Last Day

On my last day of senior project I went through the normal routines. When I got there, I was sent to the Raptor Center to clean the bird cages. After doing that, I enriched them, by putting in newspaper balls that were either scented with peppermint, almond, or banana extract. Most of the birds were too focused on their food to acknowledge them, however Vinnie, our Turkey Vulture, did attempt to shred and eat it as if it was part of his meal. I guess he likes the smell of banana extract! After that, I returned to the animal center to clean some dishes and sweep and mop.  Once that was over it was basically lunch time! After lunch we finished up most of the chores and pretty much everything was done! So another senior project girl and I took out some popsicles that we had made a few days earlier. We gave two fish-ickles to the otters, Lucy and Linus. They got a HUGE kick out of them. They would roll around in the water trying to grab the fish out. After about 10 minutes of that the ice had melted enough that a fish was sticking out. So they grabbed the fish and dragged it out of the water so they could munch on them. It was about the cutest thing ever, so upset I didn't have a camera! We then gave some fruit-sickles to Scarlet, our red fox, the deer and the crows. Then for the last half hour of my last day, I sat and cuddled with Dora, our Virginia Opossum. It was a very nice last day!

Finishing up the Presentation

Over the last few days, I have been concentrating on finishing up my planetarium presentation on the International Space Station. Admittedly, this has been quite a bit harder than I thought it would be, mainly in coming up with a topic that I could condense into a fifteen-minute presentation appropriate for kids. It has been rewarding, though; along the way, I've learned a lot about previous space stations (namely, Skylab and Mir) as well as the research being conducted on the ISS. (A lot of it sounds really cool: for example, they've recently developed a sort of plasma germ-zapper that harms drug-resistant germs but has little effect on humans.) Hopefully, I'll  be able to assemble and code the show today; if not, I may have to come back later to finish the show.
On a separate note, we finished the slides last week. All in all, we ended up filling about two file cabinet drawers of slide sheets, as well as a foot-tall stack of miscellaneous junk slides that will probably get tossed. Curiously and coincidentally, we also found a set of slides marked "Bear Tales" that we were able to use in the identically-named show that Destiny and I had crafted at the beginning of the project.

Walking the birds

Today I got to walk birds around Perkins! This means that I have a bird sitting on my gloved hand and I take them around Perkins so that he can get enriched and become more comfortable around people.  This was the first time that I was allowed to take a bird out of their home and it was so exciting! First I walked Radar our Barn Owl. He was extremely calm and only freaked out once (freaking out entails the bird flying off your hand in an attempt to get away). Then I walked Omega our Screech Owl. Omega weighs only .14 kg which is about 1/3 of a pound. Omega loves to get little gentle noogies on her head. It is the cutest thing because she'll close her huge eyes and give the face that says "this feels good." After I walked Omega I took out Tamarack, our Great Horned Owl. After walking Omega, the whole 3 pounds that Tamarack weighs was heavy. Having her on my hand turned out to be a forearm workout! It was a very exciting day and I was so glad I was able to do so before my project ends!

Next step

At some point during this week, we will receive the shipment of stones that will be used for the bases of the front pillars on the pavilion. This job, while purely asthetic, will truly finalize the process of building the pavilion. The next step after this will be to figure out how and where a compostable restroom will be placed, needless to say i have very little insight into this subject but am keen to learn, just as i did with the pavilion, what goes into the entire planning, implicating, and finalizing of this project.

Back to the Base-ics

Progress continues at the farm. This weekend we received the necessary bricks to begin working on the floor of the pavilion. Beginning a bit on monday and finishing up today, we were able to complete the floor. The interesting thing about this process was that we did not have to install any draining systems into it. The contractor, Dwayne, intentionally purchased what are called "semi-permeable" bricks, meaning they do the job of a drain without the complex draining apparatus. The way it works, he described, is that the water is able to seep through the gaps in between each brick, and then down into the layer of sand and dirt that we had previously laid down. In this way, even if water gets into the pavilion, it will drain evenly throughout the structure without the need for drains or piping underneath the floor itself. It looks great and the structure is really getting close!

