While I've ultimately enjoyed my time at Algae Research and Supply, something I've learned is that I don't want to be an entrepreneur. Because ARS is so small, that was mostly what my internship was about, and while I liked collecting data (which I did a bit of) most of my work was creating shareable media to better promote new products. Dealing with the business side directly, paying other people to do things, relying on strangers to support your idea, all that stuff is the kind of stuff I can't really see myself doing long term. I wasn't really expecting my internship to revolve around entrepreneurship the way it did (I initially thought it would involve more lab work) so the knowledge that I don't really have the desire to be my own boss doesn't immediately change my plans for college and my future career. I realize that makes it sound like I don't like being a leader, thats not true, I do like being a leader, I just don't enjoy leading on the business side of things.
As I said before, I did get to do some lab work, and that was probably my favorite part of the internship. Sure, the actual work of measuring out volumes and squinting at vials wasn't the most exciting thing in the world, but collecting metadata and searching for trends to discover something new was really fun. I didn't have that much interest in how different amounts and ratios of sodium chloride and bicarbonate effect the growth of algae and Artemia salina in a closed system going into the internship, but at this point I'm supper excited to see the results. I'm actually planning on going back to my internship in a few weeks to take a few more sets of data (the Artemia haven't completed their entire life cycle yet). I don't know why, but for some reason I got it into my head that working in a lab would be boring, despite always having a good time when doing in-class experiments, but this internship has cleared that thought from my head. I'm probably still going to pursue engineering, but being a scientist has a newfound appeal.
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While I wasn't able to take pictures of everything at my internship, I think I got enough to give a bit of an idea what my time there was like. The entrance to the lab, the picture makes it seem dark and spooky but it's actually filled with florescent lights for the algae. Algae can get stressed and dire pretty fast when exposed to direct sunlight, so I suspect thats why the lab is so closed off. The setup for an experiment I started on how different amounts of different salts affect the growth of algae and Brine Shrimp in a closed system. My experiment after four days. If you look closely you can see some brine shrimp hatchlings. I'm excited to see the ultimate results but internship will probably be over before then. Graph of the results I have so far The Kickstarter I helped launch for Soil Algae. It might be over when you're reading this but heres a link anyway: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1533123026/soilalgaecom-healthy-soil-has-algae-in-it?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=algae Some salt and salt bags that I filled to use to create the medium algae like to grow in. Vials of nutrients for algae that I helped package and label. Tiny algae cultures I'm taking car of myself. The one on the right is Spirulina and has ben growing for almost 5 weeks, the one on the left is some soil I suck in water with algae nutrients, so see if I could grow the algae already in it. It will probably take a while to be visible, as there was a very small amount to begin with. An unnamed dippy bird. It nods yes to all our ideas and is great emotional support. Estimates on how many people will buy soil algae and what that will equate to in dollars, as well as our media kit and a to-do list for the day. Poorly drawn screenplay of the soil algae kickstarter video. Screenshot of the final video, which was based on the shot in the top left corner of the previous picture. My cameo in the video as "person on the phone" What Spirulina looks like under a microscope. It spirals, hence the name. Close up of a Brine Shrimp. This is a screenshot from a shot that I want to include in the Brainy Brinys kickstarter video (another project). Brine shrimp swimming around in the bottle we'll probably sell with Brainy Brinys. This bottle is actually significantly larger than the ones I'm growing my algae in, but brine shrimp are still pretty tiny.
If there's one thing I've learned from watching Mr. Huber run Algae Research and Supply, it's that nothing comes cheep. Everything costs money, and an entrepreneur has to always be ready to sink money into things that might not pay off. For instance, Mr. Huber wants to have in infographic to describe one of ARS's new products, so he paid around 500 dollars total (thats just my estamate based on what've overheard, it could be more) to various freelance illustrators, but some just never got around to it and others turned in a first draft and never responded to our messages again. For the record, I tried my hand at making an infographic, but it didn't turn out that well either. While I've certainly enjoyed working with Mr. Huber, I'm not sure if I'd be cut out for running a small business. Having to rely on people you've never seen to do work before a deadline is nerve-racking; I'd much rather do what needed to be done myself or with a team of people I knew.
