago because we didn’t want to “waste the day” we were on an aircraft bound for Chicago within the hour. We actually did make good on our word by meeting up with our intern who is working out of Chicago this summer. He took us up to the American ramp tower, down to the American Airlines crew quarters underneath the terminal, and out on the ramp, which was awesome. As we were about to go on the ramp our Chicago intern said, “now when I open this door there should be a big plane here,” as the door swung open there in massive form was an Iberian A340, which I say is a pretty large plane. The pilots actually have their names written on the side of it! Getting the chance to walk on any ramp is a cool experience, but getting to walk around the ramp at Chicago O’Hare – now that’s just plain sweet.

After our ramp tour we headed into Chicago for dinner and by 10pm I was back in my crash pad in Dallas. There is something almost magical about being able to do this kind of travel. I mean really, Chicago for dinner when you are living in Texas??? Who does that?

After a couple more days in the office it was time for the weekend and more traveling. One place I hadn’t visited yet this summer was the northeast, and so, there we were Friday headed to Newark to spend the weekend in New York. Never having gone to New York, I was apprehensive as to what the Big Apple was going to be like. Overall I would say that I enjoyed the big city and I’m sure if you are a person who loves big cities you would enjoy it even more. I couldn’t believe how hot it was though…and no breeze! The public transportation makes it fairly easy to get around but sometimes it takes a while to get from place to place. We hit all of the major tourist spots and had fun bargaining for knockoff colognes and purses. We went down to ground zero and without getting into that, which I would say is a personal and unique experience for everyone, one quote I did see at the site that I will include went something to the effect of “don’t forget the past, but live in the future.”

The following week of work was interesting. With a base chief meeting here in Dallas, all of the chiefs from around the country were here. Another intern who works with the chief in Miami was also in town for a simulator session and had been invited to go out to eat with the chiefs. Waiting to tag along for dinner also, I randomly bumped into my bosses’ boss, who introduced me to one of the guys who works strategy for American. Here, in a moment of immense fate, I had my next break on my project. After explaining what I was doing, the strategy guy invited me to present my research a week later (this Wednesday) to a group he was supposed to be speaking to. Now this was great but since I hadn’t put a lot of time into the project since the beginning of July you can figure out what I have been up to the past week here.

But it is just crazy how the industry works. You never know who you will bump into and when and what kind of break you might get. But I am excited about presenting to more people and the fact that my research will not go to waste is a relief.

This past weekend we were back in the northeast. On Friday at 3:00pm we still had no idea where we were going to go. By the time I left work I was on the standby list for a flight to Hartford, Connecticut with no real plans. We ended up doing a road trip out of Hartford on Saturday, driving from there to Providence, Rhode Island and then up the coast through Plymouth, and through Boston, Mass. From there we continued north through the tip of New Hampshire and into Maine. We hung out by the water for a while and then got a lobster at a restaurant on the water. The temperature was incredible, nice and cool, a great break from Dallas. Flying back to Dallas on Sunday morning from Boston ended yet another amazing weekend of travel and added more memories to an already unforgettable summer.

Cheers,

Jacob

Don’t stop till you drop….

Posted on by

With yet another two weeks of the internship completed, I have passed the midpoint of the semester and cannot believe that in five weeks I will be headed back to the east coast and leaving Dallas behind.

Two weeks ago we got the chance to visit our Alliance Maintenance Base near Ft. Worth, T exas. Getting a chance to walk around and see, touch, and ask questions about every part of the aircraft was a really great opportunity to see a lot of the parts and pieces that as a passenger, or even as a pilot you normally don’t get to see. The base services 777 and 767/757 aircraft and getting a chance to walk through the engine repair station was one of my favorite parts of the tour. From individual fan blades to the completed engine, we got a chance to see every step in between that it takes to building one of these awesome pieces of machinery.

