STEM – Page 9 – CA Work Experience Program

Aziz Lab Day 2

Today was another day of experimenting with the modeling program to prepare for our independent work. This morning, we met with Dr. Aziz and Leah again to overview what we did last time. Afterwards, we played with the existing model that Dr. Aziz had been using to model competition for nutrients between the white rot fungus and any bacteria that may come through the same location.

The model uses agents that follow programmed codes in a simulated environment, with various sliders and buttons that the user can employ to change various aspects of the simulation, such as the number of nutrients or agents involved. To begin our coding, we were given a list of suggestions we could try implementing to make the model more realistic, such as including the temperature or PH of the water.

Below is an image of the model.

Day 2: Vector Textiles Environmental Modeling

Today we began our main research into what the effects of introducing the chemical permethrin into sub-Saharan Africa would be. We split off into groups to spread out the research, with me focusing on the direct and indirect effects of permethrin on humans specifically. Other groups focused on environmental and ecological impacts, and another group focused on how specific regions would be affected. Together as a team we learned to collaborate in the most effective way possible to get the research done in the most efficient way. We also have to practice good researching and note taking skills since we will be using our data to create a presentation to Mr. Self on the effects of permethrin, so that we can see how much safer the non-permethrin treated clothing is. I look forward to doing more research tomorrow and starting the first potential draft of the presentation!

Lenovo Day 2 – Sarah

Today we started off our day with our morning meeting, where we all presented the research we had done the previous day. We asked questions and did additional research on topics that we were curious about, and by the end of the meeting, we were all more well-versed in NFTs.

We left the meeting with new topics to research. I continued learning about the environmental impacts of NFTs, but this time finding some concrete statistics and studies to back up my claims. I also did some research on the different types of consensus mechanisms of blockchains – the algorithm used by a cryptocurrency to add blocks to the blockchain. I spent most of my time researching a newer, more energy-efficient consensus mechanism called Proof of Time and Proof of Space. This method uses hard drive storage and less energy-intensive processes instead of raw computing power than other methods, namely Proof of Work.

The company Chia uses Proof of Time and Space in order to be more eco-friendly

Day 2 Lenovo

We started the second day by presenting our findings from the previous day. My topic was about cryptocurrency wallets and how they are used in the internet world. Crypto wallets are basically just the place for you to access your currency and do transactions. After everyone finished presenting, Greyson assigned us new “deeper” topics that would deeper our knowledge of our particular topic. The rest of the day was asynchronous since Greyson had to attend a summit at Lenovo.

For my deeper topics, I started to look into the different types of wallets. I found that there were two types and that there were two more types in each of those types. Sorry if that was confusing but this is a confusing topic. The two broad types are custodial and non-custodial. Custodial wallets are 3rd party sources that hold your account so you don’t have to be responsible with your cryptocurrency. If you lose your password in Custodial wallets you can just reset it. Non-Custodial, as you may guess, is when you are responsible for your crypto and if you lose your password you lose everything since you can’t reset it. In both non and custodial there are hot and cold wallets. Hot wallets need to be connected to the internet in order for transactions to process and to access the crypto (ex. websites and apps used). Cold wallets don’t need access to the internet and are physical items that you carry around (ex. USB with crypto on it).

LaberLabs Day 2 – 05/25/2021

Today we started with reviewing our findings of yesterday’s Monty Hall problem. We found that in our datasets switching resulted in a win more often than staying. The reasoning was the chance of winning for staying was 1/total number of choices while switching was total number of choice – 1/ total number of choices.

Next we examined a problem about marshmallows introducing us to statistics. We had scenarios where they were different colors and sizes and were tasked with finding the proportions between color/size and the total population. Finally we were asked to find the total amount of marshmallows and found real world applications of this problem, for example estimating the number of a specific animal in their environment.

For the remainder of the day we will be examining the meaning of r^2 in statistics, fitting a linear regression in python, and proving R2(y~x1) + R2(y~x2) >= R2(y~x1+x2).

Day 1!

