Author: cawep6

Moving or should I say Flowing forward

Currently we are working on setting up the mass flow controller (in one of the images) and calibrating it to establish the leak rate of 8 liters/minute. I am specifically focused on getting the tubing measured out while getting connectors to attach the tubing to the instruments, but I ave also helped quite a bit with the wiring (like on the breadboard you see in the picture). Soon we will finish getting the gps synced with all of the other instruments and we will be ready to run our preliminary tests in the field. These preliminary tests will be focused on safety and we will set up a few sensors and just measure for the average concentration. From there we will begin to actually use the cart a start getting an idea of the shape of the plume.

Drew Day 8 Logistics

image.jpegThis is the site that the meetings were for.

For the last day I started out in another finance meeting which was very quick and then we took some calls about the ceiling and prices we did yesterday and next we went to another meeting the longest one yet it was a double meeting first it was with the contractors and the inspectors for them to meet and talk about the logistics of what each of them are doing and how to be in contact. Then the contractors stayed and we talked to them about the logistics of the budget and other plans for it. After that we all went to the site we were there for about 3 minutes and then all went out to lunch together and talked about completely unrelated topics. The rest of the day was paperwork and phone calls about the ceilings and the TOA project.

Just Crush It

Did I ever think I would spend my time crushing butter-mints…not quite.

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No longer minty fresh 

It turns out it’s a lot of fun! Phil taught me the formatting of a real lab experiment by doing a mini experiment on butter-mints, a pretty big change of pace from our previous tests. Basically, we measured the durability (specifically how much force it can take before it splits) of the mints on a Chantillon 200 LBF machine. After I collected the data we discussed possible variables and then Phil gave me a crash course in Excel. He also explained various statistics used for data analysis like ANOVA, and Pvalues.

Excel Data: Butter Mint Crush

Next, we ventured to NC State to meet a group of scientists that work in a BSL3 lab, which is a lab containing “safety” chemicals that can be harmful to humans and could possibly be used detrimentally in large quantities. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss proper safety procedures and determine how to manage the various pathogens being used. Phil and Jean are involved in a study that is about to take place concerning the Zika virus and its effects on cells and tissues. It’s important to use extreme care to minimize possible exposures to the diseases being tested in the lab (which includes Rocky Mount Spotted Fever and Bartonella). The coolest part, however, was getting to tour the lab and see how all the safety procedures are implemented.

I ended my last day with a mini staff ice cream party in front of the copy machine (classic) and Sarah showing me the basics of a SEM machine. An SEM machine uses a beam of electrons to chart the typography of the surface of particles. To be completely honest this just means it takes super cool up-close photographs of particles and stuff (kind of like a fancy microscope for materials). The photographs you’ve seen of thread and other fabrics (hair is a popular one for shampoos) close up are probably produced using an SEM machine!

I can’t believe the internship is over! It has been an amazing experience, much better than anything I could have ever imagined and I hope everyone has an opportunity to do something similar before college!

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Cameron Day 3 (repost?) – the Mystics of Optical Density

It’s… Get ready for it, HUMPDAY!!!!!

Anyways, hi friends!

Cameron again. I hope everyone is enjoying their week so far. Mine has been especially fabulous, and we started a new activity in preparation for the main project. Yesterday, I cleaned filters and put them in their proper placement. Today I tested the optical density of each, which is where we place them into a machine and run them through the color spectrum, recording how much light gets through. Hers a picture of the machine:


Jason McNeill (in the picture above) was my guide during this activity, and it was quite interesting utilizing the software. Despite several technical difficulties, I ended up processing all 50 plates in time for Jason to check their weights using a very, very picky machine. It took 15 minutes for just one filter at one point!
After helping out Jason, Mrs. Michelle took me to meet Andrew Dart, where we discussed some of the finer points of his machine. This machine, as it so happened to be, was the one we used for ECMs, and is picture below along with Andrew.


Andrew built both this and the extremely complicated machine hidden behind the one we used. It’s pretty awesome! He also works on the fireman project I discussed in my first post. Pretty cool, right? Not to mention he looks kind of like Sherlock from Masterpiece Mysteries…

Anyway, that’s pretty much everything for today.

Happy Humpday everyone!
Cameron L.

Day 6 – Return of the ReTI

Fear ye all who enter here, for…
IIIIIIIIII’mmm baaaaaaaaaaccckkk!
Hey all,

Today’s the first day back for the new week, and I hope everyone had a wonderful day.
For me, I’d call today a good day, if a little on the less exciting side. However, it did start out interesting with a fire truck in front of one of the entrances to RTI, as depicted below:

Never figured out why it was there, but I hope everyone was safe!

Otherwise, there were a ton of meetings, with a right off the back discussion with Dr. Thornburg, Emily, and I on questions with what he does at RTI and his average workday. After meeting Dr. Thornburg, Mrs. Michelle and I shipped out some sensors to one of the projects she started. Here’s a picture of the final packaging:


After that, we went to a safety meeting where I trailed behind lost as they argued over room numbers and the like. Apparently, they were making sure the old building design door numbers and the new blue print door numbers matched up. Interestin, to say the least. Later, Mrs. Allen stopped by for a quick check up and tour by Dr. Thornburg. 

After meeting Mrs. Allen, but before lunch, we learned how to use the software for the new micropems, which we are starting work on tomorrow. For lunch, I had a delicious cheeseburger and onion rings, and happened to meet Jonathan and Kiran who had transferred from to the forensics department of RTI for this week, an unexpected, but welcome, surprise.

