“Checkmate!”, I shouted to myself, during the online chess tournament, expressing cheerfulness, because I thought I had made the concluding move and I was gonna WIN the game. But I realised that the opponent still had the Queen to eliminate my almost triumphant Bishop, and that I didn’t ‘observe’ the gameboard well enough.

“Checkmate!”, I shouted to myself, when I thought our team spotted the asteroid in the telescope images (I didn’t actually say ‘Checkmate’, I just shouted ‘YESSS!’, but I was muted so it doesn’t matter). But I realised that it wasn’t our asteroid because I didn’t ‘observe’ the images well enough…

“Checkmate!”, I shouted to myself (this is the last time don’t worry), when I thought I had completed the code to a good extent (again I didn’t say ‘Checkmate’, I just whispered ‘please run please run’ and made the Namaste gesture with my hands while praying to God). The data, from the file to be opened in python, wasn’t stored correctly, and of course, it didn’t work!

“Checkmate!”, just kidding, I don’t keep saying “Checkmate!” all the time, we just say ‘YAYY!!’, my teammates know this.

But all of this did make me feel that a lot of things don’t end up the way we expect them to, at least when we are working on an actual project. So, it’s alright necessary to calm down, CHILL out and enjoy the work and feel the moment. CAUTION: Don’t CHILL when we are saving our planet from an incoming asteroid, we will need to get our code right no matter what! The lesson is over, but I wanna write more about our experience… 

So let’s go, 

23rd of July 2021, we were working on a T-shirt design for our campus. Our theme was ‘Pasta’. FUN FACT: I actually didn’t know there were different types of pasta, I always pictured something looking like this:

We worked hard and got an AMAZING symbol for SSP’21:

The BEST part: Literally every team contributed to the process. We all had created our team stickers that would represent our team. We combined all of these team stickers to represent our campus, in an INNOVATIVE manner:

The entire process of working on this design was AWESOME because it brought out the artist inside all of us! 

The POINT is that, this one month (or so), ‘might’ not let you sleep, ‘might’ turn you into an expert gamer (you still won’t get better than us at CODENAMES though), ‘might’ bring out the artist in you, but it will DEFINITELY give you a lot of really awesome friends (probably 2 special ones, your teammates), and teach you a lot… 

-Eesh

The post CHECKMATE! BUT NOT REALLY… first appeared on SSP International.

Project submissions, late night-outs have been common in school days, yet pulling all-nighters at SSP has been enjoyable because that’s what passion mixed with collaboration does. 

In schools, it’s always the boring anticipated lecture that piles up on you making you feel stressed. But wait, at SSP the stress was still there, even at the limit of you thinking that it will never end. You don’t believe it?  OD OD OD…That’s what we’ve been chanting for the last 3 months (Nonono, it’s just been weeks; Okay, I admit, I’m too drowsy right now)

Ah, here comes the social hour, our savior. Codenames, Gartic, Wordbomb, and of course, the one and only…Chess have all been bringing our peace of mind back from outer space so it doesn’t just start spinning like our sneaky little asteroids (actually sooo big, thanks to Dr. Domingue for some incredible insights).

Speaking of our faculty, be it at the Codenames Championship, or Chess tournaments (our rivalry is still on, haha), or resolving our OD Code issues, Andrei’s emotions are priceless. TA’s are the best.

*The rivalry must continue, The community must grow!

And how could I forget Dr. Kim, the brain of our OD mission, training us to break through every Cosmic dust particle step-by-step so we can reach our dream stars.

Guest lectures during SSP were simply awesome, particularly the one in which we could see serious “Mad Science” mesmerized me.

Yes!, we are done, even with our final OD Report. Our team 11, ‘The Stellar Stelline’ rests in peace.

Well, true to its name, SSP continued and continued until the Thank-You time which jolted with the fact that every run comes to an end, an End that I still wish to take ahead among the community.

-Ayush

About Me:

Hello! I’m Ayush, a rising senior from India. Apart from Math and Computer Science, in my free time, I enjoy swimming, playing chess, and watching movies.

The post TRUE to its name first appeared on SSP International.

