I was interning at the David Glenn Show, and I helped find and grab clips of related audio to play when the show first comes back from commercial. The producer, Daron, then lays appropriate clips of music over them and they help set up the next topic that David Glenn is going to talk about. I also helped make the rundown for David Glenn, which is the sheet he uses that has all the major topics he’s going to go over, and it is our job to add tidbits of information on the topics/guests that he may want to mention. I sat in on the whole show and helped keep up with any breaking sports news and stuff. It was very cool. 
Tag: Day 5
Day 5
Today was another slow day, for some reason there are no Committee meetings Mondays. I mostly did some mundane office work like retrieve and open the mail, and check the schedule for the following day. We went over what meetings I was going to go to Tuesday and even set up a phone conference for me. I have a tentative interest in public health, so Rep Martin had suggested talking to some one from Department of Heath and Human Services. I will be speaking to them tomorrow over the phone. Afterwords, we just looked over emails and went through voicemails and responded to them.
Day 5
Today was quite productive! I clocked almost 10 hours and my first item is almost finished. The process consisted of planning out and cutting the pattern. Next the pattern is transferred to the fabric, and the fabric peices are cut. Then begins the long process of sewing, ironing, sewing again, lining, sewing again, frustratingly ripping open mistakes and fixing them, and sewing some more. I have a few more steps before completeing my shirt which will be finished in the morning. I included lots of pictures of the process as it might be hard to understand from explaination. This project takes a great amount of patience and persistence being that many parts of the project require hand stitching which takes a monumental amount of time. I have 2-3 more things I hope to complete before the end of the week and I hope to report positively about them on Friday.
Day 5: Toilet Trouble
The most memorable part of today was definitely visiting the “poop lab” at RTI with Dr. Katie Sellgreen. The pungent smell certainly made an impression, but the project itself was very cool. The Gates Foundation put out a challenge known as “Reinvent the Toilet” for someone to create a self-sustaining toilet to be used in villages in India where there is no infrastructure in place to support the flush toilets we are so used to here. The design was pretty ingenious: the solid and liquid waste gets separated via a filter, the solid is combusted and the energy released goes to generating and electrical current that passes through the liquid to clean it, and the cleaned liquid is used to flush the next use. Madisen and I actually got to collect real data when we had the opportunity to test various properties of water samples (that had been cleaned but still looked brownish-yellow).
Perhaps the funniest story came when I asked how they obtain their samples of feces and urine. Dr. Sellgreen explained that they ask for volunteers from RTI employees, and a system is set up so “donors” can remain anonymous and are actually rewarded with an Amazon gift card. She went on to say though, that most donors are men who are working on the toilet project, and don’t feel any shame at all about it. Dr. Sellgreen recounted stories of how the men would eagerly point out which samples were theirs, urge for them to be massed, and compete with each other to see who’s weighed the most.
The afternoon was spent with Dr. Natalie Giourard, who basically gave us a lesson on polymers. I never thought I would find them so interesting, but I was fascinated! The hardest thing for me to grasp was how pervasive polymers are in our everyday lives. There are polymers in our water bottles, phone cases, furniture, even clothing – and not many people appreciate their ingenious chemistry.
Day 5- Spaghetti
Today was a day for starting over. I left Dr. Rob’s lab behind (until next week when I start actually working there), and traveled to NC State’s Centennial Campus to the organic and carbon electrics lab. Bewildered by what information I could find about the lab online, I walked in not understanding much, but Abay, the man who I am shadowing, explained their entire process quite efficiently.
The research group in which I am placed is working on creating solar cells from organics, but not your typical rigid, silicon-based solar cells. Abay compared their someday solar panels to ink: it will be able to be printed on any surface, flat or drastically curved. The way that the technology works, I discovered, is a lot like spaghetti and meatballs, as Abay explained. The “ink” is a solution of tiny polymers that, just like spaghetti, naturally tend to form coils when in the solution (like pasta in water). But, they hope to turn it back into raw spaghetti, making it a straight highway for current to easily traverse for maximum efficiency. The “spaghetti” is able to transfer excited electrons into electrical energy via the “meatballs”- other polymers who appear round and bulky. The analogy, albeit simple, was pretty effective for explaining years of electrical physics research.
