Welcome back everyone! I am now three weeks into my aerospace engineering internship and for this week I got to introduce Cutler to LASP. Cutler is another Pintern who will also be working with my mentor Dmitry. I highly suggest you check out his blog posts to see how things are going from his perspective too! It seems like we will be working together on the same projects, like building the rest of the 3D printer and making attachments for a telescope. The first couple of days, Cutler and I continued working on the printer while Dmitry was tending to some important meetings with NASA Headquarters. It was my job to teach Cutler how working here at LASP is like. Once I was sure he had a good grasp on things, I switched on and off between working with the printer and working with Nat on her MEMS project.
Cutler and I in front of the 3D printer. The printer we are building is the Modix Big-60 Version 3.
Moving on, Nat finished her testing of the MEMS mirror on a macroscopic level, so now to test microscopic levels. Before, we were shining a laser at the mirror, measuring the reflection of the laser onto a big white poster board, and taking a picture. Now, we are still shining the laser on the mirror, but we will measure the reflection as it hits the actual CCD camera, and look at the pixels to see if anything changes. The procedure of testing will be the same; with us applying voltages to the mirror to change the angle that its pointing at and applying heat to the mirror to see if it warps any results.
Here is the CCD camera (left object) with a filter (right object) so that the laser doesn’t completely blind the camera.
Here is what the CCD camera picks up as the laser is pointed at the lens.
The MEMS mirror is positioned in the same spot, as is the heat lamp. In the upmost front part of this picture is a thermal sensor, which is being used to record the temperature (in Celsius) of the MEMS mirror. Before, we were using a multimeter connected to the dashboard that the mirror is attached to, to read the temperature. Nat had concerns that it might be reading the temperature incorrectly, so she opted to switch to the thermal sensor to give a better a reading.
A look at how the thermal sensor is being used with the heat lamp on, in the far most left.
This weekend, I spent the day at the park again practicing up on my skateboard skills. Surprise! It hasn’t gotten any better, however, I am having fun trying. For Sunday, I set up a zoom call to my dad since it was also Father’s Day. I couldn’t reach him until around 7 P.M. because he gets out of work late, but it was nice chatting with him and describing how my time here in Boulder is going. I will admit calling my family that day had me feeling a little homesick, but its nothing I can’t push through.
Anyways that is how week 3 went for me, onto week 4!
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