Isabella Cline

Mrs. Bagley
Intern/Mentor GT
15 January 2015
Reflection
When I was in the fifth grade my friends and I entered an engineering competition in
which we had to build an amusement park ride. We had a fun experience collaborating and
building the project and then presenting it to a panel of judges. It was that experience that I got
me hooked onto engineering. Fast forward six years and I now mentor at Johns Hopkins
Applied Physics Lab (APL) under my mentor Esther Kwon in the Air Missile Defense Sector
(AMDS). I work with a group of high school interns to create a radar that will be able to detect a
drone. The internship has provided me with valuable experiences, taught me new information
about radars and Matlab, and has inspired self-reflection.
Working at APL has been overwhelming because of the amount of information that has
been thrown at me. However, it has been incredibly valuable. I have gained experience working
with highly intelligent, passionate APL employees. I have also been able to meet and work with
high school students from all over Maryland, who are interested in the same field as me. Two of
the interns and I worked on the Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) hardware in order to
calculate the frequency of the antennas of our radar. Working with hardware compared to
computers was a pleasant change. Recently, some of the other interns and I went to a graphical
user interface (GUI) using Matlab tutorial. Two of the mentors, including my own, organized the
demonstration in one of the conference rooms at APL. The teacher was an APL employee who
had a lot of experience with GUIs. The interns and I brought our computers in order to follow

along with the tutorial. The woman discussed a sample situation in which a GUI was needed.
Then she walked through the process of creating the aesthetics of the GUI followed by the
development of the code needed to make the GUI operate. The tutorial was immensely helpful. I
have been struggling trying to create a GUI for weeks, so this tutorial had a lot of useful
information. Although it can be boring looking at a computer for several hours a day, I enjoy
working with the other interns and talking to APL employees. The people at APL are kind to
others and passionate about their work. I have learned a lot about their experiences and gained
knowledge form them as well.
When I began working at APL, I wanted to know what being an engineer consisted of. To
gain insight into the working environment of an engineer, I talked to several engineers at APL.
For example, I talked to Mr. Reid, head of the high school intern project, and he told me his
story. He went to college wanting to be a chemical engineer. Unfortunately, as a chemical
engineer he was working with E. coli all day, so he decided to do something else. Mr. Reid went
on to become a sound engineer for Justin Timberlake and discovered he was intrigued with
sound waves. He ended up working with sound waves at APL. In addition, he has taught me how
a radar circuit works. The radar circuit starts with a pulse created by a computer. The duplexer
connects the transmitter to the antenna and disconnects the receiver. The pulse or signal is then
transmitted through the transmitter and through the antenna. The signal bounces off of a target
and comes back through the receiver and through the mixer. The low pass filter takes the
frequencies coming into the radar and turns it into a frequency low enough for a computer. The
computer displays the data from the radar using programming software. Mr. Reid also showed
me the wavelength equation, wavelength equals speed divided by frequency, and made me
calculate frequencies on the white board. I learned frequency is the rate at which something

occurs or is repeated over a particular period of time. Frequency is measured in hertz. We

discussed the uses of low frequencies compared to high frequencies. Mr. Reid exclaimed that FM
radio has a frequency range of 89 to 110 megahertz (MHz) compared to AM radio, which has a
lower frequency range of 535 to 1605 kilohertz (kHz). Wifi has a higher frequency at 2 to 6
gigahertz (GHz). The military and NASA use the highest frequency. Every time I talk to Mr.
Reid I realize his wealth of knowledge greatly surpasses my own and I have so much more to
learn. When I talk to Mr. Reid, I am learning from a passionate and knowledgeable person. I
think being in a place where people have a vast array of knowledge has been beneficial because I
have gained insight into engineering.
Working at APL has brought me challenges. For example, Reid tasked me with creating a
graphical user interface (GUI) for the code my intern group had created. I spent hours looking at
GUI tutorials and manuals. I was able to create the frame for the GUI, which had the axes and
push buttons, but I could not figure out how to implement the code into the GUI. I asked Anina,
one of the other interns, if she could help me. We spent about an hour and a half struggling to get
the GUI to work, but the work became more enjoyable when Anina and I were struggling
together. In the end we were able to create a GUI that displayed four out of five graphs, an
improvement from my previous zero out of five graphs. I was proud that I persevered in creating
the GUI. APL has also led me to think about taking coding classes. Majority of my time at APL
has been spent working with Matlab and the employees at APL have said how important Matlab
is at APL and in engineering. APL has taught me a lot about myself. I initially thought that I
loved working by myself, but after spending several hours working alone on a computer, I
realized I enjoyed working with other people. I also learned my dislike for sitting in a small

office and looking at computer for several hours a day. I learned that electrical engineers work
more with hardware, so I am leaning toward that specific type of engineering.
APL has been a great opportunity. I hope to continue my internship at APL either over
the summer or the next school year. I plan on talking to Ms. DAgrosa about the other sections at
APL, so I know if there is something at APL I am more interested in. As for the intern project,
we are going to present our final radar to the employees and possibly interns at APL. All of the
APL employees I have talked to say that the greatest lesson from their high school and/or college
internships was that it gave them a better understanding as to what they were not interested in. I
have found that to be true during my time at APL. I know from this experience I dont like to sit
in a small office, especially one with no windows, for several hours a day staring at a computer
screen with the occasional bathroom break. I think I would rather be more active and
collaborative. I enjoyed working on hardware more than working on computers. I believe this
internship was a step in the right direction to aiding my career path, and it made me grow as a
person. I am very pleased to have this opportunity to be a part of such a prestigious organization
as Johns Hopkins APL.