Internships

Spotlight

2022 intern

Justin Andre Avendaño, 2022 Society of Rheology/Soft Matter Kitchen Intern

AUG 07, 2022

Biography

SPS Chapter: Stevens Institute of Technology

Whats going on, the name’s Justin. I’m the Soft Matter Kitchen Intern for this summer. I’m a junior international student from the Philippines majoring in physics and minoring in computer science at Stevens Institute of Technology. In Stevens, I was the PR chair for our SASE (Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers) chapter and also took part in different quantum researches across campus. I also have my own Physics YouTube channel dedicated to understanding the physics in video games called: “The Avendaño Effect”!

Exploring has always been a passion of mine, and that’s not just travelling across countries! I took Physics because I was inspired and filled with wanderlust to figure out the unknown and appreciate the universe as a whole and in its smallest details! As this summer’s Soft Matter Kitchen Intern, I am ready to explore and discover new things about fluid mechanics and rheology in food that I didn’t even think twice about!

I hope to share what I learn with everyone and hopefully everyone else will be able to learn from me. As my favorite scientist, Richard Feynman, said: “You’re unlikely to discover something new without a lot of practice on old stuff, but further, you should get a heck of a lot of fun out of working out funny relations and interesting things.”

Internship

Host: The Society of Rheology

Project

Abstract

Rheology is the study of the deformation and flow of materials. Maja Blanca is a filipino coconut puddding dish which can be roughly translated to “white delicacy”. Maja Blanca is a great example of an edible non-newtonian fluid that can be used to explain what makes food bounce and what makes it solidfy into a pudding like dessert.

Internship Blog

Week 1: Let it Flow by Grover Washington Jr.

Hi, my name is Justin Andre L. Avendano, you can call me Justin for short. This week I started my job as the Society of Rheology/Soft Matter Kitchen Intern for the summer over at AIP. As the Rheology intern I’m tasked to understand rheology and help create blogs and material to help other people understand rheology in all its wonders! I met my mentor, Arif, for the first time since our interview and he’s been a big help to me the past week. I was pretty blunt with him in saying that I barely know anything about Rheology, and he gladly gave me a crash course on Rheology. I’ll be honest, I’m not one for online lectures (as I usually fall asleep or loose focus) but Arif was amazing at teaching the details about Rheology that would seem really complicated in a very brief and fun manner, using everyday examples at the same time keeping the equations and complex ideas there. I can say with confidence that I have at least a small grasp of what Rheology is, hopefully that grows as I continue this internship.

After our meeting, Arif tasked me with helping him and his colleagues with a video project of theirs explaining the concepts of rheology through instant pudding. As simple as the task seems, I was surprised to see so many tiny details that I never thought to account for when creating instant pudding. Since I’m focusing on Rheology or Fluid Mechanics, I paid close attention to how the pudding was before and after adding more and more of the instant mixture. As I added and whisked more, the mixture became more and more viscous until it reached a point where it became liquid-y pudding. I also noticed that the texture and viscosity was of the likeness of hand sanitizer. A key question I asked myself through out the experiment was: “Does temperature play a role in how the mixture’s rheological features?” When it was freshly made, it was still very liquid-y and had the feature where if I scooped a bit, it would stay but if I squished it, it would act like a liquid —This is called Shear-Thickening. But after I left it in the fridge for the day, it exhibited less of that and became more solid as a whole. This is a question that I’ll hopefully answer by next week after a few more experiments and with the guidance of my amazing mentor Arif.

Week 2: A Whole New World

This week was jam-packed with so many things I cant begin to explain how much fun I had!

First off, I was finally able to get all of my equipment to start creating videos for Arif for a project of ours regarding pudding. On top of that, we also finalized which food items we wanted to look into. My top two choices were: Maja Blanca( Filipino Coconut Pudding) and Hand Pulled Noodles. These two are my favourite things to eat back home in the Philippines and whenever I get the chance to here in the U.S. Right now, I’m looking into ways I can observe rheological features in both and which has more interesting features to observe without the heavy rheology equipment needed. Im super excited to start researching (and eating) these food items!

One of the biggest highlights of this week was meeting Dr. John C. Mather! When I checked my calendar and found out that he was coming this week, I literally jumped out of my bed in excitment cause I’ll be getting up close and personal with a Nobel Prize Laureate! It’s always been my dream to win a Nobel Prize for any of my future work, and getting meet a Laureate and seeing how he conducts himself, got me even more inspired to continue my dream. Dr. Mather was very fun to talk to and not what I expected. I was expecting the typical scientist who was all over the place and used super complicated words in order to explain his work, but Dr. Mather was very understanding and chill throughout the time we were talking with him. He seemed very down to earth and a nice guy to have a beer with.

