Gotta take the data, whether you like it or not, even at NASA

The Cyclones

This week I continued testing filters, and have now been directed more towards the cyclone filters and seeing what differences it makes to have them in series or in parallel. While testing the cyclones, I got data that was different than the data my mentor had gotten in his research for a paper he was planning to publish in a month, and he quickly had to go redo a lot of his testing and change some of his figures and conclusions. Seeing this happen, and hearing how he went about it and helping him do so, I learned some important lessons.

First, you need multiple people in every lab, each with a different background. When trying to figure out what was going on, my mentor repeatedly asked his labmate questions on the fluid physics side because it wasn't his area of expertise, and then the lab-mate would come up with something, but wouldn't be able to figure out how to apply it correctly without my mentor's help, but together they figured out what had happened and were able to get the information they needed. Second, you always need to test and retest, and measure absolutely everything possible, because you never know what could come up, and even if it doesn't seem like it should happen, you have to take reality over your expectations. On a whim, my mentor decided to measure the temperature of the air inside the vacuum chamber as he ran it and discovered that the temperature with the blower running reached over 60 degrees C, which was insanely hot and could have messed up his results again if he hadn't measured it and figured out how to compensate. The moral of the story was just that you always have to be willing to change your hypothesis and cannot make conclusions until you are absolutely sure that you can explain fully what is going on, and have repeated test situations to prove it. The other important lesson that came out of this for me, is that just because a paper is published, it doesn't mean the data or conclusions are completely right, even from a place as big as NASA. You really can't trust everything you read, and have to test it yourself to figure out what is going on.


The set up I put together and modify daily to test new things. Right now it is dismantled as it is about to placed in a vacuum chamber for further testing.

But I am very excited, because this week I am going to test my rig in the vacuum chamber and get data that my mentors say no one has ever gotten. They want me to start writing up a paper and who knows, maybe I will get to be an author on a paper they publish this summer!