I am working at DeepSea Power & Light and my current assignment is to automate the testing facilities for their beam testing. It is an incredible learning experience that I wouldn't be able to get any other way. I am forced to put myself in a new environment and learn how to program a micro controller for example. Currently I am working with an Arduino and programming it in C. Since I already know C. The main challenge here is the hardware and interfacing it easily. It is a challenge but that's what makes it worth it. I hope to get this done within the next couple of weeks and move on to another project they are talking about to automate their climate control in the building. I'm having a blast and learning so much at the same time. Thank you!

Andy Keller

This experience was great (SIO & Hubbs). The people were nice and fun to talk to. The knowledge I've gained will help me reach my goals in life. It was also nice to learn new programs on the computer and get in touch with technology. Having to deal with programs when they are being temperamental is a valuable experience also, since something also seems to go wrong at some point or another.

When I first began, I helped digitize tapes of penguin calls from the 1980s. After I did that I began extracting adult calls from the tapes to get data on emperor penguin calls. Then I went into the penguin exhibit at Sea World to get calls from the emperor penguins there. It was then that I made a discovery regarding a mated pair of two male penguins. One of the penguin's calls had a female-like aspect to it. Female emperor penguins call with short pulses, and males call with longer pulses, but this male penguin had short pulses within his long pulses. After I made this discovery I continued collecting calls from this particular pair, and the pattern has repeated itself with the calls I gathered. I then collected data on the calls and have been building my presentation around this phenomenon.

This was a fun experience. It doesn't always seem like work because you don't do the same thing all the time and funny things happen, like getting bit by a penguin. Also, being able to interact with the animals is really fun and interesting and it's a priceless memory. Not many people can say that they got to get up close and personal with a bunch of penguins.

I would like to thank you and everyone else involved at MTS for giving me this opportunity. I'm glad I could be a part of your summer internship program.

Kody Seger

First of all, I would like to thank you and MTS for giving me this wonderful opportunity of being an intern for Sontek/ YSI. I am really glad I took this opportunity because I am having a great time working with everyone here and I have learned so much this past three weeks. Being in this internship really introduced me to the working environment and I am more knowledgeable about the specific career path I will choose.

So far here at Sontek, my first mentor, who is a software engineer, assigned me a project where I had to create a computer program that would help towards calibrating the pressure sensors within each instrument. The current program that the test engineers are using was written years ago and it contained several errors. So before I started on creating this program, I had to learn how to use Labview, the platform programming environment used by my mentor. After learning how to use Labview, I began thinking of the best way to approach this project. I decided that I had to observe how the current manual pressure calibration works and do it myself. After learning how everything worked I began creating my program. Currently, I am on the final stages of testing my program and fixing any bugs. Afterward, I will be working with another mentor who is an electrical engineer and we will create the physical instrument that will do all the manual pressure calibration in automation. Our overall goal is to create a device that will calibrate the pressure sensors automatically with the use of computer software logic and mechanical control. This will create a more efficient and accurate way to calibrate and hopefully it will improve the time it takes to get our products to consumers.

Lastly, thank you very much for this opportunity because with this opportunity I was able to understand my specific career path more in depth and I was able to learn so much in such a small amount of time. I will always remember this summer as one of the most enjoyable summers of my life.

John Oliver Mendoza

Everything at Fugro-Pelagos is going very well. I do different kinds of work for three different people, and I mainly work on the computer, both in the data center and at my desk. The people at Fugro were very welcoming and many of them approached me within my first few days at work. The work hours are comfortable and flexible, and the company even has barbeques and catered food every few weeks. This internship has been a wonderful opportunity.

I have recently finished a training program for ArcGIS, which is a widely used application here at Fugro-Pelagos. I have used ArcMap to update worldwide water clarity images from the past few years, and I have also worked on an ongoing project for mapping the coastline of Barbados. I have used other ArcGIS applications to identify the missing data areas of an undersea project for the Red Sea. I spent some time researching the development of coastline maps with the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, which has designated certain protection zones along California's coast. Working at Fugro-Pelagos has been a great learning experience and has given me the opportunity to explore my interests in marine science.

Ana Mohammad-Zadeh

I am amazed by how excellently my summer is going here at SeekTech. My job entails testing the accuracy of a new product that is nearly ready for marketing. I am learning much about electrical and mechanical engineering as well as the corporate world.

My managers are very kind and intelligent; they enthusiastically share their knowledge with me. I appreciate how the other employees treat me as if I am a colleague. I also enjoy sharing updates on my project at our weekly intern meetings. Just a few weeks of this internship has expanded my horizons and allowed me to expand my goals for my future. I recognize clearly that a company with an atmosphere as conducive to productivity and happy employees as this one is a rare find. I am very blessed to be here.

Olivia Balmert

I've been doing well here at SAIC Marine Operations. My mentor Nate Russo has been very helpful and has given me a wide variety of tasks. My main project for the internship is researching and implementing an internal wiki based site for their inventory system. It's been a challenge to learn everything about MediaWiki, the wiki web software behind Wikipedia. Over the last four weeks I've been challenged and excited when I was able to work through the design requirements for connectivity, security, portability, content, and initial population.