After Dr. Mather, we went out to a baseball game on Friday! It was the Washington Nationals vs. Michigan Brewsters, I’ll be honest, I didnt know anything about MLB but I did know how to play baseball. Going to a baseball game has been on my things to do in the U.S as I’ve always thought of as the quintessential american sports thing to do: Baseball, Hotdogs, and Beer! It was definitely fun getting to hangout with everyone from ACP and the interns just bonding over people hitting tiny balls at 96 MPH. After the game, a few of us decided to go to this LGBTQ+ Pride Party in Spin DC. It was so much fun and something I’ve never experienced before in my life! Coming from a very conservative country, these things dont happen quite often (though, now its getting more popular) and thank God I was able to experience this amazing party! There were drag queens, ping pong, and good music all around! Just good vibes for everyone! I would definitely go to another even like this if ever I had the chance to.

Definitely a week to remember, and hopefully, more weeks to come just like this during the internship!

Week 3: Dance Dance Revolution!

This week was an amazing week for the music nerd in me! From going to a club that plays different music from different decades, to an orchestra that plays contemporary american orchestral music! A few days ago we went to a dance club called: Decades and it was an experience to remember! I’m not much of a club person, but I enjoyed the great amounts of different songs that brought me back to the 70s and songs that I grew up with in the 2000’s.

The next day, after contemplating how much my body hurts and my voice was destroyed from all the singing and dancing, a few of us decided to go to Chinatown’s AAPI Heritage Month Festival before going to the Orchestra. It was a fun time meeting all of the asian communities in Chinatown. I was lucky enough to meet the Philippine Nurse Association there as well! They were a great group of people, and the way we started talking was funny. All I did was make eye contact with one of the members and we both nodded and instantly knew that both of us were filipino. Every filipino knows a “Kababayan” (a fellow countryman/ filipino) when they see one, and we were no exception. We started talking and they asked me about how the Philippines was and if I was alone here in the U.S. They told me that if ever I needed anything, I could just give them a call and they would try their best to help me. An amazing group of people that I wont forget!

After Chinatown, we headed to the Orchestra and that was THE highlight of the week. The Saxophonist was AMAZING and the final piece: the Fluitist was really fun and interesting to listen to. Thank you so much to Jack for giving us the opportunity to listen to all these amazing musical interns and guest musicians! It was such a biblical experience, both literally and symbolically! Pieta was such a beautiful peice and everything else was played with such precision and grace that I could not take my eyes and ears off of them. I thought I would fall asleep in atleast one of them, but I didnt and I’m glad I didnt!

Week 4: Teaching Kids with a dash of Bill Nye

This week was really fun! Last wednesday we had a get together with all the interns for a small “picnic” sort of thing. It was really nice chill event for us to have after working on a long wednesday. The picnic was also the best place for me to show everyone my prototype for my research: Maja Blanca! Maja Blanca is a filipino pudding that is made of coconut milk, cow milk. and corn kernels. Its a great way to show how non-newtonian fluids can both be cool and yummy for people who want to learn about rheology and fluid gastronomy!

Yesterday, Janessa, our SOCK intern, scheduled for us to help out in the “Astronomy at the Mall” event where we teach kids about different parts about astronomy and physics. Astronomy at the Mall was so fun to attend and teach in! All the kids were so fun to talk to and the scientists walking around telling stories about their research and their organization were so interesting. Towards the end, BILL NYE came by after his talk! I’m not much of a Bill Nye fan (More of a Neil De Grasse Tyson fan myself) but I could not miss the chance to meet him and take a picture with him. He said he liked my shirt and pants, but I was too shocked and tired to respond so I just laughed and nodded.

I would definitely do an event like Astronomy at the mall again because teaching kids, and sometimes parents, about physics is so fun especially if theyre super interested in learning more about physics!

Week 5: Maja Blanca Overload!

This week was filled with mostly researching on what I’ll be doing for the rest of the internship as well as getting ready for conferences in October! For the majority of the internship, I’ll be focusing on one specific food: Maja Blanca! Maja Blanca is a Filipino Coconut Pudding dessert filled with coconut milk, cow milk, and corn with coconut shreds on top! The most interesting part about it, is that its an example of an edible non-newtonian fluid. The way Maja Blanca gets its shape is through the cornstarch we add while we heat the milk mixture. This allows the milk to gelate in a certain way which becomes very interesting from a rheological standpoint.

This past week, I’ve been focusing on experimenting on different types of milk and how they interact with the cornstarch. Interestingly enough, each type of milk had different reactions that what I first hypothesized. I came in thinking that one type of milk would have all the rheological traits while the rest would have less of the traits I was looking for. Hopefully, I’ll have all the details fleshed out by the end of the internship, so stay tuned!

