Experience Matters - Grand Valley State University

Working in L3's CAS department

Izik
Major: Electrical Engineering I learned quite a bit about the flight recorders that L3 makes along with some of their other product lines. I was tasked with a good mix of production issues and then improvement projects that helped the production line and test engineering department as well. The main task was updating documentation for a test station and building it from the documentation I made.

Co-op at Phase 1

Isabelle
Major: Electrical Engineering At Phase 1, I worked on GPS trackers, linear motors, PCB designs, and schematic capture. These all were huge applications to the projects I helped complete.

A Great Environment

Ian
Major: Electrical Engineering During my internship I was able to get an fpga program that runs MAPS (Modular active protection system) up and running. I got the same fpga with different firmware to send and receive data over TSN (time sensitive networking), and I designed a gui application from the ground up that would create configuration files for a bridged endpoint.

Service Engineer Co-op

Mark
Major: Electrical Engineering Over the entirety of my co-op rotation, I completed two main tasks. The first task I completed was programming for a machine that aided in the assembly of luxury car grills. The main thing I did was help use a LIN protocol to set the software for these car grills. The other task I completed was to provide service to various customers when a problem arose. This gave me a variety of experiences in problem-solving.

Koops Automation Mechanical Engineer Co-op Experience

Carter
Major: Electrical Engineering Throughout my co-op at Koops Automation Systems, I primarily worked on CAD, designing custom automation solutions. From adding fasteners to creating parts, I designed automated machines to increase production and lessen the manufacturing costs of various products.

CO-OP in Electrical building design

Joseph
Major: Electrical Engineering This semester I helped with a Red Arrow project that were apartments in Detroit Michigan. I work on some schools helping the K-12 group, most of my recent types has been working on Washtenaw Armory, Dearborn Inn, and Eden Park which is a park in Detroit Michigan. Most of our projects are in metro Detroit because the company is based in metro Detroit. However, there are some projects that are in Grand Rapids and Muskegon. As an electrical CO-OP, I placed outlets on plans, placed lighting equipment on plans, created circuits for the buildings to use and did lighting calculations which are calculation to do to make sure there is enough light in an area. A lot of our work is designing based on what is allowable by the code standards in Michigan.

3rd Co-op Rotation

Yougourthene
Major: Electrical Engineering I took charge of this exciting project involving the development of a new machine for producing Dodge Durango tail lights. Using AutoCAD, I crafted the electrical prints and organized the control panel layout. Following that, I handled the wiring of the control panel and created the PLC program, ensuring seamless machine operation by programming the HMI screen. As an additional measure, I incorporated Keyence vision systems into the project to elevate quality control and establish a secure work environment.

Electrical Design at TowerPinkster

Justin
Major: Electrical Engineering Performed electrical design tasks for commercial archecture projects in the K/12, higher education, government, commercial, and other industry sectors.

3rd Co-Op Rotation

Jake
Major: Electrical Engineering My daily tasks for this rotation varied since there are around 200 test stations that need to be sustained at the GR site. Tasks daily could range from software updates/debugging, to hardware/circuit trouble shooting and debugging. The main tasks I completed were ordering parts for two new stations worth over $100,000 and creating new electrical drawing packages for the new test station. Other than those tasks I made a few larger software updates to improve testing efficiency by adding new libraries.

Electrical Design at TowerPinkster

Justin
Major: Electrical Engineering I did electrical design for various architecture projects ranging from elementary schools to affordable housing for the elderly. My responsibilities as a designer spanned from the electrical pole on the street all the way to the light switch.

Koops Service Co-op Rotation

Ethan
Major: Electrical Engineering I built and wired a panel to run a machine, I built, modified, and tuned that machine, and I also programmed a small portion of it. I also went on various service trips both in and out of state, refurbishing and fixing old machines.

Controls Engineering Co-op at Progressive Surface

Taylor
Major: Electrical Engineering Task that I have worked on at Progressive Surface include working on project schematics and layouts, setting up computers for the machines, and wiring components for testing purposes.

Signal integrity / Power integrity Co-op Experience

Ian
Major: Electrical Engineering As a SIPI co-op student, I performed time-domain and frequency-domain measurements on customer products. I also performed EMC pre-compliance testing on customer products, as well as networked and discussed various engineering topics with customers.

