Collin Flynn, 2018 NASA Goddard Space Center Intern

Biography

SPS Chapter: Coe College

I am a rising senior at Coe College studying to receive my Bachelor of Arts in Physics and Chemistry. With many thanks to the NSF, I have had the opportunity to participate in glass research with the Coe College Physics department. Through this research, I was able to spend a week using equipment in the UK to conduct research on my samples. Although being able to say you sent your samples to another country is extremely humbling, the idea that we may send something I worked on into space is just surreal. I grew up my whole life staring up at the stars and to think my work could contribute to a greater understanding of those stars fills me with bewilderment.

Outside of research I am captain of the Swimming & Diving team, an active member of Coe Student Senate, and Vice President of Mortar Board, Crescent Chapter. I also serve on a few budgetary committees: one which oversees the budgets for clubs on Coe’s campus and the other determines the college’s budget as a whole. In my free time I enjoy lifting weights, hitchhiking, and biking. I have been told “Collin, your life is just like one big adventure,” and I cannot wait to tell stories of my adventures in D.C., and with NASA.

Internship

Host: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Project

Abstract

Aerospace technology has constantly moved towards efficiency and miniaturization. Efficiency is particularly important for deep space missions, where sunlight is lacking. The Mini Electron Probe Micro Analyzer (MiniEPMA) is a highly efficient flight concept capable of spatially mapping the elemental composition of a mineral target on an airless body (e.g. a comet, asteroid, or moon). The MiniEPMA’s efficiency is largely due to its use of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), which are extremely efficient at generating electrons compared to other materials commonly used as field emission sources, such as lanthanum hexaboride (LaB6) and tungsten filaments. The instrument uses a 10 by 10 addressable array of CNT pillars approximately 100 µm in diameter. However, not all CNT arrays are alike. We have found very different field emission capabilities among CNT arrays that underwent different growth conditions, such as catalyst type, catalyst thickness, and the time and gas concentration used during the growth used. The effects of the growth conditions on field emission were studied with a focus on performance and longevity, as well as uniformity within the array.

Final Presentation

Internship Blog

Week 1: A Rocky Start

Trains, 3D printing, and hockey.

That about sums up my first week in D.C. 15 interns including myself have found our way to D.C from all over— California, Florida, Texas, Wisconsin and many other states. We got a dim welcome to Washington, with rain and wrinkled shirts, but we didn’t let that dampen our day (although the rain did leave us quite damp). When I arrived George Washington’s campus, where I will spending the next ten weeks, I received a warm welcome from all of the staff. I was both excited and scared to meet my roommates for the summer, because I’ve heard all too many roommate horror stories. My worries were quickly relinquished once I met my first roommate, and met the other two as they came in after me.

We grabbed a few other interns in our crew and headed to Walmart to stock up on groceries, soap, pillows.... the essentials. We definitely should have read the reviews of this place though, because they were low on EVERYTHING. The one thing that hurt the most... no pillows. We got back, a little bummed from that Walmart experience and headed to bed.

The next day, was orientation. We all headed over to SPS headquarters in College Park, and successfully made it using the metra without any hiccups. Orientation was great— mostly because food and coffee was provided. The best part was finally being able to put a face to the name of all the SPS program coordinators we had been pestering with emails the last two months. After orientation, Daniel (another NASA Intern) and I headed over to the Goddard Space Flight Center. We got temporary badges and went our separate ways. Since I did orientation with SPS, and not NASA, I was about to walk into a training course an hour late. The man teaching the class? Alex, who I managed to catch right as he was leaving! After this one-on-one course, I met with my co-mentor Larry. Everyone looks at NASA as this high up place, and I do too. I don’t know what I was expecting my mentor to be like, but I definitely wasn’t expecting him to drop everything he was doing to show me more about the project I’ll be working on.

I’m on the MiniEPMA project, or mini electron probe micro analyzer. The project’s goal is to be able to generate high energy electrons to bombard a sample and create x-rays to identify the elements in said sample. We are using carbon nanotubes (CNTs) which are really good at generating electrons without much power consumption. This makes it a great apparatus for sending to moons, comets, and asteroids far away from a light source. This week I learned a new software for 3D printing, and built a 3D model of the MiniEPMA, so we can better understand the problems we are having with the set-up.

