One of the benefits of being an undergraduate in physics is the amount of money colleges and institutions will spend on you to help you gain research experience. A well-known program to this end is the REU or Research Experiences for Undergrads Program, funded by NSF. NSF sponsors universities across US (and select ones outside) to accept students for 10 weeks of research in exchange for a housing allowance as well as a stipend, which is a great opportunity to do physics while having fun in different parts of the US.
The NSF REU Homepage / The NSF REU Search Page

Here are the UF participants in this year's program, overseen by professor Kevin Ingersent. These students conducted research in fields ranging from nanoscale physics to scales extending out in space. Amy, one of the REU students, had as her first task to find spheres stuck on double stick tape of diameter 100 micrometers with a magnifying glass and then to move them using very pointy tweezers. How did she do it? Very very carefully! She helped improve the technique of depositing a gold film on these spheres for a better measurement of the Casimir force. Kevin was working with brand new compounds recently created by chemists to characterize them magnetically, and in select other ways. David made trips back and forth to the magnet lab in Tallahasee for his research with a Quantum 1-D antiferromagnet. Jeremy worked with lasers and electro-optic modulators to advance control techniques for the land based detectors of LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory). Luis and Ben worked on LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) which aims to detect gravity waves from outer space. Luis extended code that simulated LISA operation by accounting for parameters previously not encoded. Ben worked with Hydroxy-Catalysis bonding, a fairly new bonding technique in optical applications, which sees material failure before bond failure. David worked on a technique to measure femtosecond laser pulses; a difficult task since there is nothing available of shorter length with which to measure the length of a specific pulse. These were 7 of 14 projects carried out in this year's program, including some in the field of biophysics.

Amid research, trips were made to St. Augustine and Itchetucknee Springs. A barbecue was also held for students in the Keys Residential Complex where they were all residing during the program. Some students ventured to Orlando to see Florida's tourist sites independently from the planned REU trips.

All in all, students really enjoyed themselves. Proof of their good time was found in the final presentations during which three performed a musical parody to the techno song "I'm Blue" in honor of the blue light emitting, quorum sensing bacteria studied by Rachel. The performance involved Rachel's keyboard styling, David's guitar playing, and the vocal styling of Kevin who moved in and out of a Blue flashing screen singing the parody, bulging his eyes, contorting his face, and hammering on a pot with a metal spoon!

While it is common for REU projects to not produce conclusive results, this year's group was unique in that most did. Students appreciated the research, the organized group activities and their successes, and organizers and students alike had a good time!