Tower City

Over the past few weeks, the staff members have tried to schedule a visit to Tower City, so we could visit a new nest of Peregrine Falcons. However, it kept being cancelled up until last Wednesday. So, we (staff and senior project members) piled into a van with Harvey Webster, the head of Perkins. We drove off to Tower City to visit the two new baby falcons sitting up on a 12th floor ledge. There is quite a bit of history that goes behind that ledge however I'll just give an overview. Back in the 90's, Peregrine falcons were declining in number. It was at first unclear why. It was found that the number of adult falcons was the same however the number of eggs that successful hatched had decreased dramatically. After quite a bit of research it was found that pesticides (I forget the exact kind) that were supposedly un-harmful to all animals and only killed insects were affecting the shell thickness of falcon eggs. After the climax of the pesticide use had passed, a crew of falcon lovers in the Cleveland area, including Harvey Webster, started to scout out locations for nests to be placed so that falcons could lay their eggs unharmed. One of the very popular locations was on the 12th floor window ledge of Tower City. This ledge has been used every year since then for falcons to lay their eggs in peace. Last week, we visited that site where a couple of falcons, SJ and Boomer, had laid 4 eggs. Unfortunately 2 eggs did not hatch, however the 2 that did are doing wonderful. In the picture below you can see that they are losing their baby fuzz and are starting to grow in their mature feathers. Once the mature feathers come in they can start learning to fly and such but until then, they are trapped on that ledge. The father, Boomer continuously flew around us and stood right outside the window where we were looking out, protecting his youngsters. The mother perched directly above her babies and did not move the entire time, but did make quite a bit of noise to try and get us to leave. 

Just Pockets

    

The past few days I have simply been sewing pockets. I’m able to use the sample squares of fabric from JoAnn Fabrics that are a lot less expensive than buying at least a yard of fabric, and I can have more variety. Just making pockets has minimized the projected cost by a lot, not only because I’m not buying more shorts currently to test, and in the future I won’t need to buy shorts material. Also, the packaging for the pockets won’t be too bad, if anything it will simply be in a plastic bag with a cardboard label to keep it shut. I’ve also been thinking about different ways to get the pockets out without being too pricey. I have been looking up summer craft fairs and art shows where I could hopefully try to sell the shorts but mainly just sell the pockets.

Simplicity

   After meeting with David, I switched my focus from creating shorts to just creating a pocket. The thought process behind the decision was that I want to create something as simple as possible. Obviously things have become much more simple as I’ve gone along. The case was the most complex, dealing with plastics, creating a mold, and actually making my own design. The shorts were a lot easier, because I was able to buy shorts and just create a pocket but they cost more than I wanted. Now that I’m just creating a pocket, there is very little cost involved, if anything the pins and clasps make up most of the cost. David even suggested that I could sell the pockets in packages of three or so, that way people have more than one design to choose from. Yesterday I spent the day creating more pockets and then I went to JoAnn Fabrics to find a type of pin I could use so people can attach their pocket wherever they want. I have push back pins as well as normal pins. I think that creating just a pocket is the best way to go because then people won’t need to pay for the shorts as well, and because people won’t be limited to putting their pocket on shorts, maybe they’ll want to put it inside a purse or backpack or wherever!

Just Another Day

Overall, today was pretty chill. After setting up the dominoes around the Foucault pendulum, I sat in on a school group show (on the solar system) which happened to include a couple of observers from the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. (CMSD has a program, called Inspire, where every second grader in the district visits the museum; the planetarium has an opportunity to become part of that program – which would boost attendance and provide some funding.) Afterwards, I did some more work on my final presentation, sketching out a storyboard and looking up photographs from NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). The project is coming along rather nicely, although I’ll have to do some work over the weekend to make sure that I have enough time to learn how to program the presentation into the planetarium before the project is over. Now that I have a definite outline down, though, and a definite topic, work should go much smoother. Anyway, to conclude the day, my fellow volunteers and I returned to the plants in the lobby, wiping them down with wet rags to remove a gray film that collects on the leaves.

Lantern Research

Now that I have finished the shorts and they are starting to be tested by friends, I finally went to David’s office. I was showing him pictures of the shorts I made when he made the comment that he already had running shorts he was happy with, and that he wouldn’t want to buy another pair of expensive shorts. From that comment we had a new idea: just selling a pocket. The pocket would be the same size as the ones I put on the shorts, and there would be a device to connect the pocket to the shorts. I was thinking a way to connect the two would be to use pins at all four corners, and David recommended having an adhesive that could be ironed on to the shorts. The difference would obviously be that a pin could be removed but the adhesive would stay permanently.

For the second part of the day I helped David with customer segmenting and researching different lanterns for his new product, an LED lantern. I went on Amazon.com and reviewed the top selling lanterns similar to his, to find how many lumens each light produced and how much the lanterns cost. After plotting this on a graph, you could see a line where the fairly priced lanterns were, as well as which lanterns were good deals and which ones were poor deals. I learned that even though it took over an hour just to look at 8 different products, a lot of information was gained. I was able to figure out how everyone else was marketing the products as well as what people actually want in a lantern. For all of the awesome feedback and help David has given me, the least I could do was help out with some research.

Just Another Day

So far, this week has been pretty ordinary, my days filled with intern-y tasks around the museum, ranging from interesting to banal. Yesterday we had to wash and prune some large plants (mainly ficus) around the museum, carting them downstairs into the employee parking lot and washing them with a hose. Afterwards, we continued work on the slides, making a lot of progress – I think we’re almost done with them. Additionally, we’ve started to do a little more with the planetarium itself, making programs (specifically, one on comets) and gathering information for presentations, such as what constellations we can see from Cleveland throughout the year, as well as how far away you would have to hold a quarter for it to cover one arcsecond of the sky (the answer is 19.5 miles, by the way). Although this latter stuff has been kind of boring, it’s also been kind of fun to tackle new and interesting math problems with immediate real-world applications. Looking into the future, I probably will be begin working more on my final project, with the slides almost completed and most of the other volunteers ending their projects on Friday.

