From NASA to MIT to Formlabs

Audrey Chen ’24 lives by the philosophy that “a number of alternatives solely current themselves for those who ask for them.” This method has served her effectively, from changing into a NASA intern at 15 to working MIT’s autonomous boat staff Arcturus to coming into a management place at 3D printing know-how firm Formlabs proper out of undergrad.

Rising up in Los Angeles, Chen confirmed a powerful aptitude and fervour for engineering at a younger age and skipped a number of grades in math. In her first 12 months of highschool, she noticed a posting in regards to the JPL Area Academy at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. Although this system was for juniors and seniors, she inquired if they’d make an exception for her they usually agreed. By her junior 12 months she was serving to run this system as deputy.

However Chen didn’t cease there: She had desires of interning at NASA. She requested her mentor and have become a drone air visitors management researcher at NASA at 15. “I used to be not sufficiently old to drive,” Chen says. “Highschool would finish, the bell would ring, and I might placed on my backpack and I might run down the road to JPL. Are you able to think about you are the safety guard on the gate of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a child exhibits up for work?”

Chen labored on the Orbiting Arid Subsurfaces and Ice Sheet Sounder (OASIS) challenge, whose objective is to search out and study freshwater aquifers and ice sheets. “It was very early within the mission, so I used to be doing system and goal definition,” Chen says.

Subsequent cease: MIT

After graduating highschool, Chen ventured throughout the nation to discover her eclectic pursuits at MIT. When she wasn’t fulfilling the necessities for her mechanical engineering diploma, she might be discovered leather-based crafting, glass blowing, or desk welding in one in all MIT’s makerspaces, documenting MIT student life together with her digital camera (garnering the acclimation “The Eyes of MIT” by MIT Admissions), working as a researcher sampling deep-sea sediment, or notably, working the award-winning autonomous boat staff Arcturus.

“Arcturus has been the spotlight of my MIT profession,” Chen says. She based the staff at MIT Sea Grant in 2022 together with a gaggle of equally impassioned college students who elected Chen as captain.

“I did not have any background in marine autonomy, so we pushed very onerous to institute trainings and have a number of workshops in order that they’d really feel snug coming in and contributing as quickly as doable,” she remembers. Looking for further funding and help, the staff discovered a house on the MIT Edgerton Center.

Launching Arcturus

“At any time when I take into consideration how Arcturus began and the way it by some means nonetheless continues, I believe it’s a miracle,” Chen says. “Our very first 12 months, there have been 5 of us on the Roboboat competitors, and if any particular person one in all us had not determined to hitch the staff, we both wouldn’t have a ship, we’d not have electronics, we’d not have code to run the boat, or we wouldn’t have funding to run the staff.”

Chen’s first 12 months as captain was an incredible quantity of labor as a result of the staff was so small. Along with managing the staff and assuring they met their objectives on time, Chen additionally acted because the staff’s enterprise lead, treasurer, media lead, and photographer. “I used to be juggling a number of issues. Since then, these roles have additional break up amongst extra individuals throughout the staff,” she says.

Recruiting isn’t simple for an autonomous boat staff, as many college students don’t get marine robotics expertise in highschool. To maintain their recruitment pool extensive, Chen didn’t count on college students to have background in autonomy or in marine techniques. “Creating an setting that’s welcoming and pleasant and supportive of individuals’s studying is essential, as a result of in any other case you gained’t have a staff. We’ve actually pushed onerous to recruit from a big physique of individuals. We be certain that to emphasise that we’re open to all majors, all years. As an business, marine robotics, like most engineering, may be very male-dominated. We work onerous to recruit individuals of all genders and ethnicities.”

With Chen’s skillful recruiting, Arcturus elevated from 5 to 74 members in 2024. Arcturus flourished below Chen’s management, profitable First Place Design Total on the Roboboat competitors in 2023.

The challenges with autonomous boats

Chen was drawn to autonomous boats as a result of the sector is so filled with potential. “You allow a robotic on land and also you flip it off, it would not transfer by itself, versus you place it in a physique of water and you do not do something, then it nonetheless strikes due to the currents. It must be continually taking in that enter and attempting to localize the place it’s,” Chen says.

Chen sees a number of potential within the marine biotics business to assemble essential knowledge about our surroundings. “Autonomy within the marine house is just not as effectively researched as land autonomy is. There’s immense potential for marine autonomy to learn the world. You consider mapping ocean topology or in search of endangered species or habitat safety or surveying bleached coral reefs. As a automobile, you’ve got extra flexibility to maneuver round versus a buoy. That provides you the flexibility to take water and sediment samples throughout a wider unfold of space. And by making it autonomous, you get rid of excessive labor prices, so the value per pattern for a researcher would go down. These are alternative ways through which autonomy has potential to learn the analysis sphere, but additionally, extra broadly, the world.”

Chen graduated early this previous February and handed Arcturus on to captains and rising juniors Ami Shi and Karen Guo. “They’re rock stars. The staff is in good arms,” Chen says.

Turning into a challenge supervisor at Formlabs

Chen graduated a semester early and accepted a challenge supervisor place at Formlabs. She brings many classes from MIT to her work. “The most important factor that I’ve realized is that I don’t must know every part. A part of being profitable is figuring out what you don’t know. So I’m all the time conscious that in each Arcturus assembly, and doubtless each technical assembly that I’ll be in at Formlabs, that I cannot be the neatest individual within the room. And that’s fantastic. I don’t have to be the neatest individual ever as a result of that’s not my job. My job is to deliver these tasks collectively and know sufficient about all of the techniques to combine them.”

Chen is thrilled to remain close to MIT after commencement, permitting her the chance to go to her mates and proceed mentoring Arcturus. Upon saying her new job, she remarked, “To my mates at MIT, I’ll be simply down the road, so that you gained’t be capable of do away with me that simply!”