Week 6: Mr Worldwide

This whole week was a journey across the world! Throughout the week we went out to a few events ranging from the July 4th Fireworks to a Japanese Tea Ceremony. I had a really fun time during the July 4th fireworks, waiting with everyone and getting to see a huge spectacle of fireworks and a few new never released fireworks as well! As someone who attends the annual International Pyrotechnic Festival in the Philippines, I had really high standards for fireworks; and the July 4th fireworks didnt fail to impress!

On saturday we went to a Japanese Tea Ceremony which we found out about in the Chinatown AAPI Festival! That was probably my highlight of the week. We arrived at the location which was the Washington Times building even through the rain and highways that we had to cross, and it was pretty cool to see the building and the people in there to greet us! They gave us an introduction to the history and philosophy behind Japanese Tea Ceremonies as well as taught us the proper etiquette and how to make the tea. Everything had a purpose and everything had to be precise down to the strokes to mix the tea and the way the cup has to be oriented. We were surpised afterwards by lunch which we didnt think we would get! During lunch we got to meet alot of cool people and friends of the organizers who came to learn more about japanese culture.

After the tea ceremony I went down to the Wharf to attend the Romanian Culutral Festival; it was a small festival, just like the country, but it was filled with dance and song and of course food and drinks! The romanian wine they had was sublime and if I could buy a bottle I would, sadly they ran out of bottles for sale. Overall, it was really fun getting to see alot of different cultures this week, and hopefully I continue to learn more about other cultures as I explore more of the US and the world.

Week 6: Mr Worldwide

Week 7: Back in the East!

This week was another week of just “travelling around the world” in DC! Yesterday, was jam packed with diffferent cultures from across the East! It was the Fiesta Asia Street Fair and almost all the asian heritage organizations were there, and to my surprise alot of Filipino organizations showed up! It felt like I was back home, with all the filipino food and people conversing and teaching filipino. There were so many performances also from different people, and they were all amazing! Some people decided to sing and others danced, some did both! Early in the morning there were people who also showcased different martial arts from asia such as Tae kwon do, karate, and the filipino martial arts; eskrima and arnis! It was so cool seeing all the disciplines collaborate to showcase how we defend ourselves as well as show how innovative each culture is! Towards the middle of the festival, the Filipino-American Heritage Ensemble performed a bunch of traditional dances from across the Philippines, literally ranging from the north’s ifugao river dance to the muslim mindanao’s cloth dance to the spanish era dances like the cariñosa and our national dance: the tinikling!

After the festival, I went to meet up with my aunt who I have not seen in 11 years, last time she saw me was when I was 11! 11 years ago she went to the US to work for a culinary company here, and she was opening up a new branch in DC so we decided to catch up. We went to an amazing Russian restaurant called Mari Vanna! Mari Vanna refers to a woman who welcomes travellers and guests to her house and comforts them with good food and company. The food was definitely a worthwhile trip, their Herring under a fur coat (or Shuba, pronounced shooba, for short) was a palette rollercoaster. At first, its salty from the herring, then it becomes sweet and savoury from the beets, mayonaise and egg. On top of that, we were given free vodka shots for posting on social media and tagging them. Their fruit infused vodkas are something that you have to try when you come to this restaurant, of course only if your 21+. I ended this eventful saturday by doing some karaoke with all the other interns, and lets just say that the dorm walls werent enough to hold in all our singing...

Week 8: Lights, Camera, Food!

This week I focused more on the creative side of my research. As part of my research, I am required to make a YouTube video explaining what I did and how other people can replicate it at home. As such, I’ve been filming all my experiments as well as all my fails for the video. Creating the supporting graphics for the video is proving to be a challenge as I need to find graphics that describe what I’m saying really well at the same time easy to understand and visualize.

Aside from that, the interns and I toured around the NIST Campus and got to see what some of the interns are working on, as well as really cool projects like the Anechoic chamber! I was definitely taken away by the cool researches being done at NIST and the plethora of instruments at their disposal. I was especially taken aback by the Anechoic chamber as I’ve always wanted to be in one. I knew before going in that I was going to feel really dizzy inside because I get motion sickness and I was not wrong. As soon as I stepped into the room, I got dizzy cause of the lack of sound, but that didnt stop me from exploring things! When we went silent for a bit, I definitely was able to hear my blood rushing as well as a high pitched and a low pitched droning sound. It was really cool at the same time creepy as I didnt know where the sounds were coming from, if I stayed there alone for a whole day I wouldve gone crazy.

After NIST, on the weekend the interns and I decided to go have fun in one of the pubs near the dorms and got to know more about physics careers as well as the physics department of GWU. It was really fun getting know more about them and understanding my options as a physics student trying to get a job right off the bat instead of getting a PhD. Special thanks to Brad Conrad for giving an amazing talk and treating all of us to drinks! Yesterday, some of us went to the beach and afterwards we went to a bar to celebrate the last few days we have together as interns. If it werent for this internship, I wouldnt have had met such amazing people and had such an amazing summer!