My largest contributions so far have been editing together our kickstarter video and writing and releasing a press release to a dozen or so bloggers. One of the largest ones actually got back to us today and is willing to promote our product for 300 dollars, which sounded like a lot when I first heard it, but given how many gardeners visit their blog every day even assuming only 0.01% of all viewers will donate to our Kickstarter and buy the product, we could easily make 2.5 thousand dollars off of the deal! Ultimately, the success of my video and promotional material will be measured by how many people support the kickstarter, which we'll start finding out next Tuesday, but Mr. Huber seems happy with what I've done so far. So far, I think one of the things that has come out the best was my press release. Most other things I didn't initially feel happy with and elected to go back and change, but the press release seemed ready to send out only a few tweaks after my first draft. I know my writing has improved this year, and based on the press release I think it shows. There have been issues in the past with people copying Mr. Huber's algae growing setup, so I'm not allowed to take pictures with the algae equipment visible, which more or less means I can't take pictures in the lab. However, my project involves taking a lot of pictures of algae and doing editing work, so I'll start with some pictures of those things. Hopefully I'll be able to set up pictures in the lab that I'm allowed to post for my final album, but right now I don't have any of those.
I haven't had to do much self advocacy so far on my internship. My mentor is really understanding, and always makes sure I have something to do. One thing that I'm not very used to is the lack of critique for my main project. I'm certain that there's stuff I can improve on, and I've asked him a lot what he thinks I should change, but so far he hasn't pointed out anything specific. I know he doesn't think it's perfect either, because once he saw my first finished video he said something along the lines of "This was really more of the warm up video, it's the next one that really counts." I know there were things he'd rather have different, but I don't know what those things are, so it looks like Video #1 is pretty much finished. My next project is create another video advertising "Brainy Brinys" a kit for Brine Shrimp. It's actually pretty cool, because normally brine shrimp is sold with the suggestion that you feed them egg whites and random stuff like that, but in the wild Brine Shrimp eat algae so we're putting algae in the kit as well so that the whole thing is like a mini ecosystem. You don't have to worry about feeding the brine shrimp and the algae just needs light and some new medium every other week. Theoretically, the brine shrimp colony could survive in the same bottle we sell it in for years. Also, when female brine shrimp get stressed they produce a special type of egg called a cyst, which has a super slow metabolic rate and can survive in extreme conditions, so we can send those cysts to the customer through the mail without worrying that the colony will die along the way. That's actually been my job the past 2 days, looking through all the notes Mr. Huber has about the new project and writing a script for the video.
We decided on my internship project rather early, it was actually the first thing we talked about when I called Mr. Huber looking for an internship. From being here a week now, it seems like projects are kind of how most of the work gets done here. With the current plumbing setup, the algae itself is weedy and low maintenance, so most of the work is projects designed to increase revenue in some way. My personal project is to create videos explaining Algae Research and Supply's products, selling them to the consumer in the process. My first job is to create a video about algae in soil for a kickstarter. Most people think of algae as something that just grows in water, but 20% of biomass in soil is algae! Cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, in particular is a great fertilizer, because it fixed nitrogen from the atmosphere into the soil for plants to use. The video is almost done, all thats left is to add some pictures of what the product is going to look like. The Kickstarter goes up on June 5th, but the video needs to be finished soon so we can share it with bloggers who will hopefully help publicize the brand. I'm using on online video editing software called WeVideo, which works a lot like iMovie, so my experience making videos in class is really coming in handy.
Once I'm finished with this video, I'm probably going to start work on going through our already completed products and marketing them, which means that I get to do a bit of algae culturing myself, hopefully, so I'm looking forward to that. Interview with Matthew Huber*Q: Why did you choose to work here? A: I originally wanted to be an educator, but there isn't a lot of money there. I started working with algae 20 years ago and when I got the chance to grow algae for educators I took it. This is my way to combine what I'm passionate about with what makes money. Q:Is there anything you wished you realized about the world of work when you where my age? A: I think the new kind of success in the world is being able to live comfortably and have the time to do what you really want to do. You don't need to be super rich, as long as you figure out a way to do something you like. For instance, I get to pretty much work from home, which means I get to spend a lot of time with my kids, which is really important. Q: What is the purpose of this organization? A: Right now most of what we do is sell to educators so they can do projects with algae. Algae's great for school projects because you can accidentally kill off a culture and no one is really going to care. We've kind of cornered the market on this. I want to expand to other things in the future, but right now it's mostly about getting students excited about algae. Q: What personality traits, skills or knowledge are important here? A: As long as you work hard and want to work, you'll do fine. It's not your main project to culture algae, but once we get other things going I like to teach everyone who works here how to culture algae, even if it isn't their job. *Answers are not word for word what Mr. Huber said. Internship ReflectionOne thing I didn't expect going into this internship was the amount of people who buy ARS products only to resell them without the permission of ARS. Two times this week it's happened. Personally, I don't have to do anything about it and it doesn't really effect me at all, but it is pretty weird. Apparently, the most recent person gave their customers ARS's phone number as an "algae help hotline", which to me just seems bizarre. Maybe it's just a fluke that so many incidents like this have happened in my first week, but I would never of expected that so many people would be willing to just rip someone else off like that.