The next day was my big presentation to my boss’s boss. With everything set up I won’t hesitate to mention that I was a bit nervous. But confident in my research, the presentation went off without a hitch. Some additional research areas were suggested, but overall I believe that he was very impressed and everything went as well as it could have. One thing I took away from the experience was the way corporate-level decision-making works. With my boss and I on the same page about how we wished to proceed with the research and how we wanted to present the research to our employees, once the door of our meeting was closed, all the decisions were up to my boss’s boss. At first I found this a bit frustrating, thinking to myself, “well I did the research why does it have to be presented another way th a n the way I envisioned,” but soon remembering where I sit on the food chain, I acknowledged the new possibilities without hesitation.

All was forgotten in an hour though when I was on an ERJ-145 headed to Charleston, S . C . to see family and friends for the Fourth of July. Getting a chance to spend a weekend doing the things I normally do during the summer was just the break from Dallas that I needed. Hanging out at Kiawah Island with my family and friends that I had not seen in almost two months, getting a chance to eat some home-cooked food, and just relax, I cannot think of a better way to have spent the Fourth. Getting a chance to take one of my friends that I have grown up with since second grade fishing and watching her hook into the biggest fish of her life, I cannot describe to you how exciting that is, or how much trash talk I had to listen to all the way home about her catching the biggest fish of the day. I might be slightly biased since I grew up in South Carolina, but in all of my travels this summer I have not found anything like Charleston, and I highly recommend visiting if you ever have the chance.

This past week in the office, I spent most of my time getting caught up on some work I had put aside until after the presentation. Getting new retirements updated and working on the new quarterly magazine that goes out to our employees, it was a rather straightforward week in the cubical. However, we did get the chance to do two – I guess we can call them “field trips” this past week, both of which were awesome experiences. On Wednesday we got the chance to go out to DFW and get a behind the scenes look at how we handle all the bags and cargo that ride in our planes. Looking at both our sorting system, as well as what happens out on the ramp, this tour continued to give me the bigger picture of what all goes into making American Airlines run.

In continuation with taking a look at the bigger picture, the chief pilot at DFW then took us up to our ramp control tower facility. American has been testing a new piece of equipment on the ramp at DFW called Digital Guidance System or DGS. This system allows aircraft to park at their respective gate, without the need for personnel to marshal the plane in. This creates a more efficient parking system as well as allowing for the planes to park in inclement weather when service personnel are not allowed out on the ramp. Having this system explained to us, and seeing exactly how it works, was very interesting. Also getting a chance to go behind the scenes of how parking assignments for planes are decided and how much trouble it causes the overall system to switch gates was very insightful to the overall process.

This past Thursday, all of the interns got the opportunity to go to Oklahoma City to receive high altitude training. As we were receiving ground training on the physiological aspects of what is happening to the body at altitude, we talked about what we could expect when we went into the chamber and took our masks off at 25,000ft. We also learned about how to use the oxygen mask and the oxygen system. After several hours of ground school, we proceeded to the chamber, an orange reinforced steel box. With probably 25 seats in the chamber, our entire group, as well as a group from Boeing, all went in at the same time. After going over the important things again, we put our masks on and just sat and took in pure oxygen for about 10 minutes to get us used to the masks and also attempt to get most of the nitrogen out of our bodies so we would have a less likely chance of getting bubbles building up in our joints. Our instructors then took the chamber up to 8,000ft to make sure everyone was going to be ok with the pressure. After coming back down and then back to 8,000ft we did a rapid decompression to 18,000ft….talk about ears popping. From here we worked our way up to 25,000ft.

At this point, the other side of the box took their oxygen masks off. For the next 5 minutes my side sat and watched as our friends developed symptoms of hypoxia and one almost passed out. The thing about hypoxia is that everyone has different symptoms when they are deprived of oxygen. So as pilots it is really important to know what your symptom is, so you can recognize it if your aircraft ever depressurizes. So then it was our turn to take off our masks. Within a few minutes I was light headed, hot, and dizzy. Receiving a little coaching from one of the instructors to put my mask on, I was able to do so under my own power, but another minute and I would most certainly have passed out. This class and chamber exercise is put on by the FAA in Oklahoma City and it is FREE. If you ever get the chance you should definitely take advantage of this opportunity.