In addition to my main project, I've also been able to get in more hands on work in their brand new operations van. It's setup to be the control center when they're on a job laying fiber optic cable from the back of a boat somewhere in the world. The shipping container is leaving Monday, so for the last two weeks I've been helping tie up loose ends by cleaning, organizing, labeling, routing cables, creating and soldering up new cables, documenting, and all sorts of other hands on tasks. This has helped make my time here a lot more interesting than just sitting at my desk reading webpages and typing.

Overall the internship is going well. Waking up early is a bit hard but it's good to have structure in my summer and I'm glad to be getting valuable experience in a job field that I may consider in the future. Plus, the getting a paycheck to deposit is a pretty cool thing.

Thanks for organizing this great opportunity and for the follow up.

Brendan Mitchell

So far I am really enjoying my internship. I have been at Hubbs Sea World Research for three weeks now and I'm finally starting to figure out the routine. I work with Lisa Goldie who is in charge of monitoring water quantity in the fish tanks. I start my day by taking pH and dissolved oxygen measurements in two different tanks. I then dose the tanks with ammonia and carbonate to balance pH in the tanks. I then start helping Lisa with her daily activities. About every other day we take a more extensive water quality analysis from around 20 tanks. We take measurements of pH, dissolved oxygen, N02, N03, NH3 and salinity. We need to do actual chemistry tests for the dissolved ions. I really enjoyed chemistry in school and seeing it be applied in real life is rewarding. Overall I am really enjoying the internship. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.

Sammy Young

Everything is going great at NOAA. Everyone who works here is very good at what they do and don't mind teaching me new skills. Lately I have been analyzing videos from an ROV by classifying fish and their habitats. I have also been helping build a new ROV that will hopefully be ready to test by the end of summer.

Hunter Young

I am really enjoying my experience at Scripps. Everyone has been really friendly and helpful. The assignments have been very interesting, also. Part of the time, I have been working at the Tijuana Estuary doing a re-vegetation project. I have also been doing lab work at Scripps identifying microorganisms using a microscope, and have been helping with a sea urchin population study off of Point Loma.

This past weekend, my family went to Catalina Island, and my Dad and I did some scuba diving. I paid particularly close attention to the sea urchin habitat because of my Scripps experience. Thank you again for making this internship possible for me!

Eric Cibit

Everything at my internship is going very well. Everyone at Seektech is very nice and I have been learning a lot and enjoying myself immensely. So far, after learning how to use SolidWorks (a 3D CAD program), I've been working on designing a machine to roll the wire in a preexisting spring, in order to ultimately create a spring with a variable cross section of wire. In doing so, I've been researching materials, learning about manufacturing processes, metalworking, and machining, and designing models for a prototype on the computer. Within the next couple days, I'll start actually building the device, after which I'll be able to test it and see if it works.

Griffin Nosenzo

I have started my 4th week of internship at Sidus Solutions and I am enjoying it very much. The company builds underwater lighting and camera systems for various applications, such as oilrigs. I have been involved in a variety of activities. I have helped assemble and test many of their products. It is very interesting to see how much planning goes into creating a finished product. I spent a few days organizing parts and doing inventory. I also helped to prepare a display that Sidus will be sending to Brazil for a trade show. All of my co-workers are friendly and are willing to help explain things to me. I have learned a lot over the past few weeks. This internship has given me valuable insight into different career options that I will consider. It is hard to believe that it has already been a month. Working full time is more of a challenge than I thought, but it is a valuable real-world experience. I am grateful for this opportunity, and will use the knowledge I am learning in the years to come.

Philip Weber

I am so thankful for this opportunity I am currently working in Teledyne Impulse, and learning about how connectors are made and the stages that they go through. It is very interesting to be around engineers and professionals. It is a challenge and I like it. At the moment I am learning how to use SolidWorks, a designing program, and it is hard, but it is also one of the coolest technologies I ever seen. I am really enjoying it. Thank you so much for the opportunity :)

Janelle Dueñas

I have been dealing with CTD measuring devices (which measure ocean temperature, depth, and pressure), CDOM (colored dissolved oxygen matter) fluorometers for the oil spill, and the Rinko (measures ocean dissolved oxygen content). Lately and today I have been working on two different documents. These documents are purposefully written for customers who buy the products and my job is to make sure the documents make sense and are understandable to the customers for use and deployment. A lot of my job deals with software engineering. This has made me more accustomed to wires, comports, and baud rates (rates at which the computer reads data from the devices).

Austin Ball

My internship is going great so far (SeaBotix). I really feel a part of the group. I have been working on an excel spreadsheet for the company's inventory. My mission has been to organize all of the parts by type, size, measurement type, and usage. I also worked the booth and flew an ROV with a recording system at the AUVSI competition.

David Whiteside