Cluster Recaps

Cluster 2

And just like that… Week 4 is over, which means our time together in Cluster 2 has officially come to an end. It genuinely feels like this entire summer flew by, but this last week was definitely one to remember.

For the first three days, we continued diving deeper into topics like electrocatalysis and how nanomaterials can be used to tackle some of the biggest challenges in energy and sustainability. During our cluster meetings, we also got to take a break from the science and write kudos letters to each other, which was honestly such a wholesome way to appreciate everyone in the cluster and everything they contributed throughout the summer.

We also got to hear from several UCSC graduate students who work in Dr. Shaowei Chen's lab as they presented their research. It was so inspiring to see what research in nanochemistry can look like beyond what we learn in class and how the concepts we were studying could be applied to real-world problems. We also had some SIP students drop by, and it was amazing to see how people from different backgrounds could come together and create something great.

Thursday was packed, to say the least. We got to tour the chemistry facilities, including Dr. Chen's lab, all filled with equipment and even robots that could automate tasks like micropipetting, making experiments much faster and more efficient.

And then came the part that I think everyone was simultaneously excited and terrified for: the individual presentations. We started presenting Thursday afternoon and continued into Friday morning, and I'm not going to lie, standing up there and presenting our work was incredibly nerve-wracking. But seeing everyone present their projects and extend what we learned in the classroom to their own interests was genuinely eye-opening. Everyone put so much effort into their work, and it was amazing to see how much we had all grown since the beginning of the program.

Friday afternoon brought us to the STEM Symposium, where we presented our group lab research in the form of posters! It was really fun getting to walk around and see what all the other clusters had been working on throughout the summer. Our own cluster had such a fun range of labs, from CdSe quantum dots to the synthesis of magnetite and ferrofluid, and it was really exciting to explain what exactly we had been working on throughout the program. It truly felt like a final celebration of all the work we had put into the past few weeks.

And then, of course, we ended everything with the dance. Everyone showed up decked out—suits, flowy dresses, and everything in between. Honestly, we had to have been the best-looking cluster there. Golden hour struck as soon as we arrived, and suddenly everyone rushed to the fence to take pictures for the Gram. Not only that, but the photobooth and the subsequent moshing were something I'll never forget.

But honestly, the thing I'm going to remember most about COSMOS isn't necessarily the science, the labs, the presentations, or even the dance.

It's you guys, Cluster 2.

I genuinely don't think I can put into words how grateful I am that I got to meet every single person in Cluster 2. When I first came here, I obviously had no idea who any of you were, and now somehow I've spent the past four weeks learning with you guys, laughing with you guys, stressing over presentations with you guys, and making so many memories that I know I'm going to look back on for a really long time.

I know we're all going to go back to our own schools, cities, activities, and lives after this, and we're probably going to get busy really quickly. But I hope we don't just let this become one of those summer experiences that we remember for a few weeks and then slowly forget.

So please keep the WhatsApp group alive. Send random updates. Tell us about what you're doing. Complain about school. Appear in the chat three months from now. I don't care. Just stay in touch.

Because I believe with my entire heart that every single one of you is capable of doing something amazing. Whether you stay in nanochemistry, go into engineering, medicine, art, or something completely unrelated to STEM, I'm sure you're all going to do great things. And when you do, I hope we can all look back and remember that we were once just a bunch of teenagers spending four weeks at UCSC, learning about nanomaterials, and trying to figure everything out together.

Thank you guys for making these four weeks so incredibly fun, memorable, chaotic, stressful, inspiring, and special. I'm so grateful for every conversation, every laugh, and every inside joke (Mason beaver approaching a stick of dynamite, tin tin tin sulfur… do I even need to go on?). I love every single one of you.

Thank you for being Cluster 2.

I'm going to really, really miss you guys.

Cluster 2, we're better than you! I think you know the rest.

Written by Kathy Xu

Cluster 3

During the final week of COSMOS, students in Cluster 3: Animal Development & Bioinformatics analyzed a paper on the gene noggin, rehearsed presentations, and shared their final projects with one another before presenting them at the STEM Symposium.

Over the weekend, students worked in small groups to analyze a figure from a paper discussing noggin mRNA. Each group created a presentation that provided background information, discussion, and interpretation of its assigned figure.

After the paper presentations, students created and rehearsed slides for their final projects. Professor Zhu Wang also gave the final afternoon lecture, focusing on cancer rather than the usual animal development topics. He discussed different types of cancer, as well as how they develop and spread.