Week 9: Final Stretch!

I cant believe its the 2nd to the last week before the whole internship ends! Things went by so fast and it feels like we just arrived in DC. Over the past week me and the interns have been exploring what we can in DC. I recently went to the Museum of the BIble and I think it was by far the best museum in DC, and I’m not saying that just because im catholic! They had preserved so many pre-church artifacts like byzantian scrolls and paper/parchemnt scrolls that had directions to treasure! In addition to that, their main attraction: the Hebrew Bible was a full walking attraction about the Old Testament. It was one hell of an experience that I had to go two days in a row! After going to the Museum of the bible we had our 2nd to the last DnD session. We finally got the groove of how to play and all our battles have gone so much faster XD.

During the weekend, we visited multiple bars and speakeasies that I had such a good time in! One of the speakeasy, The Gibson, was so hidden we thought we were in the wrong place. It was in an abandoned apartment building between a bar and a liquor store. The only reason we found the place was cause the bouncer helped us find it. RIght in front of the door, was an empty property sign with a post it beside it saying: We’re open, these guys are idiots! Best door by far! Inside was a very cool red-velvet bar with an outdoor patio at the end. The drinks were phenomenal but not as good as the 2nd speakeasy we went to: The Alex at Graham, I had something they called the Pigs and Peat. It was a mix of 2 of one of the best scottish and bourbon whiskies with cognac, vermouth, and smoke. My drink came in a case filled with oak/applewood chip smoke that added to the experience! The tasting notes were not what you would expect with that combination of alcohol, you would think that it would be really strong but it was surprisingly sweet and didnt taste as strong. It had strong notes of campfire, apple, vanilla, a slight taste of bacon with berries or fruits. 10/10 would do this again. Any bar I go to in NYC will have to live up to this bar !

Week 10: End it with a Bang!

This week is THE WEEK! Everything I’ve been doing all comes together and ends now. Its been an amazing time spending the summer with SPS and all the interns and I would not have it any other way. Thankfully, I didnt really need to prepare as much for the final presentation as everything I would be presenting will be in a YouTube video that I am creating for my YouTube channel and for the Soft Matter Kitchen’s. It was simply creating more graphics and preparing the demonstrations for D-Day. I really love giving presentations like this so I was more excited than nervous the whole time. I couldnt wait to show everyone what I’ve been working on as well as to splash everyone with cornstarch. Sadly, the demonstration didnt go as planned, I added too much water to the cornstarch and it created the other experiment and not the Oobleck I wanted, but when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. So what I did was replace my initial demo with the one I had made, though I couldnt splash the others with cornstarch because they were too far and I didnt want to get everyone dirty.

For those reading this blog first, I presented on the rheological features of Maja Blanca, a filipino coconut pudding, and how it can be compared to a non-newtonian fluid called Oobleck, which is a water-cornstarch mixture. It was a great time researching on a food that I could use to represent my culture as well as show how cool rheology is! I never expected to love rheology as much as I do now, a possible career switch? Maybe. Let’s see.

I didnt have an acknowledgment slide during my presentation so I want to take this chance to do so. Firstly, I would like to thank my mentor Arif Nelson for being a great mentor who pushed me to think beyond the box and made sure that I understood everything and never made me feel out of place. It was such a great time working with you even with the time difference and being purely online due to you being in Singapore, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. I hope to continue our work towards the conference in October and our work on the YouTube video. Second, Thank you to the SPS crew: Brad, Mikayla, Kayla, Andrew, Jack, and everyone else! Without you, I quite literally wouldnt have been here. Thank you for being great guides and giving me this opportunity to work with SPS, I cannot tell you enough how much I’ve been wanting this internship and to be able to finally participate in it is a dream come true! Third, to the other interns YALL ARE AMAZING PEOPLE! I will never forget everyone I met during this internship, never did I think I would make life-long friends in an internship. Even though I wont be in PhysCon this year, I hope to see everyone again soon! This wont and shouldnt be our final time seeing each other, and I’ll make sure of that. And lastly, to my parents, without them I wouldnt have been able to come here to the US and take up this opportunity. They were the ones who pushed me when I was down and are my inspiration.

That’s enough “senty moments” (Sentimental moments) as we say in the Philippines, I hope that with these mix of blogs you get a taste of how fun and how amazing this internship is! To the future rheology intern: no matter who you are, show who and what you are in this research!

This is your Filipino Rheology Chef of Summer 2022 signing off, I hope you had a great time reading my blogs and I hope you learn as much as I did during this summer!

Sa huli ulit, kikita tayo SPS! (We will see each other in the end again, SPS!)

P.S. Shameless plug, but if you want to see the video I made during this internship and any other physics videos I made, You can check out my YouTube channel: The Avendano Effect !