Everyone says that SSP is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and before starting, I always
wondered how 5 weeks could change your life? I got my answer; SSP pushed us to the brim
and challenged us to the point where we need to stop questioning the origins of the base
equations. Google didn’t have the answers, just more questions; the lectures and notes held the
key but learning where and how to look was the trick. I remember looking at the very first Pset
and taking 3 ish hours to solve it with my peers and thinking, “I didn’t understand anything from
that.” Now that we are all almost done without the final OD report, I realized that everything
makes sense, and I learned so much even without realizing it. Scrolling through CANVAS and
looking at all the submitted assignments baffles me. Did I do all of this work in 5 weeks? Did I
really figure out how to predict the orbital path of my team’s asteroid? The answer to these
questions is yes, I did, but I guess I didn’t realize it, and that part of the magic is SSP. There is
so much work but, doing it amongst peers and teachers who are just as much in love with the
topic makes you forget that what you are doing is work, and you start to enjoy it.

But academics aren’t everything. The biggest reason that SSP was a life-changing experience
for me is that it allowed me to grow as a person. I learned the importance of balance when to
give up and that not everything has to be perfect. I learned how to pace myself and take breaks,
things you do not learn to do in high school. It also enforced the importance of teamwork and
collaboration. It taught me so many life skills that I would not have been able to learn otherwise.
It was refreshing to be in an environment that doesn’t encourage direct competition instead of
collaboration. To be in an environment where understanding and learning were prioritized over
getting the right answer and solving the problem. It was refreshing that I could just learn for
once and not have to worry about grades; I could solve the pset or write the code because I
wanted to, not because I wanted a grade or was forced to.

The environment, the people, the entire experience was metamorphic and a welcomed break
from the insanely competitive world we live in. I think I can say that without a shred of a doubt, I
am a different person than I was 5 weeks ago and that I like myself better now.

– Akshitha

The post Final Act first appeared on SSP International.

You can’t do it alone.

And that doesn’t make you weak, that makes you human. Not a single person on this planet is capable of doing everything all by themselves. Those two sentences took me 17 years to digest, and only at SSP did I finally realize their true meaning. This five week journey has made me realize that having a supportive community is the most important thing in life. Yes, more important than getting into that dream school, or getting that dream job, or buying that dream car. You won’t be satisfied with your life until you find people you can count on. I know we keep hearing stories about geniuses from the past who neglected everyone around them and devoted their whole lives to their craft, but times have changed. Science of the 21st century is extremely collaboration-based. Please don’t isolate yourself. Find kind and ambitious people. Try to help everyone out to the best of your abilities, and don’t be afraid to ask for assistance. It doesn’t matter if you need help with coming up with the perfect pasta recipe, debugging your OD code, or dealing with the fact that the last day of SSP is right around the corner. We learn from each other, and as we learn, we grow. Why fight to the top when we can get there together? Once we’re all on the same team, competition becomes unnecessary. 

You can’t do it alone, but we can do it together.

-Nadja

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hi!! I’m Nadja, a rising senior from Serbia. Hobbies include researching random science topics at 3AM, playing bass and guitar, building guitar effects pedals and amplifiers, and listening to/talking about music.

The post A Lesson first appeared on SSP International.

Did you feel like you were in the shoes of an SSPer? Hopefully, if any curious reader stumbles upon our blog post page and finds themselves knee-deep in the wise and wonderful words of my peers, they’ll be able to get that in-the-moment feel of being an SSPer while reading from my perspective. It’s true, I’ve been anticipating this blog post for over a month; not dreading it, but imagining what I might have to say when all is said and done. These blog posts, if you’re wondering, are an apparent tradition at SSP. Each night, one participant (sometimes even two!) are given the rather nebulous task of “writing a blog post”. So far as I can see, there’s not much more in the way of guidelines. And yet, night after night, as faithfully as the sun rises along the ecliptic (well, ok, yes, as the Earth turns– but let’s stick to sunrises for poetry’s sake), a new link appears in our “blog” discord channel, always harboring a perfect mixture of heart, smarts, and wit. 