But enough about work! Finagling the metra system was quite an adventure in itself. I had a bad habit of keeping my phone at 1% this entire week, so taking the wrong trains and buses was not an uncommon occurrence. Finally, on Thursday I was able to make it back from Goddard at a reasonable time, not missing ANY buses or trains. While making a commute in the time that a local would take is quite exciting, even more exciting was standing in the crowd of thousands of people that night to watch the capitals take home the Stanley cup. I never would’ve thought that thousands of people would gather around what is essentially a huge TV, but the volume of the crowd confirmed their size. Next week my other mentor, Adrian, comes back from vacation. He will be teaching me on all of the instuments I will be using for the project and I can not wait to get started.

Until next week

Collin Flynn

Week 2: Becoming Familiar

Week 2 has come and gone, and I am just in disbelief that this internship is going by so quickly. The metra system has decided to cooperate with me, or maybe that was me figuring out the metra? Regardless, this past weekend all of the interns and I went to watch Pride Fest parade outside the Optical Society Headquarters. The optical society threw a nice little party leading up to parade, and as soon as the parade began we walked up to our spots we had claimed early on. Now I thought I had been to parades, religiously going to the 4th of July parade back home in Racine, but let me tell you. DC parades are like no other! Nearly 4 hours of celebrating and rooting for pride, equality, and just overall happiness, and about 1000 beads later, we all knew what a parade in DC was like (Stay tuned for the 4th of July parade)!

That night a few of us on a whim decided to walk all the way to national mall at about 3 in the morning. At normal hours, places like the Lincoln memorial, the reflecting pool, and the World War II memorial would all be packed full with people, but it being 3:00 AM and all made it possible for us to be the only ones there. We got a chance to really experience the statues, memorials and their beauty.

It’s funny, I thought after we would have all drifted apart after our first week, but luckily it seems as if our ragtag group of physics nerds grow closer by the day. We continue to spend time with one another, obviously not sick of each other yet, and that Sunday, one of the other interns had the idea to watch the movie, “The Martian.” Quite an appropriate movie considering the crowd and where some of us our working.

Working. I nearly forgot about that! This week we were able to print out the 3D model we had made (That’s my first 3D print people!). I also started learning some photolithography to help make a fan-out board for the mini electron probe microscope analyzer, or as they call it MiniEPMA.

If that term I used, photolithography, three you for a whirl, don’t fret. I just learned what it means too. Think about it as a really expensive way of taking and developing a photograph in the old days, except instead of film we use aluminum nitride wafers with gold, titanium, and photoresist. We also need to be extra careful not to get anything dirty. And at NASA, dirty is a few particles so we have to suit up and go into what they call a clean room; a room built to avoid large amounts of particles in the air- all you germaphobes would love it!

To make the fanout board we first throw on very small quantities of titanium, gold, then titanium again. Then we apply photoresist. This could be seen as making our film. We then use ultraviolet light, aka tanning bed light, to destroy the photoresist where we don’t want it. This is just like taking a photo and exposing the film to light. Finally, we do a nearly identical process to developing a photograph. We submerge the wafer in a solution, then in water, and dry it. This gave us our fan-out pattern, but we still need to prepare the board to be attached to our source... According to my mentor that may take a bit longer, but that’s future Collin’s problem!

That’s all for this week!

Week 3: Ireland

I had an odd week this week. Last Friday I left DC to go to Ireland for a family vacation. I joined my family on the back half of this 10 day trip to celebrate my grandparents 50^th anniversary. I arrived in Dublin at 5:30 in the morning very tired (I cannot sleep on planes!). My dad and grandpa picked me up and drove me about 2.5 hours to Galway where we would be staying. So in other words I had a two and a half hour nap to help me through the day. Once we got to Galway, we grabbed breakfast and were quick to get out the door and head to the beautiful Cliffs of Moher. I am unable to speak to the beauty of this place, so please look at the pictures because this place was breathtaking. We walked down and back on the trail and according to my phone, we ended up hiking about nine miles and up 100 stories. When my sister and I walked “too close” to the edge of the cliff, my parents immediately switched from thinking we are in our 20s to thinking we are little children, fearing we might trigger an earthquake and make the edge of the cliff fall into the ocean.

