Projects

Numerical Simulations to understand the concept of Electromagnetism

  • Create a simulation via Python to visualize the magnetic field produced by current going through a wire because it illustrates the basic concept of electromagnetism which is applicable to many fields
  • In the visualization, the user can drag and drop a wire and then click on the location where he or she wants the magnetic field to be calculated. The tool would then draw an arrow representing the magnitude and direction of the magnetic field at that time. It will also draw the contribution from each segment of the wire.
  • Learnings
    • Learnt the basics of modeling and simulation and how to choose which type of model would best represent the physical equations and conditions of the system.
    • How to create a model by starting with a simple model and iteratively improving it by testing it against the observational data.
    • How to use VPython to create interactive graphics
  • I enjoyed brainstorming possible models that I could use to best represent the physical situation. I also enjoyed making the visualization and experimenting with different ways to portray the information.
  • Video Link to the project

WASP-2b Exoplanet Confirmation and Radius Calculation

  • Location: Wallace Laboratory, Westford, MA
  • Used clear filter on the 14 inch Celestron equipment
  • There are 3 main methods for exoplanet detection and I used the transit method for detecting WASP-2b
  • I was able to confirm the existence of WASP-2b with 99% confidence level. However, the radius was calculated as 0.886 ± 0.014 R Jup which was lower than the predicted value of 1.04 ± 0.06 RJup.
  • Unfortunately, due to the weather conditions, my results were inconclusive.
  • Learnings:
    • I learned the basics of observing exoplanets and analyzing data from them to verify their existence.
    • I learned how beneficial it is to gather data from space so that the radiation doesn’t get obscured by the atmosphere, reducing the signal-to-noise ratio of my observations. The quality of the data plays a key role in the results, which is influenced by external factors like the local atmospheric conditions at the time of observations.
    •  I also learned how to create easy-to-understand figures and write detailed captions. This enhanced my scientific communication skills, and made me more confident in communicating my science in professional settings.
  • Presentation link

Classification of Meteorites

  • Collected and organized data regarding the classification of several meteorite samples into a spreadsheet
  • Learned how to classify meteorites according to their chemical composition and level of differentiation from their origin body
  • Seeing the meteorite samples, I felt that even though they resemble some rocks that form Earth’s crust, they still seemed otherworldly.

Machine Learning based Speech Recognition App for individuals with speech disorders

  • Problem: 40 million Americans and over 300 million people worldwide have speech disorders. Even though Speech Recognition is becoming ubiquitous, there are no good solutions available for people with speech disorders.  
  • Goal: Train a Speech Recognition model to recognize words for a target user using voice clips from that user. Once the model is created, it should recognize the words spoken by the same user on an Android app with over 60% accuracy.
  • Software:
    • Tensorflow: An open-source machine learning platform by Google; allows to build neural networks with many layers.
    • Anaconda: Environment to develop and test the code in
    • Python: Programming language used for data preparation of customer model
    • Android Studio: Development environment for Android
  • Research Paper  
  • Video that was submitted for the Science Fair

Inspiring young minds by their hobbies, Encouraging young hearts by engineering opportunities

  • Problem: Various journals, articles, and statistics have shown the decreased STEM education awareness in America along with more and more immigrant students pursuing STEM degrees in US rather than American students.
  • Goals:
    • Inspire elementary school children and girl scout troops to learn more about STEM
    • Help elementary school children and girl scout troops become excited about STEM so they want to learn more about ‘why’, how’ and ‘what’ of their hobbies and how they are connected to engineering
    • Keep the STEM interests in kids sustained through website and YouTube presentations.
    • Inspire more girls to be interested in STEM in an attempt to decrease the gender gap.
  • Target Audience:
    • Students in grades 2-4 that live in Massachusetts
    • Girl Scout Juniors, Brownies and Daisies
    • Social Media (YouTube)
  • Addressed the root cause by:
    • Trying to understand what kids’ hobbies are and making a video on tying their hobby with an engineering angle
    • Doing 7 presentations through Zoom in which I shared the video
      • Asking children to share their favorite hobbies as a part of the introduction and then inspired them to understand the questions on “what”, “why” and “how” for their hobbies in the video, which in turn immersed them into the STEM part of their hobby
      • Finding different ways to make it interactive and engaging by asking questions and responding to other children’s comments and questions
    • Providing links to free online STEM games that teachers can tell their students to play in class or as a part of their past time.
  • Skills target audience learned:
    • Thinking about their favorite hobby
    • Connecting their knowledge to everyday life
    • Asking questions
    • Drawing technical pictures
  • Comments from the feedback form:
    • I learned “That when you recycle things it goes through a complicated process.”
    • “We liked the music and fun ways of explaining different types of engineering”
    • “I enjoyed most probably how there were many different types of engineers and you covered them all very well.”
    • I enjoyed “The questions that you directed to the people watching the video. It got me thinking about what I was interested in.”
  • Here are some other comments and thank you notes:
    • “Dear Anika, Thank you for teaching about STEM. I learned a lot from your presentation. I learned that when you recycle it goes into seven different piles like paper, glass, and cans. Good luck, Anika, becoming a technology engineer. Thank you, Evan”
    • “Dear Anika, Thank you for teaching us about STEM. Your video was amazing. There are so many different engineers that it is hard to choose just one. Both of us would want to be a software engineer or a website engineer.  Anna & Nik”
  • Project sustainability:
    • Uploaded the 2nd video to YouTube and shared the link in social media accounts. Here is the link for the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/PDrP4IHnT08
    • Shared the link for the video with all of the teachers and troop leaders I presented to, and they said that they would be happy to use it in the future too.