The final few academic days were relaxed, with students chatting and enjoying their last moments together as a cluster. They wrote messages to one another, made cards for the cluster staff, and signed each other's shirts.

At our last cluster meeting, students played one final game of Concentration and received thoughtful goodie bags from RA Makani, complete with candy, toys, and trophies.

Despite the many ups and downs throughout the program, Cluster 3 remained supportive of one another, building lifelong friendships and creating lasting memories. Thank you to Professors Zhu Wang and Nicholas Chu, Cluster Fellow Kim Hansen, Lab Assistant Aaliyah Ringor, and RAs Makani Reith-Fifita and Sana Rao—and, of course, all of the students—for making these four weeks the best ever!

TUNG TUNG TUNG TRIPLE T! TUNG TUNG TUNG CLUSTER 3 FOREVER!

Written by Lisa Yang

Cluster 4

The final week started off with a guest lecture from Yicheng Zhuang, who taught us about quantum chaos. We learned how quantum chaos studies the quantum fingerprints of classical chaotic systems. Before we headed to lunch, our Cluster Advisor, Annette, gave a brief overview of her lab work on graphene and hexagonal boron nitride in preparation for our visit the next day. After lunch, we had a regular lecture with Professor Syzranov. He introduced density matrices, providing us with their general definition while also filling our notes with complex math.

The next day, we visited the Velasco Lab, where we saw firsthand the processes Annette had described the day before. We also got to see an STM, which we had learned about at the beginning of the course. Because the lab was located near Natural Bridges State Beach, we walked a few minutes to enjoy sandwiches on the beach. We got back to campus in time for our final lecture, where Professor Syzranov taught us about Shannon entropy.

On Wednesday and Thursday, instead of regular lectures, we prepared for our presentations on Friday. Our professors and Cluster Advisors answered any last questions about our projects, and each group prepared and practiced its presentation.

On the last day, we joined Cluster 10 in presenting our hard work. We got to learn about what our friends had been researching over the past few weeks while also sharing our own work. During the Symposium, other clusters wandered by, reading posters and asking us questions. To end the program, we received our certificates during the closing ceremony, bringing an end to the amazing memories we made over the past month.

Written by Madison Ding 

Cluster 6

Welcome to the last recap for Cluster 6—Introduction to Smart and Sustainable Power! We can't believe COSMOS is already over.

We started off the fourth week of COSMOS by learning about energy markets. An energy market is a system where people and companies buy and sell energy, such as electricity, natural gas, oil, and renewable power. Power plants and fuel producers set prices based on how much energy people need versus how much is available.

A key concept in energy markets is supply and demand. Supply is how much of something is available to be sold, while demand is how many people want to buy it. The balance between supply and demand determines the price. In general, when prices increase, people buy less, and when prices decrease, people buy more. For example, a limited-edition item represents high demand—a lot of people want it—and low supply because only a few are made. An example of low demand and high supply would be a store producing too much of a certain type of clothing and lowering the price because few people want to buy it. This is why markets look for a sweet spot where the amount people want to buy equals the amount sellers want to sell.

Another important topic was day-ahead and real-time markets. Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and Independent System Operators (ISOs) manage the electric grid over large regions, ensuring enough electricity is generated to meet demand while keeping costs low. Since electricity cannot easily be stored without first being converted into another form of energy—which increases costs and results in some energy loss as heat—supply and demand must be balanced every second. To do this, RTOs and ISOs run energy markets where power plants bid the price at which they are willing to generate electricity. The lowest-cost bids are accepted first until enough electricity is scheduled to meet demand. The day-ahead market predicts electricity demand for each hour of the following day and schedules which power plants should operate and how much electricity they should generate. The real-time market operates about an hour before electricity is used, adjusting for unexpected changes in demand or renewable energy generation by increasing or decreasing power plant output as needed.

We also got to learn about an important topic in sustainability—environmental policies! These policies and regulations are designed to reduce pollution from power plants and encourage cleaner energy production. We learned about two main approaches: command-and-control (C&C) policies and market-based policies. C&C policies require power plants to meet emission limits or install pollution-control technologies, such as scrubbers, which remove harmful gases and chemicals from industrial exhaust streams before they are released into the atmosphere. On the other hand, market-based policies encourage companies to cut emissions by making pollution more expensive. For example, emissions taxes charge companies for every ton of pollution they emit. Another example is cap-and-trade, where the government sets a limit on the total amount of pollution that can be released and gives companies emission permits. Companies that reduce their emissions below their limit can sell their unused permits to companies that need more, creating a financial incentive to reduce pollution.

