This week at Cluster 2, we dove right back into learning, continuing with Prof. Shaowei Chen’s lectures on the synthesis of metal nanoparticles, amongst topics such as metal-oxide nanoparticles and surface plasmon resonance. We learned about the different methods to make such nanoparticles, such as the Brust and Martin methods. To quantify this knowledge, we were able to do a lab where we saw how different nanoparticles are made and their properties, as well as a lab on ferrofluids (liquids that are attracted to magnets). Specifically, in the synthesis of the gold nanoparticle we got to see that by adding the reducing agent (trisodium citrate) the solution started changing colors, indicating that gold nanoparticles had formed (because gold doesn’t absorb red light). For the ferrofluids lab, we saw that the addition of ammonia to the solution produced magnetite. It was then tested for its magnetic properties by placing a magnet under the beaker, and we saw, slowly, the magnetite particles float to the bottom. Meanwhile, Prof. Roger Terrill’s lectures prompted intense thinking. Our brains were continuously put to the test as we learned about various concepts in quantum physics and chemistry, including those of a “particle in a box” and band theory. Additionally, Prof. Terrill got us working together by having us discuss questions relating to the topics, allowing us to interact with each other about such fascinating topics. Though this material is difficult to understand, we are able to slowly put the puzzle pieces together by asking questions and seeking help from our professors as well as other scientific articles. Prof. Chen and Terrill, as well as TAs Qiming, Davida and Forrest have helped us scrape away the unknowns and shine light on the truly fascinating world of nanochemistry and nanotechnology. The field of nanochemistry and nanotechnology is truly universal; it has applications in many different areas and never disappoints. All of us at Cluster 2 are eager to learn more and research our individual presentations! - Ankita Prasad
Cluster 3 Bubblers, Feathers, and Fur: Exploring Animals in the Ocean and on Land
Cluster 3’s second week has been, without a doubt, eventful and thrilling! This week, I had the chance to speak with Catherine Zhang and Isabel Hyman about Cluster 3’s activities. To start off, they delved into learning about diving bradycardia and thermoregulation, which relates to how marine mammals stay warm by having adaptations such as thick fur and blubber. To build on the questions they asked about birds last week, Cluster 3 has also been taking breaks from their devices and going outdoors to their “sit-spots” to practice identifying birds by sight and sound using binoculars and field guides. The highlight of the week was the virtual field trip to visit adorable dolphins performing all kinds of insane tricks, such as pretending to be reeled in by a fishing rod! As a plus, they had the chance to see the extremely endangered Hawaiian monk seal up close. Wrapping up the week, guest lecturer Dr. Block gave a compelling presentation about the complex social interactions among golden crowned sparrows, who have their own Facebook-like social network! Cluster 3 also explored the anatomy of a dolphin with dolphin models and went to various places in Santa Cruz, including beachside cliffs, to find wild birds. Since Cluster 3 is speedy when it comes to projects, they are finished with their outlines and already starting their presentation slides! Although they were shy at first, they now chat with each other regularly on their Discord server, whether it’s for helping each other with assignments or just seeing each other outside of “school mode.” They even have plans to build a giant Cluster 3 house on their Minecraft server! Overall, Cluster 3 loves to get to know each other and share their fascination of animals. - Jamin Xie
Cluster 4 The Physics of Single-Atom-Thick Sheets
With the excitement of the first week still in the air, Cluster 4 embraced its second week ready to learn and tackle new problems. In the morning class with Prof. Aiming Yan, Arrangement of Atoms in Single-Atom-Thick Sheets, we began by discussing the atomic packing factor, which gives insight into the portion of the unit cell’s volume occupied by atoms. Similarly, the planar packing factor can be used to calculate the fraction of the plane’s area composed by atoms. Over the week, we learned about how microscopes are used to study crystal structures. This is where the real magic happened: a lot of the concepts from the evening class began weaving into the discussion. Understanding X-ray diffraction proved vital towards understanding the functioning of electron microscopes, which in turn can reveal the structure of materials like graphene and graphite. Speaking of X-ray diffraction, last week in the Electricity of Single Atom-Thick-Sheets with Prof. Jairo Velasco, we finished talking about Young’s double-slit experiment and X-ray diffraction experiment by Van Lauder. This ultimately left us with the intriguing Schrödinger equation, which describes the wave functions