Author: galmgren

This is the last week of the program. It is very sad for this program to be coming to an end. Once the program finishes on Friday, I will be going straight home so that I can be at SLU by Saturday to start RA training on Monday. It is a lot and I hope that I will be ready.

This past week has been filled with so much fun. For starters, both Shae and Eli celebrated their 20^th birthdays. Shae’s was on Thursday, so we all went to work, went home, and then went to Inis Grove Park to eat and have fun. Hands down, this park is one of the best parks that I have ever seen. As a kid, I would have LOVED this park. The playground equipment was super fun and innovative. There was lots of space to play, and it was a great playground to play Sandman/Woodchips/Lava Monster (these names are all the same game. Depending on where you grew up, people call them different names). We played soccer, frisbee, and Sandman as a group. It such a great time and the perfect way to celebrate Shae’s birthday.

Then, on Saturday, Shae, Eli, Emma, and I went to Adventure Land. This excursion has been in the works since June, and it was soo much fun! Turns out that all four of us have the same roller coaster tolerance, which is to say, not very much. We went on a few roller coasters and then went to the water park area. We spent a lot of time over there on the water rides. Some of the highlights of the park were the big water drop slide, the Typhoon, and the Pheonix. It was soooo much fun! After that, we came back and went to Macubana as a full group to celebrate Eli’s birthday. We then went back to the apartments, surprised Eli with a cake and gift, and hung out until very late. It was such a great day overall. There was a lot of joy and fun.

Last week, one of our Luncheon lectures was given by Dr. Lefferts from New Zealand. He came in with this really thick New Zealand accent, which made Meriem very excited. His research is on the Cardiovascular System. During his presentation, he gave us a run down of some of the basic concepts from his research as well as his journey to where he is today. He started off by listing some of his interests: detail-oriented tasks, mountains, and comedy. Then, he showed us his entirely non-linear journey showing that it is perfectly normal to feel like your own journey is not linear. He then encouraged us to follow our interests in whatever we pursue. He explained how he follows his interests in his life now. To fulfill his love for detail-oriented tasks, he will build model planes and drones. To fulfill his love for mountains, he did some research on the base camp of Mount Everest. To fulfill his love of comedy, he tells jokes during lectures or convinces an entire room of people that he is from New Zealand. Suddenly, his accent melts away and he is speaking in an American accent. WHAT?!?! I did not even hear the next few sentences because I was just processing what occurred. Dr. Lefferts went through the entire presentation speaking in a New Zealand accent. Honestly, highly impressive. Anyhow, I was SUPER interested in his research. It was honestly really cool. I think that the heart is super amazing (if that wasn’t already clear from my 3D printing project haha).

So, I emailed him to see if I could meet with him to see his lab. Fast forward to today! Eli and I went to his lab to play with some of the toys and see the lab. We used three different machines to look at data from my heart arteries and veins. We started with the ultrasound. With the ultrasound, we saw my carotid artery and jugular vein and got to play with making them vasodilate. Then, we played with the arteries in my arms by restricting blood flow to my hand and then letting it go. My artery vasodilated and worked so hard to restore blood flow to my hand. The ultrasound showed how much blood flowed through my artery at once, and it was sooo much! It was crazy. Then, the coolest part was that we got to see my heart!!! I got to see my left atrium, left ventricle, start of the aorta, and the valves inside (including the chordae tendineae!! Sooooo cool!!!). How many people can say that they have seen their heart as it pumping?? Amazing!! On a different machine, we used a pressure sensor to look at the different pressures in different arteries in my arm and neck. On the third machine, we looked at the different arteries that lead up into my brain. We identified them by doing a jugular wiggle to see if application of pressure changed the artery and having me close my eyes and see if the blood velocity decreased. This allowed us to differentiate between the two arteries. Overall, this was one of the coolest things I have seen. I really want to do something similar to this for my own research when I go to get a Master’s degree. So fun!!