Class Time

Today me and the other senior project students sat in on an animal class. The museum offers classes for school field trips where they can learn and interact with the live animals in Perkins and the Animal Center. The staff members thought it would be fun for the the senior project-ers to sit in and watch Harvey Webster, the head honcho in Perkins teach the class. There were two school classes there; one from Newbury Elementary and one from an inner city school. Both classes were in 2nd grade. Obviously, one of the major problems with teaching little kids is that they can't focus for very long. However, Harvey knew how to handle them. The first animal he used was Rocky, a painted turtle. After explaining how he lived and stuff, he quickly took out Shelby, our Eastern Box Turtle, shifting their attention to a new and exciting animal before they could get bored. Then he proceeded to show the kids Dixie the opossum, Lilac the skunk, Meep the Red-Tail Hawk, and Onyx the Black Rat Snake. The class was very educational, even for us! We learned quite a bit about how these animals lived and how they came to live in our museum. It was exciting seeing Meep, a hawk that actually HATES females interact the students. When she was younger she was raised by only females and so she imprinted on them. As she grew up, her imprinting actually made her want to attack females (her way of showing affection we assume). However, now we (females) cannot go anywhere near her cage. So, seeing her sitting on Harvey's arm all regal and calm was very cool. It was a very educational and fun morning!

Deer pond

Today's post is devoted entirely to my adventure of cleaning the deer pond. In Perkins, we have three deer, Artemis, Ginny, and Baby. Along with them is a wild turkey, Jake. The deer are currently shedding their winter coats which means the ground has a thin layer of hair. Part of the daily chores is to pick up all of the poop, leftover food and give them fresh veggies/fruits. Today however we decided to clean out the deer pond. The pond is at the front of the exhibit,separating the visitors from reaching in and touching the deer. The water should be clear, however it was actually a dark greenish brown color. So it was time to drain, scrub, and refill. Once we got rid of all the water, we mucked out all of the smelly debris that was on the bottom. The second part of the job was to bucket out water from the three water filters. This is by far the worst job because of the awful smell. However everyone survived and it as time to refill. It turns out our hose had a lot of little holes so it took awhile for it to refill, but once it was finished the water was a nice clear color. And on a side note, the whole time we were cleaning, Artemis chilled in the empty pond with us, licking a dirty pipe clean. He even stayed in as we filled the pond back up to his belly. What a hot and exhausting day.

Linsday the Loggerhead Shrike

Sad news at the Perkins Wildlife Center today. Lindsay, our Loggerhead Shrike passed away this morning. Yesterday she was doing fine, enjoying her wax worms like any normal day. However early morning today, when a staff member came in to work, Lindsay was sitting on the ground. This is a key sign.. Whenever a bird is on the ground it indicates that something is wrong. Lindsay was immediately taken to the vets office. Later in the morning we got the call that Lindsay had passed away. The cause of death is unknown and a necropsy will be performed for further details on her death. Lindsay came to the museum when she was a baby (some 12 years ago) because she had a malformed beak. Her beak is critical to survival because it is how she catches her insects. So she was brought to the museum where she lived for over 10 years. It was a sad morning for all the staff members as she would always greet you when you walked in the door, as well as beg for food at her cage door throughout the day. While her shriek was rather loud, it is now missed very much.

Now the Floor

At the farm, where i continue to spend much of my time, we are beginning this week on the flooring. Today we should be receiving a shipment of base bricks to lay down. This will hopefully be the final large step in the construction of the Pavilion at the farm. With the roof and eventually the floor complete, all we will have left to do on the pavilion will be the ascetic features. These include varnishing the wood, building up stone pillars around the already in place wood ones, designing and working on landscaping around the structure and probably more that he hasn't yet told us about. My brother and I are hoping to work on the barn that stands only a few hundred feet from the pavilion. It needs to be cleaned, repaired, and landscaped, but it seems like a fun job and a chance to take on a project completely on our own!

Letters upon Letters

Over the past few days I have been working on finalizing the invite list for the June 13th event and getting the invitations out. I am responsible, therefore, in coordinating who the addresses came from (in the committee) and where they will ultimately go (writing the addresses). WHat i thought would be a quick day of writing addresses on enveloped turned out to spill over into today, as we compiled a list of more than fifty invitees. One problem that I ran across as well, was the return address. I knew I would eventually have to write down my address all those times, which seemed like a hassle more than anything. So I did some investigation and found an embosser at my house with the address, undoubtedly making my process much easier and the return addresses looking much more official.

