...Research

Well here it is, the moment of truth! Now is the time that I tell all about the lab in which I am working for the summer. As some or all of you may know, I was accepted to work as an REU student in the Liquid Crystals Materials Research Center (LCMRC). Sounds fancy, eh? I thought so too.

And I thought my research project sounded, at least, tolerable. In my acceptance email I was given this project description:

"The focus of the project is on observing the dynamics of small islands floating on freely suspended smectic liquid crystal bubbles. In this NASA funded project we use video microscopy to analyze the brownian motion of the islands to extract diffusion constants, and lase trapping under LabView  control to measure the interactions between pairs of islands. This project involves obtaining video data, developing LabView code, and analyzing the results using IDL and Python routines."

Alright, alright, I could get into that. I was a little disappointed that I would be using LabVIEW, a programming language that, while powerful, is very tedious to use. Of course, I didn't want to have a tedious summer, so I emailed my professor, Joe MacLennan, and was assured that there would be plenty of hands on experimentation throughout the summer. Have no fear, LabVIEW will be the least of your worries. Well, at least he was right about that.

 As an aside, I would like to point you all toward this epic picture of my professor. Yes, he still has that moustache, yes, he is as awesome as he looks, YES, he has an accent. Basically, he's bomb.

Unfortunately, however, he is currently on vacation for three weeks. So I do not have the pleasure of getting to know him for at least a little while. In the meantime, I'm getting to know my labmates.

My grad student, well, his name is Zoom. Z-O-O-M Zoom. AWESOME. Well, his name is actually Duong, but somewhere along the line he picked up this far more kickass name. He's pretty chill, and very smart. Win.

Other than Zoom, there are several other undergrads working in my lab. There's Markus, he has a mohawk. He also gave me a free copy of Plants vs. Zombies. I like him. Then there's Aaron, he's very tiny, and very smart. It took a while to get him talking, but now I think we're friends... at least I hope so, he's a good kid. Sam is the student I work most closely with, but he's leaving in a few weeks. Sad. He actually just graduated with his Bachelor's degree in Physics, and is in the midst of applying to law school. Whatever floats your boat, kid. There are two other girls in my lab; Tatyana and Cheney. Both are very nice, and less socially awkward than I was expecting.

Speaking of socially awkward, I seemed to have skipped an entire event in my time here! My first meeting with the other students in my REU. Approximately 12 physics students in one room.  4 girls, the rest guys. Only 12 students, and two, I repeat, TWO of them are named Vladimir. Only in physics. I connected pretty quickly with Eric, or, Beautiful Eric as we like to call him, and with Travis, the kid from UTexas (saw 'em off!). Also, there's Kevin, he goes to W&M and knows like, 8 of my friends. Crazy. I also made friends with Sabrina, who is awesome and rock climbs, and comes over to our apartment a few times a week. The rest... generally socially awkward. I was having lunch with Travis today (after Travis, Eric and I went to the Dream Theater/Iron Maiden concert last night!) and he was complaining that the physics kids at his school are always getting together to hang out and drink a few beers. Doesn't happen with this crowd. But in general, they are all very enjoyable people.

Back to my lab. I'm sure you all are *dying* to hear about my research... or so they call it. 

I was introduced to my project as being the "creation of a new technique to accurately deposit liquid crystal droplets on thin films." Basically, all of the research that is being done in our lab is being done on hope. "We hope that two islands will form next to each other and then coalesce," or, "we hope that a droplet will pop within two seconds of formation," or, "we hope that two droplets will form that are of comparable size."

Too much hope. So my job is to create a new technique to place drops of a determinate size accurately on a thin film.

I spent the first week figuring out how to tell a function generator to output a specific burst of voltage on command.

Once that was working (it took about two hours) my next task was to design a program using LabVIEW to control the function generator using the computer. This took a little more time. In two days, however, I had come up with this little beauty: 

It might not look like much, but that little program produces this:

And using that "front panel," as we call it in LabVIEW language, I can control the amplitude, frequency, and shape of the wave, as well as how many bursts to output, how many times to trigger, and how long to wait between triggers. Basically, I can tell the function generator to output just about any wave I want. Cool.

