Hello everybody! My name is Adriana Diaz and I am from the small town of Olathe, which is snuggled in between the town of Montrose and Delta. I am proud to say that I will be doing my internship in-person at LASP (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics), which is a laboratory on the CU Boulder East Campus. My internship will involve learning and working with CAD programs, such as Solidworks. I will be working with my mentor Dmitry Vorobiev, who is a scientist here at LASP, to learn the in and outs of aerospace engineering. To help add on to this journey, I will also be working on several projects with college undergraduates and graduates with mechanical engineering backgrounds.
My first day started on Wednesday actually, with Dmitry simply giving me a tour of the LASP building and introducing me to several of the people I will be working with in the future. I can already tell I will enjoy working here, as all the people are kind and and very inviting! I got to meet them during lunchtime and it was great to see everyone enjoying their meal outside in perfect weather. I met Natalie Anderson there and found that my internship couldn’t have come at a more convenient time for her. How you might ask? Well, her left arm is broken and she is currently working on a project that involves MEMS, basically a tiny mirror that will be used in a telescope, and will now need some help from me. This project is tough to understand at first, but Jack, another employee here at LASP, and Nat have been able to teach me about it in great detail. They understand that the work they’re doing is a lot to take in in a short amount of time, but they have been very supporting and are always eager to answer any questions I have without judgement. I ended that day with just learning about what Nat is doing in her project and about what she plans on doing.
Thursday, I met up with Nat at the LASP building and read her research paper that explains her experiment in even greater detail. I feel comfortable knowing that she is taking the time to let me learn about her project and not just throwing me in with no background knowledge. Perhaps, it’s also for her because the more I know, the more I am of help to her. Either way I appreciate it! Once I finished we went to go start the experiment. I helped her set everything up and helped record data. We worked very hard and left at the end of the day with all the numbers she needed.
MEMS mirror setup with laser pointed on it.
For Friday, I came in and learned a whole new number system! Nat taught me how she converts decimals to hexadecimals. She showed me the equation that we use to take a certain number of voltages, find the decimal answer and enter that into a converter, which gives us the hexadecimal number. Once we have that, we enter that number into a computer app, which sends a certain amount of voltages to the MEMS to change the angle of the mirror. I know, its a mouthful to try to explain but with time, and physically seeing the experiment, you start to understand what’s going on. Basically, I solved “algebra” equations and made line graphs with the data from yesterday.
Saturday, I got to rest and enjoy a stroll down Pearl Street Mall. I invited Emery, my roommate and fellow pintern, to just walk around and grab something to eat. We decided on Italian and got to eating and just learning more about each other.
Emery and I enjoy some dinner at Sforno Trattoria Romana restaurant. It is located down Pearl Street Mall if anyone wants to try it out!
As for Sunday, I was still worn out from all the complicated terminology and had a rest day.
I can’t wait to see what next week will bring for me!
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