I know that right now, my average blood pressure and heart rate increases about 5% for each day I dont hear from them. I emailed Johnny Erikson on March 6th, asking about when we should hear back, but I havent even heard back rom that.
So in the mean time, might as well have this thread act as a support group for people in limbo.
I heard from them on Friday night. I got an offer at Ames. Very excited(!), but I don’t know too much about the program. Is it a paid internship or more like a summer program? How competitive is it to get into anyway? Has it helped students find future internships? I would appreciate more info through pm or email if you have any. Thanks.
I did it in 2005. It is a paid internship. It probably could have opened doors for me had I applied to more NASA labs for full-time jobs when I graduated… however, it did offer a great conversation starter at interviews.
Also, the year I applied, it was very competitive – I don’t remember the exact numbers, but it was only at Goddard, and they only accepted like 30 out of several hundred applicants – but I imagine it is similar this year now that word has gotten out.
I can’t say it could ever be a bad thing to go build robots for NASA 
I was in last year’s Robotics Academy at Goddard. It’s a paid internship - you get a $4,000 stipend and they provide housing. Also, you go on a couple trips to other NASA centers throughout the summer which you don’t pay for.
In terms of what you do, you work 4-5 days a week (depends on trips) on a team of 4 students (one senior or grad student, 3 freshman/sophomore/juniors) on some form of robotics project. You’ll have a mentor at NASA who may or may not do a lot of work with you directly, but is always available for guidance.
Last year there were over 800 applications for a total of 43 (I think) spots. It’s hard to judge application numbers because the same application is used for multiple programs, though, so I don’t know how much over 800 it was. So, in summary, it’s pretty competitive.
It definitely helps with future internships - I have another NASA internship this summer. Everywhere I applied for this year was very interested in what I had done with Robotics Academy.
I hope this helps - feel free to contact me if you have any other questions.
Also, if people here are in it for this year, tell us what project you’re working on! This is just me being curious.
Fiona
[email protected]
I’ll be working at Goddard with the conformal gripper project. Anyone else out there?
I know of a former Rosie kid (now a NuTron) getting accepted to Goddard…Neal, Where are you? Are going to post here or not?
I was accepted as part of the Academy at Goddard.
I’ll be working at Ames on non-prehensile manipulation. Anybody else get accepted to Ames?
I Emailed Mr Rosage and he said
We have not yet completed all selections. We have a few at Ames, Marshall and two at Goddard. We expect to finish this week.
Congrats to those lucky few of you that found out early. You now have me sitting here biting my nails in anticipation.
An almost full list is out. It can be found here: http://university.gsfc.nasa.gov/interns.jsp
Once again Congratulations to all those who got in.
I’ll be at Ames as team leader for the “Global Connection: Terapixels for Exploration” project.
http://university.gsfc.nasa.gov/application/showProject.jsp?id=Project-21-39
Anyone here get picked for that one as well?
Has anyone heard when it starts? I am worried It might start before I get out of school.
From my notes: “The RAP will run for 10 weeks this summer. The dates are still to be confirmed, but will most likely be from Mon, June 4 through Fri, August 10.” There were some people at Ames last year who were still supposed to be in school when the program started. Some took finals early, and some were going to schools close by (Stanford, Berkeley), so they were doing double-duty.
Yup, he’s going! I talked to Neal about it while we were workin in the NU machine shop (he does work-study there).
I was accepted to the NASA Academy @ Goddard for this summer. I’ll be doing the “Walk & Roll Robot Mobility” project.
Anyone else?
I had the pleasure of having dinner last night with this year’s class. I was supposed to be giving a talk about FIRST but threw out the powerpoint and let the 7? 8? 9? (I lost track) FIRST alumni (from the west coast to the east coast with stops in between) do the inspirational talks.