“Why am I reading a blog about blogs?” you ask yourself. “Is this girl stalling or something??” No; I just love acknowledging things — like these blogs — in a “meta” sense. I suppose it’s my own unique SSPer way of exploring how I think and feel about something while bringing others with me into it. Bringing others in… that’s it, isn’t it? That’s SSP. Yes, it stands for “Summer Science Program” (although our “what is SSP?” discord channel will have you convinced it actually means “somehow still psetting”.) Indeed, it is supposed to be “the educational experience of a lifetime”, and I came into it expecting to be changed as a person, academically. In many respects, I think I can say that I really have. And yet, this is not what stands out to me most when I think of SSP. It’s that bringing others in, the sharing of thoughts, the being part of a flash flood of a community that forms almost instantly under the sweeping pressure of the curriculum and shares an enormously strong bond. Frankly, I was ever-so-slightly terrified going into SSP; I worried that I was ill-prepared and second-guessed myself endlessly. It was that community that leaves me feeling worlds away from that nervous person I initially was, that community that taught me definitively for the first time — more than any personal accomplishment ever could — that I am capable when “I” am part of a spectacular “we”, where I can lean on others and others can lean on me. (Hey! That rhymed! ). I changed academically, sure — I can actually write a halfway decent code and I’m well on my way to being an expert in matters of celestial coordinates. But what I think has really left a mark on me is the taste of true synergy and genuine intellectual collaboration I’ve had the immeasurable privilege of coming to know. (There is no experience quite like finding yourself battling it out with incredible like-minded peers during an online game of codenames or gartic phone just minutes after engaging in a deep discussion about a tough calculus pset or coding assignment). Above all, this community we’ve built — one of creative and caring instructors,  friendly and insightful TAs, and the most incredible, helpful, kind, hilarious group of peers I could ever hope to know (all the smartest people I think I’ve ever met) — has taught me that I’ll never be alone on my journey to the stars. That kind of sentiment bears tidings of a beautiful future. Or, at the very least, I’d like to think it makes for a pretty cool blog post. 

-Erin

The post Pers(s)pective first appeared on SSP International.

In order to overcome our problems, each day one of us screen-shared, and we tried to solve that specific case. It took almost a week to make all AIJs work. Then other problems occurred: our images were rotated and even more flipped. There is no time to explain all the other problems, since it would take more than a blog post, but now, I can confidently say that “we solved them at the end!” However, they caused some permanent consequences. After installing and processing more than 50 images, running the swift code for more than 10 hours, and trying to debug our codes for hours, I need to acknowledge that my computer has officially retired. Now, I can see the messages I type to discord after about eight seconds, and it takes me a long time to transfer from the CUB3 room to the TA office, where we visit frequently. The other and most important consequence was Atharva’s ears… At the end of each solution, Neinei and I screamed with joy, but Atharva’s earphones did not help with the scream. Even though Atharva may have serious problems with his ears (sorry for that), the scream of joy kept us going. 

The consequences were negligible compared to the once-in-a-lifetime experience, as Firaol said in his blog (recommended). SSP was one of the few special places that I felt complete inclusion. I–a person who never speaks in English classes, is afraid to talk in front of large groups even in her native language–expressed ideas, asked questions, and even made jokes in my second language. Even though I forced myself to speak up, without the understanding approach of SSPers and the faculty, it would not have been possible to fully experience SSP. I am extremely happy to be around individuals who try to empathize with each other, counter to the seemingly big differences. I thought the biggest one was not having drunk coffee before, and to those people, I highly recommend Turkish Coffee

So when I look back, I am pleased to acquire new knowledge, find happiness inside the hardships, and spend time with incredible people during SSP. I am looking forward to the new experiences we will have as SSP alumni…

Note: We observed that there is a 5.26% probability for our kind asteroid 2004 LJ1, who gave us three successful observations, to hit the Earth. So even though it seems to be a few million years later, live like you can meet our beautiful asteroid anytime soon and do things you enjoy!

* Swift code result after 12 hours

-Berra

About me: Hi! I am Berra, a rising senior from Turkey. When I am not doing something related to science or programming, I enjoy watching dance videos, playing board games (my new favorite: Halli Galli), and solving sudokus and nanograms.

The post Looking back… first appeared on SSP International.

Today concludes observing team CUB2’s valiant streak of observation failure. The last observation request we would submit during SSP has, unlike its four predecessors, succeeded! Thanks 
to Dr. Fallscheer from the ONL campus and Isaac the really cool telescope dude, my team completed our first direct imaging of the elusive 1998OH via remote control on Zoom. Moral of the story: in life, if you want anything, you have got to do it yourself.

But this was not the only exception. Unlike its four predecessors, this week we did not complete any psets (though the OD code, Swift simulations, and MPC report proved to be more than a handful). Unlike its countless predecessors (last year does not count), this year’s SSP is conducted on Zoom.

Recently, my mother inquired of me if I was happy that my “SSP quarantine” (because I rarely leave the house) was almost over. I realized my reply was not in agreement with her expectation; I was actually upset that SSP passed by so quickly.

So how does an online summer program with an exceptionally undescriptive name become so special to me?