To close out our time at COSMOS, Professor Chen had us play a bidding game, which was a real-life simulation of how energy companies bid into the electricity market. There were seven teams, each with different generators, capacities, operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, fuel costs, locations, and more. Our job was to strategically bid for each hour of the day (we only completed four time blocks) so that our firm could maximize its profit. This game taught us just how challenging bidding into the market really is! To make it even harder, Professor Chen added transmission limits (how much electricity the north could transmit to the south) and carbon taxes (emission controls). We had to consider how the market would change with these additional variables, as well as what would happen during a heat wave. During a heat wave, electricity demand increases, driving up prices. In another scenario, firms had to figure out how to obtain enough carbon permits to cover their expected emissions. This meant that firms without enough permits had to negotiate with other firms to buy permits at a reasonable cost unless they wanted to face the $200-per-permit penalty. The alternative—which many firms chose—was to shut down some generators. Our cluster really enjoyed this simulation, and it challenged us to apply everything we had learned. There were plenty of debates, secretive planning sessions, and, in the end, celebrations and shock as the profits were displayed on the board! The winners even received merchandise from the UCSC Bookstore to commemorate their firm's success in the electricity market.

Friday, July 31, was presentation day, and all six groups from our cluster came prepared with their capstone presentations. We got to learn about a variety of topics ranging from renewable energy and the power grid to how technology can help us use energy more efficiently. Each group put so much effort into its project, and it really showed in the presentations. We definitely learned about many new topics, many of which we had been unfamiliar with before. After the in-class presentations, we headed to the symposium, where we presented our work to other students and faculty. We each received our own wooden display board for our poster and got to show off all the work we had done over the past four weeks. It was really rewarding to present our research to people outside our cluster and teach them about topics they might never have considered before. Finally, we ended the night with a fun dance party alongside everyone from COSMOS! Our cluster had so much fun dancing, hanging out, and taking pictures at the photo booth.

To close out our final newsletter (we can't believe this is it!), we'll be signing off by reflecting on our time with Cluster 6 at COSMOS.

My name is Vibha, and I was one of the writers for the Cluster 6 recap. Thank you so much to all our readers for coming along on this journey with us! I know that I personally came into COSMOS not knowing what to expect, but over these four weeks our cluster formed a tight bond—one that I am so grateful for. To Cluster 6: there are so many unforgettable memories we've shared here, from helping each other understand concepts in class, joking around with our cluster fellow (shoutout to Hassan Afify, the best CF out there!), starting each day with our chants, playing cards together after a long day, and supporting one another throughout the program. I didn't realize how much I would miss you guys until we were standing in the quad on the last morning, crying as we said goodbye. I love you all! To COSMOS: thank you for giving me the opportunity to step outside my comfort zone and experience something new. I learned so much from the professors about the energy market and renewable energy (thank you, Professor Chen and Professor Zhang!) and about circuits and Python from the TAs (thank you, Elena Vindrola and Caleb Lin!). I am so fortunate to have had this experience to explore something I care about while learning from some of the best!

Hi, I am Tanisha, and I also wrote for the Cluster 6 recap. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to write about and share what we learned over the past four weeks. COSMOS was a truly memorable experience, and I am so grateful to have learned so much from Professor Yu Zhang and Professor Yihsu Chen. Professors, thank you for expanding my interest in renewable energy, optimization, economics, and environmental policies! Thank you, Elena Vindrola, for helping us with circuit labs and creating wind-powered cars. Thank you, Caleb Lin, for teaching us important concepts in Python, such as creating chatbots and building machine learning models. Thank you, Hassan Afify, for leading Cluster 6 and helping us along the way as we created our research posters. I would also like to thank everyone in Cluster 6 for making this past month so full of happiness, laughter, and friendship. Lastly, I would like to thank COSMOS for creating this program that allowed me to explore a topic that I am both curious and passionate about—smart and sustainable power—while finding like-minded friends and experiencing college life. Thank you to our readers, and I hope you enjoyed these past four newsletters as much as we enjoyed these past four weeks!

