Carmin Rodriguez
Mechanical Engineering
San
Antonio, TX
Q. You haven’t even officially declared a major yet, but you’re already involved in research. A lot of people study for a couple of years before they get the opportunity to be in a lab.
A. I think I had some goals before I came, and it’s also my personality. That’s the reason I got involved so quickly. In high school, I was involved in a lot of things, and I think it just carried over. Last year I was even asking my advisor what was available, just finding out right away what the options were, because I know the University offers a lot of different things, and I wanted to take advantage of that.
Q. Tell me about last summer.
A. I worked for 10 weeks here at BU in the Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering department, with Professor Glynn Holt. He is interested in bubbles and foams, so I worked on a project that involved foams. What I did all summer was try to come up with a scientific technique and experiment that I could use to carry out one of his objectives.
Q. Sounds like a busy summer. Tell me more about these experiments.
A. My objective was to measure the void fraction of aqueous foams—basically how much gas there is. The amount of gas inside the liquid in the foam affects the way the foam behaves if you put acoustical pressures on it. I just had to come up with a way to measure this. Professor Holt gave me a couple of options for getting this done, and then he said, “Now try to make an experiment that we can implement these options with.” For example, you can measure how much gas there is by putting a radiation source in and seeing how much the foam sample absorbs. I concentrated on that method and made a little device to measure absorption in the foam. I used a computer program to do the counting, and there was a foam maker that somebody else built to actually generate foam.
Q. You are an engineering student who lives in the German House. Why?
A. I was interested in the language house because I do know German; I went to a German school, and I really wanted to gain back what I had lost since I have not spoken it for a few years. Being in that kind of community, I thought I would be able to practice my German. And since I’m studying abroad next semester, I thought that would also help me to prepare for the study abroad program.
Q. So you’re going to Dresden next semester. What are you hoping to do there?
A. One of the things that I would like to do is to make a few friends while I’m over there, some native German friends. I’m very excited about the program. In the academic program, we’re going to have a German immersion course, which is going to be pretty intensive. I just hope to come back as if I was a German person, because I have lost my edge. I hope to do well academically, and I hope to see a little bit of Europe. That’s on everybody’s mind, how they would like to travel a little bit outside of Germany.