EGR390 Experience

Jake
Major: Electrical Engineering I completed multiple cable drawing packages that interface between our completed automated test stations to both flight data recorder products and displays. I also completed electrical schematics and a printed circuit board design for a cable tester completed new product that has its own printed circuit board inside of the cable. In between working on projects, I spent my time sustaining production test stations which include 3-axis robots and outdated hands-on electronic test fixtures.

JR Automation Control Engineering Co-op

Ryan
Major: Electrical Engineering As a controls engineering, I am responsible for programming these machines using PLCs (Programmable logic controllers, and HMIs (Human Machine Interfaces). Other responsibilities include using AutoCAD Electrical to design and update machine electrical documentation.

2nd Co-op Rotation

Yougourthene
Major: Electrical Engineering I was tasked to redesign and build a device that tests the different functions of the Ford Bronco tail lamp. Another project that I worked on consisted of designing a smart lamp, which is a lamp with an additional circuit that will modify its functioning by simulating individual failures of the LEDs sequentially. The smart lamp is used to check if the equipment could detect the failures. I also did a lot of troubleshooting of failed lamps to determine the exact cause of the failure and then documented the findings in a report.

The life in High Speeds

Nicholas
Major: Electrical Engineering Tasks ranged from troubleshooting preproduction parts to running simulations of circuit boards. It also entailed working with clients from Fortune 500 companies to small entities like our organization.

Peter Basso Experience

Joseph
Major: Electrical Engineering I have designed lighting systems for buildings. I have helped in research on emergency generators. I have designed the layout of receptacles for office spaces. Lastly, I learned how to the use Revit, CAD and AFI.

EGR 490 Co-op 3rd Rotation

Megan
Major: Electrical Engineering During my 3rd rotation, my tasks included writing test reports, testing products for pre-compliance emissions, immunity and transients, communicating results to customers, and performing diagnostics on non-compliant projects.

Electrical Engineering @ aMDI

Renzo
Major: Electrical Engineering This semester I was able to develop an attachment for the sensor package EmotiBit. This package contains a variety of sensors containing photoplethysmography, thermistors, electrodermal activity, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, etc. This attachment helps visualize all the data without the need for wifi/Bluetooth. A variety of approaches were used to calculate Heart Rate, Heart Rate Variability, and Oxygen Saturation with the available data.

Co-op Rotation 3_ODL Inc.

Joshua
Major: Electrical Engineering The projects I completed this year was creating a information matrix for all of the electrical equipment we use in our three plants. I also calculated the power used from the mains all the way down to the outlets.

My first co-op rotation at Nissan

Stephen
Major: Electrical Engineering During my term I validated electric car chargers for current production vehicles, and performed a benchmark analysis of many competitors vehicles and their high voltage battery systems. I also synthesized weekly reports and presentation material. Data analysis was a huge portion of my job, so I often used MATLAB and excel.

2021 Co-op Experience First Rotation

Zachary
Major: Electrical Engineering The tasks that I was assigned this semester included understanding the design of constructing a building electrically. This includes designing new and existing power, lighting and fire alarm in a three dimensional CAD software. I was also tasked with coordinating across different disciplines to ensure that the project design is moving at a great pace between disciplines. It really helps the project design when disciplines are on the same pace, and this ensures that the client would be not only satisfied, but excited about the outcome of the project. I also was tasked with understanding the phasing of the design of a project, and why each project goes through different phases.

E3 Compliance Co op First Rotation

Nicholas
Major: Electrical Engineering I have performed numerous EMC tests from a wide range of products from aviation to commercial household equipment. I also helped diagnose issue with certain products and developed solutions to make these products pass test standards or simply prototyping stages.

Koops Project Engineer Co-op

Zachary
Major: Electrical Engineering Over the course of my PE rotation I worked to debug a line of machines all made for one customer. This involved finding problems with the already assembled machines, looking for the best and most sensible solution for each problem, and then carrying out said solution. One problem with interference between two moving parts could be grinding off excess material, while another problem of a sensor not functioning could be a miss wired connection. These problems often take on the spot problem solving to find and fix, and making a machine work when it wasn't is a satisfying feeling.