I can’t believe I’m already halfway done with my internship. This week was short for me. I ended up only working on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On Monday and Tuesday, the Bureau of Reclamation was hosting a young professionals event at the federal center. All of the professionals work in the field of hydraulics. There were about 30 professionals and each one gave a fifteen-minute presentation. One of them was my mentor which was really interesting to watch. I’ve been able to observe most of the testing he’s been doing over the last couple of weeks, which made his presentation more interesting to me. The testing he was doing was on an emergency shut off gate that could be used on dams. The reason behind this testing is because when a dam needs to stop the flow of water leaving they can’t do it fast because gates usually break under that much pressure. Therefore if you find a way that would work to shut off water flow it would be beneficial in dams. Another presentation that I really found interesting was a graduate student that was working with a Ph.D. on how to harness wave energy. They showed all the different ways they have been able to harness the kinetic energy in the waves of water and convert it into mechanical energy that could be used. That presentation was so interesting because it is such a relevant and important issue in the world right now. The energy that could be harnessed is very green energy and there is no shortage of waves in the ocean meaning there won’t be a shortage of energy.
Another thing that I got to do on Tuesday was after the presentations finished, all the professionals went into the lab to do a paper boat race on one of the models. One of the other interns and I spent all of that day between presentations trying to build the best paper boats. In the end, it was worth it because our boat was one of the last ones floating.
Wednesday was a really interesting day. All of the interns took a field trip to the Green Mountain Dam which is north of Silverthorne and about an hour and a half from Denver.
The dam was built in 1938 and is one of the best-built earth dams in the nation.
The dam was also connected to a power plant that could produce quite a bit of electricity. Depending on the flow coming from the reservoir the electricity generated was different and the maximum amount it can generate is 13 gigawatts. The dam and the power plant were super interesting to look at. Of course, I didn’t understand all of it, but it really showed how hydraulic engineering is such an important field. Water is never going to disappear, therefore there will always be jobs in hydraulics.
Thursday and Friday I had off because all of my coworkers and mentor left to do field testing and did not have enough room to take me. I spent those two days exploring downtown Golden and doing some stuff with friends. I went golfing with one of the other interns I work with. I also had the chance to explore the Colorado School of Mines campus which is really nice. This weekend I went to a family reunion with my grandparents and went swimming and hiking with my host family.
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