Sunspots

One of the most important things that we volunteers did this week was learn how to record sunspots at the Mueller Observatory. Every day, when possible, the astronomy department (i.e. Mr. Simpson) records the day’s solar activity, noting sunspots and pores. At the end of the month, Mr. Simpson submits the data to a national database of professional and amateur astronomers, who compile it all to produce an average of each day’s sunspots, creating a measure of solar activity. Although rather mundane, this task is probably one of the museum’s most important – as Mr. Simpson put it, it “contributes to science.”

Thus, on Wednesday, my fellow volunteers and I spent the afternoon learning how to record and analyze sunspots. After lining up and focusing the telescope, we helped Mr. Simpson adjust the data sheet on the projection board to line it up with the sun’s east-west movement. From there, we began to actually count the sunspots, noting the size, number, and distribution of spots in a group. (We even spotted one really large group that probably morphed into the recent solar flare depicted here.) From there, we sketched the spots, recorded the cloudiness and “seeing” (i.e. quality of the air, considering heat distortion, etc.) and called it a day.

Recording sunspot data

Change in Tactics

Finally, work is getting done on my final presentation. Last Friday, I decided to change my topic: I am now going to create a presentation on space stations, focusing on the International Space Station. I decided to switch mainly because my previous topic, of how space research has helped us understand the Earth, was a little too vague – I couldn’t really find anything specific enough to be crafted in to a fifteen minute presentation. My new topic, though, should be more doable and interesting. I plan to start out with a discussion of space stations of the past, ranging from preliminary ideas to Skylab and Mir; from there, I will talk about the construction of the ISS, its current uses, and its future. From here on out, I’ll have to find pictures and animations via the NASA and ESA websites to use in my presentation. From there, I’ll actually program the presentation and make note cards.

On a completely separate note, here’s a picture of that globe that I dusted about two weeks ago (I finally got around to uploading it from my camera).

The girl in blue is Destiny, one of the other volunteers, and the man in blue is Clyde Simpson, the observatory coordinator.

Boring Skies

Last Thursday was, unfortunately, an incredibly boring day. For the entire morning, my fellow volunteers and I sat in on a presentation on the geology of Stebbin’s Gulch in Holden Arboretum. Yes, this is completely unrelated to astronomy – we were only there because Mr. Simpson, the observatory coordinator, is a member of NOGS (Northern Ohio Geological Society) and invited all the astronomy volunteers to sit in on the presentation. Although amazingly soporific (I tried to stay awake – I really did – but the CMNH library is always so stuffy…), sitting in on Thursday’s presentation did give me a glimpse of what I have to look forward to as a scientist – i.e., increased specialization in a field, not endless boring meetings (although I’m sure I’ll have to sit through those too). Hopefully I’ll be able to find something that interests me.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful; in the afternoon, we simply continued with sorting the slides. We’re finally starting to get a good organization system down for the slides – we now have tabs in a file cabinet with different categories for each set of slides. All in all, although a boring day, Thursday was rather productive, at least in terms of the slides.

Sewing Day 2

Yesterday I was able to finish up the shorts. I plan on asking girls on the lacrosse team to wear them when they exercise or during their free time to get their opinions on the designs. Nothing very exciting has happened the past few days because I have only been sewing. Next week I’m hoping to work at David’s office because I am not completely sure what the next step is. I’m assuming that I will get to help him with his work, because once I get the shorts to the lacrosse girls I want them to be able to keep them for a few days, and during that time there will not be much for me to do. I will be able to help David in his office, seeing what steps he is currently taking to make sure his business is successful.  

Sewing

My room has been taken over by fabric, shorts, and design paper. You would think that sewing a pocket onto a pair of shorts would be extremely simple, but instead I was faced with many challenges. First of all, the first pocket I made, I decided to hand sew because I figured it would be easier to really feel and work with the fabric the first time. I was wrong. Yesterday I spent a good half hour simply trying to figure out how the pockets on the inside of athletic shorts are made. I tried making them out of paper, simply pinning the fabric to mock the design but I couldn’t get it right. It’s also difficult to make a pocket with the material I am using because it is very stretchy to match the fabric of the shorts. After spending over an hour trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, I decided to go a different route. I chose to not mimic the pockets in the original shorts, but to create my own pattern. Yesterday I put pockets into three of the shorts and was able to finish the rest today. 

The New Direction

     The past few days have been somewhat slow because I have been at Hawken in the morning for AP exams, then back to school in the afternoon. Between the two, I hunted through retail stores trying to find the cheapest yet effective shorts for my project. At Wal-Mart I found running shorts similar to the typical Nike shorts with the same small “pocket”. The problem with the shorts is that the piece of cloth sewn on the inside of the shorts barely qualifies as a pocket, it can barely hold a key. I also made stops at Target, Kohls, and Dick’s Sporting Goods where I picked up compression shorts. I was able to finish a few sketches of what the shorts will look like. One of the pairs of compression shorts will have a pocket high up; the other pair will have it lower down. I will take the small pocket out of the other shorts and put in a larger pocket that can hold at least a phone but won’t be too bulky. I have material to sew in the pockets and am excited to start sewing tomorrow!

