I was employed for a year at Space Exploration Technologies as an Avionics Systems Engineer.  SpaceX is an aerospace company charged with making space flight “inexpensive and reliable.”  Flight 004 of the Falcon 1 rocket– designed from the ground up by quite possibly the most talented group of engineers in the world, successfully made it to space. I was involved with several different aspects of this launch and other vehicles:

• +Second Stage Thrust Vector Control System
• +Lithium polymer battery development for all vehicles (F1, F9, Dragon)
• +GPS Systems using the Javad GPS Receiver
• +Recovery operations of the first stage including “TrackerNet”
• +Electromagnetic interference emissive and susceptibility testing
• +Payload Interfacing at a system wide level

My biggest contribution to the company was my work on over the horizon telemetry solutions. The project named KSAT was designed to utilize pre-existing satellite networks that were traditionally used for terrestrial phone and data services. My team was charged with turning those phone systems into something that could be used from space. In essence– using a cell phone in space.

The purpose of the project is to save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in communications costs and solve issues pertaining to over the horizon communication. Unfortunately I cannot go into more detail about the project and it’s adjunct subsystems due to its confidential and proprietary nature.

The Story

The Balloon Project was an educational journey that took me through my junior and senior years in college. In total there were almost 36 units of independent study, research, and internships associated with the project. The project was featured in New Scientist, it won two statewide research competitions, and to this day administrators at my university swear to me “no student will ever be allowed to do what you did Kosta.” Not because they were unhappy with the outcome, but because the project bent or broke every rule in the traditional academicians handbook.

I wrote for over $14,000 worth of research grants with the endorsement of faculty advisers, but the advisers, for the most part, stayed out of the project. Instead of working in a laboratory setting, or under the guidance of a single faculty member I was required to seek out my own tools and facilities to make this project happen. This ended up being a wonderful way to work as I was not limited to one faculty member for my guidance. I was able to seek the opinion and guidance (as it was needed) from almost all departments– chemistry, computer science, physics, English, environmental science, and even art. I abused professors office hours and in turn built personal relationships with the faculty members who offered their insight and guidance. This decentralized and interdisciplinary methodology allowed me, the student, to have a breadth of educational experiences that I think are unparalleled at any other university.

Internships with the manufacturing industry were necessary to CNC machine parts as my school did not have any engineering facilities (or even an engineering major) to speak of. A drive of over 50 miles was required to get to the premises of World Class Manufacturing where I spent my evenings producing the parts that were designed to my own specifications. My interactions with the private sector were quite broad– there were even talks of the the air sampling system being purchased by an environmental research company.

Various government agencies were involved with the project including the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Park Services. Many e-mails, permits, waivers, and phone conversations with officials were required to allow this project to get off the ground.

My dorm room was converted into a laboratory and my roommates were enlisted as lab partners. It wasn’t uncommon to see strange things going on at all hours of day and night in my building as we were collectively known as “the troublemakers.” Thousands of feet of wire and balloon tether were spooled and de-spooled from winches, it often found its way wrapped around the halls as we desperately tried to untangle knots. A vacuum pump in our living room was used not only as a coffee table “conversation piece” but to evacuate sample chambers. Test equipment littered my bedroom as I worked day and night to complete the project. Stacked boxes of pneumatic and mechanical paraphernalia, breadboards littered with components, servers running in closets– I tried my best to make the best of the space available but the kitchen table usually fell victim.

The Balloon Project was a lifestyle, not just a project. It allowed me to experience science from not only a research perspective but from a political, managerial, philosophical, and artistic perspective. To me the project was more than just an exercise in research. It was my educational treatise– an idea fostered by an ideology of, “Learning by doing.”

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Quick tip: If you want to take a good look at any of the links or pictures, right click and select “Open in a new tab.”

I scored a 4 out of 5 and I’ve been writing ever since. Who would have thought?

The universe is made of stories, not atoms.
-Muriel Rukeyser

________________________________________________________

The Theoretical Theory of Theory as a Theory.

(Download)

I’m not going to explain to anyone how the world works– because I don’t actually know, but sometimes it’s fun to make it up.  Rather than finding solutions, I’d rather find questions– I’ll stack them, question upon question upon question.  The Theoretical Theory is a journey through science and the idea that we know nothing more than the fact that we know nothing at all.

