Fellow Co-Op Shared Her Experience Testing Curiosity Rover's Drill, Morpheous Tested Thrusters And Students

Teams watch robots compete at a FIRST Robotics Regional in Minnesota

Looking Forward to Leadership Conference NCCWSL

Following Memorial Day I will be traveling to DC for NCCWSL, National Conference for College Women Student Leaders, by AAUW (American Association of University Women). AAUW Duluth chapter has given me the awesome opportunity to meet students from around America, represent my engineering discipline and refine my leadership skills.

While Co-Oping at NASA I learned what categories of leadership they look for when hiring branch chiefs, flight directors and even center directors. NASA looks for individuals that can Lead Change, Lead People, are Results Driven, have Business Acumen, can Build Teams and have Discipline Competency. Our center director, Ellen Ochoa, has all of these leadership skills. A leader in a lower position may not have to have business acumen or have weaknesses in two of these categories. With leadership skills identified I have chosen what workshops I should attend...

I Get Knocked Down, but I Get Up Again: Persevering through Life’s Challenges

The Human Side of Collaboration

Be Better: Enhanced Speaking Skills for Women

...including keynote speakers and a trip downtown to learn about advocacy, politics, and policy making from a panel of women who work for senators and representatives on Capitol Hill. I am avoiding sessions that could be replaced by a TEDTalk and sessions presented by business folks that may be there simply to pitch their company - these are all disappointments I have experienced in past conferences.

I am half surprised and half not surprised about how politically charged some of these workshops and lectures are (NCCWSL is hosted in our nation's capitol after all and AAUW uses policy to advance equality). Many leaders in industry do not interface with politics on a daily basis so I hope there is enough relevant content that will truly challenge my understanding of leadership. I want brutal honesty on how I can improve and tools that I can use in industry. I will attend with an open mind.

When I visited the White House in 2013 for a tech related Champions of Change event I advocated for project based learning in schools - reducing standardize testing and implementing measurable projects mirroring challenges in "the real world". During this excursion my primary message will about continuing and growing Earth observation missions. For a final spring semester I wrote about how crucial Earth observation missions are to our environment, safety and economy. I will be sure to post an abridged version here soon. While Earth observation is my primary message I will be sure to also talk about the importance of the "A" in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math), how trade schools are critical to American jobs and manufacturing and last project based learning again.

I will be live blogging during the conference so subscribe via email to get the latest blog posts and follow me on Twitter @KirsiCootie!

Robotics Molds Students Into Professional Triple Threats

It’s no shock that FIRST Robotics promotes science, technology, engineering, and math. FIRST’s message of STEM education is smeared all over its challenges, image, and very name “FIRST”- For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. What FIRST robotics didn't expect to do is create a new breed of professional triple threats. FIRST has molded a generation of confident communicators, tenacious culture changers and gracious leaders.

Communication A stereotype for anyone in STEM industry is that you are socially impaired and enjoy being locked in a dark room with your work. Out in industry, why would the media want to speak with an engineer when there is a whole marketing department dedicated to doing just that? Especially when the marketing knows to NOT speak techy geek lingo that makes anyone want to forget every ounce of high school algebra they remember. This communication challenge is constantly navigated on a FIRST Robotics team. There is a different set of dialog for the media, fans, fellow teammates, and supporters. A phrase like “the new FRC roboRIO has integrated PWM, servo, and analog I/O channels capabilities” could be useless to you unless you were on a team while “this year’s robot controller allows us to add more sensors on our robot” is more meaningful. Students learn how to identify who their audience is and communicate accordingly. Teams often present to companies, schools, communities, some tech literate, and some not. Tech industry will soon be welcoming individuals in STEM that can communicate to a wide audience and not just among themselves.

Culture Hot topics like celebrity gossip may catch your attention but for most not this week’s newest innovations. Why? Culture. For what I like to call the engineering golden years, 50s and 60s, engineers were celebrated as superstars. The media and government were behind their innovative visions, currently that support is there but not as visible. Its obvious that students in FIRST try to change culture by showing that STEM is cool, but they also change culture in a more powerful and subtle way. Students engage in a unique form of cooperation scarcely observed in industry. Yes, during build season students keep their team's design hush hush, but when a rival asks for help they rise to the occasion and assist. You don't see Microsoft asking Apple for help with font design or firmware advice. Students recognize that the success of all teams is more important for the success of their own. Once these individuals enter into industry their mindset of advancing humanity rather than stock competition will allow innovation to occur faster.

Leadership The word leadership often evokes an image of a CEO, suits shaking hands, and a cheesy stock image pasted on a motivational presentation. Although being an executive leader is a lot of people’s goals there are just not many of those positions open. Getting to that level of management maybe involve some ungracious acts, climbing the ladder while stepping on a few people's toes. FIRST robotics has shaped a more realistic image of leadership in the mind of this generation. These students understand leadership doesn't just come in the form of leading others but also the leading of self. Autonomously identifying when you have nothing to do, thinking of a way to drive a goal forward by contributing, and completing that task sounds like a relic of a time gone by. For individuals on FIRST robotics this self-motivation is the key to their team’s success. Students learn that their team's goal would not be reached without their daily drive.

