Summer Internship at Tandon School of Engineering, NYU

“You need to experience and experiment with different things to discover what brings you joy!!”

It all started with a mail from the Placement Office of the Institute sometime in the month of January.

“We are happy to inform you that the National Science Foundation (NSF), United States funded 8-week summer research program is scheduled during June 6 - July 29, 2022.

The program is open for Indian students. Selected Indian Students will be paired with the USA students during the internship to work collaboratively.”*

A link and poster were, of course, attached.

International Research Experience for Students
An Integrated Experience of Additive Manufacturing from Lab Scale to Industrial Scale.

A small introduction before I get into the details. Myself Sneha, pursuing a degree in Mechanical Engineering at IIT Tirupati. I love trying out new things, and the above-mentioned mail gave me an amazing opportunity to do some exploration.

Disclaimer: I am not really comfortable with writing first-person narratives, so please bear with me.

So, continuing with the story...
The application process was not that complicated. I had to submit a resume, an academic transcript and an expression of interest.

A little detailing as to how I got these docs ready: Referring to hundreds of blogs, articles and videos about resume making and with some guidance from my father, I somehow put together a simple, decent-looking resume detailing my meager experiences. I sent an email to the academic section requesting my grade card. They took some time, but after another follow-up mail, they did share the required document. The only thing left was to write an EOI. Based on the details provided in the NSF portal, I just knew that the research internship would be on additive manufacturing with a special focus on design principles for AM, security considerations and the application of machine learning.

I need a lot of inspiration to write something; and what I had as of then was not enough. By searching for IREU – NSF, I couldn’t get any more details. So back to the most common tactic, cyberstalking LinkedIn profiles; fortunately, one of the previous years’ interns had uploaded a research poster. This gave me a vague idea of what the internship could be about and what they expect from us. I penned down my thoughts and after several rounds of editing, I finally submitted my first research internship application.

A week later, I received the following mail:

“Firstly, thanks for applying to the New York University’s USA-India Summer Undergraduate Research program in additive manufacturing cybersecurity. The interest in this National Science Foundation supported program was intense, with over 700 applications received for the available 10 positions.

I am pleased to inform you that your application has been shortlisted for an interview. Please select an interview slot.”

I was excited!! It was my first actual official interview. What would they ask? What if I stammer? Will they ask me complicated questions about additive manufacturing? ...So began another round of web surfing – reading blogs and articles to get an idea as to what to expect in such interviews. One point that helped was ensuring I went through every skill/project I had mentioned in my resume. Trust me, it proved to be very useful.

I generally enjoy talking to people and this interview was no different. I answered most of the questions comfortably. The interviewees were very friendly and supportive. The professors explained to me how this internship would also be a cultural exchange program and asked me whether I was willing to work in the late nights as the program required us to collaborate with the US students. When the opportunity was given, I asked them a few questions about what exactly the internship was about, since the explanation provided in the website was pretty vague. Overall, the interview went really well.

Three days later, I get this mail:

“Hi there!

Firstly, it was a pleasure to meet you during the personal interview for the New York University’s USA-India Summer Undergraduate Research program in additive manufacturing cybersecurity. Secondly, congratulations, you have been selected for the program!”

In order to accept the offer, I had to submit my updated information along with a student contact form, signed and attested by the Department Head. So there goes another mail to the institute, and I received a signed form within four hours!! I now had all the necessary documents in hand and finally clicked on submit. This was the moment it struck, I got selected. Out of 700 applicants, I really got selected!!!! I was overjoyed. The only thing remaining was to wait until June 6 for the program to start .

The day finally arrived. The orientation session went really well. The entire cohort was introduced to one another. There were students from different ethnicities and cultures and from different educational backgrounds. We were twenty students in total, 10 each from different Indian and American Universities. Following this, there was another orientation session. Initially, none of us (the students) knew what that would be about. But attending that session gave us the bigger picture.

This IRES program was one of the many research projects funded by the NSF. And we were all part of the bigger Undergraduate Summer Research Program (UGSRP) of the Tandon School of Engineering, NYU. Each summer, members of the Tandon School of Engineering faculty open up their labs to allow rising sophomore, junior, and senior undergraduate students to complete 10 weeks of hands-on research.

As part of this program, we were supposed to attend the Student to Scholar(S2S) workshop lecture series. There were regular distinguished lectures, workshops and interactive sessions on what is/how to develop/construct a literature review, a research statement, a research proposal, research posters. There were even sessions on Professional Ethics, Leadership and Team Management as part of the S2S series. All these sessions were usually after the meetings with our cohort.

At the end of the program, we had to submit a video presentation, research abstract and research poster about the projects we worked on that summer. The UGSRP program ended on Aug 12, with a culminating event at the Pfizer auditorium. These were some of the extra perks we got to enjoy for being part of the program. But what exactly did our cohort do? What was our research internship about?