I love Sundays. They are my reset day. I get to catch up or get ahead, clean everything, and relax. This was the first Sunday here that I truly felt this satisfaction. I spent about 3 hours on Sunday cleaning. The floors, kitchen, and dishes are clean, and my laundry is done. I feel so refreshed. Sundays are the perfect day to set you up for a happy and successful week.

My favorite part of the cooperative gaming group is that they give the rest of us an excuse to play fun cooperative games together! A few nights ago, we played the game Overcooked 2 together. The premise is to work as a team to fulfill restaurant orders. It was so much fun to play! Thomas, Emma, and I played the game together for a while and we did very well. There were many levels where it started as chaos and yelling, but by the end, we were a well oiled team-machine😊

Last week, we had our Ethics class with Robert and it was soooo much fun! We had some amazing conversations as a group about social media and Elizabeth Holmes. Elizabeth Holmes just disappointed me so much. An advancement in the way that we do blood tests is something that is necessary. However, she completely screwed it up. The intense amount of secrecy and fear within her company allowed so many mistakes and ethical screw ups to occur. Plus, when people told her that the device could not be created and asked for more space or fewer operations, she said no and fired them! Now, the next person to come up with ideas that might actually work will be afraid to do something about it. It is not good at all.  

Last week, we had this event called “Etiquette Lunch” on the calendar. Going into it, we were all like “What is this? What will this entail?” Turns out, it was exactly what it sounded like. It was a super fancy lunch where we learned the manners and etiquette of eating in the United States. This lunch was very stressful because I had to concentrate super hard on eating. Use this fork, not this one. Don’t saw at the food. Sit up straight. For me the hardest part was cutting my food. I got the vegetarian dish where they stacked grilled vegetables on top of one another. So, while others with meat could neatly cut their food, my vegetables made a run for it whenever I brought a knife near them. I would have to collect them back into the neat stack and eat a piece of the top, then the middle, then the bottom. It was rather stressful. Now when we go to Friley’s for lunch, all I can think about is proper eating etiquette.

On Saturday, the group went to Des Moines for a day adventure. We started our adventure at the Farmer’s market. I got some authentic Iowan corn from the market to cook for the group (they all enjoyed it!). Then, we headed to do an escape room. We split the group in two. My group was Eli, Thomas, Charles, Emma, and I. We went into the Casino room. Naturally, the room was themed as a casino with a lot of the puzzles being related to different gambling games. Our group worked really well together and were able to break out in 52:20! Go team!! After that, we went to the mall in Des Moines to explore. I was able to achieve my goal of getting a dress for my cousin’s wedding in October. After that, we drove to Ankeny for dinner at Olive Garden. We then headed home. When I got home, I crashed at 6:30pm and slept for a total of 12 hours (with some breaks in between).

This week was Meriem’s birthday. Birthdays are so much fun because everyone is happy and having fun on someone’s birthday. Everyone makes time to spend time with one another and have fun. To celebrate, we all went out to dinner (including Mattan, Jack, and Dante!) and then came home and played sand volleyball. Meriem said that she had an awesome day, which makes me so happy. I love birthdays!

On Monday, we had our MCA presentations. It was nerve racking giving the presentation, but also exciting to share with everyone what I have been working on for the past weeks. Here is the rundown of my project:

The goal of my project was to make a model of an organ from CT scan data and then use augmented reality to help the user understand what they are looking at. The organ I chose was the heart because in my physiology classes, I loved learning about the heart. Plus, it would be the most interesting organ to augment because there are so many components of the heart.

I then looked up free CT data online, and I found a CT scan of the thoracic cavity. I then imported this data into 3D Slicer. This program allowed me to view all the data and edit it. I ended up using the thresholding tool to isolate the heart. From there, I brought the heart model into blender to clean it up. I enlarged arteries that would be too small to print, closed up random holes, and smoothed down random spikes. From there, I exported the model as an STL file and started to print it.

