After a week of adjusting to the SSP schedule of lectures and problem sets, we had our first field trip today to Los Alamos. My roommate and I woke up at 5:25 am to get on the bus. We were on the bus for 3 and a half hours before we arrived at the museum. On the bus, my roommate and I played crossword puzzles, Wordle, and other word games on the bus. Once we arrived at Los Alamos, we saw a turtle struggle to jump into the pond at Manhattan Project National Historical Park. Then, we toured the Bradbury Science museum and listened to a presentation from the Mars Rover scientists and students. Afterwards, we had an outdoor lunch at the park. Then, we visited the Los Alamos National Library where we got to learn about the behind the scenes of the ChemCam and the SuperCam. It was fascinating to learn about the work of people who work to collect data from the Mars rovers and exciting to make connections between what we’ve learned from the lectures and the work of the scientists at Los Alamos. For example, we saw that the scientists also take darks and flats just like we were learning in lectures. Then, we made a quick stop at Starbucks before we headed back on the bus to go back to Driscoll. I enjoyed taking time off from psets and exploring more of New Mexico. After we arrived at Driscoll and had dinner, my friends and I worked and completed the Math/Physics problem sets. We decided to take a quick break after finishing, which ended up into a two hour karaoke session down stairs by the piano where we shuffled through my friend’s nostalgia playlist, filled with the most prominent songs from the 2010s. After a stressful week of challenging problem sets, it felt nice to take a break and spend time outside of PSets with the people at SSP. I am really looking forward to learning more and creating and strengthening more bonds with my peers at SSP!
Sincerely,
Sharon