Written by Tanisha Chatterjee and Vibha Hari

Cluster 8

On Tuesday, Cluster 8 explored core concepts of functional group theory and chromatography in lecture. They learned about liquid chromatography using polar silica as the stationary phase. Next, they analyzed how analyte-analyte and analyte-solvent interactions result in separation, allowing them to understand why nonpolar molecules travel quickly past the polar stationary phase while highly polar molecules adhere more strongly. Along with that, they also learned about reverse-phase chromatography, in which nonpolar surfaces come into contact with polar compounds and individual analyte molecules migrate independently without interacting with one another.

Their day continued with an exciting lab in which they extracted pigments from shredded spinach leaves using hexanes to form an analyte solution containing chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, pheophytins, carotenes, and xanthophylls. In the lab, they used thin-layer chromatography with a polar silica stationary phase and a mobile phase composed of 70% hexanes and 30% ethyl acetate. Since the components have distinct interactions based on their polarities, various colored spots emerged. This is because less polar pigments migrate faster toward the solvent front, while more polar pigments adhere to the silica. Finally, the students measured the distance traveled by each spot relative to the solvent front to calculate their retention factor values and understand how molecular structure influences migration speed.

On Wednesday, Cluster 8 focused on organic functional groups and structures during the first half of the day. The students learned about important groups and families, including alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, alcohols, ethers, ketones, carboxylic acids, aldehydes, esters, peroxyacids, aromatic compounds, amines, amides, and thiols. They covered the structure, nomenclature, and characteristics of these groups and families, including concepts such as saturation and fatty acid carbon chains. To finish the day, Professor Johnstone explained how scientific posters and research findings are communicated within the academic community. He introduced different methods of scientific communication, such as conferences and competitions, and discussed the importance of the peer-review process when publishing research in academic journals.

Cluster 8 also started the week by synthesizing their final solar cells. After spending a week creating and analyzing their porphyrins, the lab groups assembled organic solar cells using their porphyrins as the donor semiconductors. Unfortunately, the lab could not be completed in time for the poster presentations. After the first lab period failed to produce any working solar cells, the Cluster 8 professors and assistants worked hard to modify the lab for another attempt on Thursday. While not every group's solar cell worked, the second attempt was an overall success, and many lab groups were excited to take home functioning solar cells. Following the lab, the cluster discussed why certain porphyrins were effective semiconductors while others were not.

On Friday, Cluster 8 gave presentations on a variety of topics, including device fabrication, porphyrins, solar cells, polymers, chromatography, UV-Vis spectroscopy, and NMR spectroscopy. While these presentations were incredibly informative and explored these topics beyond what had been taught in class, the students also had fun enjoying their final class together. With parody songs and inside jokes, the presentations were a hit.

Later, at the poster session, Cluster 8 students presented the results of their porphyrin-derivative synthesis and the performance of their solar cells. Their posters displayed NMR, UV-Vis, and X-ray crystallography data, along with the various steps of the synthesis and testing process. In addition, the students had the opportunity to explore other clusters' posters. According to Cluster 8 students, some particularly memorable projects included ferrofluids, semiconductors, and light amplification for solar retention.

Finally, the cluster took time at the dance to take photos together, many of which have since become lasting inside jokes and stickers. Over the month, Cluster 8 became a close-knit group of friends, and they are excited to continue staying in touch after COSMOS.

Reflecting on their time at COSMOS, Cluster 8 has a lot to remember fondly. From the hours spent together in the lab to winning the lip-sync battle, the cluster bonded both in and out of class. When polled about their favorite parts of COSMOS, Cluster 8 students almost unanimously pointed to the connections they built with one another and with the incredible Cluster 8 teaching staff.

By Cambria Hu, Harshika Thamizhselvan, and Ari Perttula 

Cluster 9

Cluster 9 jumped into the final week of COSMOS with gel electrophoresis to observe how our newly isolated DNA interacted with certain enzymes (BamHI, ClaI, EcoRI, HaeIII, HindIII, and MseI). This helped us gain a deeper understanding of our phages, as the resulting banding patterns demonstrated that each genome is unique, much like a fingerprint.

Afterward, we continued working on our final poster presentations, with one half of the cluster focusing on isolating bacteriophages and the other half digging into yeast transformations. We were excited to receive images of our bacteriophages from the Cryo-EM, one of which can be seen below. As a class, we noticed that many of the phage heads (also known as capsids) were hexagonal or circular.

