Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) is sponsored by the National Science Foundation allows undergraduate students to choose from many research opportunities at universities around the country. In the early spring 2012 I had applied to two opportunities, one at the University of Colorado, Boulder (Environmental Engineering) and the other at the University of Connecticut, Storrs (Smart Structures) near Hartford. The application for the U Conn process required a couple of short essays where I had to write my interests in Smart Structures of which at the time, I had none, nor did I know what it even meant. The other essay was to write about how I defined the importance or lack of international educational research collaboration.
I researched Smart Structures as I wrote a short paragraph. There was space for 1500 words but I think I only wrote about 250 thinking I was not going to get the position. Smart Structures, from an engineering standpoint is the ability to build structures stronger to better withstand natural forces such as hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, even the sway of tall buildings in ambient winds.
The REU with U Conn is researching in collaboration with two other universities, the University of South Carolina, Columbia and the University of Ohio, Akron totaling six of us with two undergrad students and a Doctorate Professor from each university. The previous two weeks were spent teleconferencing with the other two universities in preparation for the main research in South Korea.
The main applications to the specific research we are conducting are courses I have not yet had, including Structural Dynamics (the movement of structures from forces mentioned above) and MatLab (computer programming). Both of which I will have in the coming year upon return from South Korea. The lectures and projects we have been assigned in these last two weeks have been difficult where my input to the projects have been almost non-existent. I approached my professor the other day about my concerns of lack of knowledge. He responded these courses were not a prerequisite for the REU and to try and learn as much as I could.
Yesterday, I arrived in South Bend with my other REU candidate, Maggie and Dr. Christenson after flying into Chicago. We were met by the other students from SC with Dr. Caicedo (from Columbia, South America) and OH without Dr. Yun GunGin (from Korea). We are all staying in the dorms at Notre Dame, a Catholic University while attending a Civil Engineering Conference specifically on Structural Dynamics. The majority of the day today was spent listening to technical reports of Doctoral candidate student dissertations. Again, much more information than could sink in. All is not wasted though as I have listened to a few interesting topics such as dam deformation research on the many antiquated dam structures built around WWII along with how to build them better when they will soon have to be rebuilt.
In my short essay I wrote about a research paper I had submitted in my environmental engineering class last year which mentioned the importance of being able to retrofit existing structures to reduce catastrophic damages in recent earthquakes in Turkey. San Francisco has come a long way since the 1906 earthquake which decimated the city due to stringent building codes and Smart Structure research. The lack of enforcement of building codes has been a main contributor to the devastation there.
The six of us undergraduate students leave for South Korea Thursday with a graduate student (Gustavo) for 5 weeks of research in the city of Daejeon, population 1.5 million being the 5th largest city. There are two research teams. A student from each university comprises a team. The team I am on will research the damping control systems on cable stay bridges. These dampers significantly reduce the wind vibrations on the cables by applying force in the opposite direction of the wind. These are already in use on bridges although we are going to try and design a damper which will use the energy in the cable caused by the wind vibration to create a closed electrical circuit so the dampers will require no external form of electricity for self sustainability.
Jamie, a Catholic student from USC invited me to mass at the beautiful Notre Dame Basilica last night. Having been confirmed Episcopalian at around the age of 12 or 13, I was somewhat used to the standing, kneeling, sitting, singing, standing, kneeling, sitting...with an occasional script including "Thanks be to God" or some form followed by the sharing of the blood and the body of Christ. I patiently waited in line taking my wafer upon my turn and proceeded to walk to the line with the least amount of people where the chalice of wine (maybe grape juice, I don`t know) was being held several yards away. The mass was very crowded for a 9pm Sunday night with the choir in the balcony singing below the massive organ pipes. There were at least 8 people distributing wafers with another 8 holding a chalice.
Half way between the wafer and chalice guys with my wafer in hand, the wafer guy said to me in a loud stern voice, "come back here!" within earshot of several attendees. I turned wondering who he was talking to and he was looking directly at me with his finger pointing with the come here motion curling the index finger inward. I returned to him and said almost as loud "what!" with an embarrassed smile on my face of innocence not knowing what I had done wrong. "Put it in your mouth!" which was what I was going to do as I waited in line for the sip from the chalice. It was humorous to me how I had broken protocol enough for the wafer guy to enforce his authority as I returned to him to consume the wafer in his presence.
The adventure begins. The conference is over early Wednesday afternoon. The six of us with a graduate student will be spending the night at a hotel near the Chicago airport Wednesday evening. After checking into the hotel we are going sightseeing in the downtown area by subway and bus. Wrigley stadium, Chicago style deeeeep dish pizza, Michigan Ave., top of the Willis Tower, Navy Pier etc...between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. Then off to Korea in the afternoon through Tokyo. Another day in the life of Chewy.
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