Just a typical day

Monday was a typical day at Perkins. After my AP Bio test it was a great pick-me-up being able to chill with the animals. When I got there, the Animal Center was deserted. So, I decided that it would be pointless to sit there and wait for someone to come around, so I got to work! I went off to the Raptor Center to clean the bird cages. While there, Vinnie, our turkey vulture, thought it would be fun to attack my foot and land on my back. While that was fun and a little bit scary, I was glad to get out of his cage (his roommate Sweetie was no help to me). Once I was done with the Raptor Center I returned to the Animal Center where I met 3 new senior project girls from Shaker Heights. While at first I thought it would be fun to have more people, I realized that there really isn't enough work in a given day for 5 senior project people to do. However, I'm sure we'll figuring it out! As the day continued on, I found myself alone in the Animal Center again. I was asked to cut up more fruits and veggies for the animals' food. So, for the last hour of the day, I cut up about 20 pears, lots of kiwi and strawberries, shucked some corn, and cut up some peppers. Although uneventful, the day was fun and helped me de-stress after the Bio test.

Please enjoy this picture of Eddie the groundhog eating an apple nugget.

The newest member at Perkins

A new milestone for Perkins Wildlife Center and the Museum of Natural History occurred last Friday with the adoption of a baby porcupine! Last Thursday one of the staff members drove all the way to Philadelphia to pick up this little guy. The porcupine, who is still nameless, but will most likely be called Pierce is 10 days old. This is a big deal for the museum because porcupines were once native to the Ohio region. They were then found only in the PA and eastern coast. However, slowly they are starting to move back into Ohio.
Pierce is a captive born porcupine however his mother was wild. The Philadelphia zoo could not keep him so the museum gladly stepped in to adopt him. Instead of making Pierce into a hands-on animal, he is going to remain as wild as possible. This is mostly due to the fact that he has quills. When a porcupine is born, quills begin to harden immediately from his fur. So, picking him up is obviously not the best idea, unless you have leather gloves.
When Pierce first arrived at Perkins, no one, not even the staff members wanted to pick him up. So, I volunteered to pick him up so they could get a good picture of him and attempt to feed him. When I put the gloves on he immediately got squeamish so I rested him against my chest. Bad idea. I could feel his little baby quills poking through my shirt. Once all of the pictures were taken I tried to put him back on the table, however, he was stuck to my shirt! Getting him off was quite an adventure. Due to this experience we realized that his bald butt area was a result of him constantly being picked up and his quills gets pulled out. Although this isn't that big of a deal because quills grow in quickly, we don't want to put extra stress on the porcupine. Another side note is that he has to be fed every 6 hours, so we have our work cut out for us! It was quite an adventure with our newest member of Perkins and I can't wait to see him grow up over my next few weeks!

Sorry for the bad filming of the video!

A Solution to Bankruptcy

This afternoon I met with the rest of the CSRA staff at a pre-event meeting at Tastebuds restaurant for lunch. At the lunch I got to meet the other members of the staff as well as hear a more detailed outline of where the program lies and what the next steps will be to keep it from going bankrupt in June. On this track, we had divided up the meeting into various talking points. One of which, focused mainly on myself and Peter Anagnostos (my project overseer) was regarding the event invite list. It was established that my job on this count, after having made my own list of sorts, was to compile all of the tentative lists of names, verify that no names appeared more than once, and coordinate the sending of invitations, each of which needing to go through a certain member of the group to get a personalized signature. I plan to do this over the coming days as i receive the lists and the cards that i will ultimately send out.

Staff Meeting

In terms of the CMSD project, i was able to contact members of the boathouse regarding a list of names of potential invites to the end of the year banquet. Tomorrow, at a meeting with those involved in the program downtown, I will present what i have come up with and hopefully get a stronger hold on what our next step should be with the program. At the meeting we will be discussing everything from the logistics of the event (which is to be held at our house in June), to how we will find donors, funding, and press for the event. I will be attending, as I said before, to learn more about the state of the program/ planning process and well as expand my understanding of my current role in the process as well as my future position in planning/executing etc.

And Now the Roof

On the farm, we shifted the focus again to finishing the roof. We had dedicated much of the recent time to building up the ground to be level with the base boards, using dirt from the pond that we dug out and on top of that, sand that we ordered in. To transfer the dirt from the pond, we used the bobcat and carefully laid down the moved soil into the structure and around it. WE then used a tamper (machine that packs down the ground) to level it out. Following this process we laid down a layer of more fine sand that much more easily became level. After using the tamper on this, we used rakes to make sure it was level. On Friday, we received the shipment of metal panels that will ultimately be the roof of the structure. I was assigned the job of going onto the roof to attach these panels individually with screws. All went well and the job was finished this weekend, in time for an event at the farm catering older adults from the recently developed Judson building nearby.

