Nothing too exciting today... Just design work
My first week at my LINK internship was great! On Monday my mentor Melissa gave me my project outline and I was able to get started. I am engineering a thermoelectric temperature conditioning advice. During the week I completed the necessary research needed and ran tests on the peltier device I will be using. I attended the weekly staff meeting on Monday where they discussed the logistics of the NASA test they will be performing next month. I also had the opportunity to shadow Mesa, one of the engineers at AMPT. I helped him clean and put together some of the parts they will be using during the NASA test. I also helped Mesa make a few adjustments to the test chamber and scrape the ice off of the liquid nitrogen tank. This week I did extensive research on thermoelectrics and peltiers. Peltiers are made of P and N type semiconductors between two plates. When voltage is applied to it, one side absorbs heat and gets cold, while the other side releases the heat and gets hot. I spent a day testing the peltier at different voltages and was able to get the hot side up to 360 degrees with a temperature difference of 69 degrees between the hot and cold sides. I worked with John, another one of the engineers a lot this week. He has been very helpful with my project this week. I have a wiring diagram drawn for the prototype and next week I will be making a bill of materials and designing the prototype. I have a $200 budget to get any materials I will need for my prototype. I have several goals for the upcoming week. I would like to have a functional block diagram of my temperature conditioner drawn, a circuit diagram drawn, and start the design process for my prototype. I would also like to be more sociable. I am very shy, so talking to new people is a challenge. I have been pushing myself out of my comfort zone so that I can make a good impression, but it has been challenging. I have had several successes this week. I have completed all the milestones in my project that were required and successfully shadowed one of the engineers and helped him with his work. The only challenges I faced came from being shy. But everyone at AMPT is very nice so I have gradually become less socially awkward around everyone. :) Today I shadowed Mesa, one of the engineers at AMPT I helped him clean and put together some of the probes they will be using during their NASA test next month. I also helped him make some modifications to the test chamber that they use.
My First Day! It was awesome, I got started on my research project. Really looking forward to working on it more
I will be doing my LINK internship at AMPT, Advanced Mobile Propulsion Test. I will be learning about the business, computer, and engineering aspects of the aerospace engineering business. AMPT provides a testing facility for propulsion systems. My mentor is Melissa Emery-Lundstrom. She is the test operations manager at AMPT. I hope my mentor will be able to teach me about the real process of aerospace engineering.
My academic and career goals are to get accepted into an university with a good engineering program and to eventually work for NASA or SpaceX. I would like to get my bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and my master’s degree in astronomy. I believe that interning at AMPT will give me knowledge of aerospace engineering and help me get into a good college. I don’t know what my project will be yet, I will be given some ideas when I begin my internship. I hope that it will be something that I can enjoy doing while learning a lot. I have some knowledge and skills that I could put to use during my internship. I know quite a bit about space travel history and space in general, and I could definitely further my knowledge of engineering. There were a few challenges that I had to overcome during the process of gaining my internship, but it went very smoothly overall. I received quite a few no’s from places before I was able to set up my internship with AMPT. Overall, through this process I learned more about professional communicating and the interview process. I am very excited about my internship because I will get real world experience with my dream job. I will get to complete a project that will give me an idea of what I will be doing as an engineer. |
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