On Wednesday, we had the opportunity to tour Google HQ (also known as the Googleplex) in Mountain View. After trekking around the beautifully curated campus, we participated in a Q&A session with several Google employees, where we discussed a variety of topics ranging from a day in the life of someone working in tech to the pitfalls of artificial intelligence, especially in the classroom. We were then treated to a fabulous lunch at Google's famous dining hall, with students filling their plates with pizza, salad, and biscuits.

On Thursday, we finished our slideshows and piloted a new lab for the UCSC curriculum, which involved using a spectrophotometer to measure the expression of PHO5, an acid phosphatase, and how it affects the CHD1 gene. To commemorate our final week, we also took a trip to the UCSC Bookstore, where many students bought campus merchandise, including stickers and hoodies.

Friday brought along our slideshow and poster presentations. It was rewarding to share our knowledge with our fellow COSMOS students. Later that day, we graduated, receiving diplomas to symbolize our hard work and dedication.

As a cluster, we'd like to express our gratitude to our professors, Dr. Jimmy Shanks and Dr. Michael Doody; our Cluster Fellow, Shalini Ganesh; our Lab Assistant, Cole Harder; and our RAs, Sophie and Zane, for their endless support and guidance throughout the program, which allowed us to grow as both scientists and leaders. COSMOS has been an invaluable part of our scientific journeys, and we couldn't thank you all enough.

CLUSTER 9? ALWAYS ON TIME!

Written by Keira Eisenbud 

Image of Actinobacteriophage PoisonBud09 isolated by Keira Eisenbud and Krish Polu

Cluster 10

The final week of COSMOS for Cluster 10 began with elevator pitches for each group's project, and Professor Oye gave everyone suggestions and critiques. Project topics included FDSOI (Fully Depleted Silicon on Insulator), memristors and flash memory, microchannel fluid cooling, CFETs (Complementary Field-Effect Transistors), and silicon photonics. Students initially felt pressured and unprepared while giving their elevator pitches, so throughout the week they were given time to edit and refine their presentations. Professor Oye used the afternoon class periods to delve deeper into each topic, giving every group new ideas to research and incorporate into its presentation. These lectures were also shared with the entire class so everyone could better understand their classmates' projects. Lecture topics included quantum wells, fiber optics, parasitic capacitance, and many other advanced concepts. To give everyone a break in between lectures, Professor Oye brought the class on impromptu coffee trips to the UCSC Physical Sciences Building. We were also given tours of several research laboratories (including Shaowei’s).

Meanwhile, Professor Nobby wrapped up his lectures on the goal that had been building since day one: understanding p-n junctions. We learned about body biasing, electron mobility in relation to doping, and electric fields within junctions. These lessons covered the foundations of technologies found in LEDs and transistors, which power many modern devices. Students found the final lessons conceptually challenging, but they were also incredibly interesting and eye-opening.

Cluster 10 also toured a laboratory to see a scanning electron microscope (SEM) in action. On Friday, we gave presentations alongside Cluster 4: Quantum Information Science and Engineering.

On Saturday, Cluster 10 gave its chant one last time in celebration of an amazing four weeks together.

Cluster 10, ten out of ten! That's how it's been!

Written by Samuel Du

Images taken by Samuel Du

Cluster 11

This week, our cluster wrapped up our final projects, shared what we had learned over the past four weeks with other clusters, and celebrated this unforgettable month together. From our final Discovery Lectures to project presentations and the STEM Symposium, the week gave us the chance to reflect on how much we had accomplished before saying goodbye to the friends and mentors who made the program so memorable.

On Monday, Professor Jason concluded our discussions on spiking neural networks by tying together many of the concepts we had explored throughout the cluster. We spent the remainder of the day programming our robots for our final projects. During evening activities, we headed to the East Field for some COSMOS-wide games, and at the end, we got to pie our RA Sri in the face!

On Tuesday, Professor Jason shared the story behind his research in neuromorphic computing and the development of the snnTorch library during the Discovery Lecture. Later that morning, we said goodbye to Professor Jason before welcoming our TA Kimia, who helped us implement our own large language models (LLMs) in Google Colab.

On Wednesday, we dedicated both the morning and afternoon to our final projects. With guidance from Dr. Himadri and our TAs, we refined our code and began preparing for our presentations.