I got to bed pretty early that night, and the following morning we headed to Dublin where we would spend the next two nights before we flew out.

After we got to Dublin the following day, we went all over the town indulging in the local Guinness here and there. We took a tour of Trinity college and saw the book of Kells, a must see when you’re in Dublin! Since we spent most of the day traveling back to Dublin, it was already getting quite late, so we went back to where we were staying that night and the 18 of us all found a place to sleep in our Airbnb.

The next day was jam-packed, it being our last night in Ireland. We went on a three-hour walking tour of Dublin, given by a former professor. Needless to say, it was very educational. We were a little late to the tour. The reason why? An old man surrounded by pigeons who beckoned us over. He threw oats in our hands, not taking “no” for an answer. Everyone watched as my cousins and I became bird feeders for these pigeons, landing on any part of our body they could stand on.

After our tour, everyone decided I needed to see Howth. Howth is a small fishing village that was formerly an island before Ireland built a land bridge to it. We took the train over and had some of the best seafood I have ever had, most likely caught that morning. We socialized with the local fisherman and headed home.

After 23 hours of travel, I got home and despite the sleep deprivation and jet lag, I actually had a very productive last couple days! I learned how to characterize carbon nanotubes. We currently have a test (Test 0) going to characterize the nanotubes over the weekend. Test 0 will help us identify how good of a field emitter the CNT’s are. We measure how much current the nanotubes emit after applying a certain voltage. The caveat being that too much current will fry the CNT. I also stayed late today to assemble source 2 (attempt number 2 at making an electron beam source). This source has been tested before, but much of the electronics have been fried due to arcing and melting from high currents. We’re hoping running the test will help us learn more about the arcing events and help us with our next source.

More to come next week!

Week 4: Michael and I are Terrible

What a week.

I know, I know. You all want to here about this week. You’ve already read all about last week, but I just need to share one more thing that happened last week-- something I FORGOT last week. Last Thursday, SPS treated us to an amazing dinner. We took a cruise out onto the river and had a very fancy dinner. Apparently they did bowling before, but found a cruise/dinner to be cheaper... I don’t know who got the prices for bowling, but I’m not complaining! Anyways, on this very day Michael Welter turned 21 so of course he got a drink. His choice? Red wine. Now, what do you think this man does with his first legal drink? You just have to look at the picture (See attached).

Okay! Now that we have that out of the way, lets talk about this week! Coach Bruffles will be happy to hear that I finally found a pool to swim at and a super cool team to swim with (The GW swim team). I’m pretty out of [swimming] shape and they’re Division 1, so every morning they kick my a**!

This week at work was also quite busy. We nearly finished the fan-out boards, the only thing we have left is to cut the boards and deposit indium onto the board so we can attach it to the source. We also got some good data from test 0. We actually had what they call a “super emitter” on the array. While this seems like it is a good thing, what we really want is uniform CNT’s to make testing easier. This CNT emitted a ton of current when we applied a voltage to it, so we ran test 0 on all of the CNT’s except the super emitter, then lowered our voltage and ran another test that included the super emitter. That test will be running over the weekend.

Although I prepared source 2 for test 1, the equipment was not ready for us to run the test. Test 1 is an attempt at creating an electron beam by applying large voltages to the boards and has to be done in a chamber under vacuum. The problem last time they ran this test, was:

1. They couldn’t get a steady beam, and

2. A lot of the electronics had arcing and melting all over the board.

*By the way arcing is like lightning between electronics*

We think the arcing may have occured between the Microchannel plate (MCP)- our detector which is partially encapsulated by stainless steel. We made a change to the set up of test 1 by extending the distance between the source and the MCP. We tried to start the test, but when we ramped up the voltage the pressure within the chamber increased and would not go down. We cleaned all of the equipment with a volatile solvent, and started to evacuate the chamber. By this point it was already late in the day, and the chamber takes atleast 2 hours to get down to the vacuum we need it at. Next week we will heat the camber while it’s under vacuum. Hopefully that will be just what we need to get this test going.