That program was finished last Tuesday, and my time between then and now has been spent in wait. Sam, one of the other undergraduate students, has been working on the hardware. Because this post has already gotten too long, and because I need to upload some pictures, I will leave this post at just the software. Expect to see another regarding the hardware soon!

Love to you all,
Plunk! 

...Living on My Own

Well hello again! Two posts in two days, I think this is a new record for me! Tonight will be a brief one, however, for I just returned to MY APARTMENT after watching a late-night movie, and I have to be working in the machine shop at 0800 tomorrow morning.

As you may or may not have noticed, I am SUPER PUMPED about living on my own for the first time in my life. No, mother, I don't love you any less, I'm just ready to be out in the real world. Yes, yes, I realize that living in a University apartment isn't exactly the real world, but cut me a break, will you? Baby steps.

Room 2215, Bear Creek Apartments. That's where all of you stalkers can find me. You can walk in my front door and maybe see me in the kitchen, munching on the abundance of meatloaf I now have after not realizing how ridiculously huge of a loaf my family recipe makes. Or maybe you will see me sitting on the couch, or one of the two chairs, oiling my bike chain. Perhaps you will see one of my two lovely roommates, Lisa and Emily, engrossed in their favorite TV shows online. Or, who knows? Maybe I'll be in my room. Although I doubt it. It's so much more lovely to be in the common space, enjoying the company of my new found friends.

The first morning that I was here, Lisa and I attempted a run around campus. They warned me about the altitude, but did I listen? We got maybe 3/4 of a mile before neither of us could take in a substantial breath. Walking it is. No matter, however, for there is more to see when one walks. The campus here is gorgeous. With tiled rooftops and red-stone exteriors, it's no classic Mount Holyoke, but it holds an appeal that is all its own. After a brief shopping trip to Target with the girls, we met up with some of our hall mates for dinner.

There's Brian, or Tall Kid as we endearingly call him, and his roommates Rob, who dates an actress, and Greg, the kid who's always smiling. The other room houses Miguel, the fiery Columbian, Tyler, the decision maker, and Daniel... tornado shooter extraordinaire.

I spend most of my time outside of lab with these kids... and I love 'em all. Whether they're tolerating me as I squeal while watching Glee, or accompanying us girls out to Pearl Street for dinner, they're a rag-tag bunch of really fun guys.

But it's not just my hall mates that have made this living arrangement so pleasant, it's the food! When you have an entire kitchen at your fingertips, and a lovely little Market Store a block away, you find the time to make some lovely dishes. I have so far dabbled in stir fry, quinoa, acorn squash, and meatloaf. I'm still a little rough on the portioning of said meals, and as exampled by the meatloaf, usually end up eating the same food for several days. But how lovely to be able to get back from work, go on a quick 8-10 mile bike ride, and leisurely cook dinner while watching Merlin online? Hopefully I will be putting up some recipes over the summer for you, my dears, to try yourself.

Like I said, I had to keep this brief, and hopefully I will get some pictures up tomorrow. But alas, I must turn in for the night.

Watch out tomorrow for a synopsis of my first few days working for the Physics Department of CU.
Love to you all,
Amy!

...Road Trips

This has been a week of heaven. A week of sunshine in the morning and thunderstorms at night. A week of quads aching in the best way possible. A week of mountains and lakes and new friends to share them with.

So let's start it off where it all began, the beginning. I'll try to catch up over the next few days.

My mother and I drove 2/3s of the way across the country, and it was an adventure, to say the least. We started off in the middle of DC at rush hour, and it took us more than an hour to get out of the metro area. Thank you traffic. But once we made it into Maryland and then Pennsylvania, the drive was quite pleasant. The Allegheneys are so beautiful... and I didn't even realize how they paled in comparison with the Rockies. We passed some lovely orchards... cherry I think? I thought the trees were magnificent.

See? Very pretty. Well, at this point we were still following the paper directions, and they took us an interesting little route off of the highway.