That was the question I often wondered after Learning Block at 2 AM when, lately, I’ve been losing sleep (iykyk). Is it our shared interest in astronomy and physics? Is it some sort of camaraderie that arose from collectively struggling with the same pset? Or is it sympathy for each other for being stuck on Zoom for eight hours a day?

Maybe all of those, but I have come to realize it is really the little moments that we share with the people that makes the program unique and the debugging tolerable. The sympathetic looks other teams give us when they hear about my team’s lack of images. The immense gratification when the audience “wowed” and bopped at the talent show music video I spent hours piecing together and lining up. Zoom shenanigans, including but not limited to the Moly army, Molly’s best joke ever, and cover mouth laugh gang… 

Yes, having to only think about astronomy and nothing else for a month has been my dream, but doing astronomy online without a group of passionate and intelligent people would not be nearly as enjoyable. For me, it is these little moments that make spending five weeks on Zoom worth every bit of it.

I know it’s not over yet, but I also know the day when we must say goodbye will come sooner than we would like. So here it is from me, a few days in advance: farewell, keep in touch, and I really hope to see you again, party people.

-Jack

About me:

Hello I’m Jack! During the school year, you can find me in California doing astronomy, playing volleyball, climbing rocks, vibing to music and playing sax. Over the summer, you can find me in Shenzhen, China doing the same things, just not around horses.

The post When the party is over :( first appeared on SSP International.

June 20, 2021,  SSP began by the participants introducing ourselves. I wondered what I was about to experience and who I was about to meet.

The first week was a tough one. It was a new language and I knew nothing more than names. In addition to the novelty of the topics, the pace we learned them made them more difficult: derivatives, integration, multi-variable calc all one after the other. I tried all my best to keep up with a pace of learning I believed was not possible. Honestly, I felt like I would not make it until now.  But, guess what, like many SSPeers, I made it. 

I would attribute this (me passing the hard days) to my fellow participants and their eagerness to help.  Frankly, I was impressed by the non-competitiveness among participants. I spent probably my entire learning years in a competition-dominated environment. However, at SSP, I saw (and I am seeing) what it looks like to strive for the sake of curiosity, not grades.  And, I am thoroughly enjoying it.

It still confuses me how we are only four days away from the end of SSP. I feel like the first day was only a few days ago. The one takeaway (at least for me)  is that: when we are doing what we love and are in the right environment, we tend to become unaware of time since we can’t stop thinking about the things we are doing. 

These led me to frame SSP as a rowing sport but only with a single boat.  I consider this boat to be SSP, and we(the researchers: uhh it feels great)  as the ones on it, and the oars as our collaboration and curiosity that pushes us forward.

Now that I am almost an SSP alumnus, I can see why SSP is given that quote.  I can now confidently say that SSP is INDEED an experience of a lifetime. And, I am lucky to be part of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. At SSP, I was able to meet driven people that I have learned from a lot. SSP allowed me to experience perseverance, collaboration, fun, and many other things at the highest level. 

-Firaol

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hi! I’m Firaol, a rising senior from Ethiopia. In the future, I aspire to be an aerospace engineer. Apart from science, I enjoy calisthenics (body weight training), listening to music, watching movies, and observing the cosmos(just by my eyes for now). 

The post Indeed, an experience of a lifetime first appeared on SSP International.

Kicking it off was A Sweet Surprise (Momo dancing), followed by Dr. Kim’s performance of Caresse sur l’ocean. Next, Abby demonstrated her colorguard skills by swirling and twirling a rifle, two batons, and a flag (to the tune of the aptly named Distance Equals Rate Times Time). Additionally, Sarah showed us that Momo isn’t the only talented dancer on campus, providing us with a Dance and Act. 

After the extremely talented Jessica showed us her Crab-corder skills, Eesh shared an entire oscar-worthy short film! Adelynn then sang a beautiful cover of a traditional Chinese song, 繁华唱遍 (Fan Hua Chang Bian). With a quick intermission where Atharva demonstrated his PI memorization skills (Try to beat his score) and showed us some very speedy chess, we continued to Erin’s Gallery, a beautiful collection of oil, acrylic, watercolor, and digital paintings. 

Eesh showed us another video demonstrating An Innovative Approach to producing energy, followed by Kavya’s amazing CUB theme song (the best song for the best campus, even though it made us a bit sad). Then, Jake showed us some Astrophotography and we watched an amazing performance of Counting Stars from Jessica, Kavya, Akshitha, Adelynn, Nadja, Inimai, Emily, Bowen, Ryan, and Jack (who knew we had so many musically talented participants.

