Category: Internship Report

Gabe Holden – Marshall Space Flight Center

What are your accomplishments so far?

For the first half of my internship, I mainly worked on the PRIME (Powder Removal in Microgravity Environments) Project. Over the past eight weeks, I have analyzed previous work, redesigned, and produced a working prototype. This has included utilizing CREO to model parts to be put through strenuous rapid prototyping and selecting and programming sufficient electronics using Arduino IDE. Beyond PRIME, I have also provided powder work, such as morphology analysis on regolith simulants and AM powder, to support projects within my organization.

What are your goals?

In the coming weeks, I will present our working prototype of PRIME to a local contractor, with the goal of having it handed off for the production of a flight-ready model to be sent to the ISS. Beyond this, I hope to test our unit’s capabilities on different geometries and turbo machinery parts.

What is an impact of this internship?

This internship has opened the door to vast opportunities within NASA. Getting a taste of what working for NASA is like has inspired me to stay on this path and come back for an internship this summer, along with making my way to working for NASA full-time following graduation.

Brooke Scanlon – Johnson Space Center

What are your accomplishments so far?

To date, I have developed a user interface for a confidential project in the lab, utilizing Figma for the design and Flutter for the implementation

What are your goals?

My goal is to finalize the interface design and continue work on the code to create a functional product.

What is an impact of this internship?

My internship at Johnson Space Center has increased my interest in engineering and solidified my choice of career. It gave me hands-on experience, helped me build technical skills, and showed me how teamwork plays out in real projects.

John Greager – Johnson Space Center

What are your accomplishments so far?

So far, I’ve developed vibration reducing gaskets for use on the xPLSS in order to reduce the amount of sound it creates when active on the new xEMU. I’ve designed and fabricated them, the only wait now is design validation via use of a testing sta

nd. On top of that, I’ve also been doing material research with a focus on finding materials that can be used to lighten the xEMU for future Mars missions. Like the gaskets, I’ve already designed all of the samples, I’m just waiting on procurement.

What are your goals?

My goal is validating all my projects and getting useful data that proves our hypothesis on each item. I also want to continue to get to know the other programs and look into further expanding what I’m involved in.

What is an impact of this internship?

I already have some opportunities for the summer, so continued employment is a valid option. I never thought I’d be working at NASA, and expanding on that, I never thought I’d be actually capable of doing so. I now see that the skills I have gained up to this internship are very useful and make me capable of doing what I thought I couldn’t.

Lexi Ohringer – The Science Center of Iowa

What are the current goals of your project?

I will be helping with the implementation of two other week-long camps: “Exhibit Exploration,” which is about the planning of museum implementation, and “Culture of the Cedar Valley,” which is about local history and culture. In the second half of my internship, I plan to finalize the preparations for both the space and engineering camp. Both camps are scheduled for August, so I will be running both the space and engineering camps towards the end of my internship.

What accomplishments has your project made so far?

So far, I have been running planetarium shows and science demonstrations which are meant to generate an interest in STEM for both children and adults. I also help run the Grout’s summer camps, which are each themed and oriented for children from ages 6 to 13. So far, we have finished two camps, which each lasted a week: “Paleo Discoveries,” which was dinosaur themed, and “The Art of History,” which was about how art has changed throughout history. When not running shows or helping with camps, I have been working on planning the programming for our final week-long camps of the summer which are “I Need Space,” a space themed camp primarily focused on NASA and it’s missions and “Rockets, Cars, and Planes, Oh My,” which has a focus on engineering and physics. So far, I have finished most of the planning for the space camp, and just need to work on camp prep (pitching the plan to the rest of the team, buying supplies, and physical set-up).

To learn more about Lexi’s internship, click here to view her website.

Emma Jackovin – Putnam Museum and Science Center

Describe what you did during your internship:

Most of my programming involved space-themed summer camps, both full-day and half-day. Each week covered different topics: planets, stars, meteors, and space travel challenges. Activities included building a to-scale solar system, creating water filters, simulating a Mars mission with a budget, and engineering spacecraft like balloon-powered rockets and lunar landers. I tailored the level of detail depending on the group’s interest.

