Hi, my name is Vivian Trommer, and I am interning at Colorado School of Mines. I am working with Professor Petruska, two of his PhD students, and a master’s student this summer. We are working on making a self-driving, electric race car using an RC car (the LOSI Super Baja Rey 2.0). I am staying with my half sister, Shawnee, and her husband, Drew, in Lakewood, Denver.
This week was the perfect week to end my internship! Words can’t describe how grateful I am for this opportunity and all the experiences I have gathered over the course of these five weeks.
At the beginning of this week, I focused on fixing the car because we broke it last week. Somehow, we messed up the throttle of the car, and so when we pressed the button on the controller, the wheels would not spin. The ESC was also flashing a red light. I did lots of research into this and did not find a whole lot of resources. I suspected the issue was within the ESC and that we should just buy a new one. Professor Petruska then recommended that, before we buy anything, I should email Professor Brodsky, whom we got the car from, and ask her for help.
When I asked her, she recommended rebinding the controller to the car far away from other frequencies that may be disrupting the binding process. Professor Petruska then said I should take the car into the elevator because it is a Faraday cage, which is a place that blocks electromagnetic fields from entering or exiting. I did it and it did not work. But then, I did a factory reset on the ESC and took it to the elevator, and then the red light stopped flashing, but the throttle would still not work.
I then asked Mabel for some help, and we messed around with the throttle pins and plugged them into a different part of the receiver, and it worked! We were both very happy and very thankful that we did not need to spend $300 on a new part.
Then, Mabel and I did some research into how to measure PWM signals from the car and how to put that input into the Raspberry Pi. We found that we need to figure out if the waves are PWM or PWM Servo. Servo waves measure the width of the waves while PWM measures the duty cycle. We ended up deciding the waves were PWM Servo, and Mabel got to work writing code to get the input and output into the Pi. I was also looking at what GPIOs we can use on the Pi to get the PWM wave input and output.
One of the most fun and interesting things I did this week was working with Ava Segal, who once worked in the M3 lab, but she has since graduated with her PhD, the founder of Steadi Systems. She has designed a fun way to help people regain their balance. She has you stand on a wobble board that you have to balance on, and it is then wirelessly connected to a robot. If you lean forward, the robot moves forward. If you lean right, the robot turns right, and so on.
I was able to try out her balancing robot and do some experiments with it. I tried to lead the robot, named Roxy, through a small obstacle course. I also tried to stay as still as possible on the balancing board for 30 seconds, and from this, Ava could collect data and see that I balance farther back in my heels. This exercise can show if people favor one leg over the other, if they lean too far forward, or if they lean too far backward (like me). PTs can then give people exercises to help them not overstrain their muscles when they are just standing.
A picture of the setup from her website, since I did take one in person.
When I asked her, she said her final vision for this project is to help people who are balance impaired, specifically older people, to feel more confident in their bodies and balance. Here’s the link to her website, it is truly an amazing project: https://www.steadiplay.com/.
Professor Petruska also brought in some hot sauce he brought back from his trip to South Carolina last week, and had the whole lab try them. It was so spicy that my eyes started watering, and I had to run to the nearby Starbucks to get a glass of milk!
The hot sauces we tried.
On my last day in the lab, I organized my desk and put stuff away, and sanitized everything. I also wrote down where important things were and all my login information for my monitor. I wanted to make sure everything was made easy after I left. I also gave everyone their thank-you cards, which they all appreciated a lot. I made sure to make each one personal, and I even bought the cards from a local artist. I also included a science joke in each one that they all seemed to appreciate a lot.
Eugene, Mabel, and I also went out to lunch together on Friday, which was a lot of fun, and Eugene gave me two glass vases that he had made as an “end of internship” gift, which was very sweet and thoughtful of him.
Also, due to some paperwork delays, I finally got my student key card to be able to get into the lab! It was a bit funny that I only got to use it in my last week, but it was still cool to have it.
Outside of work this week, I didn’t do very much. I went out to dinner twice, once to a hot wing place called Fire on the Mountain and then to a brewery called Odell’s, where I got some of the best pizza ever.
Overall, I cannot even begin to describe how much this internship has meant to me. All the information and experiences I have gotten will be remembered for a long time. I am so thankful to Professor Petruska, Eugene, Mabel, Seth, Sarah Holbrooke, M3 Lab, and Pinhead for making this dream come true. Thank you!
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