After Tina showed us a very impressive Phigros performance, Christine and Jodi (and all of us) celebrated Molly’s birthday (Happy late birthday Molly!!!) and listened to the best joke ever, performed by Molly themself. To wrap it up, we all danced The Cupid Shuffle (a zoom recording that hopefully will never see the light of day), and took a group photo.

So much talent in one zoom call!

But the Talent show didn’t stop when the zoom call stopped, as some of us shared additional talents in #cub (the best campus). Molly shared some European/Balkan singing from Wesleyan and some musical singing from their senior year of High School, and Adelynn shared some figure skating. Michael didn’t perform during this talent show, but I’m looking forward to his performance of Optimization! 

Thank you to everyone that participated in the show, It was incredible seeing everyone perform!

I didn’t submit anything for the talent show myself, but with everyone sharing activities they loved, I was inspired to make something of my own. Here’s my own submission: a Beat Saber performance of Joji – Sanctuary. 

Even if you didn’t submit anything, we’re all talented enough to have survived 4 weeks of this brutal program. Thank you Dr. Kim for leading us through the OD, Dr. Domaingue for helping us observe these little asteroids, Dr. Ice for providing sports news, Andrei for playing codenames and chess, Molly for sharing foraging advice, Afura for sharing show recommendations, and Dominick for confusing us with puzzles and crosswords. It’s been the best few weeks of my life, and I’m so happy to have the opportunity to spend it with this incredible group of people. We only have one week left, let’s make it the best week yet.

• Taylor

Hey, I’m Taylor, a rising senior from Florida! When I’m not doing endless problem sets, I enjoy running the sound for school theatre productions, hanging out with friends, and playing video games. I love math and science (like most people here) and I’m interested in studying computer science and linguistics. 

The post CUB Talent Show Recap (with a surprise) first appeared on SSP International.

In this blog post, I want to reflect upon some of the fantastic experiences that have taken placeduring SSP. However, I would first like to express my immense gratitude to the faculty at CUB: the Academic Directors, Dr. Kim, Dr. Domingue, the Site Director, Dr. Ice, and the TAs, Andrei,Molly, Afura, and Dominick for giving us so many exciting and new opportunities as well as for always being there for us whenever we need help.

Although I have struggled at various points during the learning blocks, I have also acquired avast amount of knowledge through these past four weeks,whether it may be in physics, math,astronomy, and coding. The metaphor of “drinking out of a firehouse” in the Participant Handbook has really rung true during my time at SSP. In the first week especially, I felt like my brain was going to explode (in a good way of course) taking in all sorts of new knowledge and then seeing the hours go by with little progress on my pset (and later on, my code). Even though some of the work we have done has been arduous and mentally draining, I have never found myself bored, but rather immersed in the work that I am doing and always wanting to push myself to work out any issues that I may have.

However, what has truly made SSP so special is the people! There is absolutely no way that I would have been able to get through these strenuous weeks without the best teammates ever(shoutout to Inimai and Jodi) as well as all of the other members of CUB for always being there to help me and answer my questions, whether it is with debugging my code or struggling through AstroImageJ together. All of us at SSP can probably admit that we have struggled at some point, and having each other as a support system when issues arise has been the key factor in what has personally kept me going, especially in times where I felt lost or confused. In these times of intense learning, having time to cool down with members of CUB2 during mandatory fun in the work/play blocks has been something that I never realized I needed. Learning all of these new games, such as GeoGuessr and the four-player variant of chess, has made the SSP experience even more memorable.

Nothing could put into words how tremendously honored and grateful I am to have been surrounded by such amazing students and staff during my time in SSP. Seeing so many others that are just as passionate as me about astrophysics and learning, who are willing to continually challenge themselves and help others, has made this experience infinitely more rewarding.Thank you again to everyone who has made these first four weeks fly by, and I’m super excited for what awaits us in the final week of SSP!

-Bowen

Hi everyone! I’m Bowen, a rising senior from Pennsylvania. As I mentioned before, my favorite part of SSP by far has been the people! Apart from science and math, I enjoy playing the violin, watching YouTube,listening to music, gaming (Bomb Party, Chess, you name it), and hanging out with friends. Also,I am currently in need of some TV show/movie recs,so if you have any, feel free to let me know!

The post A Reflection first appeared on SSP International.