governing particle motion. The equation has two general forms: time-dependent and time-independent, shown by ψ(x,t). By definition, ψ (or psi) represents the probability amplitude for the state of a quantum object with respect to its degree of freedom. Throughout the week, we have been deriving expressions for particle motion in different situations, including within infinite potential wells: Ψ(x, t) = Ae^i(kx−ωt). We also examined the Schrödinger equation with respect to finite potential wells, looking closely at the equations for different regions inside and outside the well. By the end of the week, Cluster 4 began working on its research projects, with different groups focusing on specific real-world applications of 2D materials. I can’t wait to see what next week holds for us! - Tania Firouzabady
Cluster 5 Video Game Design
During their second week of COSMOS, Cluster 5 explored more game engines that game designers can use to bring their video game ideas to life from concept to code. We first learned to use the game engine Twine to create interactive games that tell a story. After becoming familiar with the basics of Twine, Cluster 5 split into groups to collectively create an interactive galaxy. Each group had to make a solar system, and each person was a planet within their group’s solar system. At the end of the day, we were able to explore other groups’ solar systems, allowing us to get to know each other better through the planets we created.
As the week continued, Cluster 5 analyzed more game engines by examining the games created with those engines, listening to lectures explaining how to code with the game engines, and finally creating games of our own to share at the end of the day. Using the game engine Unity, one of the most widely used game engines, allowed us to become more comfortable with the programming language C#. We used another game engine called Ren’Py to code visual novels with Python. Our visual novels ranged from interactive restaurants where the food literally speaks to you, to games where you must infiltrate a group of gamers unnoticed. One of the final game engines we utilized was a simple game editor called Bitsy before we set out to select a game engine to code our own games with it on Friday. Experimenting with different types of game engines will play a significant role in helping Cluster 5 prepare for our final projects, where we will each create a video game of our own using a game engine of our choosing. By playing games made by both our peers and more advanced programmers, our cluster will use these inspirations and our improved programming skills to create more advanced games. - Jordan Lee
Cluster 6 Introduction into Smart Power
We dove into the second week of Cluster 6: Introduction to Smart Power with Tea Time led by our teacher fellow, Kristen Hart. Continuing our journey in learning about the fundamentals of electromagnetism, Prof. Gabriel Intriago introduced intriguing subtopics such as electric potential, circuits, and magnetism! Throughout our lectures, we were able to talk to each other in breakout rooms and work on the quick quizzes together. When we had put our heads together, the quick quizzes seemed less intimidating. We watched super cool videos on solar storms, the Earth’s aura and satisfying videos of people meddling with iron filings and magnets,which helped us visualize the curriculum we learned in our lectures. Fuzzy, fur-like clumps of iron filings were created when the magnets and iron filings interacted with each other. During one of the many workshops we had during the week, in groups of four to five people, we practiced our presenting skills with quick presentations on the most random topics--ranging from the Art of Drinking Water to How to Take Care of a Chicken! Then... at last! It’s lunch! During this break, our cluster came together to play games like Skribbl and Gartic Phone. In the afternoon, we reviewed the different parts of a scientific article by playing an intense game of Kahoot and later worked with online coding tools such as MATLAB and Python. We used MATLAB to explore loops and functions with our teacher, Sifat Chowdhury, and also continued learning Python fundamentals with Kejun Chen. Cluster 6 (and COSMOS as a whole) has been an incredibly engaging and educational experience so far, and we are all looking forward to the days yet to come! - Katie Lin
Cluster 7 Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology
