Grade 10 student Carmen Wong is visiting TRIUMF for 5 weeks. She is at TRIUMF as part of the Emerging Aboriginal Scholars Summer Camp put on by the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences. This post is about her last week at the lab.
This week, I am working with Dr. Conny Hoehr. First, she took me to the small TR-13 cyclotron they have. She gave me a lesson on ions, positrons, PET scans (Positron Emission Tomography), and proton radiation therapy. I also met Linda Graham who has a daughter that plays softball like I do. Conny took me to where they treat the patients with ocular melanoma, a type of eye cancer, and told me how they use the same beam to test electronics and space equipment. Then, she showed me some cords I would be labeling with Lily Zhang [in the photo, Carmen (L), Lily (R)], a student who just graduated from high school and will be going to Waterloo next year. She took me to meet Lily and I also met Laz Milovanovic and Eric Himbeault. Eric was working on a “ghost” on his computer and it looked so cool. His first attempt didn’t turn out too well, but he fixed it. After that, Conny brought me to meet Mike Trinczek, her husband, who would be picking me up the next day. We also went to FP Innovations to see Brian Badesso. He has been working on a part since May it is has finally been made.
On Tuesday, Mike and Lily met me and took me to where they treat patients with protons, stopping to tell me more about how they test space equipment as well. After that, Lily and I started to label some cables. It went by very fast. With both of us working, it took no time at all. After we finished, we went to Lily’s desk and waited for Mike. We had to go back and add a few more labels, but that didn’t take long either. I am learning so much at TRIUMF and I’m having a great time.
On my last day at TRIUMF, Conny got me to list the PIF & NIF control system information. It took me about an hour, but it went by really quickly. I waited for Conny to return to the office, and when she got back, she took Lily and I back down to the beam so I could get some pictures. When I got all of the pictures I needed, we went to the control room, and an engineer had made a cake for Conny for the renovations to the room where patients wait to be treated. Lily and I got a piece of cake too. It was really good. We went back to the office and I listened to some of the things they were working on. It was pretty interesting. This week was a lot of fun and during my time here I learned a lot. Now, I know more than a lot of people I know and I’ve had a wonderful time. This has been such a great experience.
-- Written by Carmen Wong, PIMS Student