Pi Poetry

(Download)

The short constrained poem “Pi Poetry” was a truly interdisciplinary undertaking. The process behind the poem is this: Take 10,000 digits of the math constant Pi. Search for the number 25 within the digits and replace all instances with the letter z, replace 24 with y, and so on until zero is replaced with the letter a. When Pi is completely parsed a number of word searches were conducted on the alphabetized numbers. Some of the more interesting results are bolded to create a poem. This poem was done on a much larger scale: Six-Million digits were parsed by an algorithm written by myself and Phd Gregory Wood.

Our Thirst

(Download)

“Our Thirst” is a short essay inspired by several teachers at California State University Channel Islands and the students they teach. It was specifically written to be published in the CI View, the school newspaper and was so in the November 2006 issue.

The Search for All Things Experiential

(Download)

Los Angeles is a place like none other.  We have 16 lane highways that fill and empty with the consistency of the Pacific tides.  We have people who aspire to be nothing else than some other somebody.  This is a place of wild extremes– in the sense of personality, in the sense of race & ethnicity, in the sense of sensibilities.  This piece is about finding and losing ones self in a place that drips with personality.

________________________________________________________

COLOUR:

“Kosta Grammatis is an urban explorer with an eye for the things that many don’t have the opportunity to see. His deep desire for discovery has taken him and his camera to the tops of buildings in the midst of construction, deep in the back country of Southern California to document blazing fires, and other fascinating places where he can commune with light. He considers his camera a tool of documentation. His photos are a way for him to convey a journalistic story of life as he sees it.”

The photography of Kosta Grammatis has been featured & installed in various galleries:

• +Volkarts, Hollywood CA, March, 2005
• +Studio Channel Islands, Camarillo CA, September, 2005
• +Studio Channel Islands, Camarillo CA, September, 2006
• +Uncanny, Camarillo CA, November, 2006

His photography has also been printed in various newspapers and featured in numerous websites. His weapon of choice is a Canon D20 with an EF-S 10-22 3.5-4.5f lens.

]]> http://www.iamkosta.org/kfolio/photography/feed 0 http://www.iamkosta.org/kfolio/art http://www.iamkosta.org/kfolio/art#comments Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:36:08 +0000 admin http://www.iamkosta.org/kfolio/?p=9 THIS IS(NT) ART

THE NUTCRUSHER:

The Nutcrusher is a parody of the traditional nutcracker. In the 21st century one would imagine that an update for such an old-albeit effective-technology would exist. This kinetic sculpture sought to do just that. Using pneumatic clasps to hold a nut in place a skewer pushes through the bottom of the nut to crack it open. The piece was featured as an installation in the 2004 CSUCI Art Show for several months.

I want to take a moment and apologize for the nonsensical nature of this movie. It is by far the least thought out movie I’ve ever put together. But that’s okay, because my personal excitement at having just finished this fantastic machine that has the ability to destroy things comes through quite well. I can’t even articulate a coherent sentence in this movie. With that said, don’t judge, and when the movie says “end” keep watching because the good part is coming. In fact– fast forward to the end, because then it actually starts to make sense. I’m done rambling. CLICK HERE TO WATCH.

BUBBLES:

“Bubbles” was displayed in a beautiful un-renovated ballet room on the CSUCI campus. The hollow cylinders are inflated by a small blower fan. The cylinders were designed to allow patrons to traverse through them allowing a unique and almost surreal perspective as the plastic acts as a Gaussian filter—filtering the natural light in a completely unique way. Unfortunately for our big plans of a monumental bubble city we were “escorted” out of the building before someone got hurt…

+“New Scientist” Tech Blog _{( Permalink)}
+CSUCI Press Release _{( Permalink)}
+Hacked Gadgets _{( Permalink)}
+Ventura County Star Article _{( Permalink)}

Awards Received:

+1st Place Engineering & Computer Science, CSU Undergraduate Research Competition– for work related to the Balloon Project (link)
+CSUCI Outstanding Integrative Approaches Award– Awarded to one graduating student who exemplifies integrative and interdisciplinary study.
+Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges– Nominated by the division of Student AFfairs
+Nominated for CSUCI Leadership Award among Students
+2nd Place Statewide Undergraduate Research Competition in Engineering & Computer Science
+Talking Dolphins Speech and Debate Tournament: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in various categories

\n\n\n