Throughout this week I was finishing up my project, and there were some dilutions I needed to finish especially when it came to re-taking pictures for the poster. I felt like regardless if the public was gonna see it, just me, or Joe I wanted them to be the best they could be. I ended up retaking about 7 dilutions which are about 28 separate pictures using the POM. In addition, I felt like I could take better samples so I ended up re-sealing around 4 samples. I wanted everything to be above average even if most people wouldn’t notice. They ended up being worth it as through the making of my poster or analysis of the phases, agglomerates, and Liquid Crystals it was clear and less challenging than it normally is. My lab notebook also was working over time, it went through a lot of new samples, failed samples, and scrapped ones. But overall I got the work done as hard as it may be, I even came into the lab on Saturday to finish everything!

Monday

I started the week by spray painting the extruders in the morning. This step was essential to ensure the extruders had a smooth, professional finish, which would improve both their appearance and functionality. I arrived on campus at noon and spent the rest of the day assembling the prototype. The process involved carefully fitting together various parts I had previously printed and prepared. It was meticulous work, requiring patience and precision, but seeing the prototype take shape was incredibly rewarding.

Tuesday

The day began with the weekly REU meeting, where we discussed poster drafts with other REU members. This meeting was beneficial as it provided an opportunity to receive constructive feedback and improve our presentations. After the meeting, I headed to my lab and focused on designing a new mount for the prototype. This involved using CAD software to create a design that would securely hold the extruders in place while allowing for smooth operation. It took several iterations to get the design right, but I was pleased with the final version.

Wednesday

I dedicated the day to testing the extrusion process. This involved rewriting the printer’s code and manipulating the gcode settings to achieve optimal extrusion. The process was filled with trial and error; each attempt provided insights into what adjustments were needed. By carefully observing the results and making precise changes, I gradually improved the extrusion process. It was a challenging but educational experience, teaching me a lot about the intricacies of 3D printing and coding.

Thursday

My focus for the day was preparing my slides for a lab presentation scheduled for the next day. I spent the morning drafting and organizing the slides to ensure they clearly conveyed the key points of my project. In the afternoon, my mentor provided valuable guidance, helping me refine the content and improve my presentation skills. This preparation was crucial in boosting my confidence and ensuring that I was well-prepared for the presentation.

Friday

In the morning, I rehearsed my presentation with my mentor. We went through the slides several times, making final adjustments to ensure everything was polished and cohesive. During the lab presentation, I felt well-prepared and confident. I presented my work clearly and effectively, handling the Q&A session with ease. After the presentations, we celebrated the departure of a postdoc lab mate who is heading to Tulane as an assistant professor. We had a small toast to congratulate him on his new position, which was a nice way to end the week on a positive note.

This week was packed with hands-on work, collaboration, and learning. Each day presented new challenges and accomplishments, deepening my interest in 3D printing and research. It was a fulfilling week that reinforced my passion for science and innovation.

Thank you for reading,
Brandon Espinoza.

Monday

I kicked off the week by designing both extruder systems. This involved meticulous planning and CAD work, in this case using Tinkercad to ensure the components would fit together seamlessly. Afterward, I headed to OEDK (Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen) to prep the hardware for assembling the syringe systems. This preparation was crucial to ensure that the assembly process would go smoothly later in the week.

Tuesday

My day started with an abstract-writing workshop, which was incredibly informative. I learned valuable techniques to improve my writing skills, especially for scientific abstracts. After the workshop, I attended my weekly REU meeting, where some of my REU mates presented their projects. It was inspiring to see their progress and learn from their experiences.

Wednesday

Continuing with my work from Monday, I focused on further designing the extruder systems. The intricate details and adjustments took up most of my day. Later, I went back to OEDK to prep more hardware for assembling the syringe systems. The hands-on work was both challenging and satisfying, as each step brought me closer to completing the prototypes.

Thursday

I just spent the day finalizing the designs for the extruder systems and ensuring everything was ready for assembly. After finishing the designs, I made another trip to OEDK to prepare the hardware. This stage involved double-checking measurements and making sure all components were accounted for. The anticipation of seeing the final product kept me motivated throughout the day.

