I'm Just A Bill: NCCWSL Day Two

Soon I will be returning to mission control for my fourth Co-Op tour at NASA Johnson Space Center. I will be joining Inventory Stowage Officers (ISO) team in mission control. ISO ensures supplies and experiments are delivered to the International Space Station, completed experiments return to Earth in one piece and space garbage successfully burns up in the atmosphere and does not land in someone's backyard. Last  mission control Co-Op I sat console with ISO and watched Kjell Lindgren load the Japanese HTV-5 cargo ship with garbage playfully floating through station with the bags of garbage. I have a feeling ISO will be busy after a long pattern of cargo ship failures and the most recent Russian Progress 65 cargo failure (as SpaceX calls it, rapid unscheduled disassembly) transporting a space toilet, updated space suits and Christmas presents for the astronauts from their families. I expect work I will be doing with ISO will include logistics work on what has priority to be sent up to space station and collaborating with scientists about how their experiment with be stored. Additionally, Super Bowl LI in Houston and the Hidden Figures premiere are NASA related events I am looking forward to.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

* Often a live feed of Houston's Mission Control is streamed on NASA TV. My colleagues enjoy trying to catch me picking my nose when sitting console.

* Learn about the programmers behind the Apollo mission in the new movie Hidden Figures.

* Check out everything NASA accomplished in 2016 jam packed in a 3.5 minute video.

* Learn programming with Code.org, Elementary, Middle School, High School and Beyond.

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Challenger Disaster. During my time as a NASA Co-Op I learned that this tragedy and lessons from Apollo 1 and Columbia are a integral part of training for new employees. We heard speakers tell their story about where they were that day, what role they had in the mission and how NASA can improve. We learned every choice we make in the design, fabrication and deployment of a space bound creation can effect the whole mission. This heightened culture of awareness emphasizes safety to next generation engineers. My thoughts will be with the astronauts who made the ultimate sacrifice, their families, and folks across aerospace agencies striving to carry their legacy.

Photo by NASA

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.

Teams watch robots compete at a FIRST Robotics Regional in Minnesota

NASA Co-Op Week 15: Precious Cargo

Six flags of countries who contributed to the International Space Station decorate the flight console. I return to Mission Control watching launch preparations from a new perspective - with Remote Interface Officer. Colloquially called RIO this team of international collaborators were originally dubbed Russian Integration Officer. The RIO flight controller communicated with the Russian team for launch and cargo capture system checks for the Cygnus rocket launch carried by an Atlas V rocket. Cygnus carries over 7,000 pounds of experiments, food and replacement parts to Space Station. cell cultures, bacteria, and microbe satellite experiments are on board the Cygnus rocket. We are calling this event a "Cyg"-nificant launch.

A team of  NASA flight controllers flip-flop working in the Russian Mission Control Center in Moscow and NASA's in Houston. For two months controllers visiting Moscow sit console for eight hours a day, six days a week, and on call 24/7.  By being available to assist with international troubleshooting, answering the right questions, and making right calls at the right time RIO has saved the space station hundreds of thousands of dollars. Ten years ago an hour of an astronaut's time in space was worth $100,000 so that cost has inflated even more now!

RIO introduced me to their mascot, a groundhog named Phil. One of the first Russian American collaborations took place on a Groundhog Day. Phil's collar is decorated with pins from various missions. The plush Ground Hog was hibernating under the console but has been kidnapped and escorted around the Red Square.

An odd anecdote I learned is that there is a survival hand gun stowed away on the Soyuz capsule. It is used if the Soyuz makes an emergency landing in an unexpected area and the astronauts need to defend themselves from bears or wolves. That's pretty hard core!

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED Watch the Cygnus cargo launch Dec 3rd 4:55pmCT: http://www.ustream.tv/NASAHDTV Accomplishments this week at NASA: https://youtu.be/t3_5ahJ0-Lw Apply for a NASA Internship & Scholarships NOW: https://intern.nasa.gov/ossi/web/public/main/ NASA Co-Op applications: http://nasajobs.nasa.gov/studentopps/employment/opportunities.htm NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars: http://nas.okstate.edu/ncas/ Join an aspirations in computing community: https://www.ncwit.org/programs-campaigns/aspirations-computing

Why Should Anyone Listen?  Day Three NCCWSL

Three of the biggest mistakes women speakers make include; apologizing, not including quality humor, and not taking up space on stage - according to Nancy Denney. Denney is a professional speaker and speech coach who has opened for celebrities like Dr.Phil, owns a publishing company, and visited 900 college campuses. This "Be Better: Enhamced Speaking Skills for Women" workshop was a component that made this conference worth while. Tips you can apply to become a more competent and effective speaker include...

