Sunday, June 11, 2023
By:
Hello again!
I left off last week by promising to explain what a Rheologist does so I’ll start with that. Rheology is the study of the deformation of materials. For those in the science world, you can kind of think of it as the happy medium between solid and fluid mechanics. We focus a lot on complex materials, meaning that most equations and principles that I’ve previously learned are thrown out the window. Despite the huge learning curve, I’m having fun and becoming more familiar with the field as a whole. Along with that, I get to learn everything through food, so that’s a huge bonus!
I believe I also said that I’d include a description of my project for the summer. I hate to disappoint, but I’ll have to save that for a later date since it’s still in the works. I can explain what I did this week, though. I spent my time analyzing the different rheological properties of dairy-free versus regular cheddar cheese. This involved conducting several visual-based experiments and inferring what I could about the material based on its behavior under certain conditions. For example, a popular and easy test to carry out is the compression test. This involves loading the material with a known amount of force and measuring the deformation it undergoes. Using these two variables, one is able to determine the elastic modulus of the which simply tells you how stiff it is. For me, this meant stacking quarters on top of the two kinds of cheese and watching them each sink into themselves. It was invigorating to say the least.
Though most of my time was spent working at the kitchen table with Gizem, my amazing roommate, we did find the time to go out and complete some sidequests. On Monday, the group went out and played frisbee on the Mall. I found out that being good at ultimate frisbee in middle school doesn’t exactly mean that those skills will carry over into adulthood. Win some, lose some I guess. On Wednesday and Thursday, me and a few other APS interns went into APC (our workplace) to attend MJ’s Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, which was a huge success by the way. Make sure to check out their blog post for more details about it. Along with the event, we also took our own little tour of the building. Did you know that they have a little balcony on every floor? Because I did not but now I have big plans to make one of them my permanent office, air-quality permitting.
The best part of this week, though, was getting to experience my first ever Pride Parade. I didn’t know this before I got here but, DC takes the month of June pretty seriously. Rainbow decorations cover the streets already but the actual parade took it to a whole new level. Everyone was singing, dancing, and strutting their stuff. It was thrilling to see people not only accepting but celebrating each other’s identities. No matter who you were, you were invited to join in and feel welcomed by the entire community. That’s something you don’t get to see often in everyday life so I’m incredibly grateful that I had the opportunity to be here this month with all of these awesome people and celebrate love in whatever form you want:)
Anyways, it is now Sunday night and the weekend’s festivities have taken their toll on my energy levels. I’m off for now but hopefully soon I’ll be able to share the plans for my summer project.
Until next time!
Brynn Schierenbeck