After a successful first week of COSMOS, the students of Cluster 7 hopped onto the first Zoom meeting of the second week, eager to learn. In Microbiology with Prof. Chad Saltikov, we observed the bacterial colonies that grew from the fermented food that we streaked last week. From there, we isolated one colony of bacteria. In Prof. Peter Weiss’ class, guest speaker Richard Stedman came in to give us a presentation about the Monterey Bay Air Resources Department and the effects of negative air quality and pollutants. On Wednesday, we created our own sourdough starters in order to observe microbial growth and fermentation in sourdough. In the words of Prof. Saltikov, a sourdough starter is like a pet, and we have to babysit and feed it or else it might die. Maybe we can make bread with our starters after we’re done using them for our science experiments? Prof. Weiss’ class was equally as exciting! We first finished presenting the findings from our particulate matter experiments from last week. Each of us had unique hypotheses (like how cooking will negatively affect the air quality or if masks are really effective) and effectively carried out our experiments to present our results. Once the presentations were over, we learned how to measure for gaseous ozone by creating ozone chambers, lighting up a candle and trapping it with an ozone strip under a closed container. We also measured the ozone outside of our houses, which revealed just how the air quality is in the places that we live. Prof. Weiss even sprung an Environmental Toxicology Kahoot quiz on us mid-session, which we passed, of course. Cluster 7 has had an amazing two weeks so far, and we’re all anticipating the rest! - Wendy Li
Cluster 8 Marine Mammals Oceanography
For Cluster 8, the second week kicked off with a number of exciting lab events. In Prof. Baldo Marinovic’s class, we continued our nautical adventures by learning more about bivalves, fish, marine reptiles, and birds, including clams, sea turtles, and penguins. He told us while we were learning about marine reptiles that once, when he was scuba diving, a sea snake found its way into his scuba! Monday ended with Prof. Marinovic showing us samples of phytoplankton, in which he even found fish and crab larvae. On Tuesday, we watched him dissect a clam and a squid. Much to our surprise, the intestine in a clam runs through the heart, and after learning about its anatomy, many students decided that they didn’t ever want to eat clams again. In our afternoon classes with Prof. Shawn Norren, we studied thermoregulation in marine mammals and conducted a thermoregulation lab. Since the lab was virtual, we were given data on dolphin body temperatures and then used the conduction equation to solve for heat transfer. On Tuesday, the class took a virtual field trip to UCSC’s Long Marine Lab where Program Manager Traci Kendall showed us bottlenose dolphins and a monk seal. She demonstrated how the scientists take care of the marine mammals, ensure they stay fit, and conduct research on them. All of us were extremely sad that we weren’t in-person to see the animals, but all of us in Cluster 8 still had a great time. On Friday we learned about dolphin anatomy and built a dolphin model. Prof. Norren told us about the inaccuracies of the model—it had no blubber—but commemorated the model for its accurate parts, such as the dolphin’s chambered stomach. It was a fun activity to end the week with, and we’re all looking forward to the classes next Monday. - Emily Dai
Cluster 9 The Building Blocks of Life: Molecules and Cells in Biology
Week 2 in Cluster 9 has proven to be even more exciting than the last. This week’s lectures took a massive jump into an undergraduate research level, exposing Cluster 9’s aspiring student researchers to the tools we need to be successful in the field. To kick off the week, we gave presentations on different research protocols in Dr. Zhu Wang’s morning class. Presentation topics included PCR, mammalian cell culture, tissue dissociation, western blotting, fluorescence staining, and plasmid transfection/ligation. From there, the lectures focused on genetics. We learned about embryonic manipulation, reverse and forward genetic techniques, and signaling pathways in embryogenesis. In our afternoon sessions, we took the first steps toward creating our final presentations on our genes of choice. Reading research paper after research paper, we began to make tremendous progress in truly understanding our genes and their background. With Dr. James Shanks and our teaching fellows, we learned how to clone our genes using recombinant bacterial plasmids and restriction enzymes. In addition, we went over several lab techniques and protocols in RNA extraction, UV spectroscopy use, PCR, and protein purification. We enjoyed learning about biotechnology topics and lab procedures, and we are excited to apply our new knowledge to our final presentations. Cluster 9 is looking forward to further exploring the world of molecular biology and biotechnology with Dr. Zhu and Dr. Shanks next week! - Annesha Dey
Cluster 10 Semiconductor Materials and Device Engineering
This is Henry Qi, your Cluster 10 writer, and I’m excited to be back here with you for another week of Cluster 10! After a much-needed break this weekend and some review of last week, we rolled into learning about energy densities with Professor Kobayashi. Energy densities are typically graphs that describe the probability of finding an atom, particularly electrons, at a certain energy state. Various functions (with interesting names) can describe these densities, which include Fermi Dirac and Maxwell-Boltzman! These functions are described by some really cool equations that we studied, as they seemed very random at first.
