This week was my last week of my internship and I spent it in Alamosa helping with research for the winds and temperatures at various sites. The week was very fun and I can’t thank Dr. Jamey Jacob and The Pinhead Institute enough for giving me the opportunity to fly drones and make some for research.
The first few days were exciting where we went to a site in the middle of the desert and we started going research in the morning and testing to make sure that the future research we do comes back with the correct data. We flew many UAV’s (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). We had gotten data from the other vehicles so we could sync them up.
The next days were at a local school in Moffat, Colorado where we would fly alongside Oklahoma University in order for them to get their CO2 sensors synced with ours and so we can collect data for how much CO2 is in the area. Oklahoma University also launched some weather balloons and attempted to launch a fixed wing aircraft from a pickup truck. Unfortunately while we were there they had failed to launch it, but they took it back later in the afternoon and launched it again. I don’t know the outcome of the launch.
For fun these days when I wasn’t doing research, the other interns (who were mostly graduate students) and I would go do many activities. The first few days we didn’t do anything, but the next day we went on a hike up to Zapata Falls. Zapata is on the way up to Blanca Peak which is one of the many peaks that are over fourteen thousand feet. We went as high as 9,800 feet on this hike. The next day we went to an alligator farm which had much more than alligators. The alligator farm had turtles, emus and they even had a tilapia farm. Also there was an alligator which had been starred in many movies. The next day our final activity was sand boarding. We went to the great sand dunes where we rented sand boards and hiked up the dunes so we could go down them. It was very similar to snowboarding, but it was very hot instead of very cold.
Finally, the last day I was there was where I woke up very early in the morning (3 am) in order to get to our site which was in the middle of a valley. We would measure the cold air drainage that happens early in the morning that runs through the valley. We would take a big hexacopter and do 3-4 transects across the valley to see what the winds were. The winds were somewhat significant considering that we could feel a little bit of it on the ground.
Overall, this internship I had was incredible for the past five weeks. I have had many experiences I would have never been able to do if I wasn’t able to come to Oklahoma and help the people at the Unmanned Systems research Institute. I want to thank Pinhead and its supporters for giving me a once in a lifetime experience being able to fly and make UAV’s at Oklahoma State University.
The Alligator Farm in Alamosa, Colorado
This was the drone that I was flying and doing transects with across the valley.
A hike that I took with the other graduate students
These were the sites that we were at. They were mostly in the middle of nowhere.
Awesome Simon!!!