Sunday, August 7, 2022
By:
This week is THE WEEK! Everything I've been doing all comes together and ends now. Its been an amazing time spending the summer with SPS and all the interns and I would not have it any other way. Thankfully, I didnt really need to prepare as much for the final presentation as everything I would be presenting will be in a YouTube video that I am creating for my YouTube channel and for the Soft Matter Kitchen's. It was simply creating more graphics and preparing the demonstrations for D-Day. I really love giving presentations like this so I was more excited than nervous the whole time. I couldnt wait to show everyone what I've been working on as well as to splash everyone with cornstarch. Sadly, the demonstration didnt go as planned, I added too much water to the cornstarch and it created the other experiment and not the Oobleck I wanted, but when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. So what I did was replace my initial demo with the one I had made, though I couldnt splash the others with cornstarch because they were too far and I didnt want to get everyone dirty.
For those reading this blog first, I presented on the rheological features of Maja Blanca, a filipino coconut pudding, and how it can be compared to a non-newtonian fluid called Oobleck, which is a water-cornstarch mixture. It was a great time researching on a food that I could use to represent my culture as well as show how cool rheology is! I never expected to love rheology as much as I do now, a possible career switch? Maybe. Let's see.
I didnt have an acknowledgment slide during my presentation so I want to take this chance to do so. Firstly, I would like to thank my mentor Arif Nelson for being a great mentor who pushed me to think beyond the box and made sure that I understood everything and never made me feel out of place. It was such a great time working with you even with the time difference and being purely online due to you being in Singapore, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. I hope to continue our work towards the conference in October and our work on the YouTube video. Second, Thank you to the SPS crew: Brad, Mikayla, Kayla, Andrew, Jack, and everyone else! Without you, I quite literally wouldnt have been here. Thank you for being great guides and giving me this opportunity to work with SPS, I cannot tell you enough how much I've been wanting this internship and to be able to finally participate in it is a dream come true! Third, to the other interns YALL ARE AMAZING PEOPLE! I will never forget everyone I met during this internship, never did I think I would make life-long friends in an internship. Even though I wont be in PhysCon this year, I hope to see everyone again soon! This wont and shouldnt be our final time seeing each other, and I'll make sure of that. And lastly, to my parents, without them I wouldnt have been able to come here to the US and take up this opportunity. They were the ones who pushed me when I was down and are my inspiration.
That's enough "senty moments" (Sentimental moments) as we say in the Philippines, I hope that with these mix of blogs you get a taste of how fun and how amazing this internship is! To the future rheology intern: no matter who you are, show who and what you are in this research!
This is your Filipino Rheology Chef of Summer 2022 signing off, I hope you had a great time reading my blogs and I hope you learn as much as I did during this summer!
Sa huli ulit, kikita tayo SPS! (We will see each other in the end again, SPS!)
P.S. Shameless plug, but if you want to see the video I made during this internship and any other physics videos I made, You can check out my YouTube channel: The Avendano Effect!
Justin Andre Avendaño