Robots Storm The Castle

Programming in LabVIEW. The language where Electrical Engineering and Computer Science meet.

Looking Forward to NASA

Recently I received, and accepted, the gracious opportunity to intern at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas this summer. Using my skills in HTML and Java programming I will be assisting in the Flight Deck of the Future Project. With a team of engineers and fellow intern we will create a user interface for astronauts on board a habitat. I will be blogging about my internship throughout the summer! I had a fantastic experience interning at NASA's Glenn Research Center the summer following my high school graduation. At Johnson Space I hope to meet other peers who share the same passion in aerospace, learn about NASA's latest and greatest endeavors, and maybe even shake hands with a few astronauts.

While captaining my high school's FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition for Science and Technology) robotics team I got hooked on engineering and aerospace research. During a robotics Kick Off event NASA’s Jon Grunsfeld, remarked that FIRST robotics is similar to "how we design, built, and tested the NASA Mars Curiosity rover”. This encouraged me to apply to a NASA internship even as a high school student. I interned at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio and built a circuit board for a solar array regulator on board a deep space habitat. My circuit board will ensure the habitat is powered by solar panels or batteries at all times. Some of the things I enjoyed at Glenn that I hope to experience again at Johnson Space is the ample hands on meaningful work I did and presentations interns got to attend highlighting NASA's new innovations.

How you can get involved...

High School to College: There are internship opportunities in the fall, spring, and summer in a wide variety of disciplines. There are some interns this summer studying medicine, graphic arts, and journalism. There is something for everyone! Contact me if you need help with the application. Apply on OSSI (one stop shopping initiative) here: https://intern.nasa.gov/ossi/web/public/main/

Elementary to Middle School: There are a ton of  programs for students, even a chance to train as a junior astronaut at space centers. Here are a list of programs: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/programs/descriptions/Students-rd.html

Everyone: Honestly I get most of my NASA updates from twitter and you can follow here: https://twitter.com/NASA They post lots of beautiful pictures too.

People Who Want to be Astronauts (I want to be one too): NASA gets the "how do I become an astronaut?" question a lot and they complied a helpful guide to how you can become one! http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/outreach/jobsinfo/astronaut101.html

Lights flashed on the stage.These are real life rock stars. 12,000 women computer scientists and engineers gathered for the Grace Hopper Women in Celebration. Women or not already during day one I learned valuable career advice anyone can benefit from. What's Your Niche? Take a moment to think about what other people think about you. No, not what they think about your clothing or how you shoved that piece of pizza in your face. What they think about you as a whole. Like it or not, everyone has a niche or brand that people identify you with. Are you a trail blazer? Approachable? Efficient? Ally? Approachable? Ask someone how they see you, however, you may not like the results... but there is a solution. There was a women in the workplace who was described to have career ADD, meaning she would purposely take on projects in disarray, fix them and move on to the next crumbling project. Transforming her weakness into a strength she used her talent to reorganize lost causes becoming a strategist. Co-workers could go to her for help with theor projects adding value to the team. Crucial Conversations In Your Career Unavoidably there will be times in your career when you have to practice conflict resolution, stick up for yourself and simply communicate with others what you are working on. Various social norms can debilitate folks from communicating effectively. Here are charactierstics that ensure effective communication: Be Direct, Be Specific, Be Proactive & Be Confident Advice From a CEO As an NCWIT (National Center for Women & Information Technology) collegiate member peers and I had the opportunity to have lunch with the CEO and engineers from Qualcomm. The CEO happened to sit at my lunch table and we got to ask him career advice. One of my favorite questions was, "What are characteristics that got you to the position of CEO?" His answer... 1) Communicate: speak confidently, convince others of your idea, be a good public speaker. 2) Trust: know your employee's are competent, they are the technical experts. 3) Motivate: Be a cat herder, convey the importance of the task effectively.

Day in the life of an engineering major: Notes so long you have to take a picture of the white board. Senior who has this life thing figured out 3D printing a robotic arm built with video game controller parts. TA makes fun of us for being lazy and taking pictures of the chalk board - revolt by taking selfies with the chalk board. Full wave bridge rectifier decided to cooperate with the breadboard today producing a clean image on the oscilloscope. Instead of causing stack overflows stability of a system can be diagnosed when looking at a block diagram. Professor judges the mess of clamps connected to super ground. Realizing you actually need to be employed after college, cleaning up and attending a job fair. Realizing everyone is having a post college employment crisis, talking to as many recruiters as possible while snagging free company swag.

Resources for Women in STEM

As a women in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) I wanted to share my resources with you. Each of these camps I participated in, teams I joined and communities I became a part of boosted my confidence in my STEM abilities and fueled my passion to pursue my dream career.

1) NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Award- National Center for Women and  Information Technology (NCWIT) hosts an award for high school students interested in pursuing a career in computer science. “The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing honors young women at the high-school level for their computing-related achievements and interests. Awardees are selected for their computing and IT aptitude, leadership ability, academic history, and plans for post-secondary education.” 

As an Aspirations Award winner you have access to exclusive scholarships, internship opportunities and get to be a part of a network of thousands of other women passionate about computer science. I know many groups over-hype their networking but this group has honestly opened so many unique doors for me. Five of us NCWITers had the opportunity to represent the group at President Obama’s Champions of Change Event at the White House. There were receptions at Facebook, Google, and the main event at the White House. We got to advocate for Women in STEM and I talked about project based learning.

Another opportunity that was a result of being an Aspirations Award Winner was my ability to attend Defrag Tech conference in Denver Colorado on a scholarship. My first posts on this blog are about Defrag.

2) NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Community Women studying in computer science in college, from an academic alliance institution, a major or minor in a related major, and qualifying GPA can become a part of this community! (very similar to the aspirations award group described above). In addition there is also a yearly collegiate award for $7,500 for three members in their junior year or above. 

3) St. Olaf Engineering and Physics Camp for Girls this is a top notch camp for high schoolers where for a whole week you are spending the majority of your time with power tools in your hand designing a Rube Goldberg machine using solenoids, motors, and limit switches. The other part of your week? Presentations from women engineers, liquid nitrogen ice-cream, looking a Saturn through a telescope, and the best college food in the Midwest. Think Northfield, MN is too far away? Trust me, this camp is worth that trip. 

4) Women In Engineering Camp at Michigan Tech College High schoolers get ready for a week long crash course in engineering. Learn about electrical, chemical, computer, and mechanical engineering. While I was there we built submarine robots and imaged logo figures onto glass with a laser.

Didn't see something for your age group? Check the “Launch your Career in Aerospace” post. Photo descriptions in the captions.

NASA Intern Wrap Up

Some of the world's brightest minds and some of the most ambitious students have been my colleagues for my ten week adventure as a NASA intern. Week ten we scrambled to complete documentation for our projects. I was creating tutorials about making displays until my last hours as an intern. Our journey came to a close with an intern award ceremony, a branch competition playing laser tag and lunch with friends eating stir fry and drinking bubble tea. At the award ceremony a number of interns were recognized for their outstanding work and I was so proud to see one of the interns from the team I was in, Avionics System Division, be recognized! Students worked on so many game changing projects that if everyone was recognized the award ceremony would have lasted many hours. I am so thankful to be working alongside these talented people!

During my journey I learned two major lessons. I learned about the state of NASA and  what exciting things I want to be a part of in the futurel.

The State of NASA NASA is filled with passionate professionals that love what they are doing and want what they are working on to succeed. These professionals are engineers, scientists, physicists, biologists, geologists, business majors, art majors, professionals from many disciplines. The word that best describes NASA is resilient. Outer spaces is a brutal place and yet the International Space station, a space lab larger than a football field, orbits the Earth every 90 minutes. Things malfunction and systems fail yet NASA picks themselves off the ground, brushes the dirt off and tries again refining, enhancing and improving. In addition to engineering challenges, NASA faces financial challenges. The returns for investing in space exploration is hard to visualize on the surface but can be illustrated after a bit of investigation. Cordless drills, MRIs and Solar Panels are all thanks to NASA's space exploration. These and other technologies are called "Spin-Offs", world changing technologies that are developed during space exploration. The microchip, like the one in your smart phone, was perfected by others but a technology first designed and implemented by NASA. There was little need to micro-size technology until humans had the desire to lunch it into space and conserve weight. NASA has created jobs by opening up the suborbital space industry and showing that such a crazy concept like that could be profitable. NASA is in a state of continued innovation and can propel even father and faster with greater financial support.

Future Endeavors Designing a display for a project I worked on two summers ago at another NASA center and seeing the collaboration of two centers on such an ambitious project was the most rewarding part of my internship. In the summer of 2013 I interned at NASA Glenn in Ohio testing and making a circuit board for a solar array regulator. The regulator insures that a space habitat has the correct amount of power at all times. This summer I worked on the displays for that same power system. I loved the birds eye view of the project understanding the electronics inside and the programming filtering data into the display. In the future I would like to be a part of multi-center projects like these and be able to follow the various aspects that tie it all together. In addition to high level understanding I also enjoy low level work as well. I would love to work on a team that is tasked with rapid prototyping. Feeling anxious about being able to meet a deadline is exciting; especially if I'm adding last details onto a system as its being loaded on a rocket, that's basically what we did in FIRST Robotics making last minute changes as we transported it tot the field. In addition to NASA projects I would love to intern or study abroad in Norway. As I am Scandinavian, I am interested in learning the language and spending a summer over there.