I also ran a one-day Space Career Workshop, where I introduced kids to various space-related careers beyond being an astronaut, such as physics, engineering, computer science, and more. I emphasized the wide range of opportunities in space exploration.

Additionally, I compiled research on three main topics: the similarities between Antarctica and Mars/Lunar surfaces, meteorites found in Antarctica (including those with potential evidence of past life on Mars), and the Gateway, Artemis, and Orion missions, which represent the future of space exploration.

Did you achieve your goals?

My goals mainly consisted of successfully leading NASA-related programming and learning more about STEM education. As previously stated I lead many programs successfully. When it comes to STEM education, there were many parts of STEM education that I was previously unaware of. I had to learn how to plan developmentally appropriate lessons and activities depending on the age group. I also had to adapt and change activities based on what I felt was appropriate for each group of students. I also had to learn to manage a classroom with up to 20 kids. I got better at answering their questions in simple ways, even when the question had an extremely complex answer. Overall, I got much better at teaching and managing kids in a STEM education setting.

Describe positive lessons learned:

I most importantly learned more about myself during this internship. Upon personal reflection, I learned that working in this setting is exhausting for me, which in turn helped me realize my future should not consist of this same environment. I now know that I adore teaching, yet I do not love teaching young children. I also learned how to effectively manage classrooms and teach in engaging ways. Additionally, I got better at time management and professional communication with peers.

Describe negative lessons learned:

Overall, I had a wonderful experience like I have described. Despite this, I got overwhelmed easily during camps with many difficult students. Although it wasn’t noticeable, by the end of the day I was mentally exhausted. I struggled to send kids home who had behaved in a way more than warranting a call home. I had a lot of empathy for all of the kids and hoped they would behave with time; this wasn’t the case. Regardless, this internship was still very enjoyable for me.

What was the impact of this internship?

This internship affected both my knowledge of STEM education, but also clarified my path. Sometimes you need to experience things outside of your comfort zone to understand the path you are meant to follow. Originally, I believed I would like to be a professor at a university. This experience clarified for me how much joy I find in teaching. Looking back, my favorite part of this internship was answering all of the obscure questions kids had, and watching their curiosity grow. However, I do not see myself teaching groups of kids in the future. I would much prefer being in an environment of only teaching instead of managing a classroom as well. I have thought about starting to tutor, as I thoroughly enjoy helping students learn. While I was compiling research for the Putnam, I also realized that I love research, and working in research is a very viable path for me as well.

Sophia Schmitz – Grout Museum District

Describe what you did during your internship:

During my internship I planned and led half of the Grout Museum’s “I Need Space!” camp as well as the entirety of the “Rockets, Cars, and Planes, Oh My!” camp. I assisted in supervising the other week-long and day-long camps of the summer. I also helped run the planetarium as well as presented science demonstrations. Most of my work involved supervising children and encouraging them to engage in the material we were presenting. I also worked to teach children and adults about what engineering is.

Did you achieve your goals?

I believe I achieved my goals, both tangible and personal. I fulfilled the tangible goals of planning and leading our “I Need Space!” and “Rockets, Cars, and Planes, Oh My!” camps as well as helping with other camps, running the planetarium, and helping with science demonstrations. I also met my own personal goals, which were to be a positive role model for young girls interested in STEM, generate an interest in STEM, and reinforce skills that are important in STEM. I believe my presence at the Grout Museum was a positive representation for women interested in STEM, but I also did my best to encourage young women to pursue the field. I helped to generate an interest in STEM by creating and presenting engaging science demonstrations and planetarium shows. Finally, I helped reinforce skills that are integral to STEM, such as teamwork, creativity, and critical thinking by building activities that require these skills into my planned camps.

Describe positive lessons learned:

One of the big lessons I learned during this internship was to consider why a person might be acting the way that they are. As adults, we often don’t consider this. However, after working with children, my thinking often shifts away from thoughts that blame the person toward thoughts that are more understanding of why the person is acting the way that they are. For example, when the children are being more rambunctious than normal, my initial thought is now to consider how hands on and engaging the activities have been rather than to blame the children for their own energy.

