Sunday, July 25, 2021
By:
It’s hard to believe that the summer internship is almost over! I’m definitely feeling the pressure to finish the last few projects on my plate before the 10 weeks come to a close, but I’m confident that I’ll be able to pull it off.
My first of two final projects is one that I’ve been working on the whole summer: a science communications piece about fellowship programs which bring manufacturing experts to the Office of Advanced Manufacturing. After conducting plenty of interviews and drafting a lead-in, Zara (OAM’s Communications Director) and I sat down for a revision planning meeting with the editors for Connections, the internal NIST publication — and the eventual home for my article. After our check-in, I left with a much better idea of how we would find a compromise between their edits and our direction; now it’s the hard part of actually finishing the article!
My other final project is just as exciting — I’m partnering with AIP/SPS to adapt their Psi* outreach and engagement activities for a manufacturing focus ahead of Manufacturing Day! This was a really exciting project that I had been working on for a while, but I finally connected with the one and only Brad Conrad, SPS Director, to hash out details and strategize for the most effective method of partnering our goals. Throughout the week, I brainstormed manufacturing repertoires and technologies (with the help of the rest of the OAM team) for a deck of manufacturing-themed cards to be used in playing a fun game, which in turn demonstrates the applications and impacts of manufacturing on important issues like transportation, energy, and more! I’m excited to see where this project ends up, and I hope it may demonstrate the importance of manufacturing to a student audience.
This week, the SPS intern cohort finished our physics demo competition, which you can watch here. It was harder than I imagined it would be to brainstorm a demonstration which displayed a simple physics concept, but everyone came up with such great demos! You can vote for your favorite here… I’m not saying who you should vote for, but maybe someone with a name which rhymes with Shmasey Shmoepke? :)
On Friday, Kelley Rogers, the Technical Program Manager for the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL), was kind enough to sit down with me for an informational interview. One of the highlights of my internship has been learning about all the different paths people took to end up working at NIST. It’s been truly inspiring!
My highlight of the week was catching up with a couple of the other interns about our internships and what else we've been up to. Our consensus was that there should be an Olympic event for physicists. Canoe slalom, anyone?
Cheers,
Casey Roepke (she/her)