Disguised by the whirring motors and blinking lights a new generation is being fashioned. These professional triple threats graciously reform communication, culture, and leadership. At competition, beyond the field and into the robot pits is the best place to watch this transformation take place. Not convinced? Grab a pair of safety goggles, shake a few hands with students, collect a few robot buttons, ask about their robot design, hear about their aspirations, and see for yourself.

Find your nearest FRC competition: http://www.usfirst.org/whats-going-on

Guess what day it is?! Have to post this video every year: https://youtu.be/G_bOA3qrC-c Link to FIRST Robotics Kick Off webcast starting 9amCT with preshow and 9:30amCT with new game info: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/2017-broadcast

Reporting All Robots!

This FIRST Robotics season I joined forces with BlueDevil Press to live report on the Duluth Robotics Regional. BlueDevil Press is a collaboration of three teams to give an unbiased view of the robotics world to the community. As a part project mentor part alumna I helped edit articles, devise interview questions and follow beats. For the Duluth Regional we crafted a wrap around the Duluth News Tribune, submitted four articles to the paper and published eight articles on the BlueDevil Press blog. Some of the stories include...

"Starting ’em Young" - Kindergartners visit the FIRST Robotics Regional

"FIRST President Don Bossi Interview" - FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) President shares he visions for the future of robotics

"Phoenix Robotics" - A norm busting robotics team

"A “FEARless” Season" - Overcoming disaster, robot drove off the stage during community demo

Wrap around the Duluth News Tribune. Part program part “What is robotics?”

Following the competition I visited the Kindergarten class that took a field trip to watch the robots. We reviewed the robotics challenge reveal video one more time, then they were challenged to build a robot of their own out of odd materials. Students were given googly eyes (cameras), clothes pins (robot defense manipulators), pom poms (boulders), foam (robot structure),  construction paper (robot field) and pipe cleaners (aluminum rods). I expected the students to glue their creations down on provided construction paper but instead they made the robots 3-D! Folding and building their robots like a diorama recreating the scenes they saw at the competition. Every time I give a class a design challenge I am amazed by what they imagine!

Robot shooting a boulder into a tower.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

Watch FIRST robotics competitions live every Thursday to Saturday until May 1st, 2016.

Support your local FIRST Robotics team. Teams often have their own website and 501c3 so you can donate to them. Find them here.

Visit a classroom and read a book, teach some coding, talk about your career. Teachers will love the extra prep time and students love a fresh perspective.

Pit area where teams work on their robot between matches.

Intern Week 1: Code in a Storm

Comment your code and batten down the hatches. One week into my NASA intern experience and I have become well aquainted with the LabVIEW programming language and Houston's tropical storms.

LabVIEW is a visual programming language where instead of writing lines of code to make a "while loop" you literally draw a loop around the function you want to repeat. Many FIRST Robotics teams and rapid prototyping engineers use LabVIEW. With this programming language I will translate packets of data from Orion Deep Space Habitat's devices to meaningful data and then display that data on a user interface. I'm still pinching myself because not only do I get to work alongside talented scientists but I am helping advance a project I worked on while interning at NASA Glenn Research Center in 2013. Some of the devices that I am translating data for, such as a solar power regulator, are devices I made a circuit board for at Glenn.

I captured pictures of The HIVE (Human Integrated Vehicles & Environments) lab we work in primarily because we were advised to cover the tech gear in plastic bags in preparation for a pending tropical storm. Coming from the icy tundra of Minnesota I am far from used to tropical storm and flood prep. Cutting long strips of plastic sheets with large industrial scissors I felt like one of Cinderella's woodland helpers. Now the Orion mock up is ready to meet Prince Charming at the ball.

Looking forward to creating schematics of the packet translator in Visio and making the translation process more autonomous this week!

Comfortably Inconclusive: NASA Co-Op #2 Week 10 & 11

This is the first internship I have completed without a definite finished product to hand over and it truly bothers me. Trials were performed with the small business made humidity sensor with three levels of humidity in order to gather different data points. From these trials a >10% difference between the humidity sensor and NASA known sensors was found. This was primarily because the sensors available to me were not calibrated so errors in the thermodynamic equations could propagate. In conclusion the trials were inconclusive. However, I left a trial rig that can be used with calibrated sensors and known humidity levels, explanation of equations used to gather data and ample documentation on how to run trials with my fluid system and data collection program. My exit presentation pictured above went really well, I was so glad the Director of Engineering Propulsion could attend my presentation!

Before my departure International Space Station astronauts gave a debrief on missions 46 and 47. British astronaut Tim Kopra and American astronaut Tim Peake narrated a video showing images from the missions and scientific experiments they performed. Kopra explained astronauts are experiments themselves and they draw blood, perform ultrasound and exercises to help advance medical science and understand how humans are affected by space travel.

