| College of Engineering freshmen are faced with many challenges, but playing Mother Nature isn't usually one of them. Vickee Gallagher ('03), though, tried to do just that-inside a laboratory-for her first assignment at BU.
Last summer, before the academic year had even begun, Gallagher participated in the College of Engineering's Freshman Research Opportunities Program (FROP). Her project? To produce rain using sound waves. She put in nine-to-five days for six weeks, getting a sneak preview of college life. Gallagher had wanted to balance summer fun with a new learning experience. After enjoying a few weeks' vacation in her hometown of Stowe, Vermont, "I wanted something that I could do to get back into school and get acquainted with Boston," she says. | |
| Gallagher and her lab partner conducted their experiment in the aerospace and mechanical engineering lab of Assistant Professor Glynn Holt. "The idea was that the sound waves would bring water droplets in a cloud together, and if they were heavy enough then they'd fall," says Gallagher. The lab team's main piece of equipment was a transducer, which sent sound waves between two metal plates.
The first step was to build a tank with a metal frame and Plexiglas sides, with one side hinged so the interior could be easily accessed. They placed a humidifier inside the tank, since "we knew that in order to form a cloud, you'd have to have water vapor and some kind of dust particles or smoke," Gallagher explains. "We burned incense, hoping the two would come together and form a cloud." The cloud, alas, was a no-show. Then they tried warming the sides of the tank with heating strips to prevent water condensation, but the strips "heated the outside of the glass and not the inside, where we needed it. They also started warping the glass," she admits with a chuckle.
Gallagher and her partner did notch a victory with the transducer, which they were able to configure so that the sound wave between the plates was the correct length. "We got that to work, but we couldn't heat the sides of the glass right, we couldn't form a cloud, and we just kind of ran out of time," Gallagher says.
Even though she didn't become the rainmaker she'd hoped to be, the experience was hardly a washout. Her time in the lab made a lasting impression. "I started out the [fall] semester in biomedical engineering, but what I'd seen in Dr. Holt's lab had kind of introduced me to aerospace, and I decided to change majors."
Considering her plans, it seems a sound choice. A member of ROTC, Gallagher has an interest in aviation that she hopes to explore firsthand during her four-year commitment to the Army after graduation.
While the academic rewards were plentiful, FROP was also beneficial on a more personal level: she left the program knowing she could deal with what lay ahead for her at BU. In the summer weeks she and other FROP students had plenty of time in between lab sessions to check out the sights in Boston. "We explored the city, got to know each other, and I got started on my college life a little early. Once I got back to school in the fall, I felt comfortable," she says. Rain or no rain, that's a summer experience any college freshman is likely to welcome.  |
