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Mars or bust!
jahnetjackson
Clackam as Community College
S B N f i BLASTS OFF WITH NASA AEROSPACE SCHOLARS
"BV SUMMfemS'ÂftRAZA
1 mwâging eàiioR
From football fields to fishing for thestars, Jacob Colton, a student
atCIackam as Community College has taken one step towards his
future and an even bigger step for humanity. The Clackamas Print
sat down with Colton for an in depth interview on his acceptance and
experience with NASA for the NASA Community College Aerospace
Scholars in April and his two. out of 40 chance of returning to help
surf the stars.
The Clackamas Print: What sparked your interest in science?
Jacob Colton: When I was younger we’ve always kind of lived in a
rural area near Estacada, and one night my dad brought out his old
telescope and he just pointed it at the moon and just let me look at, it
and just seeing how it just sat there in the sky, like nothing holding
it, it was amazing to me arid so I wanted to learn,more why it was
like that and what else was out there, cause you see all these lights
in the sky andyou go, “ Maybe there’ s something around that?”
TCP: Any extracurriculars or anyone that you looked up to that
was special?
Colton: During high school it wasNeil DeGrâsse Tyson and oneof my
high school science teachers Mr. Donnelly. He kind o f made science
riot the “ nerdy” thing that people always think of stereotypically, but
he made it the cool kind of science', where you blow stuff up and you
go look at cool stuff and figure out how it all works. I was interested
in astrobiolpgy at first, and that Was because of my biology teacher
in high school, Ms. Smith. ,As soon as I got into college, I was like
“ Alright, well I’ll think about biology,” and biology I wanted to do,
but it wasn’ t as easy as it would’ve been coming fromOregon arid-so
lastyear, year and a half ago I decided that engineering, and that’s
when I found out about the program.
four people get to go to a spacekenter and go get classes and work
with NASA engineers. So I went to their website, I typed in my name
and everything end you have tojsubmit letters of recommendation,
yqu have to write a small essay »n why you’d be interested and why
they might like you in the field and then you wait — and if you get
accepted you take a five-week online course with a final project and
if you get that then’you’re goldfenand theypick a space center for
you and you go there for a four-jday all expenses paid trip.
TCP: From, what you’re telling me, it seemslike a very choose-y,
picky situation in the sense o f they only picked a few people from
this college? Qr from Oregon? What was the story on that?
TCP: H qw did you find out about, the program?
Colton: I was taking Engineering 115 class with a great professor,
Eric Lee, and I highly recommend anyone to him, and he talked about
internships or scholarships for STEM students that were looking into
aerospace or mechanical engineering. I talked to him specifically about
aerospace and he said that there was this program called the NCAS or
the NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars and that every year,
Colton: So obviously Oregon'isn’t the most noticed state in the
world, but you know California is the most populated, but Oregon
is kind of like the state that-people think about - th at’ s kind of like
W yoming... and so we don’t have a lot of participating community
college? in Oregon. W henJ was<tfown there doing my thing, everyone
was from California. I know comiing from small town Estacada, going
that far isam azing to me.
TCP: What were the reactions^ if your friends, family and professors
to you getting in the first time?
Colton: S'o when I actually got' iccepted into the on-site experience,
first'off I was in thecar with s y dad when fg o t the email and we
were in Yamhill Carlton for whatever reason - never go to Yamhill
Carlton - we were in Yamhill Ca dton in his truck heading-home and,
I saw the email anriit said “ You1 ve been invited to the NCAS on-site
experience’’ rind'.only like 4004) ;ople in all the U.§. for this term get
to go and sofike, I flipped out and screamed alot of profanities and
excitement and I almost made nty dad steer o ff the road and I started
crying and all that, and I was lilfe “ Oh my God!” and then I told my
mom and they’ re all so proud ojf me. No one really ever expected it
to be possible. Everyone was really proud and I told my professors
and they emailed -me a congratulations - it was awesome. |
- TCP: W hat was the whole program about? i a
Colton: We flewdown and we basically dida rovercompetitionwith
Lego robotics, the EV3 model to Simulate our teams -'cause there was
four teams down there, red, green, yellow and bltfri- each of our four
teams were a separate company that NASA vyduld contract to go to j
Mars and so we rifade a Mars rover with these Lego robots and they .
would do' specific tasks and each task would get a certain amount
o f money which was basically joints and the team at the. end with
the most amount of points - after they did a Speechas Well $ would
;be given the winning, basically NASA would choose them for goirig
to Mars. So we did all that, my team was the Red Vulcans, I was the
chjef-systems engineer and ourteam won!' I
TCP: How did you feel coming back from all of that?