The first challenge in printing the heart was trying to find the best orientation. It was clear that the heart would need to lay flat instead of being upright; however, choosing which part of the heart would face the bed became a challenge. From an anatomy perspective, it would be better to have the front of the heart facing upward. This is because whatever is printed facing up will look the best in the final result. However, from an additive manufacturing perspective, it is better to have the front of the heart face the platform. We started off by testing the printing of the heart at 50% scale using the anatomical orientation. The print did not start off too well. The nozzle kept catching the supports as it passed over them, knocking them out of place. To fix this, we added a raft at the bottom helping to keep the supports in place as we printed. The result was very successful and useful in testing the augmented reality portion of my project. We then printed the full-size heart in the additive manufacturing orientation. We tried to start it without the raft, but that did not yield the best results. So, we added the raft again and printed the 100% size heart. The print took a long time, but I am SUPER happy with how it turned out!

While I was waiting on the prints, I worked on my augmented model. I added buttons that when clicked show you text about the different parts of the heart. Jack then helped me transfer this augmented model from Unity onto an app on my phone, and it works so well!! The camera tracks the features of the heart really well and looks really cool. I am super happy with how my heart turned out!

As a fun side note, while I was working on this project, we had a plethora of heart puns made that include, but were not limited to “I wear my heart on my sleeve,” “at least your heart is in the right place,” ‘Where’s your heart?’ ‘Right here (pointing at chest instead of the model of the heart.’” Lots of laughs and sighs were shared in the making of this heart.

This past week has been very busy but also a lot of fun. In VRAC, the main thing that I have been working on is my heart. Not my actual heart, but my model of a heart. I spent a lot of time last week creating a clean model of a heart from CT data. I then exported it as an STL file and cleaned it up in Blender so that it could be 3D printed. It is going to take a long time to print, so the plan is to start the print tomorrow and watch it as it runs all day. In the meantime, I am uploading my model into Vuforia and Unity to start to augment it. What I have learned through this process is that YouTube is VERY helpful. You can figure out just about anything by watching lots and lots of videos.

On Thursday after work, Kat, David, Eli, Emma, and I went to the Ames Aquatic Center. This was such a fun pool to go to! They had a high dive, a diving board, three slides, a lazy river, swimming lanes, and a swimming area. In the two hours that we were there, we explored all of it and had so much fun! I definitely want to go back sometime!

On Sunday, Eli’s family was very kind to invite us over for a cookout before we went to watch the Ames fireworks. They made burgers (and veggie burgers) and had a variety of chips and vegetables. We also got to meet his family and friends. It was a lot of fun to get to hang out and eat good food! We also went to the nearest corn field and took some pictures in the corn. This photo shoot just makes it more necessary for everyone to watch Field of Dreams. I won’t give up on getting people to watch it!!

We went to see the Ames fireworks on Sunday night! Fireworks are so much fun to watch. I enjoy this Fourth of July tradition. As a random fact, when I was in Spain, my friends and I planned a spur of the moment trip to a city called Valencia. When we arrived, we discovered that we had just so happened to have planned our trip during the biggest festival of the year: Las Fallas. Every day for over a week straight, they shoot off fireworks in the city center at 2:00pm. We did not know this and got caught in the giant crowd watching the fireworks during this time. It was a big adventure.

I don’t know if anyone who is reading this is lactose-intolerant, but if you are, I am sure that you can sympathize. Last week, my stomach decided to protest against every meal. So, my response was to go on a dairy cleanse for this week. Even when I found out that I was lactose-intolerant, I had never given up dairy entirely simply because it was too hard. What I have learned about 4 days into this cleanse is that all good food has dairy☹ No ice cream. No cheese. No chocolate. No buttered popcorn. It is a sad world. On the bright side, my stomach doesn’t hurt!

