Hello readers,
It’s hard to believe that I have been on the Sikuliaq for 72 days. Going into this internship, I knew there was a possibility that I would not like the work or that I would be unsuccessful. Now, I can enthusiastically say that I was able to positively contribute to the tech team and that I have been hooked by this industry. The people aboard the Sikuliaq are amazing, passionate about what they do, and so kind. I feel lucky to have been able to work alongside them for this short period of time and to call some of them friends.
In the last week, the calibration cruise came to an end with all the tasks completed. We had to come into Newport early due to weather but we were still able to get everything done. I did some smaller tasks such as install the 3D printed PAR mount onto the CTD, mount a new TV in the baltic room, complete my internship tasks, apply for jobs, start to learn Python, and build some networking skills by interfacing with a Raspberry Pi over the network.
Spotting a seep with the echosounders. It’s almost 400m tall!
Driving under the Newport bridge
CAD assembly of PAR mount. A cool technique that I learned during this internship was to combine hardware and 3D printed parts. Printing threads is tricky so instead one can incorporate nuts into the design to provide the means of threading in a bolt. In this design, the nuts were press-fit into the print and aligned with the bolts. Now, what would be the weakest point of the design, printed threads, is no longer an issue.
Mounted PAR sensor
Thank you for reading!
Sarah