After lunch, we retrieved data from some field tests until a meeting with Mr. Mecham, who gave some life tips and shared his background with us, much as with Dr. Thornburg this morning.

That pretty much concludes my day. I hope you all enjoy your day as well!

Sincerely,

Cameron L.

P.S. For those confused with the title’s joke, 1) it’s a reference to Star Wars, and 2) RTI stands for research triangle institute, so I just extended the first word for RTI to make ReTI… So yeah, hope you enjoyed the joke!

Day 7 – “The name’s PEM, Micro PEM.”

Hi all,

So today was a busy day!

We started micropem testing, then had a meeting with Mr. Marty, a chemical engineer at RTI, which lasted an hour and a half. We also visited his labs, but weren’t allowed a picture inside due to defense projects. Here’s one of us outside the door though!

After that was a lunch meeting with Mrs. Swung-Hyun, another worker at RTI in my building (number 11). Both mewing were extremely informative, although I’m partial to Mr. Marty’s myself since I want to be a chemical engineer.

After lunch, I suited up in my testing gear (featured below, excluding the static gun, my inspiration for today’s title) and started collecting data by walking around various areas in the vicinity while the pumps sucked in nearby air.

All in all, an exciting day. I hope you enjoyed my update!

Cameron L.

Day 8 – Classroom work in the outside world?!

Hello all!

Today was a busy day, as all good days are, sometimes. Anyways, it started out extremely interesting as I met the mysterious bad parker of building 11. Apparently, whoever they are, they always park on the line so that no car is to close to theirs. Usually it’s in the back, but today they were in the front row, so many, many more people saw them. Here’s what it looked like:


Incredibly rude, right? If you say no, I want you to move your car now. Literally, stop reading and move your car to the appropriate position. Done? Now let’s continue.

Today’s first task was aldehyde testing, and as we moved to Johnson building for the appropriate equipment, we ran across this little guy here:


… Or maybe not so little. The point is, the only reason I noticed was a startled scream that shocked me into stopping. That was fun, if slightly scary. Taking the long path due to Mrs. Michelle’s insistence, we finally arrived at our destination.

Now, we all know classroom work hardly seems like work in real life, right? Well, aldehyde sampling is a lot like classroom work, where we mix a bunch of chemicals and measure the results, but with this fancy machine:


Which is a HPLC system, or high pressure liquid chromatography system. This does a lot of minor measurements and records data that the naked eye wouldn’t normally see.

Anyways, after that we ate my final lunch at RTI before heading to meet Leag Johnson, a biochemist at RTI. After that meeting, I prepared sample filters for equilibration and post ODs/graphs.

Hope you enjoyed my day!

Cameron L.

P.S. Here’s some extras from today.

Hazardous waste dispenser 

Funny sign

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Video of vacumn to get rid Air/gas

Containers for the aldehyde

Drew Day 5 Exploring the Site

imageIt was a half day so that everyone could leave and go to the beach for a long weekend but in the morning we went to the TOA site and went over how the site was going and the budget with the owner of the building and we also walked the site to see how it was progressing it was really cool and big. The biggest thing was going over sign placement and I pitched in an idea to make the sign three sided instead of only getting one or two directions and they went with my idea because they forgot it would be visible sense there was the electrical easement so you could see it from Briar Creek. Then we called it a day.

Drew Day 7 The Boot

imagetoday was mostly in the office we started with ring told that we needed to go over to Nottingham and price it with how much making the ceilings the same height. They are doing it because one of there tenants was really late on paying there lease so they wee being kicked out so they were trying to fill it with a tenant right after they end up having to leave. Then we met twice with two different people about churchill for scheduling and a timeline were they went over best and worst casenario and best casenario. One of those meetings was in the office the other was at page road grill which is their inner office meeting spot. Then the day was just a few calls here and there and a lot of paper work.

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

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At a lunch meeting today I was asked what I would change about the intern program at RTI, my answer: nothing.

There was a tense silence during which Cameron and I looked at each other, both deliberating the entire experience, but everything had gone so well I couldn’t think of anything even remotely critical to say. Take today for instance, we met so many different, amazing, people. First we met Marty, a chemical engineer, who was so incredibly passionate about his work that he talked to us for hours about alternative fuel and increasing the efficiency of preexisting fuel options. He even toured us around all the labs and pointed out different radiators and their functions.

Then came Seung-Hyu Cho. She grew up and studied in South Korea before realizing she wanted to be a scientist and transferred to the University of Cincinnati to fulfill her dream. She talked about her job at RTI and how she got to where she is. Stephanie also shared her experience coming from Clemson to a corporate lab to RTI. But of course the lunch was not complete without a lengthy conversation about cats!

The coolest part of the day came when Stephanie and I (and later Phil) assembled test HIV devices from the films we cast yesterday. The job was tedious no doubt, and I’m sure Stephanie dreads every minute, but I thought it was so much fun to work in a group – constantly solving problems, coming up with new solutions, and joking about it the whole time. I learned how to heat seal the film and stuff the “drug” into the film using a complex (and rather scrappy) series of homemade funnels and “poking devices”. As it turns out I know about pretty much no movies ever. To quote Phil, “ask her if she knows a movie..any movie…the answer will be no”. And ironically a high tech lab filled with millions of dollars of equipment has a lack of functioning scissors (which caused us to label them with happy or sad faces). I think it’s awesome how they can make every chore fun and exciting. It truly is a testament to the ambiance of RTI. I wish I could never leave.

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Testing out our device with this gigantic needle

Left: Phil goofing around with the labeled scissors- the good, the bad, and the ugly  🙂 😦  

Right: Hey look that’s me!