How to Get Involved I am so thankful I had the opportunity to intern at Johnson Space Center. Family members, teachers and mentors have supported me and shaped my trajectory to make this opportunity possible.Very shortly I will be starting a Pathways Internship, what they call their Co-Op program, back at Johnson. I wish everyone could have a NASA experience and I encourage you to apply for an internship, Co-Op or other program. Please comment or message me with any questions about applying.

Intern program: https://intern.nasa.gov/ossi/web/public/main/

Co-Op program: http://nasajobs.nasa.gov/studentopps/employment/opportunities.htm (More spots will open soon for Spring)

Blog post about other opportunities: http://kirsikuutti.blogspot.com/2015/06/launching-your-aerospace-career.html

Photos by NASA Johnson Space/Allison Bills

Also pictured Caleb the author of this awesome tumblr: http://astronomicalwonders.tumblr.com/

It's Small Business Saturday folks! Did you know that NASA collaborates with SmallBiz on extraterrestrial projects? This summer I worked on a NASA small business project, innovating ways to create energy on Mars! I have also sat in on two SmallBiz design proposals and was blown away by the ideas for deep space travel, energy creation and resource utilization. Despite my Black Friday all-nighter I have kicked off today having breakfast at a local joint. Take time today to support SmallBiz and learn about SmallBiz projects with NASA... SmallBiz Mars Humidity Sensor Project: http://kirsikuutti.blogspot.com/2016/08/sensing-mars-nasa-co-op-2-week-nine.html NASA SmallBiz success story: http://www.spacenewsmag.com/feature/bridging-the-valley-of-death/ SmallBiz on Space Station: http://www.spacenewsmag.com/feature/starting-small-to-develop-big-ideas/ SmallBiz deals in Duluth,MN: http://downtownduluth.com/df-data/files/SBS-2016.pdf Find NASA SmallBiz Partners:https://ehb8.gsfc.nasa.gov/sbir/public/technologySearch/searchAction.do?requestFrom=NASASBIRHome

Start Studying For Finals NOW

The semester has hardly started and you think it's already a good idea to start studying for finals?

I think its a good idea to avoid the panic looming at the end of the semester. I don't need a crystal ball to predict the posts on Facetumblinstatwitter - students stressing about what grade they need on the final to pass their class rather than actually studying. In attempt to snuff this distress I have a few proven habits if used throughout the whole semester will make finals week more zen.

1) Office Hours

As intimidating as the master behind your grade may seem the value of visiting your professor during office hours well outweighs the fear. Sometime not even the internet has the answer to your problems. After exhausting the knowledge of your friends, teaching assistant, and solutions manual studying can feel hopeless. Professors can often detect when your thinking is heading in the right direction and how to help you out if you are completely lost. Remember that they want you to succeed as long as you are willing to put in the effort.You can get the most out of office hours by trying the problem first, and coming up with question beyond "I don't get it". It is obvious when you are putting forth your best verses just fishing for an answer.

2) Optional Homework Is Mandatory Homework

Don't be fooled by a professor's modern teaching ideologies of "graded homework is a waste of time". Even if the professor assigns optional practice problems for your success in the class "optional" in professor speak means"mandatory". Why not become as comfortable with the material as possible? Understanding concepts a little at a time is much more manageable then cramming at the end of the semester.

3) Allocate Study time

Studying for courses between classes and attending your weekly study group may seem like enough time was dedicated. After recollecting the number of times you checked twitter you realize not a lot of studying went on. Printing out a copy of your class schedule and blocking out time strictly for studying will help you visualize how much time is needed. Two hours of study time should be dedicated for every credit you have per week. As a full time student of 12 hours that would be 24 hours of studying a week. As an engineering student with a 12 hour course load you square it and get 144 hours of studying (just kidding). If focusing for longer than the duration of a Spongebob episode is difficult for you consider using the 50/10 study rule. Study for a solid 50 minutes and then take a 10 minute break (not the other way around).

4) Take Useful notes

While attending lectures (and not sleeping in) be mindful of what you jot down. Will you be able to decipher your chicken scratch by finals week? Reconsider what will be useful to write down as a homework reference and what to underline for review during finals. Take advantage of presentations and notes professors posts online so you can record only what's most important to you. As the only person in your study group with legible notes you have rights to charge a Chipotle burrito tax every time they want to copy them.

Commercial Space & Ocean Worlds: NASA Co-Op #3 Week 14

Did you know that at least one human has inhabited the International Space Station over 16 years?!

NASA even has a Cumulative Crew Time on Orbit clock. Frequent flyers of this blog are familiar with the giant space lab orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes, however, even some of the public within a 20 mile radius of Johnson Space Center think NASA has shut down! It's up to myself, NASA full-timers, NASA interns and the science enthused to educate the public about the continuing efforts in space exploration.