Moving on, we studied electric current, which is the movement of free carriers. Current is indeed important in everyday life, as . We also studied what happens when current is not smooth, otherwise known as scattering. Scattering causes electrons to be deflected from their intended path. Finally,we covered the concept of etching, where someone shines ultraviolet light to “kill” off silicon dioxide and then the photoresistors are removed. One final thing we learned was a connection between Ohm’s law (voltage = current * resistance) and Newton’s law of F = ma.
We did some extremely cool things outside of the topic. For instance, we toured PhD student Emily Enlow’s lab. It was really cool to observe what she did each week, from research to performing a lab about etching to analyzing data. In addition, we had six groups (each around five students) present some topic they chose related to semiconductors. giving feedback on their presentation (very important). Some of the presentations were really funny, including one that had a weird Twitter post. Still, the feedback was the most important, as we all improve with critiques. As we begin our final research project for this year, I wish everyone in this program the best of luck. Hopefully, Cluster 10 will use this research project not only to finish COSMOS, but to find their passion for something. - Henry Qi
Cluster 11 Feedback Control with Applications to Robots
With the second week of the COSMOS program at UCSC in the books, Cluster 11, Feedback Control with Applications to Robotics, has certainly accomplished a lot in a short period of time. I chatted with Sarah Zhang to learn more about the exciting hands-on activities and interactive lectures Cluster 11 participated in this week.
In the robotic control lectures, students learned the ropes of MATLAB, a programming language developed for scientists and engineers, by exploring the syntax of the language and understanding how to plot points. Activities involving calculating, solving, and plotting position equations were used to help students synthesize information from both lecture classes while developing a new skill.
Meanwhile, in the feedback control sessions, Cluster 11 focused on the dynamics of stable and unstable dynamics, flexing their mathematical skills when finding equilibrium points in different equations. On Tuesday, students had a chance to hone their technical communication skills with mini presentations! Groups assembled in the previous week worked to collaboratively analyze a research paper of their choice, and then present to the class. “It was great to practice public speaking and also learn about everyone else’s research topic,” Sarah said. Throughout this week, work on final projects has shifted into high gear, with groups meeting regularly to provide students with the opportunity to both research their topic and provide some much-needed socialization time. With cutting edge technology already being explored and applied, we all can’t wait to see what Week 3 has in store for Cluster 11! - Sarina Mayya
Cluster 12 Scattering and Diffraction of Materials
For Cluster 12 (the best cluster), our second week was filled with engaging content and fun surprises! We had not one, not two, but five lab days where Professors Scott Oliver and Dave Belanger led us through experiments that solidified the ideas we learned. On Monday, we virtually toured the Oak Ridge National Lab with Dr. Feng Ye, who showed us his lab and the spallation source while explaining his work on neutron scattering.
During this week’s morning lectures with Prof. Belanger, we continued to investigate magnetism and the behaviors of magnets at different temperatures. We also discussed phase diagrams and phase transitions, especially critical points. On Thursday, Prof. Belanger was in the lab heating ethane in a test tube so we could see it transition from separated gas and liquid to one supercritical fluid. Despite Zoom crashing 10 times and it taking an hour for us to finally see the transition, it was extremely satisfying watching the supercritical fluid change to a liquid and a gas in a puff of smoke.
On Monday, Prof. Oliver also gave us a tour of his lab, and we saw the X-ray diffraction machine and our TA doing experiments. Later in the week, we learned about unit cells and watched each other get confused about counting lines and dots. Alongside our academic adventures this week, we also bonded outside of class, through both COSMOS activities and our own means. Every day, we would sit muted and deafened in a Discord call (meaning we couldn’t hear anyone else), and feel the good vibes radiating through the voice channel. We’d also flip our Zoom videos upside down for the last few minutes of class, rejecting humanity and returning to monke, firmly cementing Cluster 12 as truly the best cluster both academically and socially. - Audrey Zeng