Lillian Tso

Caving Adventure

2022-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

Caving Adventure: Journeying into the Center of the Earth

June 01, 2022

All cave names have been censored in order to protect and preserve the caves themselves as well as the safety of all readers. Caving is inherently dangerous; do not enter caves without the proper training.

Last year, I joined Outdoor Recreation at Georgia Tech (ORGT): an organization on campus that connects students to the outdoors. Through ORGT, I am currently a Caving Horizontal Instructor and Vertical Instructor-In-Training where I help lead caving trips for students at Georgia Tech. In addition, I get the privilege of exploring some of the most fantastic and breathtaking places on Earth. From wet multi-drops to horizontal caves littered with stalactites and stalagmites, every cave I have been to has been an adventure.

I have been able to lead two caving trips, and in my opinion, these trips were the most special. One of the trips was to a cave in Alabama: a horizontal cave that contains a large stalagmite about ten feet tall (aptly called the Christmas Tree). I was in charge of planning this trip: I gave presentations to all the new cavers about how to move through a cave, landowner relations, and leave no trace rules. Additionally, I led the participants through the cave and was able to share my love of caving with them!

I think another exciting part about caving is seeing what I am capable of doing. Being able to push your body physically and mentally to your limits allows you to grow as a human. Caving lets me do that whether that be I am dangling 200ft above a pit, rappel rack in hand, or I am squeezing through narrow passageways in waist deep water. When I received my Wilderness First Aid Training, the trainers emphasized using your surroundings to help you through incidents that could occur. If you are in a cave, you only have what is in your cave pack: that’s it. However far you walk into a cave, you must walk that same amount back and go through all the same obstacles again. Because of my training, I understand and accept these risks, and I mitigate as many as possible when caving.

Additionally, it’s the excitement of being able to see things that only a handful of people in the entire world get to see. I believe that preservation is an important part about caving; caves are not personal playgrounds that everyone should be able to access. Once a cave formation is broken, thousands of years of history is lost. I have been able to explore very preserved caves, and it is just amazing to see what the Earth is capable of and how much diversity the Earth possesses. There are a bunch of national parks and cave conservatories that are helping preserve caves! Check them out if you would like to learn more

Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time

In the future, I hope to continue to push myself out of my comfort zone and explore more caves. I hope that I am able to see more of these relics of the past and show new cavers the joys of being underground!

Les Paul Guitar

2022-05-29T00:00:00+00:00

Project Reflection: Les Paul Style Guitar

This May, I finished building a Les Paul style guitar from scratch through the Invention Studio Makergrant program.

The Inspiration

I don’t know how to play the guitar.

However, in order to learn how to play the guitar, one must have a guitar on hand. I figure the best way, and the more “Lily” way, to acquire a guitar would be to build one from scratch. Since initial conception, I knew that I wanted my guitar body to be made from wood, so no acrylic or plastic, and for it to have a wooden pattern made from squares of wood. With that thought in mind, I started designing my guitar with the aesthetics always taking the lead in the design. With the help of Koji Shimada, the Invention Studio’s resident musician, I created the CAD and BOM of my guitar.

The overall design of the guitar is based around wooden squares and rectangles which cover the entire front of the guitar. In order for these squares and rectangles to fit together more precisely, a laser cutter was chosen to be the ideal manufacturing technique. However, the laser cutter’s downfall was that it cannot cut through 1.5” of material. Instead, I decided to veneer small sheets of wood, which I can laser cut into squares and rectangles, and use that to decorate my guitar. In addition, each guitar is composed of three layers: the top aesthetic layer, the middle layer to run wires between all the electronics, and the bottom layer which houses panels to access the electronics. Therefore, laser cutting three 0.5” MDF boards into my top, middle, and bottom layers was the best way to make my guitar. The middle layer can already have the channels built into it. MDF was chosen because it is inexpensive and is a very good base for veneering. Once the design was finalized on CAD, I purchased all my electronics and the neck of the guitar.

Manufacturing Steps

Prepare the MDF body
Chisel out a cavity for the neck
Veneer all surfaces
Create the humbucker rings, jack panel and knobs
Sand and finish the body
Attach the neck
Solder all the electronics together
Fasten all the pieces to the guitar

Reflection

The biggest skill that I learned throughout this process was getting more used to the advanced woodroom tools such as the table router, hand carving tools, and the spindle sander. I gained skills in veneering and found that portion of the project to be very exciting. Against my initial thoughts, I learned that smaller veneer pieces are easier to secure. The hardest piece was the large back veneer since I could not evenly pressurize the entire surface. This made bubbles form on that surface. The next time I veneer, I would focus on breaking apart large surfaces into smaller strips. Another challenge that I faced was the tool capability of the laser cutter. Since the laser cutter is only capable of cutting two-dimensional surfaces, it could not cut contours or any three-dimensional surfaces. This made the neck very hard to add to the guitar, and I had to fall back on hand carving that channel. A CNC would have been better to use in this process, but I would have had to hand drill out the electronics channels using long drill bits. However, the laser cutter and the three layer idea sped-up the guitar making process and decreased the difficulty of the project.