Falcons and Owls and Hawks Oh My!

Over my first few days at the Perkins Wildlife Center at the Natural History Museum I mostly learned how to take care of the animals with the assistance of the staff members. On my first and second day I cleaned the Raptor Center. The Raptor Center is a barn towards the back of the Perkins that houses about 12 birds of prey (BOP) that are not out on exhibit. All of the BOP at the museum are birds that would not have survived in the wild. Most of them came to the museum due to an accident involving vehicles, whether they flew into them or they were hit . Others have deformities with their talons, beaks, or wings that prevents them from surviving in the wild. The BOP in the Raptor Center include George, the Bald Eagle, 2 screech owls, about 6 different types owls, 2 falcons and 2 hawks. To clean the Raptor Center, I have to spray down the floors to remove feces, give them fresh water and pick up the leftover remains (their food, mostly mice and small birds). Also, you will weigh the birds and take them on a walk at least every other day. Over the first two days I worked with a staff member but on the third day I cleaned on my own.
Perkins also has a wildlife center in the museum. There, we house many different types of animals, including small rodents (opossum, skunks, groundhog, rabbit, flying squirell), reptiles, snakes, a Loggerhead Shrike, and 3 box turtles. Just like the Raptor Center we must clean and feed the animals on a daily basis.
Also, a huge part of life in captivity is enrichment.  For the animals in the wildlife center, enrichment happens twice a day. For the BOP, enrichment occurs every 3 days. Enrichment must stimulate all of the senses. For example we might give the skunks a ball with food in the middle, we might play some classical music for the birds, or we might give them a bucket into which they can climb. There is a wide variety.
Lastly, it is necessary to take the animals in the center outside at least once a week. So, with another volunteer, I took our two skunks, Willow and Lilac to an empty cage out in Perkins to romp around. Skunks love to chase people around, however, they aren't the best runners so watching them scamper after you is hilarious! They also love to digs for insects! After about 20 minutes of playing, they get tired and just want to cuddle.
My first 3 days have been filled with a lot of new things and I can't wait to see what else I'll be doing (hopefully with the otters).

Iterations

Today I trekked to a Warrensville Panera to meet up with my sponsor (finally)! I went into the meeting worried that I would be faced with the news that he is simply to busy to be a sponsor, but I received a very different response. For about an hour and a half, David, Ms. Cho and I brainstormed different ideas that would solve an issue. The problem that I have been faced with when I carry my phone is that when I try to work out or in the summer when I’m walking around I like to keep my phone in my waistband. It wouldn’t be such a pain if I had tight enough waist bands but unfortunately I do not, and so my phone will constantly fall out. Plus, take health into effect and I am then carrying around a gross phone that probably has sweat and grime on it. That’s the reason why I created a case design in the first place. But, as David commented, iPhone cases are extremely easy to create and almost anyone can, making it an easy market to enter. One could think it’s good to have an easy market to enter into, but unfortunately so does everyone and his brother which is why there are so many cases available already. And so after thinking about different arm bands, body straps, belts, backpacks and more, we finally came up with the next idea: athletic shorts with big enough pockets for phones. My next project will be creating different types of shorts for people to try out. I will use the typical Nike shorts and add in a pocket, and I will create different types of compression shorts with pockets in them. The difference between the shorts will be where I place the pocket to find out which spot is the best. It was not only a relief to meet with David, but extremely inspiring because I was starting to get down about my cases but now I believe we have a better solution!

Busy Skies

What a hectic day! Almost immediately after I arrived at the museum, a load of large school groups (mostly sixth through eighth graders) began to come in, ready for their end-of-year field trips. For each group, we ran basically the same thing: a planetarium show first (“The Life and Death of Stars” for the first group, then myths and legends in the stars for the next two groups), followed by a trip to the observatory to look at the sun through the big telescope. As you can imagine, doing three of these programs back-to-back got pretty boring – there’s only so many times you can hear the story of Perseus and Andromeda. Furthermore, the second two groups were extraordinarily large and rather ill-behaved, being loud and disorganized. The experience was useful, however, in giving me experience with shepherding large groups as well as maintaining order during a presentation. (Personally, I have a tendency to get rather annoyed with people who won’t sit still and shut up, but witnessing Clyde (one of my supervisors) handle the crowd calmly was educational.) All in all, the morning wore me out with walking back and forth across the museum and guiding tours.