I’ll leave ya’ll with a fun story about Michael and I’s dysfunctional lives before I go. So, this morning I went to swim, BUT LEFT MY KEY! I text my roommates asking them to leave the door open... Jesus has already left for the gym, Nathan is still sleeping, and Michael thinks I’m talking about letting me in later tonight (which I didn’t realize until I got back and he had already left). So I come back to a locked door calling and texting Michael, who I think is still there. 20 minutes of knocking later, Nathan wakes up and lets me in (THANK GOD!). Michael’s texting me asking if Nathan is still there, and I’m just confused thinking he didn’t know I got in the apartment. It’s not until I am at the metro station that Michael calls me telling me he needs in the building because HE FORGOT HIS KEYS! So I run back, give him my keys, run to catch the metro. Once I get off, I run to catch my bus, see it drive away and run after it. They didn’t see me... So this morning I had to take an Uber to work :(

Week 5: Yoga, Sweat, and Fireworks

Half way

Already halfway!

This summer has been flying by, and this week was no exception. Last weekend all of the interns got together to throw a party celebrating Brigette’s birthday. The following day my friend Rees, who i met working at NASA, came down from College Park, MD. We got a free one day pass to “check out” Gold’s gym, since he couldn’t get into George Washington’s gym without a pass. We finished up and headed back to root for Argentina during last half of the France vs Argentina game.... Unfortunately Argentina did not win :(

On Sunday, I learned something new new about Phoebe and Elon, they’re into the yoga! So that morning we all ended up doing yoga together. My end of summer goal? Be able to touch my toes (DON’T JUDGE MY INFLEXIBILITY). Later a couple of my roommates and I headed over to a pool open to locals. We had a pretty relaxed weekend overall in preparation for the 4th.

Monday we had a ‘picnic,’ which was really more of a relaxed dinner with the interns and their mentors, and some others from AIP and SPS. My professor Doc Feller will be glad to hear the food was great (He’s a foodie)! We got the chance to meet the creators of the board game “Fluxx,” and play the game with them. Great game, highly recommend. I would try to explain it, but Nathan and I have spent the last ten minutes trying to figure out how to describe it with no luck, so I guess you’ll just have to go buy the game. I was lucky to get a ride there from my mentor, but on the way back we hate to walk through what would be an insane heat wave. I was drenched in sweat, and I think my backpack must’ve been jealous because my water bottle went off and SOAKED my bag, don’t worry the computer was fine! :)

The fourth of July was amazing, but SOOO HOT! Nathan and I were the only ones brave enough to go to the parade in the heat. We stayed for about an hour before we couldn’t take the heat anymore. Still seeing those giant balloons characters in person was quite extraordinary. After that, we met up with Rees and went to lunch with the other interns. They had a free concert at the national mall with the Beach Boys, Pentatonix, Andy Graham, and a bunch of other musicians and singers. Good concert for the price, am i right? Recommendations for people going next year-- GO EARLY. Decent seats are easy to find, but if you go early you could get some great seats. Don’t be like me and go 20 minutes into the concert!!!!

Rees and I left early to grab a good seat for the fireworks. I think DC does fireworks right. I was expecting at least an hour of fireworks like they do back home, which always feels a little dragged out. Here they do about 20 minutes of SPECTACULAR fireworks. It was breathtaking.

This weekend were hoping to get to the zoo, and hit up a few museums.

Tune in next week on Collin’s Blog post

Week 6: Feeling Independent

By far the most exciting week so far. This week we had two tours, the first one Brigette took us through the Optical Society of America (OSA). We got the chance to meet with the CEO and some other important people from OSA. Danielle, our intern coordinator, also gave us a very beneficial presentation about grad school and jobs out of undergrad to prepare us for the real world.

A couple days later we had our second tour, an all-day tour lead by Sarah and Sam which took us through the offices of the senate and the house as well as Capitol Hill. Sarah had us sit in on a hearing on artificial intelligence and big data. I knew this hearing would be interesting, but interesting is an understatement. I left that hearing with a whole new perception on AI. Midway through the talk, we snuck out to meet senator Foster who, as far as I know, is the only politician with a PhD in physics. After the talk finished we got to meet all the “big wig” scientists who had been invited to speak at the hearing.

