Experience Matters - Grand Valley State University

Second Rotation of Co-op at Panduit

Nick
Major: Mechanical Engineering During my rotation, I worked on several tasks. One task involved designing an informative chart for Panduit customers and employees to easily access information on ferrules (which is a product that reinforces stranded wire), their compatible tools, and optimal usage. Moreover, I developed a solution for a testing fixture, enabling engineers to conduct tests on one of our tools. Also, I contributed to the ideation, design, and testing of a product that secures cables in the case of a short circuit event, or disaster. This included collaborative brainstorming, and working directly with an engineer to model, fabricate, and test different solutions. I was able to help design multiple prototypes, then later see it in real life after it was made. In addition to my tasks, I was able to visit one of Panduitýs toolshops. This toolshop is dedicated to research, development, and rapid prototyping. I observed specialists in sheet metal fabrication, 3D printing, EDM machines, CNC milling, and molding design.

Applications Engineering at JR Automation

Jackson
Major: Mechanical Engineering As an applications engineer, I was tasked with quoting projects for customers. I organized and led meetings attended by different departmental management and leads focused on introducing requests, brainstorming and developing concepts, putting costs to a project, and reviewing proposals with business management and executives. Applications engineers also meet with customers and vendors, working together to create the best possible solution to a problem introduced by the customer. In between meetings, I was tasked with further concept development, drawing up concept imagery, doing preliminary design work, creating concept simulations, and writing the proposals that were to be sent to the customer.

Axis Automationý2nd Co-op Rotation

Mason
Major: Interdisciplinary Engineering I had the opportunity to assist in projects underway where project leaders could assign design-related tasks as a learning experience. While detailing and releasing design packages for projects were routine, a few projects consisted of: Material handling stations, end-effector tooling changeout stands, and improving an existing tooling station for a bumper assembly. Most notably, fabricating a container to house a robot while considering how to redirect fluids in a corrosive environment.

1st Co-op Rotation at Rose Medical: Winter 2023

Justin
Major: Biomedical Engineering My first two weeks I spent a rotation of about 3 hours in the clean rooms to be able to see our processes and what Rose is capable of. From there I took the lead on two development builds for a new product transitioning from development to production at Rose. This involved doing much of the manufacturing by hand or with basic fixtures. Once these development builds were completed my work became focused on designing and qualifying new fixtures Rose would use to manufacture the the new product. In addition, I completed qualifications for the processes used in production.

Co-Op Year 2 @ Autocam Medical

Brady
Major: Mechanical Engineering On a day to day basis I work on doing Non-Conformance Reports to investigate why certain parts in the manufacturing process fail to meet expectations. I was also responsible for making sure the automatic straightening robots stayed running throughout the day. Larger scale projects I worked on was generating an automatic weekend scheduling assistant in excel. The excel file would use each employees availability on weekends (that they get to choose, weekends are not required so it was all bonus time for the machinist) as well as inputted weekend job data such as duration, quantity, machine ID and Job #. A table would then generate assigning available employees to time slots to reload the machines based on their personal schedules to keep them running as frequently as possible on the weekends. The table helped to allow the flow of communication as a simple image could be emailed out and every employee would know what times to come in at. Another large scale project I worked on was designing a custom fixture plate for one of our grind machines at the plant. A new and faster method of swapping jobs was going to be implemented on the machine, but there was no appropriate way to mount the system to do it. I got to design a fixture plate from the ground up to adapt this system onto our machine.

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.

Kent County Intern

Austin
Major: Sport Management I did a lot of excel work, planning for events, emailing people. I also went to a lot of the Huddles and built relationships there. I did some recruiting for leaders and trying to expand into different schools as well.

SOMI/AmeriCorps Member

Alexandria
Major: Sport Management During this internship, I led 3 different programs: Young Athletes, SOMIFit, and Developmental Sport (Health & Wellness). I specifically created practice plans, led programs, and prepared for the developmental sport tournament.

Trane Technologies Co-op - Rotation ll

Skyler
Major: Mechanical Engineering This rotation my responsibilities were expanded beyond B-team engineering to A-C team engineering. I mainly focused on units from our Clarksville plant by carrying out modifications such as Variable Air Volume (VAV), Electric heat, and Modulating Gas Heat. Each unit that came through the door was assigned to a group of engineers depending on the modification. It was then the engineer's responsibility to design, draw, create paperwork, and request parts for the job. Drawings varied in complexity. Some could be used from previous jobs while others needed to be designed from scratch. The paperwork consists of a Special Unit Label, installation Operation and Manual document, and Parts List which were all customized for the job. Programing was completed in Tracer TU and used function blocks rather than lines of code. Custom components were requested depending on the job and the Bill of Materials (BOM) is generated and sent to the materials team. Additionally, every job must be audited by another engineer to ensure correctness. This helped me personally since it gave me great exposure to an array of units and modifications.

Athletic Administration Internship

Nate
Major: Sport Management Some of the tasks and projects I completed during my time at GRCHS was maintaining any day to day operations within the Athletic Department. For example, I organized the whole uniform room. I did such a good job they named the room after me, the "LABO-atory". Most of my hours came from managing middle school and high school athletic events by helping out with ticket sales, scoreboard, scorebook, and even announcing. I even became familiar with how to establish conference and league schedules through contracts and inputting schedules into the appropriate websites such as Schedule Star, GoFan, and Arbiter.