So far, my internship actually feels a lot like a project for biology. Just like those projects, I'm making a video explaining a topic and researching about it as I go. I never expected that video editing would be a useful skill outside of school projects. I'm excited to learn new skills from this internship too. Mr. Huber says that, once I get going with my video projects, he'll teach me more specifically about culturing algae which I'm really excited about. From what I've seen, once everything is set up, algae is pretty low maintenance, but there is a lot of plumbing that goes into it, a lot of which I don't understand and am excited to learn more about. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect my first day at Algae Research and Supply. I knew I was going to be making promotional videos, but not much else. ARS is run by my mentor, Matthew Huber, who greeted me when I walked in at nine o'clock. The lab, which also acts as the packaging area and meeting room, is about half the size of a classroom at High Tech High North County, and the walls are lined with carboys filled with algae and boxes filled with parts for various products. To start off, I learned how to do some of the more mundane tasks so that I could default to them if I found myself in a position where I didn't know what to do. I packed bags of salt that could then be added to water to create a good medium for algae, and filled plastic vials with a nutrient soup called K/2. We talked a little bit about my project too: the first thing I have to create is a video for Kickstarter describing the benefits of algae in soil.
The only person at Algae Research and Supply that I've met is Mr. Huber, but I know that the business manager's name is Daniel. She comes in a few days a week and makes sure all the orders are completed and everything is running smoothly. Mr. Huber seems really passionate about what he does, and talks for a long time about pretty much anything algae related once you get him started. Nothing in the lab is particularly dangerous, so Mr. Huber's dog, Moxie, sometimes wonders in, but I think she can smell my dog on me because she usually just growls at me. I'm excited to start work on filming, which should kick into full swing in the next few days. After the Kickstarter video is done there are many more topics Mr. Huber has outlined that he wants me to cover, and I already have good ideas for some of them. I like editing videos well enough, but I'm hoping that I'll figure out away to apply the other things I know how to do (programing, 3D modeling, etc.) to projects for ARS as well. Today, May 1st, was "career day" so I want to Algae Research and Supply for the day to see how a typical day there worked and finalize details of the project I would be doing. Ultimately, I hope to work on growing Algae cultures and design some parts to be used in the lab (lab work is 10% science and 90% plumbing, according to Mr. Hubber), but my main mission is to create educational/instructional videos to promote and explain the products sold at ARS.
After a quick tour of the lab, I sat in on a conference call with potential new customers who were starting their own algae business with the goal of genetically modifying Chlamy Rhodomonas and Spirulina to produce anti-viral and anti-bacterial proteins that could be ingested by shrimp. Both parties wanted to meet in person to discuss the price, but because it would involve Mr. Hubber handling the algae for them he estimates the cost could be between 10 and 15 thousand dollars a month. After that call, we jumped into another one where they discussed experiments that were going to be launched aboard Space X to be done on the International Space Station! Once the calls were concluded, we spent the rest of the day figuring out the finer details of what would be expected of me as an intern, but I did get to help fill an order that came in right before I left. From what I can tell, the super long conference calls don't happen all that often. Besides me, only 2 people work at ARS, Mr. Hubber and a college student named Danielle, who handles filling orders and manages shipping. From what Mr. Hubber told me it seems like an average day consists of doing all that is needed to keep the algae cultures going strong, filling orders, and working on projects that will improve the speed at which algae can be grown. For instance, right nor Mr. Hubber is working on a system of pumps that can automatically fill bottles with a certain amount of product from the main algae farms. The actual rules of the lab seemed comparatively lax, mainly because nothing in it was actually dangerous unless ingested, so you don't have to wear a lab coat or special gloves. Mr. Hubber made a point that he likes to be punctual, so while I'm not sure if there is a policy for unexcused absences or showing up late, he'd probably not be happy. I'm pretty excited about my projects at ARS, because it looks like I'll be able to combine my knowledge of chemistry, biology and engineering to really help promote the company. My experience making informative videos in Mr. Leader's class will be the most applicable, because that's more or less what I'll be doing at ARS. Mr. Hubber also expressed interest in 3D printers and creating some parts and covers to make sure equipment can be outdoors, so if I have time I'll get to do some of that too. |