Overall, it was a very rewarding project to design and create. I now am the owner of my own custom made guitar that can actually be played! I learned a lot about design for manufacturing and how to simplify a design in order to reduce the time associated with manufacturing. I was able to compare different techniques (i.e. the CNC vs the laser cutter) and find out which one was the best for my application. Looking forward, the next step would be to learn how to play the guitar!

Acknowledgement

Funding for this project was provided by the Invention Studio at Georgia Tech student organization and the project was built in the Flowers Invention Studio space

About

2022-05-29T00:00:00+00:00

About Me

Hi! My name is Lily Tso, and I am a fourth year Mechanical Engineering undergrad at Georgia Tech. I am deeply passionate about space exploration and hope to one day aid with the colonization of Mars. I have interned at three different companies who span the entirety of the space sector: building defensive launch vehicles with Northrop Grumman, aiding Mars exploration with NASA, and launching commercial astronauts into space with Blue Origin through the Brooke Owens Fellowship.

When not looking up at the stars, I love to be down, deep underground caving with the Georgia Tech Outdoor Recreation Organization or hiking to the top of mountains— my goal is to hike to the highpoint of every state! Additionally, I love sewing and woodworking at the Invention Studio: the largest student run makerspace in the nation.

Quick Recommendations

Space Books: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Michael Brown, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journey by Michael Collins

Movies: Vertigo, October Sky, Joe vs the Volcano

Hikes: Flatiron Peak in Phoenix, AZ, The Narrows in Zion National Park, Old Rag in Shenandoah National Park

Interning at NASA

2021-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

Interning at NASA

December 10, 2021

Four days before I would be whisked across the globe to study abroad in Metz, France, I got the call: I was going to be interning at NASA! It was my dream come true! Immediately, I stared packing and started the five day journey from Pheonix, AZ— where I just finished up my summer internship with Northrop Grumman Space— to Mountain View, CA— the location of NASA Ames Research Center— where I would start working the following Monday. I was an Aeromechanics Intern specializing in rotorcrafts, eVTOLs, and planetary helicopters!

During my internship, I was able to work with so many different mentors at NASA Ames on a multitude of different projects. One of my main projects was called RABBIT: RApid Blade and Blade vortex InTeraction. The purpose of this project was to simulate helicopter blade and blade vortex interactions (called BVI) which result in major acoustics in helicopters. It’s the primary driving force behind why helicopters are so loud: all helicopter blades produce vortexes which are then hit by other blades when they are spinning around.

I helped write a MATLAB script which simulated BVI on helicopter blades. I also created a Graphical User Interface (GUI) in which people can input their own rotorcraft parameters and evaluate the acoustics associated with the design. Overall, it was a really cool project that allowed me to learn more about acoustics, aerodynamics, and MATLAB. This project really stretched my coding abilities in order to make the code more efficient, quicker, and perform to my standards.

Image Courtesy of NASA

I was also able to help wind tunnel testing of a rotorcraft model. There was a physical model that was built and placed inside the wind tunnel. Before every test, we had to configure the rotors to the correct spacing, torque all of the bolts down, torque stripe all of the bolts, and check the temperature of all of the motors. We also had to perform a RAP (resonance assessment profile) test for every configuration. I was able to lead the last test on behalf of my test team! Once we did that, we started up the wind tunnel and started collecting data at different collective pitches and angles of attacks. The entire model was controlled via a series of joysticks almost like a video game controller. To collect the last couple of data points, I was able to operate the model even as an intern!

The last project that I was able to work on was working on the next generation Mars Science Helicopter. I was designing a trade study on conceptual designs for a gimbal to rotate the solar panel on the helicopter. I also had to determine if tilting the solar panel was worth the extra weight and complexity that it would add. It was really cool to work on a system that is potentially going to Mars.

Overall, I loved my experience as a NASA intern. I was able to control what projects I wanted to work on and what skills I wanted to develop which I thought was very unique. Over the summer semester, the branch usually hires over 70 interns, which is double the number of full time civil servants in the branch. I went over the Fall semester, so there were 5 interns. As a result, we received more mentorship than other semesters (I was able to work with more than ten mentors during my internship). The civil servants working at NASA were all amazing people who wanted all the interns to succeed. They also love to pull pranks on one another and have daily “Happy Day” emails that get sent out by the Branch Director. However, with all good experiences, there are some bad ones that should be addressed. The first is living in California with a NASA salary. I received a stipend for my work at NASA from the Georgia Space Grant Consortium. Because the cost of living in California is very high, I ended the semester broke even. I did not end up with any extra money. Most of that was from living at the NASA lodge: a guest housing complex on Moffett Federal Airfield. The facilities at this housing complex are subpar: there is a single kitchen per fifty guests, a dilapidated laundry room in a marked for demolition building, and cockroaches galore. My roommate and I were the only two living in this complex for a couple of weeks until a single guest would move in for a couple of days.