Friday

The day began with a trip to BRC (BioScience Research Collaborative) building for my presentation. I felt like I did a decent job with my presentation skills, clearly conveying my project’s progress and goals. Afterward, I headed to OEDK to print the prototypes for both extruder systems. However, when I returned later to retrieve the parts, I discovered that someone had stolen them weirdly enough. This really turned my day upside down from the mood that I was in, and threw off my schedule as well. As a result, I arrived an hour late to my weekly lab meeting, being still upset about the missing parts while my lab mates were presenting their findings.

Despite the setback on Friday, the week was filled with significant progress in designing and preparing the extruder systems. The combination of workshops, presentations, and hands-on work provided a balanced and productive week. Each challenge taught me valuable lessons, and each success fueled my passion for 3D printing and innovation.

Thank you for reading,
Brandon Espinoza.

This week was pretty simple. I spent most of it finalizing my poster, practicing my presentation, and creating my elevator pitch. On Monday, I scanned the samples for attempt 2 and 3 of reproducing the PFOA gradient and then created graphs. They all looked extremely similar, indicating the data was accurate and the material reproducible.

On Tuesday, we had a group meeting where we reviewed each other’s posters and received feedback. It was very insightful and helped me sort out some things. One thing I’ve learned through this experience is that criticism isn’t personal—it’s aimed at making me a better student and researcher.

Wednesday was dedicated to working on my poster. I also helped my mentor by scanning samples for his project, freeing him up to focus on other tasks.

On Thursday, I visited Baylor College of Medicine to meet a PI who works with the Halas lab. They planned to let me watch procedures involving placenta cell extraction, but the placenta arrived late, pushing the procedure to Friday. Instead, I spent the day discussing my ambitions and future options with the PI, gaining valuable insights about programs to consider for next summer.

Friday, I returned to Baylor College of Medicine with a compound requested by my lab. I met a graduate student who would perform the procedure. She was incredibly kind, and we chatted about various topics, including hobbies, the lab, and PhD programs. I’ve been struggling with deciding between an MD/PhD, a normal MD, or possibly an MPH/MD, which the graduate student also mentioned. The options are exciting yet daunting, as I want to make the best choice for myself, considering financial feasibility as a first-gen student navigating this on my own.

Seeing a placenta for the first time was incredible, especially since I’m interested in obstetrics and gynecology. The graduate student walked me through the process, and while I only watched, it was mesmerizing. I thanked both the graduate student and the PI for the experience.

It’s crazy to think I have only one week left. This program has been amazing, providing invaluable connections and experiences. I am deeply appreciative of everything it has offered me.

As we approach the end of this experience, I deeply appreciate the opportunity to participate in this program. The past nine weeks have been filled with invaluable lessons and experiences. I have learned to read scientific articles, connect my chemistry class knowledge with experimental chemical reactions, work independently in the lab, and build connections with other STEM students and faculty members. This week, I had the chance to meet my PI, Dr. Qilin Li, for the second time during our group meeting on Friday. I am immensely grateful to be a student in her lab. After the meeting, some lab group members and students decided to go for a bus ride and lunch. It was an enjoyable experience. We took the bus to the Rice Village apartments and then walked to Torchy’s Tacos for lunch. Afterward, we decided to go for another walk to get some ice cream before returning to the lab. I enjoyed learning more about our lab members before leaving the program. I wish we had done this during the first week of the experience.

Hello everyone,

The speed at which this REU has passed by is incredible. With all of my experiments done, I was left to finalize some calculations. After that, the entire week was spent on finishing my poster. My mentor has guided me and helped me fix my poster many times to ensure that all of the data was accurate and that I learned how scientific posters are portrayed. I created my poster, and next week will be more focused on practicing my presentation skills. This week left me with a lot of time to reflect on the lessons learned which I will take with me throughout my STEM journey. I managed to overcome setbacks, and I was motivated throughout the REU. There were very few days where I felt hopeless or stressed out, and I am very thankful for that. Being in a material science lab while being a computer science major really opened my eyes to countless possibilities. I still believe that computer science is my main interest, but getting to experience lab work has been great. I hope that next year I will be able to pursue a summer internship in computer science. I believe that is the only way to solidify my choice to stay in that field. I do have to say that I will miss the Rice campus, especially the serveries, and recreational center. Hopefully, I will be accepted to Rice now that I have this wonderful experience.