Jacob Colton (middle, bottom row) with his NCAS team, the Red Vulcans at the NASA Ames Research Center m Mountain View,
California on April 18.
Clackamas Print
Colton: The firstcouple of days, I wanted — well we were working 12
hour days straight and getting W faze hours — well for me personally
— of sleep a night and I felt like when I got back I could’ve gone for
theclackabiasprint.com
Colton, middle, was voted Most Valuable Person on the Red
Vulcan team.
another two weeks like that. I felt so motivated but=sad when I got
back — I was so motivated to keep pushing forward and now I kriow
that’ s what I wanna do and so I am going to try my hardest in all of
my classes to make sure I can actually achieve this goal. And-so it
was very helpful for that and I get to put it on a resume... And then
there’ s the new thing I learned about yesterday.
TCP: Oh yeah, you wanna fell us about that?;
Colton: So. two students out of every group that go to the on
site-experience, two of them out of the 40 are chosen - they show
leadership arid collaboration characteristics again and they show
- they look like they have an edge over everyone and so if they look
lik e they are responsible and great at what they do, ARC or the NCAS
team will choose two people to come back down and help set up,
rather than being students there, they’re helping the actual NASA
employees and everything set up for everything.- You get paid, all
expenses are paid for, flights-rifl that, food, and you get to work
hands-on basically with more of the NASA employees and anyone,
that’s basically done this gets a NASA internship within.a year and
I was chosen for that’, %
TCP: And then from there, there is a possible internship?
Colton: Oh yep, waiting for me. Us being in the^NCAS in general
puts us kind of'above and then the fact that I got picked out of that,
y ’know the two in 40 chance that I got picked out of that, is even
more astronomical,"which is why it’ s a very promising experience
for my future.
TCP: What are your future plans after Clackamâs Community?
Colton: Transferring to-PSU to finish my degree in mechanical
engineering and then possibly Embry Riddle for a minor in aerospace^
but that might be n little pricey - a lil pricey for the ‘ol wallet ¿so I might
stick with mechanical engineering arid see where the internships go.
TCP: Is there anything here at GCC that is helpirigyou enrich your
NASA dreams?
Colton: In kind of a roundabout way, I’m learning American Sign
Language and the way that it connected through was when we were
in an online seminar meeting and they were talking to the camera,
and there were subtitles cause it’ s live and there was someone in the
chat that was like, “ I don’ t kriow what you’re saying cause I’m deaf’ ’
and I was like, “ Wow, like that land of sucks that they aren’t prepared,
for that kind of situation. ” And so someone was transcribing it and it
was like, you know what, it would be helpful to a lot of deaf persons.
• »
Liked by oriontheflyinlion and 104 others
jahnetjackson YEEHAW MY DUDESSS, I’M GOING TO
NASA! I can't wait to represent
@ciackamascommunitycollege @nasaames for
#ncas2019 where I w ill get a behind the scenes look at
#nasa, work with a NASA scientist, and compete in a
rover competition. Learn how you could be next; search
"NASANCAS" to find out more? #murep______________
especially who want to go into-STEM that if I tried to learn some sign
language - so that way I think it’s helping. And also 1 bought the
Lego robotics for extracurricular programming and building - so I
bought the same thing they were using down at NASA.
TCP: What is lt like being a small town boy and growing up and
doing something with a lot of opportunity like this?
Colton: It certainly shows that hard work achieves your dreams
and actually getting to go to something like that is very, very amazing
and.sobering experience for me. Especially when I was down there
everyone was from California, no one was from Oregon, well there
was one guy from Hawaii actually - but Oregon they were like “ Oh,
you’re from Oregon?” and I said, “ Yeah,” and they asked, “ What’s it
like up there?” and I replied, “ Oh you kriow, it’ s rainy, boring, I come
from a town of 2',7OO people and the graduating class is 99 people.”
and they go “yeah my graduating class was like 400,” and I said
“ Yeah that must’ve been nice.” And so having this mentality of such
a small world and being able to spread it out and becoming successful
in the thing I really, really wanted to do since' eight years old, it’ s a
very powerful and amazing experience and all the hard work that 1
achieve through my family, my friends, my teachers - just working
hard has achieved all of it and I’m very proud.of myself for that.
Nay 22, 2019