International Space Station (ISS) Program Manager Kirk Shireman hosted an all hands for NASA employees to share about achievements and future goals. NASA is leading the commercialization of space by. The media often portrays NASA as fretting space commercialization when in reality NASA is fueling it. NASA has contracted SpaceX and Orbital ATK to deliver cargo to ISS every couple of months as commercial resuppliers. Launch of ATK April 18th 9:30am-10:30am CT. Boeing and SpaceX are being contracted by NASA to develop the Commercial Crew Vehicles to transport astronauts from Earth to ISS and back. The Commercial Crew Program enables manned launches from American soil. Additionally ISS is working toward attaching station nodes built by private space companies that deploy CubeSats. NASA thinks of the private and public space company research and device developers as customers. NASA is working on making space more accessible to its "customers".

Graduate School Advice

A Co-Op student leader coordinated a graduate panel with folks with NASA experience that also completed grad school. These are some helpful anonymous quotes from the panel...

“So when you roll into my office and say you want to be an astronaut I need a PhD, remember these are seven to eight years of your life”.

“How long it takes depends on how long it takes to do new science”.

“How many papers does it take to graduate? Okay. Spit in your hand and shake”.

Student: I want to get a degree in something very different than undergrad.

Panel member: “You can do anything”.

“Most people are human.”

“The answers aren’t in the back of the book once you start full-time.”

Ocean Worlds in Our Solar System

Evidence of giant water plumes observed on one of Saturn's moon Enceladus and one of Jupiter's Europa has been found. This exploration started in the 1990s when Galileo space craft orbited Jupiter and its moons. The magnetic signature  detected on Europa suggests ocean like currents underneath its icy shell. During a 2005 Cassini performed an Enceladus fly by and spotted huge plumes were observed. Recently data from these mission have been analyzed and conclusions have been reached.

Terrestrial oceans have hydro thermal activity feeding life deep 1000s of meters below the ocean. Plumes spotted on extraterrestrial worlds are believed to produce "300 pizzas per hour of energy" in calories. "The statistics tell us that plumes are real by full sigma results". However, Hubble has reached its max to detect these plumes on Europa so scientists cannot be certain yet. Bill Sparks from Goddard expanded on the uncertain of Europa's plumes, "It's not completely unequivocally but in my mind the pendulum has swung from cation to optimism. The evidence is growing. The fact we have saw a repeated the exact same location. That's one of the gold standards for dealing with a repeat phenomenon. It's not proof because we are right at the limit of what Hubble can do." He shared it is evidence rather than proof because spectrometer readings, movies and maps have been taken of Enceladus is high definition compared to the smudge of low resolution observation made by Hubble's max capacity.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

More reading on these ocean worlds!...

Full press conference by NASA scientists about the water plumes: https://youtu.be/3n-0CSCcJuQ

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/index.html

https://www.nasa.gov/specials/ocean-worlds/

This week at NASA.

NASA commercial cargo provider Orbital ATK is targeting its seventh commercial resupply services mission to the ISS for 10:11 a.m. CDT Tuesday, April 18. Coverage of the launch begins at 9 a.m. on NASA TV.

43 Acres of Aerospace: NASA Co-Op #2 Week Five & Six

If you think NASA is dead then you have probably never personally visited a NASA Center. 27 Johnson Space students had the awesome opportunity to tour the Michoud (Meh-shood) Assembly Facility. Here the Space Launch System (SLS), largest rocket in the world with 20% more thrust than Saturn V, is being built. SLS will send an unmanned Orion Space Craft around the Moon in Fall of 2018. In the history of spaceflight unmanned missions are common to ensure astronauts will be safe. The 43 acre indoor assembly facility is so large you have to ride a tram indoors for a tour. We saw liquid nitrogen tanks, liquid oxygen tanks, rings, domes and all the tools to safely weld/ fasten these parts together. Employees could be seen in hard hats and florescent yellow vests monitoring the tank's construction and creation of parts.

North of Michoud is Stennis Space Center, masters of engine tests and keeper of partners across the US Government. Buildings dedicated to work done by the Navy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Universities and US Geological Survey for maximum collaboration. Stennis is unique because it is surrounded by a 125,000 acre acoustical buffer zone comprised of local trees. Despite buffer efforts past tests have been known to shatter windows! We were scheduled to see an engine test at test stand A above but we unfortunately missed due to engine technical difficulties. Aerospace engineering is hard guys, I'm glad they are doing what they got to do to ensure a successful mission.

I encourage you to visit a NASA center and take a tour of the facilities offered by the respective center's visitor centers. See for your self the progress toward our journey to mars. Johnson Space offers a tram tour to Mission Control, Mock Up Facility and the Shuttle Systems Test Facility. I am sure other centers offer similar opportunities. NASA visitor centers can be found here.