The best way to use old bananas is to make banana bread. Banana bread is absolutely delicious, and Emma is awesome at making it! We made some last night, and she made some Sunday before the fireworks display. It was literally so amazing!! (and also made of butter, but it was cooked in the oven so it doesn’t count)

As a group, we have been watching a show called “The Good Place.” It is on Netflix and is SOOO GOOD!!! I watched it in March of 2020 and basically binged it while I worked on puzzles (I wonder what was going on during that time that allowed me so much time…). Farhan and Emma have not seen it before, and we have Emma hooked! We are still working on getting Farhan hooked. We just have to wait until the last episode of the first season, and everyone will be into it. It is very fun to get together to watch these shows.

Phew! That was a lot! Until next time!!

Miranda, my friend from junior high and high school, came to visit this weekend! It was so fun getting to see her and spend time with her. On Friday, we went out to dinner with the other interns at El Azteca. They had some really great food there. I would definitely want to go back. Also, they had an entire SECTION on the menu for vegetarians!! It was amazing! I knew exactly what I could eat, and I did not have to hunt and peck around the whole menu to find my options (cough cough every restaurant ever). I think that every restaurant should have something like this! Anyhow, after that, we all went to the apartment to play games and hang out.

The next morning, Miranda and I woke up to make scrambled eggs for breakfast. My scrambled eggs recipe comes from Masterchef, which is a show that my family used to watch all the time. One episode, Gordon Ramsey had the contestants make Gordon Ramsey styled scrambled eggs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUP7U5vTMM0). We decided to try it at home, and we have not been able to go back since. They are the BEST scrambled eggs you will ever eat. Anyhow, that is what we made for breakfast. Then, we went to the Farmer’s market and just hung out. After that, we went on a walk together before she had to head back home. It was so much fun getting to see her and spend time with her!

Also, I forgot to talk about in my last blog about our lunch last Thursday. Sarah made us breakfast for lunch. She homecooked pancakes and sausage, made a yogurt bar, and gave us a ton of fresh fruit. It was literally the best lunch we have had so far! Sarah told us that during high school and college she had her own catering business, so this was something that she loved to do. I was amazed! The food was so good, and Sarah was so kind to make such an amazing lunch for us!

Saturday night, we played some basketball and then watched the movie “The Imitation Game.” The Imitation Game is a really well-done movie.. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch and is about the Turing machine. I would highly recommend watching it!

Sunday, we played sand volleyball as a group. I am not very good at volleyball, but I still had a good time. After that, I went on a drive with Meriem to learn how to parallel park. For context, I do not live in a place where parallel parking is necessary. So, I learned how to do it well enough for my driving test and have not used that skill since. However, I am now bringing my car to my University (which is in a city), so I need to get better at it. It is lowkey terrifying, but after more and more practice, we will get there.

Also, if you have not looked at the news or social media or anywhere lately, check it out. Some big stuff has been going down this past week. Until next time!

This Wednesday, Farhan and I went to the Rec to workout and dance (respectively). I went to the multipurpose room and started dancing. About halfway through, a girl walked in and asked if she could stretch in the corner. She then asked if I was from Saint Louis (as I was wearing a shirt from my University) and made a comment that she did not go to Iowa State but was actually an REU student. OH MY GOSH!! I knew that there other REUs here over the summer, but I had yet to find anyone who was in one. It was literally soooo exciting!! After dancing and stretching, she introduced me to the other two members of her REU, and I introduced her to Farhan. Their names are Kat, Eden, and David. The five of us just stood in the gym talking for like 20 minutes. It was so exciting! We exchanged numbers and have been hanging out with them a lot!