Perhaps the most fun part of the day came at the end, just as I was about to leave. As it turns out, the planetarium has hundreds, if not thousands, of slides, the kind used in carousel slide projectors (see example). Most of these images, although beautiful and unique, are not digitized, forcing the astronomy staff (i.e., student volunteers) to go through the slides one by one, picking out the ones we want to save for further use. (The rest, along with the slide projectors, will probably be donated to a school somewhere with limited educational supplies.) Thus, for the last fifteen minutes of the day, I helped sort some of these slides, marveling at the really cool images the museum has of the planets, nebulae, and other celestial bodies.

Comets and Other Small Objects

These past few days have been, for the most part, pretty quiet. On Tuesday, we got a new assignment: to start working on another planetarium show, this one about comets, to coincide with the scheduled appearance of Comet ISON in November/December of 2013. Once again, I got to delve into research, looking up information about and pictures of comets, from the famous Halley’s Comet to Shoemaker-Levy, which impacted Jupiter in 1994. As before, this experience was mostly useful in simply learning about astronomy, as well as practicing making a presentation. It was also kind of fun looking up animations of comets; thanks to the NASA and ESA sites, I was able to see some really cool animations and photographs of Halley’s Comet, taken by the spacecraft Giotto in the 1980s.

My experiences haven’t been limited solely to the planetarium, however. Today, before lunch, I got to sit in on one of the Museum’s live animal presentations to a group of first-graders. Although this wasn’t directly related to my Essential Question or my project, this was a nice break from astronomy. Additionally, it helped me get a better idea of how exactly the Museum goes about its educational efforts, trying to teach kids about native flora and fauna and how to interact safely with them.

And So We Wait...

     Communication can be so difficult sometimes. Which is really unfortunate because it’s so important, especially when you’re trying to create a product. After trying to get in contact with the owner of the local business Textile Republic (the monogramming and personalizing Apple accessories website), all I can do now is wait for a reply. In the mean time, I am making more detailed sketches of the cases and learning how to use Google SketchUp to show the designs. I will hopefully be meeting with David on Thursday to decide whether it is a good idea to pursue my case idea or not before a lot of money becomes involved and to see if he has any other ideas that could make a unique case. The main issue is that there are so many cases out there already, it’s really hard to find a way to make one special and worth buying. There are so many case brands that are well known and cover the main types of cases that it’s difficult to figure out a way to stand out. If we all decide that it is not worth it to continue with my case, I will need to pivot (like most entrepreneurs) and find a different design or concept altogether, or try to find a different project. 

"Little to Report."

Last Friday I really began to learn how the planetarium programs are constructed and made, helping to craft one of the kids’ shows. The preparation of the show turned out to be a lot duller than I thought it would be: the main task was looking up pictures and videos that fit with the story of the show (which was the story of the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, or the Great and Little Bears). In the end, I ended up using Google images to find images of bears, as well as prints from various editions of Ovid’s Metamorphoses illustrating the story of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Finally, I made a sort of storyboard for the presentation, illustrating the story – in a sense, making a glorified PowerPoint. Although this was kind of dull, I did gain some useful experience in story-boarding and planning a presentation, which will be helpful when I go to make my final presentation. Furthermore, it was interesting to research the story of the bears (which can be found here), as I've always liked mythology and history. All in all, despite being somewhat boring, the day was a success.

Farm hand

Alongside working with the members of the CMSD rowing committee, i have been spending much of my day also helping out at Kelly's Working Well Farm in Chagrin Falls. I was originally tagging along with my brother but I decided, because my other commitment didnt require me to be on site at all times, that I would make this another aspect of my project. On the farm, I am working with two contractors on building a pavilion and making a pond. In doing this i was put in charge of roofing (because my brother is afraid of heights), without a harness, twenty five feet in the air. It has been good work to learn about construction and to get over any fears that i may have once had regarding ladders, drills, nail guns, etc. I have continued to work on this project, learning to operate the heavy machinery (steam roller and bobcat) to help out in any way i can to get this farm going.

Mock Ups

      After meeting with Ms. Cho on Friday to flush out ideas for the mock up case I made, today I created two more cases. One case is an actual protective case as opposed to a cell phone holder like the other two. All of the cases clip at the waist, but two of them simply hold the phone instead of providing protection. To differentiate the two, one case has a clear protective layer instead of a solid holder the whole way around so one can look down and see their phone. Because my sponsor was in Vegas this past week, I spent the week working from home. Hopefully this week I will get the opportunity to work with him in his office. I am planning a meeting with a woman who owns a business that personalizes different cases from iPhone cases to Kindle cases. I’m hoping she’ll have some good feedback on my case designs, and ideally, she’ll want to buy the design from me. After having a phone call with Ms. Cho tonight, we came to the decision that maybe the iPhone case business will not be as successful as originally planned. It’s better that we decided this now before any money was invested, but I am still giving one last push for it. 