Describe negative lessons learned:

Some challenges I had during this internship was the space we hosted our camps in. Because we did not have a dedicated space for our camps, it could be a challenge to move supplies and be constantly thinking about what things we could and couldn’t do in the space we were in. For example, some of our camps were hosted in a conference room in the Grout Museum, so we had to be extremely careful to make sure the campers didn’t spill paint or anything else that could stain. The space issue was especially difficult for our bigger camps that needed to be split into to different groups as one group had to be outside for the other to be inside. This was difficult to pull off with variable weather conditions.

What was the impact of this internship?

Throughout the internship I gained experience in public speaking by presenting science demonstrations and planetarium shows. I improved my ability to be flexible under stress by leading the “I Need Space!” and “Rockets, Cars, and Planes, Oh My!” camps, where we were constantly adapting to the needs and energy levels of our campers. Finally, I improved my own problem solving skills by intentionally working through the steps of solving a problems with campers. This was intended to help them understand how to solve a problem, but by practicing it so much it actually improved my own ability to problem solve. All of these skills are things that are directly beneficial to my time as a student of engineering as well as in my future career.

Sydney Shultz – National Mississippi River Museum Camp; Aquarium

Describe what you did during your internship:

My role as an intern at the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium this summer was to create and deliver NASA related educational programming for the museum’s “MakerSpace”, an area for all ages to learn and explore various STEM related topics. The MakerSpace includes more “self-guided” stations that are meant to inspire curiosity and innovation. During my internship, I created multiple stations aligning with the many aspects of NASA and the museum. One of these stations was a “wind tunnel” that teaches guests about the Mars Helicopter “Ingenuity.” Guests educate themselves by reading posters with facts about Ingenuity and then attempt to make their own helicopter out of paper. These helicopters are then placed into this make-shift wind tunnel and fly up and out the top. I found that this attracted visitors of all ages and used the opportunity to talk about the use of wind tunnels in aerospace engineering.

Did you achieve your goals?

I believe I achieved both given and personal goals. I was able to inspire and connect with a number of visitors through the developed programming and had a really positive experience doing so. I was able to create a number of successful activities for the MakerSpace that increased the popularity of the area and helped define what the space could be. I also learned a lot of communication and education skills, plus a whole lot about NASA. I was even able to practice some technical skills which aligned with my major such as improving my CAD abilities. All in all, I learned a lot about technical communication and was able to connect with so many types of people which was a success in itself.

Describe positive lessons learned:

This internship has provided me with a lot of positive lessons. Of course, I learned how to communicate complex topics to those with less background knowledge, but I also learned how important working with others is. All of my co-workers were so nice, and it was when we put our heads together that we came up with some of the most successful activities for the museum. I also learned the importance of learning from your failures. Not every activity was a huge success, but it provided me the opportunity to look at what guests liked and what guests didn’t to fully tweak the station into something enjoyable yet still educational.

Describe negative lessons learned:

I think the hardest part of this experience was figuring out the system for the area. The museum’s MakerSpace is relatively new and has had quite a few changes in leadership so no one really knew what the space could be. I challenged myself to make things more in depth, interesting, and eye-catching through more involved activities. When I came to the museum, some unhopeful museum employees called the MakerSpace some not so nice names but by the end, we would get multiple compliments a day on how the area was improving, looked great, and was just so much more engaging than it had been before.

What was the impact of this internship?

As an aerospace engineer, I was always very interested in STEM, but because of my internship, I am so much more enamored with the space aspect of the field. I also feel much more prepared to achieve my goals of being a leader in my field as I feel I can work with others and communicate the scientific topics that I will need to so much better than I could before.

Samuel Whitlock – Johnson Space Center

Final Goals of your project/s:

– Create a force-sensing controller for the Joint AR prototype.
– Document development and testing of the force sensing in a controls trade study to give to xEVA vendors (axiom, collins).
– Perform testing in the B7 glovebox to determine usability in a pressurized environment.

