Photo By Kirsten St. Peter | Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division (NSWCPD) employees serve as judges...... read more read more
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As everyone gets ready to transition from the long dog days of summer to the brisk autumn days, summer programs and camps all across the country are coming to an end. This is no different at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division (NSWCPD).
Among the various camps and programs hosted by NSWCPD this summer there was the Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program (NREIP), Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program (SEAP), and Virtual Summer Naval Apprenticeship Program (VSNAP). These three internship programs were designed to give college and high school students experience in laboratory research and technology.
In other years, NREIP and SEAP participants would spend the majority of their internship at NSWCPD to get hands-on experience, but due to stay-at-home restrictions this summer, the programs were run entirely virtually with VSNAP added to give more students an opportunity to participate.
While no one expected to have these programs run virtually this summer, both the interns and NSWCPD organizers were able to make the best of it. Tristan Wolfe, NSWCPD’s STEM Outreach Program Manager, was one of the organizers in making the transition to virtual and was able to enjoy many of the final presentations this summer.
“I was blown away by the quality of not only the presentations, but the projects themselves. Even though the projects were Distribution A and students didn’t have access to the type of information they would normally be privy to, they rose to the occasion and developed meaningful work that is planned to be shared with members of not only the NSWC Philadelphia Division workforce, but also NSWC Carderock Division and NAVSEA 05,” said Wolfe.
This year the students were broken up into 13 different groups, each led by two or three mentors from NSWCPD. Each group was then assigned one of six different projects, which they worked on over the course of the summer, culminating in the virtual presentations at the beginning of August.
The six different topics were Lithium Ion Battery Conflagration Mitigation, Pulsed Power Multiphysics Design & Simulation for an Unmanned Remote System, Design & Implementation of a Hydroculture System for Naval STEM Outreach & Food Insecurity, Design of a Humanitarian Ship for Relief Mission, Low-Power Long-Range Wireless Data Communication Implementation and Security Analysis for Naval Platforms, and COVID-19 Transmission Risk Mitigation for NSWCPD Office Environment.
Within these six topics were problems or challenges that the groups had to work to fix. Their final solutions were then presented to a group of NSWCPD employees who volunteered to serve as judges and panelists, as well as any other employee who wanted to watch the virtual briefs.
Usually, the final presentations would take place as a set of poster presentations at the end of the internship, but this year they had to get creative. The final presentations ended up being given via a video conferencing platform over the course of two days with each group getting a half-hour time window to present and answer any questions from the viewers.
At the end of the two days the judges evaluated all the presentations, declaring first, second, and third place winners. Judges provided scores based on nine categories: Overall Appearance/Organization, Presentation Skills, Stated Objective, Background & Research, Design Methodology, Technical Excellency/Execution, Conclusions & Future Work, Q&A and Teamwork. Presentations were rated in each of those categories individually by the judges, with a consolidated average score deciding the winners.
In third place was group 6B whose topic was “Lithium Ion Battery Conflagration Mitigation” and had the task of creating a container to house whole lithium ion batteries without risk of propagation due to thermal runaway, a chain reaction of exploding batteries.
In second place was group 4A whose topic was “Design of a Humanitarian Ship for Relief Missions.” Their goal was to retrofit a fictional destroyer ship for humanitarian aid to sustain between 10,000 and 15,000 people over the course of 30 days.
The winning team was group 1A whose topic was “Low-Power Long-Range Wireless Data Communication Implementation and Security Analysis for Naval Platforms.” The members of this group were Abubakarr Bah, Victor Chen, Nick Kutufaris, John Stranahan, and Kevin Magill. Their objective was to find a way to implement the long range technologies on a naval platform without compromising the security of wireless data.
Their winning project was a combination of great research, hard work, and an ability to adapt to the virtual setting.
“I did not find the final presentation difficult due to my team practicing a lot, but I was slightly nervous because I wanted to do well on it. The virtual setting eased the pressure because I could work in a comfortable setting and have notes to read during my presentation,” said Bah.
The group was also sure to note that their mentors, Adam Tucker, Erin Lahann, and Maria Legato, were instrumental in the process. They were readily available for any questions and made sure to give plenty of insightful advice along the way.
“The best piece of advice from our mentors was to really focus on and emphasize how our research can help the Navy. At the end of the day, that was the real goal of this project. Hopefully our project will assist the Navy in the future!” said Kutufaris.
NSWCPD employs approximately 2,700 civilian engineers, scientists, technicians, and support personnel doing research and development, test and evaluation, acquisition support, and in-service logistics engineering for Navy ships. NSWCPD is also the lead organization providing cybersecurity for all ship systems.
| Date Taken: | 08.21.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 08.21.2020 14:22 |
| Story ID: | 376535 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 53 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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