Early Sightings

One interesting, and lesser-known, feature of the Natural History Museum is the Ralph Mueller Observatory, containing an 1899 Warner and Swasey Co. telescope, built right here in Cleveland. Although I had seen the stairs up there before, I had never really been into the observatory before this project. Happily, now I’m quite familiar with it, having helped out last Wednesday with the Museum’s weekly opening of the observatory to the public on clear Wednesday evenings. Although I really didn’t do all that much (as there were other, more experienced volunteers handling the big telescope), the evening was a good introduction into exploring the night sky. Having attended various planetarium programs in the past, I was able to find the North Star pretty easily; from there, I quickly found Leo, Arcturus, and Spica. The main events of the evening were the viewings of Jupiter and Saturn, so I also learned how to find and identify those planets. Save for assisting in aligning a smaller telescope, most of what I did that night was simply look at the stars and practice finding various objects in the night sky. Although this seems simple, this was actually really useful: living in Cleveland and often being burdened with homework, this was the first time I have really been able to use all the tools I’ve learned to navigate the night sky. (For example, I’d often read and learned that planets do not twinkle, as they are much closer than stars; this was the first night that I have been able to consciously apply that knowledge, using it to differentiate Saturn from the nearby Arcturus.) All in all, this night was an excellent introduction to practical backyard astronomy.

Invitations

I started last monday by meeting with my project overseer, Peter Anagnostos. With him, I was able to plan out a list of goals that i hope to accomplish by the end of the project. This list is made up of various tasks that all revolve around the overall question, how do we keep the CMSD rows program (which i am working for) from going bankrupt by the end of June. We plan to do this by having a large end of the year event, to which we invite potential donors and try to raise enough money to keep everything going. On this track, it was my job to compile a list of possible high roller donors who have some connection to rowing in Cleveland to this party. I worked alongside my dad and other members of the program to do this and i plan to submit this list to the committee within the coming days. My next project will be to look into other possible sources of revenue and income for this program.

First Observations

Like most senior projects, I've gathered, my first day was also a little dull, really just getting my feet wet. After arriving at the Cleveland Natural History Museum at 10:00, I spent the morning shepherding a couple of school groups (mostly first graders) around the observatory and planetarium, essentially shadowing Mr. Davis (my mentor) and Mr. Simpson (another member of the CMNH Astronomy department) as they went about the program. The program was really simple: starting in the observatory, we explained how the telescope and dome work, and used the telescope to look at the sun on a white board. From there, we went over stuff like the Earth rotating, what you can see from an observatory, and a demonstration using a piece of paper of why you should never look directly at the sun through a telescope. Finally, we moved to the planetarium, where Mr. Davis gave a half-hour tour of the night sky, highlighting major constellations and stars (i.e. the Big Dipper, Polaris, Leo, Orion, etc.) Although all this was, in all honesty, slightly boring, sitting in on the presentations did help me get a handle on what exactly goes into a planetarium presentation, preparing me for my final presentation.

To end the day, Destiny (my fellow volunteer, from Euclid High School) and I did some busy work, helping to clean thirty years of dust off of a gigantic topographical globe, to be donated to the Kent State geography department. Again, all though this was slightly boring, it was still fun to be able to help around at the museum – being a museum, it has a lot of really interesting stuff crammed into odd places. Overall, it was a good start to my project.

Pushing Through

Yesterday will hopefully be the most boring day of my project, but a necessary day. I sat at my computer trying to figure out the difference between polycarbonate and polyurethane, at the same time looking up almost every other word trying to grasp how they actually work. I did this to become familiar with the material. I know that the cases are made from plastic, but I had no idea what went into the plastics and how the plastics were made. Quite honestly it still is very confusing. I also started sketching out case designs based on what people said they liked the best. The majority like sleek cases, but also need protection, and would put protection before looks. With that, I created two designs. One design is actually a case, and the other is more of a holder that is still protective, but a phone with a case on it could go inside.

Even though I learned a great deal about plastics, what stuck with me the most was an article I read about businesses. In the Small Business section of the Wall Street Journal was the article, “How to Come Up with a Great Idea”. The article’s main focus is that there are ideas everywhere-but there isn’t passion everywhere. What stuck out to me was the section, “Look at What’s Bugging You”, because that is exactly how I decided that I wanted to create an cell phone case. I was used to having a flip phone that I could fold over my athletic shorts when I was out and about and didn’t have pockets, but now that I have an iphone there is no convenient place to put it unless I want to carry a purse or allow it to get gross on the inside of my waistband. There’s also a section “You’re Never Too Old”, but there should also be one for you’re never too young. Before the year started I thought up my idea for a cell phone case, but never acted on it because I was stuck in the 17-year old mindset that I couldn’t be in the real world yet. After just a few days of taking the entrepreneurship class, I realized that there is no age limit for an idea, as long as you know how to act on it. On a low day of boring research, reading the article was exactly what I needed because it boosted my drive and brought back my desire to fight through all of the boring but necessary steps and solve a problem.

To read the article that I read, click here: online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324445904578283792526004684.html