On Thursday, we attended COSMOS's final Discovery Lecture, given by our very own Professor Ricardo. He shared his research on combining artificial intelligence, control theory, and hybrid systems to build safer and more reliable autonomous systems. We spent the rest of the day making last-minute improvements to prepare our robots for presentation day. During our cluster meeting that day, we reflected on what we had learned and the connections we had made with one another over the past month.

On Friday, each of our five teams presented its final project, demonstrating how our robots navigated different real-world city scenarios, such as a bank robbery or an emergency fire, using the concepts we had learned throughout the cluster. Later, we shared our work with other clusters and students from other programs at UCSC during the STEM Symposium before making our way to Kresge for the Closing Ceremony and Finale.

After dinner, we met with our RAs, Sri and Blue, to sign each other's shirts and memory books and enjoy the special P*, L(oss), and Ax + Bu (state-space model) cookies that Blue baked just for our cluster. At 7 p.m., we walked to Porter, where we spent more than two hours together at the farewell dance. It was especially fun to see some of us join the mosh pit and even crowd-surf our RA, Sri! After shouting our cluster chant one last time, we walked back to our dorms for our final night at UCSC COSMOS 2026.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without our incredible RAs, Sri and Blue; our Cluster Fellow, Laurena; our professors, Professor Ricardo, Professor Jason, and Dr. Himadri; and our amazing TAs, Carlos, Binh, and Kimia, who challenged us, encouraged us, and made this experience one we'll never forget.

Double One, W! 🗣️🔥

Reporting by Delisha Manuel

Cluster 12

Entering the final week of the COSMOS program, Professor Dave wasted no time diving into the fascinating properties of LaCoO₃, which can expand or contract depending on the size of the molecules in its substrate. In addition, we explored its unique magnetic properties and expanded our knowledge of crystal impurities, as well as how powder X-ray diffraction and single-crystal X-ray diffraction work. A special lecture from Course Assistant Tienchen Cui gave the students of Cluster 12 an in-depth look at his research under Professor Shaowei Chen, exploring hydrogen fuels and explaining how hydrogen energy works on a chemical level.

In the evenings, Cluster 12 harvested and analyzed the crystals they had begun growing during the first week. Some were rather large, others were smooth, and a few even exhibited twinning, meaning two crystals grew in opposite directions within one another. Professor Oliver and our Course Assistant rounded out the week with lectures on spectroscopy, phases, crystallinity, and Powder Diffraction Files (PDFs).

The students of Cluster 12 all agreed that the month had flown by far too quickly. Memories were made, friendships were formed, and lasting experiences inspired many to pursue future careers in STEM.

The week concluded with one final project: research presentations and posters. Cluster 12 presented its projects alongside Cluster 13, whose students were also studying topics related to quantum mechanics. After the presentations, students made their way to the STEM Symposium to join the rest of COSMOS in sharing their work before enjoying an evening of celebration at the Closing Ceremony and farewell dance.

Written by Israel Lopez 

Cluster 13

What time is it?? It's prime time!!!

Cluster 13 had an amazing final week here at COSMOS. Throughout the week, class time was dedicated to finishing our projects, which we then presented on Friday to Cluster 12.

On Wednesday, we said our final goodbyes to our professors. Professor Baumbach shared a few final updates on his possible superconductor, NiV₂S₄. The measurements taken in the lab puzzled the professor and his students. They suggested that the sample may have contained impurities in the polycrystal, voids in the lattice, or errors in the measurement process. Future research will aim to minimize these issues and produce more accurate results. While this was slightly disappointing for the Baumbach team, they remain excited about the possibility of observing superconducting properties.

On Friday, our cluster shared knowledge on high-entropy alloys, optical flow zones, spin liquids, and much more. Students were excited not only to present their own projects but also to learn from Cluster 12 about X-ray diffraction. We all gained valuable insight into many exciting and futuristic technologies! In the afternoon, we presented our posters at the STEM Symposium, where students answered many questions and gained valuable presentation experience.

Finally came our goodbye from our RAs, Stephen and Valeria, complete with cupcakes, pies, and cookies. We all signed yearbooks and shirts, leaving kind notes for one another. On Saturday, we hugged and cried (a lot), but promised never to forget each other. Over our time at COSMOS, Cluster 13 became more than just a class—it became a friend group. We made so many memories together, from confusing lectures to the dance, from East Field to beach volleyball. Cluster 13 will be greatly missed, but never forgotten!!

Written by Ava Campbell