With next week being the final week of our internships along with the poster symposium on Friday things are beginning to wrap up with assignments.

Monday 22JUL2024:

Monday was spent gathering the results of the previous tests for progress on finding the optimal parameters for cutting the wires into a PowerPoint. This would help focus the tests into a direction. After work, I went back to my apartment to try and finish a presentable version of my poster. I was not able to finish in time and submitted what I had, which was just plans for the layout.

Tuesday 23JUL2024:

During our weekly meeting, we went over our posters for peer review. Unfortunately I was not able to finish a presentable version of the poster, so there wasn’t a lot that anyone could comment on due to the fact there wasn’t much there to begin with. I spent the rest of the day running a total of 54 tests with different parameters. One group of tests had to be redone the next day.

Wednesday 24JUL2024:

I was able to join in the lab meeting after imaging the tests from the previous day. Afterwards, the last of the wire parameter tests were cut and full length wires were glued to an aluminum plate to be cut using the laser machine tomorrow. I also spent some time at my apartment working on gathering what information to put in the poster.

Thursday 25JUL2024:

The last of the tests were imaged and I had learned about some of the researchers in the lab recently testing positive for covid. I remembered that during the meeting, one of the participants had been coughing severely and had to step out for a moment. So after I ran the wires to be cut for the day, I went home to work on my poster and started to feel what I thought were symptoms. Because of this I went to get tested at a minute clinic and the results were negative for covid. However, other respiratory issues arose and I went to have a chest X-ray. The symptoms got better and it appeared to be a minor sinus infection that turned into a minor upper respiratory infection, which may have triggered an asthmatic reaction. Overall, a series of unfortunate events that made it near impossible to get any work done.

Friday 26JUL2024:

Friday was setting up more full wires to be cut in the machine as well as getting ready to image the previous wires, as well as perform data analysis for creating a retinotopic map of the visual cortex of a mouse. In which I was able to get results to put in the poster. My PI had also informed me that he was thankful for my work during the internship and that after I was done with schooling, and if I wanted to come back to continue research, that he would be happy to have me on board. I was very happy to hear this, as it meant I had been able to contribute substantially to the project in some way. Which was one of my goals for the internship. My mentor and I also introduced one of our coresearchers to how the laser cutter worked. I ended the day with setting up the next batch of wires to be cut and went to get my prescription for the asthma before heading home. (Which was unfortunately denied due to insurance related shenanigans)

Overall a busy week, with a rough last two days. I’m hoping to get the poster done over the weekend before submitting the final version next Monday.

[End of Post for Week 9]

Monday: Today I worked on my poster before turning it in. I have most of the information covered, except the results section. I spent 6 hours finding the goodness metric one by one from 3 of the data I plan to analyze. Sadly, once I analyzed it, it was giving me a straight line, and that only made me mad. I tried downloading more data to see if there was any change, but nothing. I gave up and went to bed.

Tuesday: Today after my 9am-noon meeting, I worked on my poster. I took in the feedback that was given by my peers and Dr. Zafar and implemented it. It wasn’t much change, but I for sure had to increase the font, fix the images, and the title. I will be working on the results section tomorrow.

Wednesday: Today was a very stressful day. I spent an hour working on my poster, and then 5 hours trying to figure out the coding for using for loops to find the goodness metric of 9 of my captured data. Now keep in mind, each data contains 3 different source detector distance data, and within each of the 3, there are 14 data with different amplifying gains. That’s a total of 378 capture data that I need to go through! And for loops is a way to make it easier by specifying what I am looking for within each data. I plan to use that information to create three graphs (green, red, and infrared LED) for the results section to compare against the hypothesis.

Since I was still getting a straight line and my data was not making any sense, I gave up. I cried and messaged Matt about it. I told him that I gave up and I need his help with the coding. The level of stress I had was high. I just wanted to go to sleep.

