Bremen Happenings

Things around Bremen have been pretty awesome lately, so I thought I'd share some of the highlights of my daily (sort of) life here!

Every Monday, we go to an Irish bar called Hegarty's and participate in a quiz night. We generally score around 60 points out of 90, but it's a blast! The guy asking the questions is from New York, and for some reason, he loves giraffes. For instance, I now know that a newborn giraffe is 1.80 meters tall (basically 6 feet tall), they can lick their ears, their heart weights 12kg (26 pounds), they can run faster than Usain Bolt, and the only predator of the giraffe is a lion. He also asks a lot of phobia and geography questions. Sometimes you just have to guess. Also, there are apparently 40,000 different kinds of rice... Would have never guessed that... Last week, we got our top score of 69 points, only 9 points lower than the top score for the evening. We usually get about 5-10 people to come out, and we compete against each other or work as a big team to see if we can figure it out. It's great fun!

I have been rock climbing three times now with the people from work. The first time, Hannah, Jan, and I went. Then it was just Martin and I. And the last time it was Florian, Hannah, and I. It's a great time too, but it is expensive. Martin and Hannah go a lot, so they try to help me with my technique. A lot of the time it helps me out a good deal, but sometimes, I just don't have the strength to keep going.

I've also been exercising on my own a lot. I've run three times in the past two weeks (twice being longer than 6 miles). Also, I finally got around to fixing my bike tire, so I've take a few bike rides. One day, I just rode aimlessly around Bremen taking pictures of interesting things. We also rode our bikes to the most recent rock climbing endeavor.

Last Saturday, Hannah and I went to watch Bremen play in the Rugby semi-final match in the city. We knew nothing about rugby, but it was a lot of fun because not many fans were there so we were right on the sidelines. True they almost ran into us sometimes, but we were paying attention so it's all good! Plus Bremen won and moved on to the finals! I love the second picture because it's a great display of bro love: one of the tightest bonds on the planet.

Following the rugby match, I was graciously invited over to Thimo's house to have an authentic, home-cooked meal consisting of asparagus, potatoes, and pork schnitzel. It was very delicious and great to have food prepared by someone who knows what they're doing! After that, Thimo, his dad, and I sat in their living room watching soccer and talking about politics and cultural differences and just about everything. I'm incredibly thankful that Thimo and his family invited me over for such a wonderful evening and excellent meal.

This past Thursday, I went kayaking with a group hear in the northern part of the city. We kayaked about 4.5 miles, and it was awesome. It was more difficult than I expected and quite different from canoeing. Another difficulty was that I was getting my instructions in German, but I got it! All of the people in the group were really nice and helpful, and it was a good chance for me to practice my German!

Furthermore, I figured out what I needed to do for my project at work, which is good because it needs to be done a week after I return from Greece. I didn't want to have to worry about it while I was gone, so I'm really glad that I was able to figure everything out before I left. It's kind of crazy to think about how close I am to being done with my internship at DLR.

In the time I've been here, I have learned how to take redundant inertial measurements from accelerometers and gyroscopes (accelerations and rotation rates) and transform those into a navigation system for a rocket (it will work on any vehicle really). My redundant IMU utilizes 4 gyroscopes and 4 accelerometers instead of a tradition IMU that uses 3 of each in order to increase accuracy. I had to research and determine the different geometries for the sensors to get maximum accuracy. The sensor readings are transformed into axes that align with the body of the vehicle to determine its position, velocity, and orientation.

From there, I created an Information filter that predicts the future readings of the sensors based on current measurements. These predictions are compared to what the sensors actually read, and a comparison using probabilities determines whether or not the data is faulty. Faulty data will not be used to prevent the errors from disrupting the navigation results. I tried to break it down as simply as possible for everyone, and so hopefully you all got the idea of it. Basically, I helped develop a more accurate navigation system for a rocket test that will go into space. Going into space has nothing to do with what I actually did, I just want you to know that what I worked on will be going into space!