Describe what you did during the internship:

I created the Joint AR force sensing controls are in development for use in the Joint AR system as a way of UI manipulation. The force-sensing controls use force-sensitive resistors that measure the force a user outputs as a voltage through the resistor. This setup allows for variable force control that can be used completely internal to the suit and is versatile to the point where it can be used freehand or on various places around the suit, such as the opposite forearm or the same side thigh.

The force sensing controls utilized 3 force sensing resistors with 3D printed “pucks” on top of them. These pucks make it, so pressure doesn’t just deform the sensor into the finger of the subject. They also help to provide more accurate data on the force outputs.

Input commands for the short press and the short hold are relatively fast commands. In terms of versatility, the controller can be activated at any point and can be operated with only one hand. This means you have one hand to carry tools or tethers, while the other is used to cycle through procedures, while the physical hand controller requires both arms to be in use. Lastly, the ease of use. As stated earlier this control method can be activated anywhere using discrete finger movements. The control method is also flexible and offers multiple different methods of control. As of now short presses and long presses are the main 2 methods of control, however, something such as scrolling could be added if necessary.

The uncertainty of command activation stems from the lack of haptic feedback in the system. This leaves the user feeling unsure of whether the commands are actually reading or not. This has a simple solution of either integrating the piezo board, or a small vibration motor. This small fix would give the user much more confidence while using the system.

Sensor placement is the second notable problem for the controller. On this fabric, the sensors tend to shift around on the glove since they aren’t fixed by anything but hot glue or electric tape. This leads to the user having sensors slide down to the middle of the finger, which is much more uncomfortable. Two solutions exist that we have thought of so far. The first would be adding holes in the puck on the outer shell, meaning that we could sew the puck into the glove and have the sensors adhered to the surface of the puck. The other would be using something similar to EKG sensor adhesion strips, that way the sensors are adhered directly to the skin and fixed before getting into the suit.

Lastly, the activation sequence speed is another, fixable problem. Ideas for fixing the activation/deactivation speed would be decreasing the number of commands to input to activate the system. This could be done through repeated HITL testing, attempting to find a unique set of 2-3 commands while still minimizing false activations. Other ideas would be RFID/NFC activation or lighthouse activation on different body parts.

Moving forward with the force sensing controls, the next logical step would be integrating haptic feedback into a higher fidelity prototype. After that, likely full stack testing, ARGOS testing, and potentially NBL testing would help validate the system and show us more of the problems that won’t be seen unless that testing is done.

Did you achieve your goals? What were the results?

All goals were achieved. The result was an alternative control system that could be used to control the prototype. The team also learned a lot about potential variables that could affect other control methods, and we gathered good testing data and testing procedures that can be used for every test to form a comparative set of data.

Describe positive lessons learned:

– Minimize design variables to test other design variables
– Prototype quickly and learn as much as you can from each iteration
– Success isn’t cut and dry, sometimes success criteria can change.

Describe negative lessons learned:

– Remote work can be a bit tough, you have to find the right hours.

Matthew McDonnell – Johnson Space Center

Final Goals of your project/s:

Our lab works on flight software for exercise equipment on ISS and upcoming Artemis missions. We worked on modernizing the ISS treadmill user interface, developing new markerless motion capture recording suites, and certifying a new agility device for flight to the ISS. Some other projects in the lab worked with the ARGOS team, the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device, and the Artemis Flywheel project.

Describe what you did during the internship:

MARKERLESS MOTION CAPTURE
– Developed new system to analyze human motion without markers
– Connect to, record, pull data, and process GoPro camera footage
– Use Stanford’s OpenCap system to analyze inverse kinematics

T2 REDESIGN
– Assist in new storyboards for user interface
– Provide feedback and suggest new UI elements
– Work with T2 team to develop project plans and timelines

WOBBLEBOARD
– Assisted a VR game to help practice agility
– Worked with the ISS program to establish a flight plan.

Did you achieve your goals? What were the results?

We worked hard to make advancements on the projects we have open. This semester, there were no firm deadlines on our projects, so we focused on preparing for the new team to pick up in the summer when we finally hit some deliverables. We achieved the goal of advancing our projects and preparing for the future.