Thursday: Today I had a zoom meeting with Matt right after my shift. We talked about creating a graph for my results. After a very stressful day yesterday, he finally helped me figure out the coding for my data visualization. It was a very long 2-hour meeting, especially since I was very tired from my 7am-2pm shift.

Afterwards, I had dinner and worked on my poster for about an hour. My eyeballs were hurting too much to continue looking at my laptop.

Friday: Today I worked on the results section of my poster. I made sure everything was good. Edited the poster like 6 times before sending it to my mentor. I like the poster if I’m being honest, and compared to Tuesday’s draft, this poster is a lot more admirable.

Last week, I mainly worked on my abstract and the draft of my poster for the upcoming symposium. I still feel that I have developed a strong abstract and enhanced my writing abilities coming from a recent high school and community college graduate. I have now received feedback on the first draft of my poster and I now see things that could be changed that I didn’t notice before. Even before our feedback session in our Tuesday meeting, I realized how important receiving feedback from peers is. Having people who think in vastly different manners can provide insights into things you may have never realized. Every time I get feedback on things, whether that may be writing, a poster, or a presentation, I notice just how much things changed compared to what they originally were. I am very glad that we were able to give feedback in a large group.

As I previously mentioned with feedback, my poster has already changed so much and I expect it to continue to change a small amount as I work on it over the weekend. From formatting to adding additional text or visuals, it has already begun to take somewhat of a different form, and I am eager to see its final version. Additionally, I have come to realize that I need to make sure I am completely knowledgeable about the information I will present on my poster because there are small details and numbers that I cannot remember off the top of my head. Similarly, I need to make sure I have one-, three-, and five-minute pitches for my poster.

Aside from working on my poster this week, I was able to attend a resume workshop, which was very insightful. Again, learning things from different people provides vast amounts of perspectives which is something I truly love to see. I was able to implement some suggestions into my resume and fix a lot of formatting issues in my resume. A big thing I struggled with before and something I still continue to struggle with is shortening my resume to one page. I managed to get it to a little over one page but still not what I would like it to be. Now that I’m thinking of it, maybe having someone look it over for me can provide me some insight on what to potentially remove and, ultimately, shorten it.

As things are coming to an end, I am able to reflect on the various things I did and learned throughout my summer internship. Similar to how I feel when I see the changes in my writing, poster, etc. after receiving feedback, I get the same feeling of satisfaction when I complete a task that allows me to evolve as a student and as an individual. I am happy to say that I am already feeling a sense of that fulfillment.

Second-to-last hello everyone!

This week was filled with great work, some highlights below:

Monday – I worked on my poster all day on desktops in the lab and library since I left my laptop charger at home. My progress did not save on my laptop so I’m glad I supplemented the work on my OneDrive during this time! It was a very rough draft.

Tuesday – This day started with an optional OURI meeting about resumes presented by the CCD at Rice. The tips and information were extremely valuable and easy to implement into my resume/CV. Then we had our weekly meeting with Dr. Zafar which focused on poster feedback. I plan on implementing the most common critiques from the note cards. I synthesized copper nanocubes for the rest of the day since I ran out for doping.

Wednesday – I headed straight to the lab to synthesize my final catalyst experiment which was doping the copper nanocubes with palladium and gold. I also completed the elevator pitch assignment, which I found difficult in the sense I had to be very general with my problem and solution, as my exact experiments didn’t really solve the main problem.

Thursday – I spray coated the catalyst onto the carbon paper, then ran a flow cell test with the synthesized catalyst. My electrolyzer was leaking so I’ll have to reassemble and rerun the test. I found it hard to get work done since it was very rainy and gloomy outside, it made me miss relaxing in my PJs and sleeping in.

Friday – I started off the morning at a meeting with Dr. Zafar and presented my PowerPoint presentation. I received some great feedback that I’ll need for presenting my poster. For the rest of the day, I edited and revamped my poster and sent it to my mentor. I will be continuing to work on it during the weekend to have it approved by my mentor. I went to the last social event at the RMC, which was nice to see some of the other R-STEM students. I have been feeling very down lately so it was nice to be in a group where I felt like I belonged.

Overall, this week was productive. I’ve enjoyed any chance I get to hang out with the other interns and discuss the good, bad, and in-betweens.

Until next time,

Chloe