The industry 4.0 concept promotes a Digital Manufacturing (DM) paradigm that can enhance the quality and productivity of the products with the convergence of several manufacturing machines (additive, subtractive and hybrid), automation, sensors, artificial intelligence and big data. In simple words, this is a Cyber-Physical System connected to the cloud. Of course, cloud integration has its many advantages – from in-situ monitoring to instant defect recognition and corrections; but it is undeniable that it magnifies the threat vectors enormously. The design files, one of the most important Intellectual properties (IPs), can be stolen and/or tampered with. The manufacturing machines, the sensors, all are at a higher risk of sabotage. So devising foolproof mechanisms to protect the entire system from sabotage at different points on the supply chain becomes paramount. And this was what we were trying to do through our research project.

The first 2 weeks were more or less like a fast-paced bridge course on additive manufacturing, threat identification, analysis and modeling, CAD Design, Python, cryptography and other basic prerequisites required to work on the research projects. During this week, we were supposed to work in teams of two and defend our design file from sabotage using various encryption techniques. The defended files were randomly allotted to the teams, and we were tasked to attack the encrypted files. This was a great assignment where we were able to learn many new things. A bunch of research papers and journal articles were already shared and we were supposed to have conducted an initial Literature review in the first two weeks itself. After all the fundamentals were covered, the research problem statements were released. The two main research projects undertaken were the analysis of Computed Tomography - CT image dataset of 3D printed fiber-reinforced composite samples and the development of a design infringement detection system for STL files.

The first project aims at developing an authentication methodology for 3D printed parts by analyzing the markers from μCT scan data. The second project aims to determine how many “copied” components are being used in the STL assembly file, given an STL assembly file and a set of components in STL format.

Our cohort had students from diverse educational backgrounds, which was essential for such an interdisciplinary study. As I was already sufficiently proficient in CAD, I used the first two weeks to learn how to mess around with STL files using python and started exploring Image processing techniques later on. This project was a good incentive that pushed me to explore and learn some basics of Machine Learning. I not only got to learn so many new things but also applied these learnings to a blind study. It was a gratifying experience to see how the things you learn can be implemented to solve real-time problems.

This internship also gave me an opportunity to connect with experts in various fields. Every day we used to have a guest lecture, where an academia or industry expert introduced us to present-day technologies and innovations in their domains of interest. There were lectures on Bioprinting, Additive Manufacturing in Construction, Sabotage, Design Thinking, Side Channels and Reverse Engineering, Exploiting ML, Smart Manufacturing, Carative Approach to AI Governance, Aerospace Materials, Modern Machining Processes and many more.

The best part of this internship was that it was also a cultural exchange program. We would end every week with the cultural exchange Fridays. Getting to know new people and their culture with long talks and discussions on food, clothing, wedding traditions and other celebrations, funny stereotypes, most used mode of transport, childhood, travel and my personal favorite pokemon; followed by group activities and games like Among Us, Bingo-modified, Scribble, Rocket League are some of the most memorable moments from this entire summer.

Another interesting thing, as part of CSAW – Cyber Security Awareness Week, the New York University Centre for Cybersecurity conducts Hack 3D Summer Challenge every year. Being part of this cohort, we were all encouraged to take part in the competition in groups of up to 4 members. We could either team up with the students in the cohort or anyone else we knew. This competition was open to students enrolled in undergraduate or graduate degree programs from around the world, as well as non-student teams (working professionals and hobbyists). It was important to have people from diverse disciplines in order to have a fair chance at the event. I asked two of my friends from IIT Tirupati (Prabhat and Sirish), who are CTF (Capture The Flag) enthusiasts, if they would be interested in participating in this event. They agreed, and the rest is history. Our team actually won. For someone who always loves to work solo, this was one of the best teams I‘ve ever been part of.

On a side note, If any of you are into cybersecurity or want to explore this domain, check out CSAW. They are conducting a bunch of conferences, seminars and competitions later this year.

I can go on and on about how awesome the summer was, but I’ll end it here. If you have time/patience or perhaps even a little interest in wanting to know more, feel free to reach out. I will conclude this long article by mentioning the two major things I learnt from being part of this internship program.

At some point of time in the near future, everything will become cloud integrated. This will definitely require us to upskill ourselves to handle the complications the upgrade will bring. The need to step into interdisciplinary fields is increasing each passing day. One cannot exist without the other. These past months have broadened my views and am actually exploring a set of domains I had never imagined I would.

Secondly, all of us have some notion or the other about what research is. A set picture. In my head, it was one such career path I would never impose on myself. But there always was this nagging question somewhere in the back of my head as to why people take up research, if it’s as dull and greyscale as I’m imagining it to be. So, this was also an opportunity for me to see what it would be like to be a researcher. And honestly, it was nothing like the greyscale image, my prejudiced gray matter had expected it to be. It was cosmic.