As the day progressed, Abay also told me about why he loved research so much- a conversation I have been eagerly looking to have with someone since my work experience started. He said that if you were to go to California, to one of the big solar factories, they’ll tour you around the factory floor and point at huge machinery that mass-produces the solar panels, but that is all you see. He told me that research is all of the tiny details leading up to the final product that really make someone able to understand the product- not just the chemistry or physics or engineering behind it, but the hundreds of problems that have to be solved, from mysteriously-appearing zinc oxide to how to straighten “spaghetti”, its the details of the product that really make it interesting. “The title of researcher”, he said “Is also that of a ‘problem solver’.” It’s not just a bunch of people hunched over a workbench- it requires a whole set of skills and mindsets. That is what makes the whole process that much more exciting.
Day 5
I have never seen the store so slow! Today while I was there, there was a total of three customers, with only one person buying something. This was very boring, but it got me and the employees to get ahead on some upcoming events. We stuffed “swag bags” for tomorrow’s event with a group of women from Raleigh. While doing this we sorted through all the leftover stuff that Corrie had from market, and divided it up for the gift bags. This process was extremely difficult, as we wrapped all the cups in cellophane. It’s a lot harder than it looks! I have such respect for gift wrappers now… a lot goes into it! To round out the day we announced the online shopping capable website launch! A slow day turned into a busy and fun day in a matter of minutes.
Day 5- Marketing
Thuc and I thought today was very fun filled. We had a very lengthy intro into marketing, and learned much about it. The most interesting thing I thought was the following that marketing does to their consumers. BY NAME they can see where and how people reached websites. That is how they put in an ad for something one was looking at an hour before. Even though this was very creepy, it still was very useful. On top of this, we went to Goodnight’s rock collection on the top floor of the executive building. It was amazing to see the collection, for it was vast and the most beautiful set of rocks I’ve seen. Can’t wait for tomorrow!
Day 5
On our first Monday in the office, we were lucky enough to attend a presentation given by Professor Nimmi Ramaujam from Duke to discuss the pocket colposcope she has developed. Though some of the science went over my head at times, I was fascinated by how her team’s human-centered design process resulted in a prototype that not only decreased the price of a colposcope from tens of thousands of dollars to just a few hundred, but also simplified the process of screening for cervical cancer. With clever engineering, her team was able to create a colposcope that produces the same quality of images but at a much lower price and size. A colposcope is essentially a high-powered camera to examine the cervix for abnormal growth, and many clinics in developing parts of the world use only cameras to conduct colposcopies. But with Prof. Ramaujam’s colposcope, clinics can easily and cheaply perform the screening procedure by plugging the USB end of the device into a smartphone to view images in real time, instead of sending women to more advanced clinics because the less advanced technology was inconclusive. It was neat for me to hear about the design process that went into creating the colposcope and how it took a team of not just scientists, but also engineers and women to provide the necessary feedback.
– Hope
Day 5
Today I spent the first hour at Alpha trying to find the server all of my work was stored in. The computer had forgotten the server so I had to get help to open it again. It was fairly frustrating, but luckily it was figured out it before lunch. After lunch I was able to start working on the Dragon Boat Festival Tshirt again. On Friday I finished the trace of my sketch, so today I worked on the more artistic side of the sketch:
The first picture is my sketch compared to what I was able to create using graphics. I think it turned out really well! I also tried to compare the graphic in blue and the graphic in red, but I’m not sure which one I like better. So anyway, that’s the boat part, and tomorrow I’ll create a few more simple graphics to go with it on the tshirt.
SAS Work Experience Day 5 – Corporate Creative/Video Production
Today was Day 5 at SAS, and Justin and I were in building U in the morning for corporate creative! When we got there, we were greeted by Beth Hening, who gave us a quick tour of the space! The offices here were a lot different from the ones we had visited previously, because for the most part they were cubes. Ms. Hening explained that the reason behind was so that people were more open and collaborative, but that the plan actually didn’t work out that well and people preferred to have closed offices. After visiting with her, we sat with Evan who is a copy writer for SAS. He told us all about his previous jobs, and how he actually used to do sports journalism for UNC! He also showed us some of his work at SAS, and some of his favorite projects that he had worked on. He seemed really passionate about his job and I enjoyed shadowing him! After meeting with the people from corporate creative, we went over to have lunch in building C with Sean, who worked in both the video department and building C. I really enjoyed meeting with him because not only did he share loads of information about the technology and advertising that SAS does, but he was also extremely personable and gave great advice! 