Not to say it wasn't absolutely beautiful out there - I love me some small mountain towns for sure. But when it started getting dark, and we started finding ourselves on dirt roads, we knew it was time to pull out the cellphone/gps from the FUTURE. Too bad I couldn't get a signal.

No big deal, right? We have a compass, so I followed my mother's brilliant and obvious advice, and pointed my nose northwest. Off we went. After several miles and even more U-turns, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of Meyersville, Pennsylvania. I think that the best description of Meyersville came from one of the old folk we encountered at the "Pit Stop," a road side icecream trailer. The man said, smiling, "You can't get lost in Meyersville, there's nowhere to go!"

But again, we pointed our noses toward the already-set sun, and found our way to I-70. Three hours and one speeding ticket later, my lovely mother and I set our weary eyes to rest in Sandusky, Ohio. The same Sandusky that we visited almost two years previously, but for the much more family-oriented reason of visiting Cedar Point.

Thursday morning was upon us, and we set out towards Muscatine, Iowa, where we were staying in a friend's house for the night. Unfortunately, our plan to get there by 7pm was thwarted by an unfortunate break down of my precious Pecos Bill at a Cracker Barrel in Indiana.

You see, I was enjoying a nice, familiar lunch at the Cracker Barrel, rocking chairs and checkers included. I had my usual... the Pork Chops with fried okra and green beans on the side. Grabbed a few clove candy sticks and was ready to go. Too bad my car didn't even try to turn over when I turned that key.

The lovely managers at this Cracker Barrel tried their hardest to get us on the road; we tried jumping my car from two different engines, from a battery pack, and even resetting the fuel pump. Nothing. So we called AAA and got a tow out to a local shop, in Gary, Indiana (birthplace of Michael Jackson?!)

See how nice they are in Indiana? I got a tow with a view! But for serious, people. The folks in IN were indeed some of the nicest I've ever met, but the actual place? TERRIFYING. I don't even have any pictures of Gary, IN because I was afraid to take my camera out of the shop. The only places within walking distance were a terrible Chinese take-out, a Dominoes, and a gas station. This is on a four-lane road, sided by condemned furniture galleries and sex shops. Never again will I spend 8 hours there.

But we eventually got out, and drove our last four hours to Iowa. The Ahmanns, my good friend's family, were so lovely to us. And their dogs are just adorable! It was nice to wake up to a real breakfast of cinnamon buns and tea. But sadly we had to be on the road before we could hang out more.

Friday came and was thankfully uneventful. We spent lunch in an "Amish" homestead in Iowa, but it was really just a big tourist trap. A pretty tourist trap, nonetheless:

There were pretty flowers outside of the deli in which we ate lunch, and all of the buildings looked authentic, even if they only held trinkets and cheap souvenirs. But we got some good chocolate, and had fun in the quilting store, imagining what life would be like if we had enough time to do all of these wonderful crafts. And then it was off again, to explore the rest of the Midwest.

The rest of the day was what you would have expected from Iowa and Nebraska: corn fields out the wazoo. Corn fields and windmills. I actually thought that they were very pretty, but they got to be almost hypnotic to drive through. Mom and I had to switch spots more frequently than normal, and I even pulled into a shady spot at a hotel to take one of my famed 8-minute naps. Then it was off into the wild, golden-yellow yonder.

That night, I really pushed myself. I wanted to make it to the Colorado border before sleep, and by George I did it. We pulled in to a Super 8 Motel just over the border between Colorado and Nebraska some time around 3 in the morning. The place smelled, and the beds were horrible, but they were beds.

So Friday morning was a leisurely drive to Denver, where we met with long lost relatives cousin Shanda and her Sophomore son, Truett. After watching the end of Truett's football camp, we ate at Chipotle (how classy!) and Truett marvelled over my snake-in-a-tupperware, and I fantasized about their horse ranch in southern Colorado. I will go there soon and there will be pictures!

After quick hugs and speedy-getaways, we made the 45-minute hop over to Boulder. I found myself moving into a beautiful apartment with an excellent kitchen, fully furnished living room, and a cozy bedroom, and have been here ever since!

Look for another post tomorrow about my first few days in Boulder, the days before my research began!

Ciao, lovelies!
Amy!