This past weekend I traveled to Colorado with three of my fellow interns. With plans to fly into Colorado Springs to go rafting, it was to our surprise on Saturday morning that our flight, which had plenty of seats the day before, was packed solid. After getting bumped from the flight the adventure began. With laptops going crazy, we soon found out that we could get into Montrose, CO which is near Telluride, CO and we were certain that we would be able to find some sort of rafting adventure there. With our flight an hour late leaving DFW we encountered another hour penalty when we attempted to pick up our rental car.

After giving up on Thrifty (which we, as interns, have now sworn off for life) we secured a jeep from another company and were off to Telluride. This place is awesome! A small town tucked back in a valley, this was some the best scenery I have seen yet. Exploring all day, with plans of rafting the following morning we were shocked again when our return flight the next day became over sold! Scrambling online once again we noted an open flight out of Grand Junction, CO on Sunday afternoon, about a 3 hour drive away. For the rest of our time in Telluride we continued to explore and drove up a single lane, dirt/rock road up the side of a mountain to an amazing waterfall, an amazing turn of luck on the Jeep and 4-wheel drive!!! Continuing up the mountain we actually stumbled upon some snow. People it is the middle of July and this was no more than 10,000ft. Global Warming??? Your call….Carefully making our way down the side of the mountain, we stumbled back into town and had an amazing dinner before trekking northwest to Grand Junction.

The following morning, before our flight, we went exploring one more time, this time to the Grand Mesa. According to Google the Grand Mesa is the world’s highest plateau. This is a must-see if you are ever in Grand Junction! The views of this untouched National Park are amazing. One side note, however, stay on the large dirt roads or on the pavement! Our GPS showed a shortcut down a tiny dirt road and while it was fun to get bounced around on rocks and holes, if this had been my personal truck and not a rental I would have been freaking out. Also a car will not return if you were to take it out there, just FYI.

With so many once-in-a-lifetime experiences this summer, I don’t know what I am going to do this fall when my travel benefits expire. But until then I plan on continuing to make the most out of this opportunity and do as much as possible.

Cheers,

Jacob Velky

June 25

Posted on by

Wednesday, and everything is still great.

The weeks have been going fast. I have been spending every day on the RHOV project learning every aspect of the vehicle’s design and the simulation. Having gone from never even seen a hydrodynamic coefficient to being one of the main personnel working on the project has been quite an experience. I now spend my days working with the other engineers as a peer: attending scheduling meetings, calling vendors, and independently providing results for crucial parts of the project. This internship is providing me with more professional experience than I thought possible with my, so far, limited education

Outside of work has also been excellent. My roommate, who is a project manager here, and I go running every morning before work. I also met a few people through friends in work with sailboats and motor boats and have regular invitations to go out on the weekends. Someone I work just across from also has a boat and is an avid scuba diver so we started talking about going out diving and it seems like it will turn into a regular weekend activity. The internship administrator also has a couple of BBQ’s and fun days out on the island in the river planned for us so there is no shortage of time to relax and enjoy the area.

There is another ‘lunch and learn’ today. This one is about underwater rocketry which I am really excited to hear about. I had never even really thought about the idea before and will be really interested to learn about how people solve all the problems of moving so fast underwater.

This week has been somewhat difficult because I started out tired. I had flown up to NJ to see my mom for her retirement party which was awesome. I got to see tons of family and friends and neighbors I haven’t seen in a while. On the flight back on Sunday afternoon though, my plane was delayed for about six hours having me end up getting back to sleep in Florida at about two in the morning. I am slowly recovering and the flex time helps me out with letting me be lazy when I want to and work less some days.

The internship ‘family’ has also grown over the course of the summer. We started out as six of us together but so far I think maybe six more college level interns have started work, as well as three high school interns from a nearby school. It’s almost getting hard to remember everyone but luckily we all see each other a couple times a week for either work or fun.

Well I must go back to playing with my toy submarine to help me visualize coordinate systems and simulation parameters. Have fun!

P.S.: I learned that underwater rockets use a blunt nose to create a bubble of low pressure water which spontaneously boils creating a cloud of vapor around the rocket so its moving through a cloud of gas, not liquid, reducing drag by almost a 1000 times! Only rockets can do this because you must first get up to at least 70 knots to begin to stabilize the effect.