Sam took us on our tour of Capitol hill after the hearing and going through all of the offices. We got to ride the train from the senate to Capitol hill thanks to his boss Senator Duckworth. Sam had prepared a bunch of fun facts for us as we walked through, well everywhere. I had been on a tour through capital hill about 8 years ago, but Sam’s tour was so much better. You would’ve thought this kid was born in the Capitol for every little factoid he knew.

My work week was exciting too! This week was the first week that I didn’t feel dependent on my mentor. It has felt like I have been learning new things everyday and haven’t been able to start anything without asking someone first. This week was different, I was able to be independent, running tests to identify the best carbon nanotube source to generate electrons. When you get it, it’s a great feeling knowing “I got this.”

Oh and by the way, made it to the zoo last weekend! :)

Week 7: Work hard, Play hard

Last weekend Jesus and I probably racked up about 40 miles by bike. My backs been bothering me this week, so I started the weekend out biking ten miles to a chiropractor. Then Jesus and I biked ten miles to a football field to do sprints after that. Then that night I biked an additional ten miles with Amanda’s friend to this arcade bar. On Sunday, Jesus, Nathan, and I hit up some free yoga in Virginia (another ten miles). PS, yoga in the DC area-- AWESOME!

Sunday we also watched the French vs Croatia game. We witnessed the dreaded loss of Croatia, and worse... watch the French win. Something especially painful after I told one of my co-workers, Moana, that Brazil (who didn’t even make it to the semi-finals) would destroy France.

Come Monday, it was grind time. Since our poster session at NASA is August 2nd, they want our poster submissions to be in by July 25th for judging. This means that I gotta get, and analyze A TON of data before this Wednesday, so this week I had a lot of ten hour work days. But you know what they say, “Work Hard, Play Hard.” So while I was working hard this week, I also had to go out and celebrate my 21st! On tuesday, one of my mentors, a couple other interns, and I went out for happy hour after work and I had my first legal drink- a brandy old fashioned. The following day, a bunch of other interns at NASA and I went over to a bar/restaurant and did some beautiful karaoke. Let me tell you, nothing says “I had a great night” like singing some Sweet Caroline to a bunch of strangers.

This weekend we’re planning on doing some more yoga, of course! There’s also a Colombian festival on Saturday that I’m hoping to go to, AND one of my friends who I haven’t seen since high school is in the area so we’re grabbing lunch! But I am also going to have to be super busy analyzing the data we took the last couple weeks, and making my poster. It’s going to be a jam-packed week for sure!

Till next week.

Week 8: Tours on Tours

This week we had our NASA and NIST tour. If you know me at all, you know that I love giving tours. So obviously the NASA tour was great. Daniel and I took the interns throughout Goddard’s campus. We were lucky that our dates worked out because the tour was awesome! NASA was doing an event that day called the “Science Jamboree” for all the NASA employees and interns and this year—the SPS interns too! They brought out a bunch of their old equipment and models for everyone to see and touch. Some were presenting their research, and there was even a VR headset free to use. If you ever get the chance to try VR, which I’m sure you will, try it! It’s a very different experience, and it’s getting more and more realistic by the day. After that, Charles Malespin, head of the sample analysis at Mars (SAM) project, happily took them over to check out the place where the SAM replica instrument is. The instrument is held in a giant chamber that is put under Mars’ environmental conditions, and anything they want to try on the actual SAM instrument on Mars, they try first in that chamber. When everyone had asked all the questions they could think to ask, Daniel and I took them over to check our labs, then dropped them off at the visitor’s center and went back to work!

The NIST tour with Jesus was also amazing. The facility itself was incredible, and the just the general vibe left me feeling great. The best part about the facility was that right in the middle of campus was a big apple tree. But not just any apple tree, this tree was a clone of the apple tree that Isaac Newton was said to have gotten the inspiration for discovering gravity from.

This week at work, I was basically a computer geek. I had to teach myself many new functions in python to be able to process some of the data. Two sleepless nights later I finally got my code running and I was ecstatic. Anyone who just finished a long project or had that math problem moment where it all finally clicked knows exactly how I was feeling. There’s still so much more data to process before the poster session next week, so this weekend may not be filled be too much fun-packed days. However, Brigette and I just got back from the botanical gardens and stole some peppers from the area, so that is a pretty good start to the weekend. Perhaps it won’t be too bad after all.