This Thursday, our activity was going to a picnic put on by the international program and English department (I think). Kat, Eden, and David joined us all. During the picnic, they had a picture scavenger hunt game. So, the other REU students and about half of our REU took part in the activity. We now have a ton of pictures from the scavenger hunt – it was very fun! Please enjoy them all below!!:)

On Wednesday afternoon, Alex, Adam, and Jack gave presentations for the three deeper dive topics: 3D printing, Machine Learning, and XR respectively. After some deliberating, they assigned us our groups, and I am in the 3D printing group!! We had our first class on Friday morning, and I am super excited! I am an engineering major, and I have very little 3D printing experience. In order to be competitive in my field, it is extremely important to be at least proficient in 3D printing. Plus, 3D printing is just a lot of fun! There is so much that you can do with it. I cannot wait to learn more and be able to 3D print things!

My friend is coming today to visit because she has a virtual internship that is based in Des Moines. This week, she went into the office, and she is coming to visit me before heading back home. I am super excited to get to see her and spend time with her. I met her on the first day of Junior High and we have basically been inseparable ever since. Can’t wait to spend the evening with her!

On Thursday, Anasilvia took our project group out to downtown Ames. We wandered around, went into the library, went into a game store, and had gelato at Stam. I learned that the library has language exchanges on Tuesdays at 7:00pm. I definitely want to go to at least one before we leave so that I can practice my Spanish more:) The game store that we went into also had the cutest cat ever!! It made me miss my own cats at home. Anasilvia also got the game codenames, which we played together. It was very fun!

Pictures from the scavenger hunt!

Emma and I are very similar. Consistently, people have come up to me and said that for the first week (or longer) they could not keep us straight! Aside from just looks, we have a similar personality and routine. On Tuesday morning, I was struggling to wake up, so I texted Emma to please come get me by 7:45 if I had not yet made an appearance. When I finally got out of bed, Emma told me that had I not texted her, she would have also fallen back asleep! We both have hard-to-get-up days at the same time. I guess Alli will just have to make sure we are both up and ready to go haha!

              This week, our classes were on Unity. By following an online tutorial, I made a game! Basically, you control a rolling ball on a platform to collect some objects. It seems very simple, but trying to write all of the scripts for the actions was very challenging to understand. I need to spend more time writing scripts before I even come close to getting it. Still, it was really satisfying to have created something using this program!

              We went to trivia again on Monday and stayed for the games at 7 and 8. We were so close to winning the first game! We lost on the final question Then, we played again at 8:00 and won! Go Interns!

              Tuesday evening, our extracurricular activity was game night! Firstly, it is very hard to find any game that 10 people can play. In theory we could play spoons, but that could easily end up in catastrophe. Eventually we decided to play Uno. So, we played two rounds of Uno (Lale won the first game and Charles won the second game). It was very chaotic and loud but still lots of fun. As a random thought, for someone who speaks Spanish, the game Uno is like saying “One.” “Anyone want to play One?” Very strange.

              The rec class that I tried this week was Barre. Basically, you use a ballet bar to assist with the exercises that you do. In the class, we worked upper body, lower body, and core. It was a great workout, even though I am still feeling it!

This weekend was Father’s Day weekend, so I got to go home to see my family and friends! It was so refreshing to go home and see them. I love being with my family! We spent lots of time together talking, playing games, and cooking food. The family games we played were Chameleon, Taboo, and Five Crowns. I won at Taboo and my youngest brother won in Five Crowns. With my brothers, I played Lego Rock Band and Super Mario Bros.

For dinner on Saturday, we went to this thing called the Food Truck Fight. Basically, it was a giant event in which a ton of food trucks gathered to the downtown area. There was a competition for the best food truck as well as live music and a bouncy house. The environment was great, but I wish that there were more vegetarian food options.

Driving home was also the first time that I have ever driven that far by myself. I had never done a three hour drive on my own. Honestly, it wasn’t too bad. I found that listening to music, listening to podcasts/audio books, and talking with friends are the best ways to entertain yourself while driving. (Also, shoutout to Eli for a great song recommendation that led to fantastic song recommendations by Spotify)

This week, we are starting our course on Unity. So far, I think that I like Unity better than Blender. To me, it feels more intuitive than Blender, which is nice. We will see how the rest of this week goes. Hasta luego!

