Week 10

This week was a quiet end to my internship. I continued my scouring through the AVIRIS database, looking for photos that have contrails in them. This week I’ve also started looking at the NG (next generation) AVIRIS database, however, it has not been as fruitful as the classic database. I’ve also continued to collect data for the contrail catcher project as the more data points the better. As my internship is coming to an end I started to reflect on my past few months and what I’ve achieved. This has definitely been a rewarding and enlightening experience for me; I’ve gotten a decent grasp of how research works in college and have learned a great deal about aircraft contrails. One thing that surprised me however was how repetitive research can be. Over the last few weeks pretty much most of my days were the same. Personally, I was expecting more variation in my activities but now I know the importance that data gathering and repetitive tasks have. The more data points you have the less your error will be and considering that the project I assisted on is to most likely be published at some point, having a low percent error is actually very important. One thing that I’ve also noted is that seeking help is a great tool. Earlier in my internship, I had struggled to find a good model for relative humidity, however, after asking Dr. Sherry he immediately provided me with one that I could easily use with the data that I had collected. Reaching out to people is definitely one of the best things that we can do especially if we need help, and I’ve come to appreciate the importance of communication with others. I will be continuing on for another 2 weeks with CATSR to finish up my remaining projects and will continue to collect more data for them. I definitely enjoyed my time over the last few months and I am now definitely ready to tackle college. Good Bye!