Till next time

Week 9: Saying Goodbye

Brigette and I spent Friday night biking around DC. On Saturday I was reminded of how uch I miss my people in Iowa. The other Coe physics students and I had a conference video call with us and prospective students, but we also got a chance to talk with each other before and after Jesus, Amanda, and I biked around the area, and even found a little outdoor fitness area. This week was quite a week, I must say. The NASA poster session was this past week, which meant I only had a few days to process all my data and make my poster, and I had a lot of data to process. It was a lot of sleepless nights, but I finally got everything together in time for the session on Thursday, printing my poster out that morning.

The poster session was super cool, I got to nerd out about my research to plenty of people, friends visited, and I got to show off everything I had been working on the last two months. It was also quite humbling to make a poster with the NASA logo AND my name together on the same poster.

That night, Rees and I decided we wanted to give a “Thank you” to our mentors for all their help this summer. Larry, one of mentors, couldn’t stop talking about this pistachio crusted lamb his wife made for weeks, and I lost a bet to Adrian, my other mentor, the bet being over ribs. So, after a long night of cooking, boiled over rice all over Rees’s bedroom (there wasn’t any space for the rice cooker in the kitchen), and a pound of burnt vegetables later (We fell asleep cooking the cauliflower), we had quite a lunch prepared! Larry and Adrian loved it, and the burnt vegetables mixed in with the rice wasn’t half bad! My mom and sister also came on a camping trip down to DC, after the lunch with our mentors, I took them through a tour of NASAs campus and walked down to Georgetown that night.

We said goodbye to Sam today, he’s on his way to Finland for an international SPS conference. We threw a picnic, reflecting on our time this summer, in disbelief that our summer is almost over.

Week 10: Thank You for All I Have Learned

I could talk about my week like I did on all the other blog posts, but I think we’re going to do something different this time...

I’m done, that’s it. People told me the summer would fly by, and man they were right! 10 weeks in D.C ... 10 weeks at NASA, and it was a blast! I learned a lot about myself, others, jobs, working for the government, and many other things all while meeting some amazing people. I never thought I would find such close friends as the ones I’ve made with my fellow SPS interns and the other interns at NASA. I REALLY never imagined getting as close to my mentors as I did. All-in-all, I learned a lot -- let’s see if I can spread the knowledge.

The first thing I learned is about rocket science. When you hear NASA, you think of this high and mighty place that you would have to be a genius to get a job at because, well it IS rocket science! However, like most jobs, it’s all about knowing someone and getting a little lucky. The people I met working at NASA are just like you and me, they just found their interests in aerospace, detectors, etc. and with a little bit of luck and maybe a connection here and there, that took them to NASA. In reality, rocket science isn’t as hard as we make it out to be. I think it’s just another occupation with positions looking to be filled.

The next lesson is about perspective. There were days when I would be in a bad mood, running on almost no sleep for weeks in an effort to do way more work than one should try to do in 10 weeks (... might have set my expectations for myself a bit too high). I was thinking about how little sleep I had been getting, thinking about all these things I wanted to do, but couldn’t. Then I asked myself, “Why am I in such a bad mood!?” I focused on the positive and found myself smiling and felt more awake than ever! It’s amazing what a quick change in perspective can do to your mood. So, keep your chin up, focus on the positive, and you’ll be happy whether you’re working in a lab, or living on the street.

This final lesson is about people. I met loads of people from around the world: Ireland, England, Pakistan, Israel, and China. Whether it be in a tent on the sidewalk on an escalator by the Metro, or working in your lab at NASA, every person I met was all so different from the last in their background, culture, appearance, and beliefs. Yet, somehow we were all able to find something in common (and that something wasn’t beyond working in the same lab!). So, despite how others may look, sound, or even smell, go have a coffee with them, or share a slice of watermelon, and learn about their life. Learn about their perspective, because they’re human too. Those are best stories around, and you don’t even need to find a book to learn about it.

I hope you all had an amazing summer, I know I can say that about mine.

I want to thank Danielle, James, Brad, and all the others for this summer. The intern program you have all helped make and run is truly unique, thank you. I’m so happy I got the chance to meet and get to know you all this summer.

To all my fellow interns, from SPS and NASA, thank you for all the adventures and experiences. I’m counting on seeing you all in the near future.

Signing off,