For our first day working at Cisco, we started by meeting Ms. Sandifer in which she gave us a general overview of what to expect throughout the program in addition to general details about Cisco. We also attended several other meetings throughout the day. In the first, we talked about Cisco’s culture. We learned that in the sales department, specifically, they thrive in a competitive yet community-oriented environment. They find a balance between competition and collaboration; they celebrate each other’s accomplish and work together when they need help, but also find motivation in competing.

In another of our meetings, we also talked about the pitch project that we are going to be working on throughout this week and next week. In summary, we are going to be acting as if we are salespersons who work at Cisco and are trying to sell one of Cisco’s architectures to Cary Academy. We are going to have to research our chosen architecture and then determine ways that it can be beneficial to the Cary Academy community. The architectures include Meraki, Data Center, AppDymanics, Umbrella, and Collaboration.

Finally, each member of the Cisco WEP was assigned a mentor. We were able to talk to our mentors about their experiences working at Cisco as well as recommendations for our pitch presentation from a technical perspective. My mentor shared experiences about building systems from the ground up: she worked with creating routers, switches, etc.

Here is a picture of me with my mentor: Ms. Rswaragoundan.

-Grace

Lenovo Day 1 – Sarah

Today was our first day of the Work Experience Program working with Lenovo. We talked with our host, Greyson Davis (the head of the software gaming division at Lenovo), and asked him questions about what it was like to work with Lenovo and with video games, and especially how it’s been working from home for so long.

We spent the rest of our meeting time talking about and learning the basics of NFTs, and discussing their potential applications for gaming and in the real world. NFT stands for non-fungible token, and essentially is a unique, secure piece of data that is stored on the blockchain. These tokens can be transferred – bought and sold like any other physical good. Right now they’re used for things like digital art and collectibles, but in the near future they could be used to securely store things like concert tickets or house deeds.

Today after our meeting, I researched the environmental impact that NFTs and NFT transactions could have.

An image of Cryptopunks, a set of 10,000 unique images that became some of the first ever NFTs

Day 1: Vector Textiles Environmental Modeling

Today we kicked off our work experience journey with Vector Textiles and environmental modeling. Together with the team we planned out our schedule for the week and learned more about what our goal is during these 8 days, which is to investigate the environmental affects of permethrin when released into sub-Saharan Africa. It was great learning about how research-based projects such as these are conducted, and certain techniques that can be used to investigate similar problems. I also learned about how the specific chemical, permethrin, is more dangerous than it looks and is portrayed to the public, which gave me insight onto how other chemicals or ingredients might not be what they seem. Therefore, I learned to always double check what I am working with. Overall, it was a great start to the program and I look forward to doing more research in the coming days!

Meeting Dr. Aziz and Leah

This morning, Ethan and I met with Dr. Aziz and his graduate student Leah. Leah explained the research that she is working on. Basically, she’s trying to design a water filter that will use fungus to chemically convert harmful pollutants in water into something less harmful.

We then spent the remainder of the day playing around with NetLogo, which is the software that we’ll mainly be using to create simulations. We explored the Wolf-Sheep Predation model and the Enzyme Kinetics model and modified the parameters on the models to see how the changes would affect the results.

The Wolf-Sheep model showed how the populations of wolves, sheep, and grass changed based on various parameters, and the Enzyme Kinetics model showed how various parameters affected the concentrations of substrate, complex, and product.

Below is an image of the Enzyme Kinetics model.

Lenovo Day 1

We started the day off with a general meeting about Lenovo as a whole. Greyson Davis, our host, is the software manager of the gaming division at Lenovo and he described the changes that occurred from in-person to going virtual. When we finished the discussion we moved onto researching NFTs (Non-fungible tokens). NFTs are images, videos, and other digital files bought and sold using cryptocurrency (NBA top shot). After we presented our research and moved on to discussing the general crypto market. Our goal for these 2 weeks is to become experts in crypto transactions and everything that happens during them.

An NFT of a kitten that was bought for 170,000

Another NFT that was sold for 20,000