Monday, May 21, 2012

First day on the Job

           Today marks my first day as a Manufacturing Engineering Intern at SMC in Somerset. The morning was spent on teachings of safety rules/procedures fallowed by verbal quizzes. Then off to finally meet up with my Boss and see my Cubical... yes I did just say that I have my own cubicle... never thought I would be excited about that one but as I was expecting to be sharing a desk with another Engineer I was VERY excited. I have my own space and my own computer. It was now time for lunch and since the lunch room is on the completely opposite side of the building I had my lunch in my cubicle. After lunch Joel (my boss) took me on a tour of the plant. It was fun to see all the different areas that I'll spend time in this summer and also to fail miserably at remembering everyone's names. After that Joel paired me up with a woman who keeps all the operators on their toes, She inspects things after they have inspected to make sure they are completing their job correctly. It was interesting to fallow her around and learn how all the operators know what is acceptable flaws in a part and what needs to be thrown out.

         While today was very exciting and thrilling I kept of thinking that soon they will realize that they have hired someone who knows absolutely nothing about manufacturing and that I don't belong there. But the best part is that they know that I don't know very much and they are willing to teach me as I go along. I feel like I'm going to learn SOOO much this summer! Returning to school in the fall will be strange.

O and one more perk about this job..... lol the fact that it is to the west of my house..... meaning that the sun is behind me both in the morning and on the way home... the opposite of what it is when I'm going to school

Friday, May 18, 2012

Transitions

Well I'm not very good at transition times so I'm thankful that I only have a few more days until I start my Internship (3 days!!!). Transitions make me sad for the part that I'm leaving and anxious for the future. I'm really excited to start my summer internship but also, of course, a little anxious. What will it be like? Will I make friends? Will I like the work? Will my managers and co-workers like me? Will I be over my head? I know that these are things that will only be answered in time but sometimes it is hard not to wonder what it really will be like. - I'll let you know how it goes next week :p
        School was really great this semester. While I haven't gotten all of my grades back yet I think I did well in my classes. It is easy to tell which class I loved... I got a 99.9% in my photography class! wow! I'm sad to see that class be done. I had a lot of fun learning new ways to take pictures, how to set up my camera to have higher quality photos (lower ISO) and to really look at what is in each photo before I hit the button.
        Even though I was taking 18 credits this semester it didn't feel like that heavy of a load. None of my classes were work heavy which was so good. I was able to participate in my Wednesday night Bible study group and I'm proud to announce that I have made the decision to be the student leader next year. Mostly this means organizing the study. Getting a student organizations started so we can meet on campus, scheduling the use of a room on campus, letting everyone now where we are meeting and things like that. While Gary, or other teachers come to bring us a new message. If there is a night when a teacher isn't able to come I may teach occasionally but not every week. Setting up the student organization is taking a little more time than I had expected but that's alright since I don't have to have it done till fall when we start.

This week since I had some time off and was home during the day I was able to get pictures of my father in law planting a corn field. I hope you enjoy my second ever time-laps photography movie.


(Pictures were taken every 8 seconds for about an hour and a half)

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Finals week

Well this coming week marks the start of finals for me. Monday and Tuesday are class days, Wednesday is a study day and then Thursday through Tuesday is finals. I have 5 final exams (one is a take home, Yeah!!!), 3 photo assignments, and a very time consuming Solidworks project.



In fact yesterday I didn't have class but i went to school to work on my Solidworks modeling project.... and I was there for 8 hours...  and all I got done was an animation. I drew each part (except the pins and screw) and then mated them together and then began the very tedious process of animating it. The most frustrating thing about the animation was that it wouldn't show you errors until you decided to save. And once you had saved it was very difficult to fix anything. The video that I shared with you isn't perfect and I hope that I am able to fix it but am not sure if I will have the time this weekend. Here is the video. If you would like to see it larger click on the title to open it in a new window.


Well, its time for me to go out and take some pictures for class. I hope you all have a wonderful day.