I really enjoyed the multi-disipline challenges I faced this summer running trials on the humidity sensor. Right before I left my Dad and I caught Kate Rubins and Jeff Williams installing the Commercial Crew Docking Adapter outside of Space Station live! This fall I am back at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) continuing my studies in electrical engineering and computer science. While at UMD I work in the career center editing resumes, giving presentations and writing career tip posts like this: https://umdcareers.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/internships-beyond-your-project/

In the spring I will return to Johnson to Co-Op in Mission Control's ISO (Inventory and Stowage Officer) group.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

See what NASA was up to this week.

Read about the astronauts on space station right now!

Apply for a NASA Co-Op

Apply for a NASA Internship

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

NASA Co-Op Week 7: Astronaut, Rovers & Robots

One wheel off the edge of a cliff ten of us were jam packed in a rover sweating like dogs.

Robonaut, Valkyrie, Modular Robotic Vehicle and Small Pressurized Rover are the electrical explorers we visited during a Johnson Space Center robotics tour. Waiting in NASA's Rock Yard was a speedy electric vehicle and a crater climbing rover. MRV is an electric drive vehicle that is has high maneuverability that would score big in drifting competitions. We all got to ride in the Small Pressurized Rover which wasn't really small at all. This giant monster truck looking rover took us in and out of  lunar like creators and up a steep Mars like hill. The operator drove us to the edge of the hill and asked, "All right, are you ready to go down?" Grasping to our seats we were all white knuckled. Backing up the rover the operator laughed, "Going down that hill would have wrecked the vehicle". For those few seconds the inside of the rover became even more sauna like. In The Martian movie you will see a modified version of the Small Pressurized Rover that Mark Watney drives around.

Robotnaut is the humanoid robot you see on the news all the time that works in the International Space Station (ISS). Flexing muscles and articulating fingers Robotnaut showed off for us. Robotnaut is very strong able to lift over 20lb of weight in manners that would make arm day miserable. However, Robotnaut is also very delicate able to sense the wight of a nickle on its fingertips.

Valkyrie is a full bodied humanoid robot designed to perform human tasks in conditions unsafe for humans. The idea for Valkyrie came after the Fukushima Accident where more damage could have been avoided if valves were closed near the site, a task a robot could do. Valkyrie is also being designed for low gravity exploration like Mars or Lunar exploration.

Astronaut Michael Fossum talked us student this week too. He flew two Shuttle Missions and a six month long mission to the International Space Station. Before he was in space Fossum engineered ways to repair the shuttle during space walks to prevent any pieces from breaking off. During the space walk  Fossum navigated over to the tiles on the space station and sealed spaces and breaks with cocking substance. He mentioned when you look "down" in various directions during a spacewalk you can either see the surface of Earth or a black nothingness.  Fossum also was the first to capture a time-lapse of Northern Light and the first astronaut to operate Robotnaut on the ISS.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

Read about the Small Pressurized Rover and its future missions

Learn about Valkyrie's future endeavors

Watch Astronaut Mike Fossum operate Robotnaut

Robotnaut's younger sibling Robotnaut2 operating switches on the ISS

Human like hand motions by Robonaut2

Start your career with NASA and tune into a Virtual Career Fair and hear about internship, fellowships and scholarships October 8th 12pm-3:30pmCT

Intern Day One: NASA Is Not Dead

At orientation we were asked to raise our hands if we thought NASA was dead after the Space Shuttle program ended. I admit, I was among the many that raised their hands. Many flashed back to when the last shuttle Atlantis launched summer of 2011. I thought back to my summer internship at NASA Glenn Research Center where I saw a rocket booster, the remains of the Constellation program, draped in tarps and covered with dust in a dark warehouse. Quickly myself and the room of interns came to learn that these preconceived notions about NASA are far from the truth.

During our first day as interns we had the opportunity to hear from Dr. Dava Newman about her new position as NASA Deputy Administrator and Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa brief Newman about the center's accomplishments. Hearing from Newman and Ochoa re-energized our passion for space exploration and reminded us how much NASA has progressed. Curiosity rover descended on Mar's surface August of 2012 not only becoming the fourth rover to land on this robot inhabited planet, but collecting data so we know how to prepare to for a human mission to Mars. Orion is the future Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle designed for the purpose of deep space exploration to Mars and beyond. This past December it had its first test flight launching to into orbit 3,600 miles above the Earth, far above the International Space Station. By being flown that high Orion collected data about radiation waves astronauts will have to pass through while traveling away and back to Earth. Orion also tested a careful decent with four stages of parachutes proving this massive heat shielding vehicle could decelerate at a comfortable pace for astronauts. Although I get impatient about waiting to send humans to Mars so many variables are being tested with Curiosity and Orion to ensure a successful mission.

My first day was filled with meeting fellow peers, getting antiquated with Johnson Space Center and learning that NASA is very much alive.