The intern has an intern!

So today was my shadow with Joanne Maguire. She was really friendly and nice, but I didn't have a lot of time to talk with her because we went to a lot of meetings. That's what you do when you run an entire company.... I felt awkward at times because all the meetings were full of executives and VP's. She also spoke at a forum that was webcasted and I had to follow her out to the stage then go sit in the audience. Everyone was staring at me and they probably were like who the heck is that? Besides that, it was a good experience.....but I don't think I would ever want her job. Seems like it would be impossible to have a life. She has her own corporate jet because she's in several different cities each week!

I now have an intern at work. LOL. He's not actually an intern. Since I'll be done with my internship in about 3 weeks, someone needs to take over where I left off since the test will be taking place in the middle of my departure. My manager found someone who has been working at Lockheed for several years for me to train. So he basically will be following me around and I will be telling him what to do until I leave....just like an intern! As nice as it sounds, it's kind of annoying! So far, I don't know if I like him. He asks a lot of really stupid questions and when I give him things to read and tell him to figure it out, he's makes it sound like I need to SHOW him so he knows rather than figuring it out for himself. I'm only doing it for his benefit because after I leave, he will have no one to help him. I want him to be able to figure some things out by himself, just like I did. I think it's because he resents the fact that he has to report to a measly intern and he thinks that he knows more than I do.....BUT HE DOESN'T!

I have to give a presentation about what I did during the summer next week and I had to write an abstract for the judges to look at. Here it is:

D5LE TVC Test CSCI Hardware/Software Integration

The D5 missile uses Thrust Vector Control (TVC) for pitch/yaw control for each of its 3 stages. As part of the D5 Life Extension (D5LE) program, the electrical component of the TVC Module is being upgraded. The TVC Module sits between the Flight Controls Electronics Assembly (FCEA), which is one of two flight computers on the missile, and the TVC actuators connected to the nozzle. The FCEA receives digital commands from the TVC Module and sends them to the actuators, as well as receive feedback data. An Engineering Confidence test will be performed to ensure that the D5LE TVC module performs the same as the current deployed fleet D5P TVC module.

My task for the summer was to develop the Computer Software Configuration Item (CSCI) based on Software Requirements Specifications (SRS) for the confidence testing of the D5LE TVC module. The CSCI is the software that will be used during the test to send commands to the TVC, perform closed loop algorithms, and gather feedback data for post-test analysis. Because the FCEA is still a couple of years away, a Xilinx FPGA board with the CSCI test software will be used to emulate the FCEA.

I first had to develop a simulation of the CSCI in an all-digital environment similar to the test. The behavior of the CSCI was captured in the simulation, providing an easy means of testing during software development. Upon completion and verification of the working simulation CSCI program, I moved the program from simulation to “real-world” by integrating the program into the Xilinx FPGA board for use during the test. This part involved constant interaction with hardware personnel in order to troubleshoot issues that arose to ensure that the software would work properly with the hardware. Along with developing the CSCI and hardware integration, I also provided support for the software portion of the Testing Procedure documentation.

Should I be nervous?

Next Tuesday, I get to job shadow Joanne Maguire. She is the vice president of Lockheed Martin's Space Systems Company. Basically, she is in charge of our nation's defense, space, and missiles systems. This is HUGE. All the interns picked her, but I got lucky and they chose me to shadow her. What am I going to ask one of the 50 most powerful women???

Yikes!

I am holding a peer review tomorrow at work. It's basically a bunch of software head honchos sitting around at a meeting reviewing/analyzing/criticizing the code that I implemented for the test. I've spent almost the whole week preparing for this review because I was informed on Monday by the person in charge of overseeing the test that I needed to hold a peer review. Then it was a mad scramble to send meeting notices and compile all my code into a package to send to "important" people to review before hand. Why do I need to do this? Because it's a government contracted project and they require all these regulations and procedures. So my manager has been sending various people to prep me for the peer review...LOL. I've been told that it can get brutal, so hopefully they will take into account that I'm an intern. I don't believe that an intern should be holding her own peer review.

So they hold various tours of some of the projects at the Sunnyvale facility for the interns throughout the summer. I mentioned the Advanced Technology Lab in an earlier post. A few weeks ago, I was able to take a tour to see the D5 Trident Missile, which happens to also be the project I'm working on. They had a full-scale mock-up of the missile. Today, I went on a tour of the solar arrays, which are panels powered by the sun that provide power to the majority of the things out in space. Lockheed makes solar arrays for the International Space Station, military and commercial satellites, space telescopes, and whatever other objects we put into space. As cool as it was to see, I don't want to work on the solar arrays. Seems too boring.

^_^

I took the link to my journal off Facebook because too many people I know from work are friending me.

I want some chips and salsa.

Well I have been really lazy about updating this thing. Things are going well.

I have a presentation to do in a couple of weeks, so I am trying to prepare for that at work, as well as working on my project in time for the test.

I spent the Fourth of July at a BBQ with Dave and his girlfriend and a bunch of people. I played bocci ball and saw the biggest dog ever in my life. A couple of fireworks also exploded wrong and almost hit me....and we started a mini fire. LOL.

Today, I spent the day in San Francisco with some of the interns. I was able to see a lot of things, but it was pretty foggy for most of the day, so that kinda sucked. I have to say that out of all the cities I've visited, SF has to be one of the most unique. Maybe I'll expand more on this trip later...

:-(

I swear there's a "Who can do the best job of creeping Truc out" contest that I'm not aware of.

Soooo SORE!

Nothing out of the ordinary has been going on at work. The deadline is next week and I'm getting along, but still a little worried that I might not make the deadline. There's a chance the deadline may be extended by a week because one of the parts that we need for testing may not arrive in time....hopefully this is the case ;)

I had a pretty awesome weekend. On Friday, Dave had a BBQ and busted out the magarator. It was mostly all of our friends at work that came. We ended up watching die hard 2 ....let me just say that one should never watch any sort of movie that involves planes and such with a bunch of aerospace engineers. They will drive you crazy with all the faults in the movie!

On Saturday, I got to go wakeboarding! One of Dave's best friends owns a boat and his family takes it out almost every weekend. So a bunch of us and his friend's family went out to this river that emptys into the Bay. There was 14 of us total on the boat and we all took turns wakeboarding, water sking, and wake surfing. It was about 85 degrees and the water was almost the exact temperature, so it was really nice. Not too hot either because it can get up into the 100s. There were 4 of us that had never wakeboard before and as I watched the other 3 get in the water and fail miserably, I got really worried that I wouldn't be able to do it either. I was thinking that if the 2 guys who were over 6 foot tall and fit couldn't do it, what chance did I? On top of that, people kept making jokes about how small I was and the shoe size on the board was a 13 in mens! I ended doing really well and was able to get myself up and gliding in the water for about 30 seconds each run....and the board did slip off my feet whenever I crashed into the water. Now, this might not be so impressive compared to all the pros that can jump over waves and such, but the other 3 couldn't even get up, let along glide!! So I was told that if I tried it a couple more times, I will get really good at it. I wanted to try water skiing too, but I was pretty sore already, so I passed. After spending the entire day in the water, we came back to the friends house and grilled hotdogs. :) I love hotdogs!

Today, I went to San Francisco with some of my intern friends to watch the LGBT Pride parade. It was really amusing....although weird at times. After the parade, we did some light shopping and then one of the girls wasn't feeling well, so we came back. I will definitely come back to SF a few more times before I leave Cali. It seemed like there were a lot of things to do.

Oh yeah, as a result of my day of wakeboarding, I am now sore all over! Everything hurts...it even hurt to shiver when I was cold in San Francisco.