I have been teaching at Underwood Elementary School for nine years. I wanted this Kenan Fellows position so that I could promote science as a career choice. Children too often see scientists as men in lab coats and microscopes. I want to show them that there are so many different kinds of scientists. That science is the future for our society.
My fellowship is at UL (Underwriters Laboratories). I am excited to bring the idea of safety science back to Underwood Elementary School. They are a safety science company “Dedicated to promoting safe living and working environments, UL helps safeguard people, products and places in important ways, facilitating trade and providing peace of mind.”
So far, I have toured the Personal Floatation Device (PFD) lab, where I watched a people test the life jackets. They check the PFDs for buoyancy, heat, humidity, and cold weather conditions. I have also visited the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) labs. In this lab they tested all textiles associated with fire fighter equipment. I saw them testing the flame resistance of the fabrics with direct fire tests, as well as radiant heat tests of all the materials on a fire fighters clothing. Then they checked the strength of all the materials with a variety of drops and pulls. There are so many standards for the fire fighters personal protective equipment to ensure the safety of our firefighters. It is important that all their PPE be tested to ensure that they don’t melt or cause burns.
I have spent most of my time in the NEBS (Network equipment building systems) this is where things are tested for environmental issues. I have seen a lot of phone equipment, shaken on a vibration table to simulate transportation, the earth quake table, in various thermotron ovens which simulate, UV rays, high heat, high humidity and low temperatures. I have seen packaging sitting in a water sprinkler to simulate heavy rains.
Finally, I have toured the EMC (Electromagnetic compatibility) lab. This is where I have seen them test many products for static electricity, and to be sure that products are in the correct frequency band based on the standards.
I have been able to ask lots of questions and observe lots of tests. It really helps to put into perspective the vast number of things we take for granted. Thanks to industry standards we live in a safe world where our gadgets work like they are suppose to and don’t interfere with other things.
Helping the kids at Underwood see that safety is an important part of the innovation cycle will be one of my primary goals with this internship . You can’t just invent something and begin selling it, you need to read the standard written for that item and make sure your product meets those standards. I hope to create an engineering elective challenge built around this idea of writing a standard and meeting it.