* Practice, practice practice - practice longer than it took to formulate your speech.

* Make meaningful controlled gestures while speaking.

* Memorize your speech but don't sound robotic during delivery.

* Think on the fly during your speech to keep your audience engaged and connected.

* Have someone introduce you to establish credibility.

* Continue to establish your credibility throughout the speech.

* Remember that you are worth listening too, you are the expert and there is a reason you are up there speaking and no one else.

News show host Melissa Harris-Perry expressed the value of women contributions in college, community and congress. Harris-Perry is an author, Ph.D., and professor. She shared the need to teach the history of underrepresented individuals and recognizing them in public spaces. After this keynote I am much more interested in learning and respecting history than when I bumbled through K-12 history classes. Her "call to action" for us included holding ourselves and others accountable to vote in elections, listen to stories of members in our communities and be mindful of the where we get our news from. Even as a show host Harris-Perry advises we not get news from major networks rather with a grain of salt from public radio and podcasts.

Reflections of the day were "Does it matter what women know?", "Why should anyone listen to you?" and "What if we had taken her seriously?". Ways we can be heard include being confident in your competence of a subject, walk your talk and back up your views with fact. Women as a whole need to improve on being effective communicators and the whole country can improve on being better listeners.

Following a keynote, two workshops, a career fair, a graduate school fair, and lunch we were bused out to D.C. to sight see. My group power walked around hitting all the major monuments!

Circuit board I made at a NASA internship at Glenn Research Center summer of 2013 for a Solar Array Regulator.

Historic Mission Control

Flew humans to the Moon with less computing power than your smart phone.

Robots Storm the Castle

After a year of watching robots playing forklift simulator in the FIRST Robotics 2015 game Recycle Rush FIRST has raised the bar with their new game Stronghold. Alliances will work to take over the opposing team’s castle with Medieval flair. Robots must break through opposing alliance’s defenses, launch boulders to weaken the castle, and climb its walls to claim it as there own. A unique aspect of this game is the modularity of the defenses. Outer barriers that the robots will be navigating through can be swapped between matches with the choice of a portcullis (gateway to be lifted up), Cheval de Frise (teeter totter), moat, rampart (opposing steel ramps), drawbridge, Sally Port, rock wall, rough terrain, low bar and platforms. Five of these defenses assigned with obscure french names will be picked before each match. For the first time in FIRST Robotics history there will be audience participation enabling spectators to choose one of the defenses. There are 10,000 different field combinations!

Creativity of Stronghold was manifested from FIRST’s new partnership with Disney Imagineers. They collaborated to carry the season’s Medieval theme through the game’s decorative field pieces and motivating the teams to create a standard, a sort of battle flag. Ample Monty Python and the Holy Grail references were scattered though out the Kick Off broadcast from FIRST Headquarters. I am suspicious that the Stronghold theme was solely conceived for that reason. The trailer like game hint was created to capture interest of folks outside of the FIRST world instead of “in joke” game hints like this. It seems FIRST will continue to release game hints with this a mobile game aesthetic style in future years revealing the years’ theme.

Already most teams have brainstormed a design and a strategy. A group called Ri3D (Robot in Three Days) has already built a fully functional robot. This robot can complete in every aspect of the game proving from my perspective to be worthy of a regional competition win. The idea of building a competitive robot in three days must give rookies teams hope.  Check out Ri3D’s final product: https://youtu.be/Kd1FaSNoDiM

This season my hands are off the robot and on the computer as a project mentor helping students write newspaper articles covering the build season and competition. Check out earlier publications by our group BlueDevil Press and online here.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

If you are a strategy engineering feel you may enjoy reading the Stronghold game manual:

https://firstfrc.blob.core.windows.net/frc2016manuals/GameManual/2016GameManual-Full-20160112.pdf

Mentor a team or volunteer at a regional event: http://www.firstinspires.org/ways-to-help/volunteer

Find a local robotics team to donate to. Often local teams will have their own website with instructions on how to donate/ where to send a check to: http://www.firstinspires.org/find-local-support

Check out my old robotics team the Duluth East Daredevils: http://www.daredevils2512.org/

Nothing, you can't do anything with an electrical engineering major. Jk folks, EE is one of the most flexible degrees:

https://umdcareers.wordpress.com/2016/11/22/what-can-you-do-with-an-electrical-engineering-major/