All of these issues were very minor compared to my overall experiences. I was able to work on some of the coolest projects in the world, and I can say now that I have worked at NASA and on a Mars project!

The NASA Ames Sign

Internship with Northrop Grumman

2021-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

Interning with Northrop Grumman

This summer, I interned with Northrop Grumman Launch Vehicles as a System Engineer in Chandler, AZ. More specifically, I worked on verifying requirements for their defensive launch vehicles. My time was split into three different types of projects: programming tasks, systems engineering tasks, and mission planning tasks.

On top of all my Systems projects, I was able to learn Python, Linux, and Excel VBA over my internship; all three languages I have not worked with prior. It was amazing to get the opportunity to learn these skills and put them to good use. I ended up converting all of our team’s old MATLAB scripts on Linux to Python. In doing so, I was able to update all of our old procedures to access our scripts and update the code to make it more versatile and easier to use.

Outside of work, I was able to explore the hot and sunny state of Arizona. Every weekend, I decided to embrace the outdoors; I hiked Humphreys Peak— the highpoint of Arizona— and visited three national parks: Zion National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, and Joshua Tree National Park. I was also able to explore what Phoenix had to offer by attending the monthly “First Fridays” events and exploring the Musical Instrument Museum.

This was my first engineering internship, and it surpassed all my expectations of what an internship can be. I was able to work on projects I wanted to that impacted the company in positive ways. I was able to learn so many skills and meet so many different people at the same time. For me, the most rewarding part of my experience was how much I was able to push myself out of my comfort zone. I was able to conduct informational interviews with my coworkers once a week to learn more about Northrop Grumman and the defense industry as a whole. I was also able to get media trained and witness different functional testing of our launch vehicles. I made it a point to say “Yes” to every opportunity I was given, and then to find new opportunities to say “Yes” to.

GTXR

2021-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

Rubberband Man

June 19, 2021

What happens when you put 30 college students into a hot desert in the middle of nowhere with no rules and explosives? Oh yeah, we launch a rocket into the sky.

Our work over the past two years culminated into Rubberband Man: a two stage, solid motor launch vehicle capable of hitting altitudes of over 30,000 ft. For the past semester, I worked on recovery and vehicle testing which is developing the parachute operations for the launch vehicle and ensuring that all flight operations perform nominally during the launch. When we got out into the Mojave Desert and the Friends of Amatuer Rocketry (FAR) Launch Site, I had the responsibility of packing flight ready parachutes and stuffing them into the tubes.

I am a part of the Georgia Tech Experimental Rocketry (GTXR) Team; a team which is composed of 30 undergraduates spanning Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Business. Rubberband Man is the second rocket to be launched from the team; the first being “Sustain Alive”. Rubberband Man is named after the song “Rubberband Man” by the Spinners as well as the spring loaded staging mechanism our team attempted to develop over the past semester. However, after it failed to pass bending tests (where we would load up the entire span with weights resembling loads on the vehicle during flight), we switched to a black-powder staging mechanism. As the resident parachute aficionado, I like to say Rubberband Man is named after the rubber bands holding our parachute chords together.

The parachute operations for this vehicle is as follows: The booster consists of a single deploy, dual parachute system. The drouge is deployed at apogee while the sustained is held in place via a pyrotechnic carabiner. At a certain altitude, we can signal that carabiner to explode and release our main parachute. The sustainer consists of a dual deploy, dual parachute system. At apogee, the drogue parachute is released. The main parachute is not attached to the drouge, and remains inside the rocket until it is released closer to the ground.

This past month, we launched Rubberband Man from the Mojave Desert in blistering 100 degree heat. We ran out of water multiple times, had to take 30 minute long car trips to the grocery store or home depot for supplies, and worked from sunrise to sunset to launch our rocket. Finally, on our fourth day there, we launched. I was one of the last people to put hands on the vehicle before we laid it on the launch rail and lit the booster ablaze.

It was not long before the rocket started behaving weirdly. The rocket booster crumpled during liftoff like a car hitting a tree. This caused the parachutes to be deployed early leading to the destruction of the canisters. Our rocket came down in five parts instead of the two predicted. I helped recover the booster motor from the outskirts of the desert and was able to see the impact the rocket made when colliding with the ground at breakneck speed.

While the launch did not go as planned, there are so many things we learned from this experience. Personally, I learned a lot about parachute operations and how to better design and manufacture the recovery system. In general, the tubes that housed our recovery system were very small leading to a very packed parachute. This can cause problems with deployment. For our next rocket, Mr. Blue Sky, this space would have to be increased. Additionally, the way that parachutes are attached to the cords should be changed as well. Currently, they are sewn on, but they should be attached in a stronger way. While they could handle the normal acceleration of the deployment process, they were not able to save our rocket in potential failure modes. Overall, this launch was one of the coolest things I have gotten to experience, and I am glad that I was able to learn so much from it.

Resume

2021-03-20T00:00:00+00:00