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.

TGW co-op

Brendan
Major: Mechanical Engineering for a project engineer at TGW it is normal to be working on drawings in AutoCAD for the customer along with going on site and doing site surveys or just helping the install team while they are installing the system. The job is broad and many different tasks you have never done before can come your way, this can range from permitting, install drawings, and many others.

Student Manager

Nathaniel
Major: Sport Management Daily setup of practice Scheduled pregame and postgame meals Assisted in drills and scouting Assisted in recruiting Helped run summer camps

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.

Hudsonville High School Athletics

Jerzy
Major: Sport Management During my time at Hudsonville High School's athletic department, I worked within the office and at events. In the office, I was sorting through team mail, team rosters, and paperwork that needed to be sent to other schools and the officials, and made sure that certain events had officials listed. At the events, I would sell tickets, work the door, and work with the event manager to ensure the event ran smoothly. I was also able to learn from not only the head athletic director but the assistant athletic director as well. I was well-informed on how to handle certain situations with athletes, parents, and workers. Overall, I was learning how to manage an athletic department and gained more knowledge about what an athletic director does on a daily basis.

Marketing intern

Shaun
Major: Sport Management I've performed various tasks including -Set up and tear down of marketing assets -Executed in-game promotions -In charge of videoboard or music during event -Created run of show scripts -Sponsorship fulfillment -On-campus marketing promotions -Inventoried marketing assets

Design and Analysis at Navico Group

Brett
Major: Mechanical Engineering A few tasks and projects that I worked on over the course of the semester included fixture design and construction, new product testing, PLC controls integration, python coding, and assisting in prototype builds.

East GR Parks & Rec Experience

Griffin
Major: Sport Management I have done quite a few tasks at EGR Parks & Rec. I started off by supervising middle school athletics during basketball season, supervising facility rentals, and setting up and tearing down various basketball clinics. As the department transitioned from Winter to Spring season I managed inventory and supplies, uploaded team schedules to the EGR Parks & Rec website, drafted team rosters on Middle School Athletics website, performed market research on facility and park rental rates, and have worked with the parks and field maintenance team to prepare the baseball and soccer fields for the upcoming season.

A Gold Medal Experience

Kateri
Major: Sport Management Some of my tasks / projects I completed throughout my time at my internship experience included; inputting data in excel, meeting tournament directors, reaching out to potential participants, attending events, and sending out merchandise shipments. One big project that was assigned to me was working on a digital yearbook the company is creating. This included properly transferring past Winter and Summer Games results into an excel sheet.

IPM Co-Op - Rotation II

Kyle
Major: Mechanical Engineering As a mechanical engineering Co-Op, I was tasked with designing both product and palletizing conveyor for this rotation. This included drawing up the conveyor in SolidWorks, creating installation instructions or drawings for the installation teams, and detailing parts. Additionally, I helped test robot cells on the shop floor and assisted shop floor workers design and modify conveyor when defects or misalignment of parts prevented the conveyor from working as designed.

Co-Op Rotation #2

Pierce
Major: Mechanical Engineering Over the course of this semester's Co-Op I was able to work on CAD projects, create my own innovation project, perform rapid prototyping via our 3D printers and did validation testing in the lab.

2nd CO/OP at NN Inc.

Connor
Major: Mechanical Engineering I worked as a manufacturing quality intern engineer providing assistance to machinists and operators, while learning and working with the area engineers and managers on day-to-day operations. Some tasks included designing and documenting new processes, experimenting new tools, continuous improvement on the machine floor, and analyzing data results.

Coopersville Parks and Recreation Internship

Jimmy
Major: Sport Management During the winter, I mainly worked at the middle school working and doing several tasks. I filled in as a referee during the basketball season anytime Matt was not able to find other referees, and I was assigned to set up and tear down every athletic event, such as, setting up the tables, chairs, and the basketball hoops and managing the game clock. Also, their were a couple of City Council meetings I attended to as well. In the spring, I went to their coaches meetings for baseball and softball, and I helped Matt with field preparation for their spring sports, such as, lacrosse, soccer, baseball, and softball.

Marketing in the Performing Arts

Megan
Major: Advertising & Public Relations Corey adjusts tasks based on interest, but I completed copywriting for email, programs, radio, and social media. I helped set up the hall for concerts as well and worked front-of-house multiple times during the semester. Sometimes I would complete research, as well.

Reporting for the Washington Blade

Joshua
Major: Multimedia Journalism Working from Washington D.C. over the summer, I served as a reporter for the Blade covering my area of interest and focus, national politics. I reported on numerous stories from Capitol Hill and other areas to relate news in the political arena to how they affected the LGBTQ community. In doing so, I covered events including press conferences as the Capitol featuring high-profile members of Congress and was the Blade's on-the-ground reporter at the epicenter of protests outside the U.S. Supreme Court on the day of its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization to rescind the nationwide right to abortion access.