On Thursday, we had a luncheon lecture with Dr. Claussen. Dr. Claussen does research in sensors. He explained to us the different sensors that he makes to measure ion content in sweat or nutrient content in agriculture fields. I really enjoyed his lecture because his research falls into the area that I am most interested in: the intersection of biology and technology. Basically anything that involves using technology to understand/improve biology, I get very excited for. I hope to hear about more professors who do this type of research while I am here.

I am learning a lot about rock climbing. I have been climbing around 1-2 times a week, and I have met a lot of really amazing people. I had been working on this pink route the past week or so that requires a lot of challenging reaches, and on Wednesday, I finally made it to the top. Woohoo! I did not do the route clean (going up in one shot without letting go of the wall or relying on the help of the belay), so that is my next goal! On the topic of the gym, our activity on Thursday was going to the Pilates class. I had never done Pilates before, and it was actually a lot of fun! It works your core, legs, and arms all in one! I enjoyed it a lot (even though the core workout was painful). I hope to do it again soon!

So far, we have learned three different programs: C++, Solidworks, and now Blender. Of all of these, Solidworks is my favorite. My engineering brain is so happy when working on Solidworks. Blender is currently causing me some challenges. It is not intuitive at all, and it is very frustrating to try and build certain objects. I am working on making a garden (not a pumpkin patch haha) and a tree house. It looks pretty okay right now, but it is very frustrating to build. Hopefully it will get easier by this afternoon.

So, we had a very important question that needed to be answered. Just about every day for lunch we go to Friley Windows, a dining hall on campus. However, we needed to know what its nickname is. As the Virtual Reality Application Center is VRAC, what do we call Friley Windows? Friley’s? Windows? FW? After consulting with my friend who goes to Iowa State, we learned that its nickname is Windows. I guess that is what we will have to call it now.

This weekend, we watched the movie Top Gun as a group. It was the first time that I had ever seen that movie. Overall, it was pretty good. The stand out moments were the fighter jet scenes, which were incredibly impressive given that the movie was made in 1986. At some point in time, we are going to have to watch the Top Gun Maverick movie. The trailer of the movie looks promising and my friends from home enjoyed it, so it hopefully should be pretty good!

On Friday, VRAC was ridiculously cold, and the weather was ridiculously hot! Throughout the day, the doors to the outside were clouded with condensation. There were even small wet spots under the door from where the water droplets had fallen off the door. I really hope that we can turn up the heat in VRAC! However, this is just the beginning of Iowa weather. It is going to be hot and humid all summer with lots of storms mixed in. Just last night, we had a giant thunderstorm go by. At around midnight, a window-rattling thunderclap happened just over us. From living in Iowa for 8 years, I am no longer phased by these storms; I can just sleep right through them.  

This week, we learned Solidworks. Solidworks has gone infinitely better than C++. This program felt very intuitive for me, and it was very fun to make 3-D objects from drawings. This program was very satisfying to the engineering side of my brain. I hope to be able to use these models to 3D print things later. That would be so much fun! This class reminded me of my prototyping class from the fall semester of this past year. In this class, we were given renderings of different parts and then had to use end mills and lathes to make the parts. It was a very fun class because I got to learn how to operate these giant machines, and I made some pretty cool gadgets out of metal!

I biked to VRAC for the first time on Tuesday. It was also incredibly hot outside, but I enjoyed biking. The ride is very peaceful and easy. Plus, it was a great way to wake up in the morning. I am definitely going to ride to VRAC more often.

One of the most exciting parts of this week was getting to work on our research. A group of high schoolers came to Iowa State to engage in workshops and help us with our research. We planned some activities for them and were able to get to know them. From this experience, we got to learn about their high school experience and learn what their hopes are for their future. It was incredibly powerful to listen to them and hear their stories. I feel so lucky to be on this project and to have gotten to meet these incredible kids. I am excited for what our research will bring in the future!