Describe positive lessons learned:

I learned a lot about project management, procedures for certifying for flight, and all the subsystems that work together to make human spaceflight possible. Before my experience here, I knew that spaceflight was difficult, but now I have a massive appreciation for every individual’s unique and important positions here and how the puzzle pieces all fit together for a successful mission.

Describe negative lessons learned:

As part of learning the procedures of sending things to space, I now understand the hurdles people regularly face with regard to strict requirements, timelines, and insufficient funding from the government.

Conrad Ernst – Johnson Space Center

Final Goals of your Project/s:

The primary objective of the markerless motion capture environment was to precisely assess individuals’ physical performance during exercise routines. Through the acquisition of a 3-dimensional representation of the human body’s joint angles and force outputs, it becomes possible to track movements with greater accuracy, thereby facilitating the identification and rectification of improper movement patterns.

The central aim of the PSION database restructuring initiative was to enhance the user interface, resulting in a more efficient and self-directed system. This would enable individuals to optimize their workout routines and enjoy a more seamless and gratifying experience overall.

Describe what you did during your internship:

During my internship, I had the opportunity to work on two significant projects. The first project was centered around the development of a cutting-edge markerless motion capture environment, specifically designed to cater to the physical exercise requirements of astronauts. This innovative system enables the collection and analysis of multiple biofeedback data streams, which are then utilized to model the individual, thereby facilitating the enhancement of workout techniques. Our team accomplished a remarkable feat by devising a pipeline that harnessed the wifi capabilities of multiple GoPro cameras. This resulted in the automatic downloading of videos, synchronization of time codes, and integration of joint angles and limb placement into the videos, courtesy of a motion capture system.

The second project, PSION, was primarily focused on the revamping of the frontend software system for all IoT data streams. My role in this project involved mastering the React programming language and utilizing my newfound knowledge to redevelop the Graphical User Interface (GUI). The objective of this initiative was to streamline and optimize the user experience, and I was thrilled to be a part of this transformational undertaking.

Did you achieve your goals? What were the results?:

The objectives of each project were merely incremental steps in the larger plan for these initiatives. Despite making significant progress on both projects and achieving some of our primary goals, there are still numerous additional objectives that need to be met before the projects can be deemed fully completed.

In essence, the markerless motion capture environment and the PSION database restructuring projects served as crucial tools for deepening our understanding of individuals’ needs and challenges, and further stimulating innovative thinking for potential future applications. While there is still much work to be done, the foundation has been laid for the achievement of even greater strides in these areas.

Describe positive lessons learned:

Firstly, I learned the importance of effective communication and teamwork in achieving organizational goals. Working collaboratively with a diverse team of individuals with varying skill sets and backgrounds, I gained invaluable insights into the art of constructive dialogue, the benefits of active listening, and the importance of maintaining a positive attitude even when faced with challenges.

Secondly, I learned to embrace new challenges and take calculated risks in the pursuit of growth and development. My exposure to cutting-edge technologies, such as motion capture and IoT systems, was a steep learning curve, but I was able to rise to the challenge and expand my knowledge base through persistence and hard work.

Lastly, I learned to appreciate the value of time management and organization. Balancing multiple projects, deadlines, and priorities was no mean feat, but with careful planning and efficient use of time, I was able to remain focused and productive throughout my internship.

Overall, my internship experience has been incredibly rewarding, providing me with practical skills and knowledge that I can carry forward into my future endeavors.

Describe negative lessons learned:

One of the main negative lessons was the need to manage expectations effectively. While it is important to set ambitious goals, it is equally important to ensure that these goals are achievable within the given time frame and resources. On certain occasions, I found myself struggling to meet unrealistic expectations and timelines, leading to feelings of frustration and disappointment.

Another negative lesson that I learned was the need to be resilient in the face of failure or setbacks. Despite my best efforts, there were instances where things did not go as planned, or I made mistakes that resulted in unfavorable outcomes. However, through these experiences, I learned to accept failure as a natural part of the learning process, and to view setbacks as opportunities for growth and improvement.

Overall, the negative lessons I learned during my internship have provided me with valuable insights into the importance of effective expectation management, resilience, and self-care in achieving success and maintaining well-being.