Today's trip to Northrop Grumman is "the best trip I've ever been on" as quoted by Mohaimanol. Although all of our trips have their own distinct value, being able to visit Northrop Grumman and learn about wireless communication technology, through the perspective of engineering professionals, is indeed a very rare and unique experience. Northrop Grumman is one of the world's top defense contractors, and their prestige is derived from their success in projects that range from designing state of the art military aircrafts to developing a secure wireless network for New York City emergency personnels.
Our students were greeted at Northrop grumman with a giant television screen that displayed live footage from cameras throughout the city, and by Monique, Steve, Janice and their wonderful coworkers. Our students were so engaged and curious about wireless technology that it took about 15 minutes to get through the first slide because they were asking a lot of questions. Later on in the day, we did an activity that simulated cellular reception by placing LED antennas throughout various locations in a lego city. The intensity of the light and overlaying of the lights on the surface represented the signal strength.
Steve from Northrop Grumman explaining to our students how an Emergency Call Box works
Monique (Second from left) and our judges (From Left) Omar Rosado, Doug Brown and Rhea Altamura, preparing to announce the results of the competition.
After lunch, students were treated to a workshop that allowed Northrop engineers to introduce three sets of technology to them; Modems, Advanced Metering Infrastructure and Automatic Vehicle Locator. Students saw that many of these technologies are leading the way to make a city smarter and more efficiency. Finally, to end our day, we had a friendly competition amongst our group to see who can come up with an innovative and cost effective solution to an everyday problem. Vicente and his team suggested a cell phone application that notifies the user if a bus is late. He impressed me today with his incredible knowledge, abundant ideas and skillful leadership ability. He effectively asked his team members for their input and assigned them roles to be fulfilled during the presentation, good job Vicente. On behalf of my team, thank you Northrop Grumman for this extraordinary opportunity to explore science and technology through the perspective of your engineers.
I absolutely LOVED being a part of the NYU-Poly Science of Smart Cities experience and having the privilege of planning an entire day for the students and sharing with them what we do at Northrop Grumman in New York City. I have done quite a few outreach events in the past and by far this was the best group I have worked with. The students asked so many insightful questions and genuinely wanted to learn more and embrace the entire experience of being at our office and spending time with the engineers who work to make a better NYC. I was really impressed by them!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much to NYU-Poly and all the great students who are part of the Science of Smart Cities Summer Experience! I cant wait to do it again next year!